Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / This jewellery biz Founder shares how SMS Marketing was an unexpected growth driver in 2020, with Alexis Nido-Russo of Local Eclectic

Transcript

This jewellery biz Founder shares how SMS Marketing was an unexpected growth driver in 2020, with Alexis Nido-Russo of Local Eclectic · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Alexis Nido-Russo for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and joining me on the show today is Alexis Nido-Russo, founder of Local Eclectic.
• 0:26
  In 2013, Alexis launched Local Eclectic to share her favorite designers' one-of-a-kind jewelry with the world. Today, their goal remains the same, which is to be the number one destination online to discover hundreds of emerging female jewelry designers.
• 0:43
  Over the last seven years, she's bootstrapped the curated platform alongside building her own jewelry labels that have driven massive growth for the company. In this episode, we're covering how Alexis used her entrepreneurial spirit to go through a range of ideas before landing on Local Eclectic, what she did that allowed her company to scale to the size it is today, and how SMS marketing has been an unexpected driver of growth.
• 1:07
  And if you missed the last episode of the Female Startup Club podcast, I am on the lookout to speak directly to anyone who's been tuning into Female Startup Club and loving it. I've left my email in the show notes and would love to hear from you for some listener research I'm doing at the moment. So drop me a line if you're free to chat. This is Alexis for Female Startup Club.
• 1:29
  Alexis, hi, and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hello. I'm so excited to be chatting. Me too. From one jewelry lover to another, I'm excited to hear all about your journey and your business, all things sparkly. Can you start by introducing yourself and what your business is?
• 1:50
  Yeah, so I'm Alexis Nido-Russo. I'm the founder and CEO of Local Eclectic. And I started Local Eclectic in November 2013. So...
• 2:02
  I think that's seven years ago. We're an e-commerce jewelry company based in the U.S., specifically out of Chicago, but we ship everywhere, including internationally. And we sell jewelry from emerging and independent designers from all over the world. And one of our biggest designers is based in London, Carrie Elizabeth. So cool that you're based there.
• 2:24
  So cool. I'm super excited to learn all about the beginning of your story, the humble beginnings. Can we go back to life before you started Local Eclectic and talk about what you were up to and what got you interested in starting a business in the jewelry industry? Yeah. So before I started, like the very, very beginning, I studied psychology and fine arts in college. I thought I wanted to be an art therapist, but
• 2:54
  Then I realized that I had too many of my own problems to help people with theirs. I'm only kidding. I went in. I actually realized that I had to go to school to get a PhD. And I really hated school. So I was like, this is not the direction for me. What's an arts therapist? It's basically like a therapist, like going to see a therapist, but they help people
• 3:24
  deal with their problems using art as the medium. But a lot of times you would be maybe working with children to like work through emotional problems or really using art as the medium for therapy. But it's used for adults as well. I actually did an internship when I was really seriously considering the profession at a women's shelter. And I went in and like,
• 3:50
  started an art therapy program, which really was just like introducing art as a way to be like this calming and healing medium, which for me, I think as, you know, someone who is interested in the arts, I, that's the way that I've always used art as like this way to like calm myself and sort of as this like emotional release. So I think that's like where my basis of like being interested in art as therapy is sort of like rooted in.
• 4:20
  But that's so interesting. I love that. Yeah. But I realized it was going to be a lot more school. And really just after pursuing it, I realized it wasn't probably the profession for me. I did study in my undergraduate art and psychology. I had a double major. And then after I graduated, I moved to Chicago and I worked. I did a bunch of like random job sort of things.
• 4:48
  for probably a year and a half while I was like trying to find my footing. Because if you can imagine having a degree in fine arts with a basis in painting was like my focus. And psychology, not really the most marketable degrees and skill sets for like trying to find an actual professional job. So I did a bunch of random things like promotional marketing,
• 5:14
  And I went on tour with Miley Cyrus doing like interactive promotional marketing for her fan club during her Best of Both Worlds tour. So I did like a bunch of random stuff. Fun. Yeah. But then I came back and I finally got a job at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the marketing department. And that's really what sort of set me off.
• 5:38
  on this path of working kind of in the arts in like more of a professional setting in the marketing department of like the arts world. So I did that for about five years and I was working at the Chicago Artists Coalition, which is one of the oldest arts organizations in Chicago.
