Zero sales, not enough $ to move out from parents

[AgainstAllOdds]

Sometimes you have to quit and move on to the next thing.

Tried a marketing tactic, gave it your all, and it didn't work? Quit and move onto the next tactic.

Tried to build a business? Tried every marketing strategy, monetization strategy, and business model but still failed? Quit and start a new business.

I don't know your business, situation, or how hard you tried, so only you can decide if it's worth quitting, but note that sometimes it is.

The longer I live on this planet, the more I realize MONEY is LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Also this mentally isn't helping you. Money isn't everything. Freedom is. Freedom can be attained in a multitude of ways, one of which is money.

The end goal isn't money, but to do cool shit.

stuck at home

And this isn't that bad.

Western culture, especially American culture, is obsessed with moving out and being independent at all costs, but sometimes being at home is what's best.

Look at being at home as an opportunity. A lot of people out there don't have caring parents that are in a position to provide for them. You have a situation with all of your overhead paid for. Likely housing, food, utilities, etc. paid for. No responsibilities outside of business and maybe school. No worries or concerns except for the occasional "F*ck, I live with my parents ."

You're in a great position to learn/succeed. Living at home sucks, but it's a lot better than getting a job, barely paying rent, and slaving away the rest of your days to keep up with the rat race.

Put your head down. Think smart. And keep grinding.

 

[Envision]

You're putting the cart before the horse. I actively do influencer marketing etc but you cant do it with a single product and no brand... Here's a reality check that I hope helps you understand more.

1. Review the need your filling, yes you may have competitors in the same niche but are you better? are you actually providing something that is different than everyone else to the market. If you are not, liquidate your inventory, take the lessons you've learned and start another brand.

2. If you can address the issue and fill a need you MUST have a paid traffic source to build your business. Whether its FBA, FB ads, or Google Ads, you can't scale a business effectively (like the way you are describing) without paid traffic. Influencer marketing doesnt count because you cant reinvest profits at a known rate for a predictable ROI.

* This is where I see alot of people fail and was why I failed because I was scared to spend money and didnt have a method of achieving growth otherwise. Spend the money.

3. Once you have a predictable paid traffic source that can scale that is when you can reinvest those profits and test with influencers. I pay influencers a flat rate each month and they post my products and represent my brand and in turn I get spikes in sales, social proof, and brand recognition/following.

4. You're going to need a 30%+ margin because at scale you will need to pay for overhead like warehousing, utilities, process improvements, employees etc not to mention the volatility that can be experienced with ad spend on various platforms. On top of that if you are building a brand and releasing new products the profits need to be reinvested.

5. To point 4, you probably can expect to not pay yourself a liveable wage for years. I'm 3 years into my business and I still do not pay myself anything over what is required by law and to get to where you're describing it will be a few more years at the current growth rate. I work a day job that gives me flexibility and allows me to live on that while I build it.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

I've been in solitude working on this entrepreneur thing for like 2.5 years? Kind of losing track of how long I have been doing this.

... buddy... I just... I can't... I...

I think from now on you're only allowed to say that after busting your a$$ for 10 years or more.

@everyone

Is this the "Millennial disease?"

@MakeMoreMoves I'm not trying to pick on you man but the mentality here is so far off my thought process I'm trying to understand so please forgive my ignorance.

I'm seeing this all over the place coaching lately. So many young guys and gals are missing the ENTIRE point of a business.

They all want to be "coaches" and "influencers" but it's as if no one taught them the basics?

Read Phil Knight's book or Daymond John's book and see that before all of the "influencer marketing" and "brand awareness" they speak about so much -- they were selling shit out of their trunk.

What happened to the basics?

It's not easy to build a business. Anyone who says that is lying to you. It takes rolling up your sleeves, going and talking to thousands of people, and making it happen.

I know everyone is listening to Gary Vee lately -- which is fantastic -- but you can't just pick out the stuff you like and ignore the stuff you don't.