• 5:58
  when I really was feeling like, and I felt for a long time that I wanted to start my own business and do something entrepreneurial. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My family has always owned restaurants. So I grew up like seeing my family, not working a typical nine to five, but having like that perspective.
• 6:22
  entrepreneurial drive and like how your work and life are really flowing as one. And I was just, I grew up in that environment. And so I think I always knew that I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but I didn't know exactly what it was going to be. So after about five years of working professionally in Chicago, I kind of started thinking about like what it was I wanted to do, what I wanted my future to look like.
• 6:48
  And at the time, well, I actually I had like many ideas that I tried to start. I, prior to starting Local Eclectic, wrote a business plan and spent probably a year trying to build this other business, which was something.
• 7:05
  sort of a nail salon concept which is funny that we were just talking about nails because I always just have been someone that has like invested in like getting my nails done and have really enjoyed that and um I there there isn't this like one nail salon experience that is like
• 7:27
  if you're traveling or this like brand name of nail salons. And so I kind of wanted to start that. So it was also at the time when like Dry Bar had just kind of launched. Do you know what Dry Bar is? The blowout bar? Yeah. Yes. It's like, yeah. So they have blow dry bars like all across the country. And so I wanted to start like the nail salon version of that, which would be a really consistent and elevated fashion.
• 7:54
  nail salon experience that could be not necessarily franchised, but like duplicated all over the country and like eventually the world maybe. But as I was doing research into trying to start that business, I was like,
• 8:10
  I pretty much had outlined that I would probably need about a half a million dollars to start that business. And not having had any experience in raising money or really business or, you know, having that like business background or an MBA or, you know,
• 8:28
  I was just like, no one's going to give me half a million dollars to start this business. I also am not a nail technician. I've never worked in a nail salon. So I sort of let that idea kind of fizzle out. Although if you can't tell, I still think it's a wonderful idea that I'm quite passionate about. Sounds great to me. Next venture. Yeah, next thing on the list. But so I kind of just kept thinking like considering like,
• 8:56
  And I feel like that's just how my mind works. Like thinking, what is this thing that I can start? What can I do? I always have a million ideas of like, oh, this would be a great business or this. And so I think it was around the time where like Renegade Craft Fair, which is not in London, but it's like this, you probably have something similar, but like an outdoor market that brings together
• 9:21
  a bunch of independent designers. And you can like walk around and shop like indie designers. It would come for like a weekend. You can shop indie designers from like all over the country. People would travel to come in and like sell their wares. There were a bunch of like little things like that kind of around Chicago. And then also sort of coupled with like my love of when I would travel, going to local boutiques and,
• 9:48
  And just seeing like the independent designers that I had never heard of and like all of the incredible things that people were making in like a London or, you know, New York or whatever, like going to those small boutiques and getting that like discovery elements of getting to discover those like local designers.
• 10:09
  So that's really, I think, where the concept for Local Eclectic kind of bloomed. Etsy was also having a massive moment, but I think Etsy, I felt at the time was like,
• 10:24
  pretty crowd and definitely is today like a really crowded marketplace and so um I had the idea I wanted to start this like online boutique that would be a marketplace for a really curated selection of independent designers and when I first started Local Eclectic it was actually across categories so we sold clothing and handbags and um
• 10:50
  home goods and all like anything that was an independent designer wasn't just jewelry although we did sell some jewelry as well and I did that for about a year and a half just kind of like figuring out while I was working full-time at the Chicago Artist Coalition kind of like figuring out what was working and then after about a year and a half um pivoted to be just jewelry
• 11:14
  And was that because you saw that jewelry was, you know, was it better margins or was it easier to ship or was it, was there a particular reason why you thought, oh, jewelry is the way to go? Well, after about a year and a half of running the business, um, we honestly were not selling that much, but we were, you know, what was selling was jewelry.
• 11:36
  And so after about a year and a half of running the business while working full time, I decided to quit my full time job and go all in. And I really took like a hard look at what was working and what wasn't. And jewelry was the category that was really selling. And so I feel like I had kind of an aha moment of let's just sell jewelry like...
• 11:58
  We're not selling any clothes. We're not selling like pillows. Like let's just go all in on jewelry. It just so happens though that jewelry is a lot easier to ship. It's taller. It doesn't weigh very much. It doesn't take a lot of space to store. Pretty good margins. And I also think there are so many incredibly talented people in the jewelry space.
• 12:22
  that don't necessarily have like a huge platform that is representing them. So I think like that's probably the reason why it was also selling really well was because it wasn't as easy to find either. But I definitely got a little bit lucky in the sense that like, it's also easier to ship and good margins and like great holidays attached to jewelry. So yeah.
• 12:52
  Totally. In that early time, you know, in that first year, were you actually investing in the stock and, you know, like having it at your house and shipping it out? Or were you kind of doing more of the dropship model where you were selling it and the independent designers were sending it out themselves? So in the very beginning, and for the first probably two and a half years, it was all dropship. So, and that's how, so I started with, you know,
• 13:18
  zero dollars. I had like a little bit of savings, but really not that much money. And it was working at a nonprofit. So that's why I said like, my first business idea was half a million dollars to start. And I realized I really needed something that was, I needed to come up with an idea that was going to take little to no money to start because I really didn't have any money. So I started as Dropship. So yeah, I basically, we would take
• 13:48
  At the very beginning, we were just taking the designers' photos using their photos online. So many times I never even saw the physical product before we were selling it. And we were just putting the photos online, selling the products. And then when the orders would come through, we would send them to the designers and the designers would fulfill the orders.
• 14:11
  Once we started to see real growth, we realized that that was not... It was a really bad customer experience because for a couple of reasons. One, if someone orders something from five pieces of jewelry from five different designers, they're going to get five different packages that look different. It's that like...
• 14:34
  I think you want to have this like really wonderful unboxing experience, especially with online shopping, because we don't get to have that in-person experience. So we want to make sure that that like first in-person touch point with the customer is going to be a really wonderful, beautiful experience for them. And with Drop Ship, it makes it a lot harder to create that, to control that experience. So that was one reason. And the second is that because we're working with
• 15:02
  independent designers and smaller makers. Some of the designers don't have the product on hand, so they're making it once the order comes in. And some...
• 15:14
  So it was taking longer for the designers to ship than I think customers wanted to wait. And so for that reason, it also really created a poor customer experience. So after about two and a half years of running the business as a dropship business, I slowly started to invest in buying inventory from some of our bigger designers and shifted from dropship to a more traditional product.
• 15:43
  wholesale to retail model where we buy it upfront and then we manage the process from when a customer places the order to actually doing fulfillment, which we also still own that experience. We don't outsource our fulfillment. We do that in-house. So we ship out the products and then we handle all of our customer service in-house if someone wants to return something
• 16:08
  or a question. Everything from A to Z is really managed in-house so that we can be sure to create a really wonderful and special customer experience. I love that. And it makes total sense. I'm interested to know for anyone who's listening, who might be interested in kind of, you know, starting a platform or a website where they're compiling different brands and selling, you know,
• 16:34
  a range of different products from different companies. What kind of investment did you need, you know, at that two year mark when you needed to start investing in product? Are you able to share any numbers around that kind of like early capital? That's a really good question. And yeah,
• 16:51
  To be honest, I can't really remember what those initial orders looked like. I would say as like a benchmark, designers typically would have maybe like a, it was a little bit different for us, I think, because we had a history and a relationship with the designers. So definitely.
• 17:13
  we were able to like ask for more favors, I think in the beginning, because we had been working with people for a couple of years and had like that relationship. But typically designers will have anywhere from like a $500 to $1,000. And this is like in jewelry, but all, you know, if you're doing, if you're trying to buy wholesale for really any,
• 17:35
  type of like category, there's going to be a minimum order that a brand or a designer wants you to hit in order to like be able to buy at wholesale. So for jewelry, it's like typically around like $500 to $1,000. With our bigger designers, probably at that like two and a half year mark, I would guess we were over that threshold already. But like I said, I think we were able to like...
• 18:04
  have more like wiggle room with the designers because we had that history of working with them. So it wasn't like cotton dry, like you have to order this many units or we're not going to sell to you. Totally. Yeah. Right. You could pull some strings. Yeah. We also have a handful of in-house lines that we design and produce and manufacture ourselves. And the manufacturers that we work with also have like minimum orders. So,
• 18:33
  So those could be anywhere from like 200 units or up, depending on like, you know, they try and hit like a value threshold that they want you to hit in order to like let you buy from them. Got it. Totally. Totally.
• 18:50
  I'm interested to talk about going back, you know, to the very beginning and in those first couple of years, how were you starting to find customers and spread the word about this new incredible platform that you'd created and these designers that you were bringing together?