Patience. Hustle. Gary Vee is the guy that was delivering personally wine Christmas Eve AND Christmas day.

Anybody can sell T-shirts, buddy. Just ask the hustlers standing on some corner in New York. Maybe that's who you need to learn from for a bit.

Pointless rant over

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Forget the influencer thing, how many have you SOLD period?

Influencer marketer is worthless if you have a product problem. In other words, if no one sees its inherent value at its price point, the outreach marketing becomes pointless. You have to retool the brand messaging, or the product itself.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

LOL, You have no clue. Validated = Making Money.

Yes, but people make this rocket science.

Validated = Money.

Validated <> My neighbor said the website looked great!

Thread marked NOTABLE.

He might not get it, but others will.

 

[theag]

its a clothing/accessories brand

The world doesn't need another me-too clothing & accessory brand.

Stop wasting time on this madness, try to sell your inventory at cost or worst case throw it away and write it off and start building a real business. Get a job or freelance if your business isn't making any money and move out. Maybe reread TMF along the way, because it seems like you didn't understand it.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

None

As I expected, that's your problem.

You don't have marketing problem, you have a product problem.

If channel, messaging, and reach fails, your product is a failure.

You either want to find the problem, solve it, and get moving in a positive direction, or you want to be right.

 

[Kak]

Disclaimer slight rant

So I have been working my business and I have always have had a task to keep moving the business forward. Literally clueless now. My marketing just doesn't work.

I tried all the tactics that all these people used to grow their business and this venture has no sales. The influencer marketing is hard as hell when you just starting out. Nobody wants to promote a nobody brand, but then again you need influencers to promote so I become a somebody.

It's like chicken and egg scenario.

Response rates are terrible for influencers. I can get shoutouts easily, but thats not the goal. I changed headlines of emails and even asked really small influencers and nothing. I am looking for a personal influencer that wears the product. Not just a shoutout of my product. One of the people I sent product hasn't even posted anything. The influencer that charged me and posted great content and did the typical instagram growth methods, but then again no sales.

Its also frustrating how these influencers only want pay per post. I have no guarantee of ROI, but they do. The best way is commission, but nobody wants to do it that way. So far I have just burned money in this influencer. But its a clothing/accessories brand and this has been proven to be the best way to build it as of now.

With all new things, I would do the same thing to overcome barriers: Learn, Action, Trail and Error, Assess, Redo. But with this marketing thing, I'm getting nothing. It's holiday season and I can't get any sales.

Can't move out because not enough money.
Not enough money because putting money into business to advertising and promotion.
No sales, losing money, stuck at home.

The longer I live on this planet, the more I realize MONEY is LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Rich people have enough money to run their businesses and also afford their own homes.

My advice is make more money!

How? You need to expand your horizons beyond this influencer crap. It’s not working. Why not try something else?

 

[biophase]

I'm like over 10k deep on this product...I guess my main problem is my product price. The price of my product for what I am selling is very expensive. I feel like I can sell it if I lower the price, but my markup is already very low. First variation is 37% and the other is 25%... But in the eyes of the consumer, my product is still expensive. Cost to manufacture product one is $65.

I came from wholesale and had a strong distaste for small margins because even if I wanted to give 10/10 customer service, I could not afford to. This is why I chose private label to have higher margins. If I don't drop the price nobody is going to buy. What do I do? I have read keystone pricing is 100% lol!

TLDR;
Cost to manufacture is high and can't drop price any lower
Consumer perceives product as too expensive still.
What the competitors are selling for, is what it costs for me to manufacture.
But added value that is why the price is high.

I've been in solitude working on this entrepreneur thing for like 2.5 years? Kind of losing track of how long I have been doing this. I can't start over again. Yes, my situation is very good compared to lots of people. My parents actually charge rent and I do work full time rat race doing this.

I can send you my website if you want.

First $10k deep... sunk costs

People think it’s too expensive... so lower your price

10/10 customer service means nothing if you have 0 customers

Keystone is 100%... says other people... maybe yours is 5%

Your perceived added value is not there or you aren’t communicating it properly.