• 19:06
  Yeah. So in the very beginning, like I said, I had no money. So I was not investing in advertising to acquire customers. So I really was like, how can I acquire customers for free? And I focused on social media. So Facebook and Instagram very heavily in the beginning. Obviously word of mouth from all of my friends, but then also building an email database and,
• 19:34
  Um, so I, I feel like it's kind of like, duh now, like everyone has doing those things. But in the beginning, those were like the three things that I really focused on were Facebook and Instagram. Instagram specifically, I really like went, um, hard on, um,
• 19:54
  wanting to build an authentic brand and like authentic brand voice and audience on those, on that channel specifically. And it still is our biggest channel of like organic customer acquisition. We have like a pretty strong, loyal, and very authentic like following on Instagram. But I did that by just trying to,
• 20:21
  like interact with our followers as much as possible. And just like building that element of conversation, replying to customers and really using it as a channel to like,
• 20:36
  be this place that you can reach out to the company or the brand, Local Eclectic, in a really like authentic and easy way. So those were like the main channels. And then building our email database, I would say today, one of the biggest channels that
• 20:52
  for us is actually text marketing. And so for looking to start your, who is in the process of starting a brand, we started our text marketing program probably like a year, a little over a year and a half ago. And I tell everyone this, like if we, I think we should have started it sooner. So like
• 21:13
  getting, um, so we still collect people's emails, but we do that in tandem with also collecting their phone numbers, um, and use that as like our, one of our main sources, main marketing channels. And so when you say text marketing, can you go a bit deeper in terms of like, are you sending a text every day or are you sending a text a week? And what do these texts say?
• 21:36
  Yeah, so we use it. So it's a lot less frequent than email because you're texting people, which is like a bit more invasive. And with email, people's inboxes are so flooded. And we're so used to getting like marketing messages from companies that it's like almost like auto delete, you know, and you just are. It's like.
• 22:00
  it feels like a little bit less personal and less invasive. So you can email people more often than you can, you know, text, call them or whatever. But with, you know, with your phone, it feels a little bit more personal and a bit more invasive. So you don't, we don't text our customers more than once a week. And typically it's to announce like new product launches or sales. Yeah.
• 22:28
  And we'll announce sales early through text messaging. So we had a big... We every year do a big Black Friday sale. And we started it early with our people who were subscribed to our text list. So that's one of the incentives of being subscribed to our text marketing channel is that you get early access to new product launches and sales and promotions that we're running. So those are like the main...
• 22:55
  things that we're sending you know promotions that we're sending to people that's so fascinating I'm also wondering how did you actually start building your text list like did you start that through your email list and then be like hey you can also subscribe to text or did you just like put a pop-up on the website how does that get started yeah so we work with a company called Attentive and um
• 23:20
  it's through a pop-up, but there are a lot of, with email, you can pretty much like email anyone and there's kind of no rules. With texts, there's actually quite a few rules and laws in place. Like you can't just text someone without them opting in to like allowing you to text them as a company. So, um, yeah.
• 23:43
  We use Attentive and there's like agreements that our customers have to kind of sign off on along the way. But it's pretty much just a pop-up on our website. And then they go through, there's like three steps and then you'll get like a text message saying like you have to opt into it. So yeah. Yeah.
• 24:03
  Wow, that's so cool. I love that. Yeah, but there's a bunch of companies now that will like offer the tech solution for you in the same way that I hear that Klaviyo is one of your sponsors. Love Klaviyo. In the same way that Klaviyo is like a... And actually Klaviyo has tech marketing as well as like... Oh, right. Yeah.
• 24:29
  Um, but yeah, so we use, we use Klaviyo for email and then we use attentive for text. Amazing. Cool. Shout out to them. Love Klaviyo. What do you think the tipping point was for you guys? Like you've been in business for seven years now, obviously that first year you were kind of really hustling, figuring out to find your feet and take that pivot direction. And then two years in or two and a half years in, you're able to quit your full-time job and really go all in. Yeah.
• 24:59
  what was the tipping point or how did the tipping point happen? And since then in the last seven years, what have those kind of, you know, leap step changes been? So I think that tipping point,
• 25:13
  One of the biggest tipping points in the business was after I quit my full-time job and was really focused on it and had, you know, it was kind of like sink or swim. I kind of gave myself a year to figure out, can I make this work? And every day was just
• 25:31
  you know, working harder than I ever have in my life, trying to, you know, working from home, trying to figure out doing one little thing every day to try and like push the needle, acquire more customers, grow the business, figure out what was working, what wasn't working, doing more of what was working, less of what wasn't.
• 25:49
  But I think one of the biggest tipping points and levers for growth that I identified in after I had quit my job was Facebook advertising, which I think so many people probably say now. And especially in like 2015, where it was still kind of like the Wild West, and not every company was doing it. It was like,
• 26:16
  I just had added fuel to the fire when I realized that we could advertise to acquire customers in a profitable way. So that was like, I think, the first tipping point. Now, I think obviously we're still advertising on Twitter.
• 26:37
  many different channels on like all the channels to acquire customers. But now we have, I think, more of a focus on like, my goal for the brand is to build like a long-term best-in-class jewelry brand that is around 100 years from now. So I think the thing that we really focus on now as like our long-term lever for growth is,
• 27:03
  is just our brand and making sure that we're producing and working with the best designers and producing really excellent products and doing like really great brand storytelling. And having like a focus on...
• 27:21
  creating a really incredible customer experience and doing the things that we know might not get us those like quick wins, but in the long run are going to be the most beneficial for growing like a long-term world-class brand.
• 27:38
  Yeah, absolutely. I love the name of your in-house brand, Family Gold. I think that is such a great name. Did you come up with that? Yeah. So actually it was like a placeholder name for when, when I was coming up with the concept for the line. It was based on like,
• 28:02
  The concept for the line is I wanted to create affordable heirloom quality jewelry pieces. And it was sort of inspired by a really simple like diamond necklace that I inherited from my mom and a vintage like diamond ring that I had for my grandmother. And now that I have daughters of my own, I think I think about like, what are these things that I'm going to pass down to them? And I really wanted to like make...
• 28:31
  heirloom quality fine jewelry that was made to last with really solid materials, but also was affordable. So it would have like some really nice entry price points for solid gold jewelry that could be accessible to a wider audience of people. So when I was coming up with those concepts, I, or the idea for the line, I just put like a placeholder in like a,
• 28:58
  spreadsheet that said like family gold. And then when I shared the concept with the team and everyone, everyone was kind of like, I like the name family gold, like that's a cool name. And so it just kind of stuck. It was like, I just typed it in as like a placeholder. That is genius. I really love it. That's so cool.
• 29:19
  What's the impact been of that brand on your business? I think I read that you launched it last year, no sorry, the year before, 2019. No, 2020. Or 2020. Yeah, it's been not even, I think our first collection launched at like the end of January in 2020. And it has been, that line has done incredibly well for us.
• 29:44
  It's one of our top selling lines now. And I think it goes back to a, it just is like a really, we invested so much time in like actually producing products that were really high quality, but with, um,
• 30:05
  And just like meant a lot to me and my, and like the whole team. I think we invested a lot of time in like making the best line that we could. And I think that really shows to customers that it's not this line that we just tried to like get out as quickly as possible. We really invested a lot of time in like,
• 30:26
  sampling, if there's like a ring or a necklace that we sell, we probably sample it with like three or four different partners before we actually select like the one version that is the best. And so I think that like comes out to the customer, the time and effort that we put into investing in the quality of the products. So I think that's one thing. But I also think
• 30:50
  now with everything that's going on in the world, people want to treat themselves to like one little thing and they want it to be something that is going to last and feel really meaningful and special. And they're also just like very classic, timeless, simple pieces. So it's like a simple gold hoop or like a simple diamond stud or a simple chain or just really like evergreen styles
• 31:20
  wear while you're lounging on the couch in your loungewear, but like kind of dress them up. If you're going somewhere really fancy, like the grocery store these days, you know, totally pieces you can wear again and again and love forever. Yeah, they're really versatile, but also really high quality. So you know that they're going to be they're going to like stand the test of time. And you know that and I think that's another thing is like people, especially now, when we're spending money, we want to know that like,
• 31:50
  we're investing in something that is going to be made to last and really thinking even more about like where we're spending our money. And so I think that has something to do with the success of the line as well, because customers know that it's such high quality and it is really going to like stand the test of time. Amazing. So special. Yeah. Where is the business today and what does the future look like? What's coming next?
• 32:20
  Well, more of more of what we're doing. You know, I think we're, like I said, seven years in, we have seen a lot of growth this past year.