Any IG influencers raving about your product when they get their free sample?

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

You need to do a better job of taking advice. You're purposefully ignoring great advice in this thread.

As MJ says, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be rich?"

 

[biophase]

Website has been validated and confirmed good. No question about that.

LOL, You have no clue. Validated = Making Money. Validated does not equal, looks good to me.

You refuse to believe that your business has a product issue. Good luck with that. We can't help you anymore. But I'll leave you with one last thing. Go ask someone today what he thinks about your website. If the person answers that it looks good, then ask him if he would like to place an order immediately. Come back and let us know what he says.

Here is an example of a decent product that people want. I launched on FB last week and here are some of the replies from my post. Now granted, I already have a brand and a following. But if the product itself were bad or the price was too high, the response would not have been the same.

 

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[PureA]

Looking at it now, thanks a bunch for the write up. Will get back to you soon.



It's just that I am seeing these case studies of people building a million dollar business in 2 or less years. This is why I have this type of time frame. I am basing that as the average time frame. Or people growth hacking the hell out of instagram building half a million followers in a less than a year. This is the core of the so called impatience? It's like what the hell. This person finds success in a year time frame so its hard for me to justify that it should take 10 years.

So.

Firstly, you've received some great advice. Use it.

I suspect my age is similar to yours but I see my younger mentality in your words.

An inner mindset transformation is needed. Read this thread: (GOLD - The "Astonishing Secrets" Thread) and you need to internalise that state of mind. To imitate minimally will not do. Your results in business will correlate to the extent that you reach a more empathic (amongst other things) state of being.

When I read what you say it's coming from the frame of:

"I like fashion so I built a fashion company, I googled how to market, listened to Gary V and it isn't working, why isn't it working, it's not fair, I did all the steps!!! Why don't I have millions yet???

To be blunt, the core message here is: Nobody owes you shit.

Create something that you would give someone money for. It doesn't need to change the world (at least not for now ) But just get started by selling a hungry man some bread...

Beyond that, recognise that the journey to get 'it' is the treat. So HAVE FUN.

Find joy in the process, and let the consequential benefits sneak up on you.

Strap in, recalibrate, go get em'.

 

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[ZF Lee]

The amount of GOLD nuggets here is insane.
If OP doesn't wants them, I'll help myself...

 

[Arthur Redline]

Alright my man, I want to give it a try of helping you. Look I was in the same position. In fact I was 27 and still living at my parents. Everything I tried, failed. I also wanted to move out and wanted a business that made money. So what did I do? I got a simple job and moved out the house asap. And once my enviorment changed I changed as well. It was not even far, I was like 10min walk away from my parents. But it felt like a lot more.

What you are doing does not work. The people are telling you that by not buying from you. LISTEN to them. And trust me, good marketing will not sell something that does not sell, period! Once you have something that does sell, trust me, marketing will not be your problem. Because it will sell like crazy whitout any marketing.

Everyone is telling the same thing here. Your business is dying. Take your loss and get out! -10k is better than -20k after a while. Get out of there, and get a job. It will buy you time and work on your business after or before your work. I did that for years. So can you.

I think you have to fail a few more times before you get lucky. Because reading all the things you say tells me that you are not on the level yet. Fail a few more times, and do not get stuck in your failures. Accept if it does not work/sell and go and do it better.

Make changes and changes will happen. Best thing you can do is moving out and getting a job.

Good luck!

 

[PureA]

Website has been validated and confirmed good. No question about that.

Instagram content looks good and confirmed, but severely lacking social proof since I started building it not too long ago.

See above.

But. you. have. 0. sales.

Numbers don't lie. Anyone of you buddies can say a website looks 'good' - does it convert in the real, objective, world? The market gives you feedback every second of every day even if that's through silence...