• 32:35
  and we're continuing to see growth this year. And I think I want to keep doing more of what we're doing, creating more incredible lines, finding more incredible designers that we can work with and really investing in the brand. I think that's like where I really want to like focus my attention is like investing in more lines and brands that are going to help to like lift the company up. I think there's,
• 33:05
  You know, we ship internationally, but I think there is some, there's a lot of like growth potential for us in like expanding more into some of our like bigger international markets. I don't know if that's going to come this year. I think it's sort of like, we'll see what happens with the world.
• 33:24
  You know, we're not, we're not going anywhere anytime soon. But last year we did a handful of, yeah, it was at the beginning of last year in February. We did like our first pop-up in New York. So we had a little showroom or a little storefront for just a weekend. Um,
• 33:44
  The plan was to have done more of those throughout the year. Obviously that didn't happen. And in retrospect was probably good that we didn't have like actual things like planned out because, you know, in-store shopping was shut down anyway. But I think doing more like live events, I think as a like community, we're all gonna be really craving
• 34:11
  like in-person experiences. And so I think once the world starts to open up a little more, I would love to explore what that looks like for local eclectic and possibly doing like in-person events kind of all over the country. So yeah.
• 34:31
  But I'm really just waiting for things to resume some semblance of normalcy before, you know, trying to get too far ahead of ourselves. Totally. I think we all need to just keep on ticking along and wait for things to be a little bit more stable before taking any leaps and jumps. Yeah, exactly. Mm hmm.
• 34:57
  What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business? Um, I would say, well,
• 35:10
  just get started, like start somewhere, wherever you are. You know, um, my husband is actually in the process of like launching a wine business. And my advice to him has just been like, just like launch your website, launch your Instagram launch, like just get going, start somewhere, start like talking to customers, like,
• 35:34
  do a survey, collect information, just start doing something to get a better understanding of whatever the idea is that you're wanting to start, if it actually is something that is realistic and viable. Like I said, I had...
• 35:52
  a hundred ideas before I started Local Eclectic and tossed them all out the window after like exploring, going into depth and exploring that like some of them really just were never going to work. So I think like starting anywhere to really get a sense of like,
• 36:09
  what the idea is and exploring if it is a viable idea. And then once you have made the decision that like, this is something you want to do. And I think this is something I did when I started Local Eclectic. I made a list of all of the brands that I was really inspired by. And,
• 36:29
  When I looked at the list, I realized it was like brands that had been around for seven, 10, 20 years. It wasn't brands that had just started six months ago. So being really realistic and honest with yourself about how long it's gonna take to like, get your footing and find success and just never giving up. And like saying, you're gonna keep working at it until it works.
• 36:57
  And like doing one little thing every day that's going to like push the needle forward to like identifying those like little bits of success that you can build on every day and building it brick by brick.
• 37:13
  Yeah. I think the compound effect is, is so key. And I speak about it on the show often. It's just showing up every day, putting one foot in front of the other and just taking steps. And in a year's time or seven years time, you're going to look back and be like, wow, all those small things really added up. Yeah. You might not feel it on every day. You might feel like you're just spinning your wheels. But I think like you said, like when you look back six months or a year later, it's
• 37:40
  you'll really see how far you've come. And I'm sure as like a podcast, you probably felt that too. Like in the beginning, you have zero listeners, right? And then you have to keep making episodes, building, building, building. And every week your audience is going to grow and you might not see it in the beginning for the first three, six, whatever, however long it takes. But like...
• 38:03
  Eventually, if you keep showing up and keep doing the right things, keep listening to your customers, you're going to find traction. And ultimately, that will be the biggest lever for success.
• 38:16
  Totally. We are up to the six quick questions. I'm conscious of the time. We have four minutes before, before six o'clock. Are you on a hard finish line? No, I'm okay. Do you have a few minutes? My kids usually come rushing in at noon, so good. Well, bring them in. Love to have some kids on the show. Why not? Hasn't been done before. First time for everything. Yeah. Okay. Question number one, what's your why? Oh,
• 38:46
  These are like rapid fire questions. They don't have to be. You can take a moment. Don't worry. Uh, my why? I think my personal why is like freedom, if that makes any sense. I wanted to start Local Eclectic because...
• 39:06
  I wanted to feel like I had freedom over my own life and like ownership over my own life and like path. And I think that is like the root of the why of why I started Local Eclectic on a really personal note.
• 39:22
  Yeah, I really resonate with that. I agree. I think there's the sense of there's freedom in terms of day to day freedom in terms of you choose what you're going to be doing, spending your days, but there's also freedom in, in financial freedom and building something for your future and the future you're building with your family. Yeah. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop? Oh, number one marketing moment.