First thing they said was price was the issue. Ok, so I lowered them. But then I see a competitor in the niche selling very similar products and is doing well based on research. I don't know if those particular models are selling though, but their business is clearly doing well. There are competitors selling at the same, below, and above my price range. If there is a similar business that is selling at all ends of the price range, how does price become the problem variable anymore? I always tend to find a business that is making it work for the variable that I thought was the problem. Which makes me wonder what really is the problem

Your logic is flawed. It's like saying:

I started a running shoe company, my shoes same/better than nike/adidas/underarmour my price is the same and even lower in some cases. My website is good, my instagram posts are good. Why is no one buying?????? Why don't I have at least 50% of the sales that these other companies have? I mean it makes sense right?

You are looking at business through a 2D lens.

Don't build something that you think you can sell. Build something that people want to buy.

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Because so far I have not lived my life at all because of entrepreneurship. I have delayed all instant gratification. Starting over again would mean sacrificing several more years again. Don’t know if I should take a break and start living. All money made has went to investments, business, books and education.

Maybe you need to take a break for a week or two.

I've started my journey in 2012 and still haven't fully gained my freedom. I've failed and failed and failed and failed and failed and failed and now I finally have something making money. It took me 5 years to get here. I'm sure I have at the very minimum another 5 years to go. You don't have to spend every waking moment on your business or working. You're free to go out and have fun. Reward yourself if you need it. Entrepreneurship isn't about being at the grid stone during every breath you take.

 

[theag]

I will use Funds to solve bigger problems in the future.

But you are not making any money with this.

I'm not talking about global challenges or disruption or making the world a better place or any of that rah-rah startup bullshit. Just sell something that everybody and his dog isn't also selling.

 

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[biophase]

None, sorry somehow skipped your post. I might settle for 15% margin and see how that works.

You are delusional. Settle for 15% margin? You better hope you can get your money back. You seem to think that your product is worth X dollars but the market is telling you it is not.

Obviously your website, IG and whatever you are doing is not conveying value. But you are too blind to honestly answer the question, is it my marketing or is the product the reason that I am not getting sales?

 

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[Bishop]

10k on inventory before you even got a sale? What guru course were you following?

 

[ZCP]

How many have you sold ........... 0
What could you sell this 'business' for ......... 0
What is this business worth ....... only what you have learned so far .... the rest is cost of education
------------
Pivot.

Name any business that has gone years selling 0 units and is still doing what they were doing.

Pivot.

Name any business that had sold 0 units and the just dropped the price a little bit and is now selling millions.

Pivot.

 

[theag]

it isn’t working out at the moment

Ok. Forget it. I'm out. Good luck.

 

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[c_morris]

The longer I live on this planet, the more I realize MONEY is LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

I think this might be your problem.

 

[PaulRobert]

Is this the "Millennial disease?"

As a 25 year old I can say YES.... almost every "entrepreneur" (and I stress the quotes) that you meet that is in there 20s think that if they put in "the grind & hustle" for maybe 2 years they will come out rich as hell after those 2 years. This thought process is accelerated even more by all the mental motivation masturbation posts all over social media.


@MakeMoreMoves If this marketing strategy isn't working, it's time for a new one.

My honest opinion.... Influencer marketing is bullshit and almost dead in a lot of niches. This marketing strategy is completed saturated and flawed. Why is it saturated... cause every social media marketing "EXPERT" is saying the same cookie cutter shit... influencer marketing, you need influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing was prime in 2012-2014. Back then you could buy a post for $25 to an account that had 250K followers and get some excellent conversions.

Now because of the algorithm changes and plethora of accounts, engagement and attention spans for content are wayyyy down, even though the FB people might tell you otherwise.

One account that I used back in the day with the 250K followers had usually 10K-30K likes per post with about 100-500 REAL interaction comments.

Now after these algorithm changes and increased engagements according to Facebook, this account that now has about 3.5 Million followers is lucky to get 10k likes and max 50 comments per post.


The big thing is this.. stop trying to have OTHER people sell your product.... YOU have to be the one to sell your product.

 

[fauche65]

I assume you know the story of Live Fit Apparel. It started with an idea, a ton of determination, really hard work, and tons of free marketing.

In case you don't know:

The Company - Live Fit. Apparel

The Founder & CEO - https://www.linkedin.com/in/randall-pich-3b40123a/

Interview with Randall -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvPCoISgB4


His Digital Book on Startups (You may want to purchase) - Evolution of a Start Up

Best of luck!

 

[Blaise84]

Disclaimer slight rant

So I have been working my business and I have always have had a task to keep moving the business forward. Literally clueless now. My marketing just doesn't work.

I tried all the tactics that all these people used to grow their business and this venture has no sales. The influencer marketing is hard as hell when you just starting out. Nobody wants to promote a nobody brand, but then again you need influencers to promote so I become a somebody.

It's like chicken and egg scenario.

Response rates are terrible for influencers. I can get shoutouts easily, but thats not the goal. I changed headlines of emails and even asked really small influencers and nothing. I am looking for a personal influencer that wears the product. Not just a shoutout of my product. One of the people I sent product hasn't even posted anything. The influencer that charged me and posted great content and did the typical instagram growth methods, but then again no sales.

Its also frustrating how these influencers only want pay per post. I have no guarantee of ROI, but they do. The best way is commission, but nobody wants to do it that way. So far I have just burned money in this influencer. But its a clothing/accessories brand and this has been proven to be the best way to build it as of now.

With all new things, I would do the same thing to overcome barriers: Learn, Action, Trail and Error, Assess, Redo. But with this marketing thing, I'm getting nothing. It's holiday season and I can't get any sales.

Can't move out because not enough money.
Not enough money because putting money into business to advertising and promotion.
No sales, losing money, stuck at home.

The longer I live on this planet, the more I realize MONEY is LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

First off, I feel ya. It's not an ideal situation you're in. It's painful (mentally).

What you're doing is digging yourself deeper and deeper into the very hole you want to get out of. Specifically, you're viewing it from YOUR perspective. To get out of the hole, you've got to see it from the perspective of the market. If you can put aside the desperation to make money for a moment and ask what the market wants, put yourself in their shoes, you'll have new inspiration that wasn't possible when focusing only on yourself.

Pulling for you!

 

[c_morris]

It's just that I am seeing these case studies of people building a million dollar business in 2 or less years. This is why I have this type of time frame. I am basing that as the average time frame. Or people growth hacking the hell out of instagram building half a million followers in a less than a year. This is the core of the so called impatience? It's like what the hell. This person finds success in a year time frame so its hard for me to justify that it should take 10 years.

One of Unscripted 4D's is Comparative Immunity. Re-read chapter 43. That should solve the problem you just described.

 

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[PureA]

Feedback was from random people on web as well as people that have been in this ecommerce field for a while. The one thing these brands have is well...branding and social proof. So based on your example and mine. It seems like differentiating variable is social proof/brand.

It’s just this chicken and egg thing again.

I need sales/influencers to build up social proof/brand, but I can’t get sales/influencers because I don’t have social proof/brand.

But then back to my OP, influencers don’t want to represent a no name brand.

I don’t want to fake social proof or use those black hat tactics because that destroys an Instagram account permanently.

It's not a chicken and egg thing...

Again, I hear (subtle) cries of "It's not fair" and playing the blame game thinking it's "just out of your control" "If only".

Brands have come from nowhere and hit millions in sales through influencers before you, and countless others will in the future.

The issue is with your product

Let's say you had a new super cool widget 4500 that was new, or that at least a value array that was skewed in someway... influencers would be much more likely to represent something that they actually loved/thought was cool. As opposed to a me-too business/product (you got no chance). Everyone and their dog has a clothing line. Does that mean you can't be successful in fashion? No. It just means you are going to have to have/be something different/better and communicate it well.

An example in your industry...

Performance Fabric Menswear - Mizzen+Main

I've heard multiple influencers mention this company. Paid? maybe. But they are willing to represent the company because they believe in the company. They offer something just a little different.