• 39:52
  To be honest, I don't know if it was like a marketing thing that happened or a marketing moment necessarily that made the business pop. I would say the number one thing that made the business pop is when I identified what the customer wanted and did more of that. So it was finding the right designers. So...
• 40:19
  identifying those designers that were selling and resonating with our customers and then being like, oh, this is what our customer wants. And then trying to find more of that versus trying to be like, I really love this. I'm going to sell this thing and try and get my customers to invest in that also. But I think it was that moment of like listening to my customers and understanding that that was going to be the biggest thing
• 40:47
  lever for growth in terms of like how we could move forward. So yeah.
• 40:54
  Love that. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What books have you read lately? What are you subscribing to? Podcasts? Yeah, I would say podcasts probably are like the biggest thing that I do to try and like expand my knowledge base. I honestly love your podcast and not just saying that.
• 41:17
  Oh my God, thanks. Yeah, I think you- You're gonna make me blush. You bring people on that like have really insightful, like very tactical, meaningful advice for just like business growth. So I think that's really amazing. I also like, I like hearing people's like origin stories and how they started like from the beginning and then, you know, how they built from nothing to something. So podcasts, like how I built this,
• 41:47
  I think it's called Boss Files by Poppy Listman. Okay. Her podcast. I didn't know she had a podcast. Yeah. Cool. And there's another one on CNN and I'm like spacing on the name of it. But I like to hear like female entrepreneurial, you know, startup stories. I like Gary Vaynerchuk a lot. He has...
• 42:13
  cool podcast um he's great i yeah um tony robbins as much as he's like kind of cheesy i he's pretty inspirational so i kind of like to listen to his stuff sometimes um but yeah podcasts i say i would say are the number one
• 42:31
  I, um, I used to read a lot of business books, but now I try to read for more like relaxation and fun. So I read a lot more like novels, but yeah, podcasts. Love it. I'm a big podcast fan too, obviously. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated. Yeah.
• 42:57
  Um, I would say, you know, I wish that I could say that I have these like incredible morning rituals that I do, but I have...
• 43:07
  a two-year-old and a one-year-old. So my mornings are usually typically like extremely chaotic and just centered around whatever they want. But I'm going to say some really basic things that I do every day, which especially in quarantine, I shower every day and I put on normal clothes. And you're winning the day. And I win the day. Like, yeah. Brutal honesty. Yeah.
• 43:36
  Oh, that's great. I also, I do try and I have a Peloton and I try and jump on the bike like every day or every other day. And that really helps me feel like grounded and gives me like peace of mind. I feel like I'm much more focused if I work out, but those are like the three big things. I shower, I get dressed and I try and work out at some point. Great. Love all of that for you.
• 44:05
  I'm glad you make it to the shower every day. Brilliant. Question number five is, if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? In the business bank account. Well, we would be in a lot of trouble if we only had $1,000 left in our bank account. I know.
• 44:30
  give bonuses to everyone on the $100 to everyone on the team because you're like going out of business and feeling $1,000. No, seriously, though, I would probably invest it in one of the designers that we work with. And like I said, I think like,
• 44:51
  the thing that has grown our brand more than anything has really been investing in the people that make our brand what it is. And so I think it's like trying to, um, you know, hopefully take a shot on a designer that I think would like, hopefully add more money to the bank. Nice. Yeah. Love that. Question number six. Last question is how do you deal with failure? Um, yeah,
• 45:20
  Just keep going. I think I, um, I use failure as a lesson to, and there have been like, you know, I think we deal with little failures every day. Um, and it's like how we learn and grow from those failures that are ultimately going to like take us to that next level.
• 45:42
  level of, you know, whatever it is that we're trying to do. So I think it's like looking at failures, not as a failure. I don't know what the other word for that would be, but like, not looking at it as this thing that is going to like, tear us down. But how can we look at failures as this thing that will like lift us up that we can learn from, and really grow from any like, mistakes that we've made?
• 46:10
  Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show and share your incredible journey. I've loved meeting you. Yeah. I love what you're wearing. Oh, thank you. So fun. I usually don't wear silk shirts, but you know, I'm talking to like another human outside of my small bubble. So you made sure you showered and put on some real clothes. Yeah, exactly.
• 46:39
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 47:03
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 47:26
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 47:42
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 48:07
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 48:30
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.