I am sure they do a lot of other things but to my knowledge Mizzen & Main have a line of non iron dress shirts, which means you can chuck them in your suitcase, and use them, wrinkle-free, when you arrive at your destination.

That's all it takes.

Because of this, 'influencers' are all of over them. Go to the same influencers with a dress shirt with your logo on... not sure that you would get any response whatsoever (which is what you are experiencing).

You can't just follow the steps and bring to market what everyone else has too. Bring something different, a bit weird, something notable, something to talk about, it doesn't even have to be that much different. Just different.

 

[Deleted50669]

Looking at it now, thanks a bunch for the write up. Will get back to you soon.



It's just that I am seeing these case studies of people building a million dollar business in 2 or less years. This is why I have this type of time frame. I am basing that as the average time frame. Or people growth hacking the hell out of instagram building half a million followers in a less than a year. This is the core of the so called impatience? It's like what the hell. This person finds success in a year time frame so its hard for me to justify that it should take 10 years.

Let me tell you from the perspective of a novice entrepreneur and a historical perfectionist, comparing to anyone is setting up for psychological failure. One of the truest cliches I've heard is "Your only competition is yourself." It's a simple concept, and damn hard to really internalize and believe. If you look at the successes over the course of your life so far, no matter how big or small, I'm willing to bet they occurred because you changed something about yourself fundamentally. You gained and applied new knowledge. You gained awareness of a bad habit and removed it. You worked harder, or shifted priorities. These modes of change do not depend on what other people are doing / experiencing. To taint your confidence and motivation by using others as a gauge of success is very toxic. When I was a college athlete I started out doing that, and it got me nothing but anxiety and doubt. Once I recognized the need to focus on incremental improvement INDEPENDENT OF OTHERS I started to soar. The process to my target became clear. I knew how to put one foot in front of the other. This concept is the same in entrepreneurship. MJ talked about solving one problem after the next. Your current problem definitions are misplaced. You're defining problems against things over which you have no control; your success relative to others. The only way to improve your success relative to others is to define actionable, value-add problems and strategize to solve them.

- Cheers

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

I've been in solitude working on this entrepreneur thing for like 2.5 years? Kind of losing track of how long I have been doing this. I can't start over again. Yes, my situation is very good compared to lots of people.

First off, sounds like you might need to just sell it for what you paid for it or less and recoup some cash if you believe that you can't sell it at a higher price.

Also you "can't" start over again? What kind of attitude is that? By the looks of it, you're probably going to have to.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

It's just that I am seeing these case studies of people building a million dollar business in 2 or less years. This is why I have this type of time frame. I am basing that as the average time frame.

I get it man. You want it all and you want it right now. You're failing to see behind the curtain though. Behind the curtain was years and years of hard work to become an "overnight success".

9/10 businesses fail in the first year.
9/10 of those that survive fail in the next 5 years.
Those that survive the 5 year mark often aren't even profitable businesses.

The businesses that take off have the stars aligned behind them as well of years and years of hard work and preparation behind them.

Count the number of businesses that actually meet MJ's standard of CENTS (or it's CENTS now, isn't it?) and you'll see the stars are aligned. It's not just luck (although luck is always helpful) but you've got to realize unless you have a very unique product that people love, or if they love YOU and your personality, and your sales skills -- you aren't going to come close to a million bucks within 2 years.

You've got to sell a lot of $12.99 t-shirts to hit $1mm... 76,983 of them to be exact... and that's just revenue ... we're not talking profitability...

Or people growth hacking the hell out of instagram building half a million followers in a less than a year. This is the core of the so called impatience? It's like what the hell. This person finds success in a year time frame so its hard for me to justify that it should take 10 years.

Half a million "followers" doesn't translate into business success my friend. Show me a person who has created a million dollar business simply by having 500k followers on Instagram.

BUT they cannot be selling a course about "how to make $$ with your followers on Instagram"