[INTERVIEW] Kristin Fisher of Shop Bocu on Creating a Profitable Product-Based Business

Here is a written transcription of episode 214 of the Purpose and Pixie Dust podcast: [INTERVIEW] Kristin Fisher of Shop Bocu on Creating a Profitable Product-Based Business

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Hey girl, welcome to the Purpose and Pixie Dust podcast. The podcast where we dive deep into our passions, our purpose and really unlock our potential with the pixie dust thrown in. What is pixie dust? You might ask. It's the fun and joy that gets unlocked when you're creating and owning your magic. I'm Lindsay Dollinger dog, mama, Disney lover and high school Spanish teacher who has used my magic to grow businesses while also working full time. I'm on a mission to help other women create and own your magic by building not only the business of your dreams but also the life of your dreams while still juggling life, your full time job and all the things. So if you want more than this provincial life, let's use our glass slippers to break those glass ceilings and Sprinkle lots of pixie dust into our lives and businesses. Let's do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Alright, Hello, everyone, welcome back to another Purpose and Pixie Dust podcast. I'm Lindsay Dollinger and I'm super excited because we have a guest on the show tonight that I met in a mastermind that I was just in her name is Kristen and she is the creator of something really awesome and I always let my guests introduce themselves because I want to give you full justice and full rein to share all those things. So Kristin, thank you so much for being on the show today. We are so excited to talk to you.

Thank you for having me. It's so it's such an honor to be on your podcast. I'm so excited to chat. So my name is Kristin Fisher, I am a retail strategy coach for independent retailers and makers and I am also the founder of my own e commerce brand new. So we do hand wrapped gift boxes for just individual gifting and then also business gifting. So for clients and corporate businesses to get their employees or their own clients, that's kind of a range of gifting needs that we cover. So I do a couple things. Yeah, a couple businesses are so cute, like you definitely well you can share at the end like all the ways that people can connect with you and guys, I'll make sure to link them so you can check them out but they are like top notch, so which came first, the subscription boxes came first. Right? Yes, so I have a background as a corporate retail buyer. So for over 15 years I worked in corporate retail um as a buyer for some major brands like urban outfitters and land's end and motherhood maternity and all different ranges of businesses. And I started to just like feel an itch for um doing something creative for myself, not necessarily starting a business, but I just wanted to do something for myself because I was little burnout and so I was working full time and launched Bocu and I was just kind of doing that on the side up until 2021 in the spring I left corporate to go full time as an entrepreneur, which is still kind of weird to say, I think and I've been coaching people honestly, since I launched the business, just, I've been coaching people in the D. M. S in text, just kind of free tidbits here and there and I started to do it more formally this year, so really January of 22 is when I started coaching people in a way that I felt like I could actually make an impact. It was one of those things where I realized I was doing it a lot anyway and I was like, you know what, I should actually structure this in a way where people can actually get support that they need. So that's like the evolution of, you know, entrepreneur with side hustle into full time entrepreneur or sorry, corporate retail with a side hustle and then into entrepreneur and then coaching, so it's a bit of an evolution, that's definitely how my coaching came about to, I was like, I'm answering these questions and I feel like I'm doing this all so much anyway, like I might as well turn this into a business.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so when did you start Bocu boxes? So I started thinking about it, let me think here, so I got engaged in in 2015 and I would say in 2016 I started feeling a bit of an itch or something and I don't know if it's because I was going through this big thing in my life personally, and simultaneously, a lot of my friends were having, it was like that boom in my life, you know how you have, like, the post, the early twenties, the mid twenties, and then, like, you're almost 30 and everybody starts to go through these big life events, kind of in order, and so I think it was a combination of things, but I started thinking about it really, in 2016, and I spent a lot of time, I would say in 2017, after I got married in the spring, I spent probably six months working on a business plan and just kind of allowing myself to have fun with dreaming about it, because I didn't have an a need to start a business, like, I was literally doing it to find something for myself that was a creative outlet. I think it's also because my wedding was over, and then I was like, I have all this time, what do I do with myself? Let's start a business. Um and so I really let myself take, like, almost a full year of 2017 to think about it, and I launched it a year later. So in 2018, at Mother's Day time period is when it formally had launched, and what does your launch look like it looked like, Oh my God, what am I doing? And I just put it out there. Um, but really what it looked like, was figuring out all the pieces and parts because I was so used to, you know, running major, big scale corporate retail businesses and all of a sudden I was like in the weeds with doing every single little detail of bringing the product in and you know, I could bring the product in and figure out how much I needed to buy, I don't want to see with my eyes closed, but I could figure out an assortment what got really interesting for me was figuring out well actually how much do I buy because I had no sales history. So it was really cool to kind of build it from the beginning and see like what risks I was taking and you know, kind of the levers there. And then from a launch perspective truthfully I launched it to my friends and family, I had prior to the website going live, I had a landing page that was like, hey, coming soon, put your email in and I had an Instagram account And I'm trying to think back, it was, you know, 2018, I probably was just posting, it wasn't this like formal fancy launch, it was just like, I'm just gonna do this, but it's out there.

Yeah, and hey girl, I'm popping in here really quickly to tell you about a company that I have found that I'm obsessed with gut personal, it is a female founded and owned. All the products are FDA-tested and approved and the female founder was a registered, well is a registered dietitian with years of experience healing women's gut symptoms and improving our gut health. Um, I love that. It is female founded, funded and staffed and it is the first line of personalized supplements allowing you to create a customized protocol to address your symptoms, support for your healing and optimize your gut health. I personally took the test online and there's a free quiz. It's the only thing that I know of that has a free quiz like this and it goes through and some of the questions about your sleep. Um, acne all sorts of things. You know, we don't even think about those being tied to our gut health, but they are. And so one of the things that I am obsessed with is the rescue supplements and this is for seasonal allergies like woods. Um, so I've been using them for a while. I've seen some amazing results for them. So if you have seasonal allergies, that's one thing that I definitely want you to check out. Another product that I use is the healer, I use the soother. So definitely go online and take the free quiz, see what they tell you and then know that you get free shipping over $99. You get 20% off if you use my code off of subscriptions and 10% off of any one time orders. So I highly recommend that you go check it out, Go to www.gutpersonal.com/LindsayD. I will have that link in the show notes. You can also just go to their website and then type in code LindsayD. At check out. Um and that's L. I. N. D. S. A. Y. So that you can get that percentage off. So check it out. Let me know what your quiz says, what you ordered. Take a screenshot share with me. I'd love to talk to you about it and I hope you love the products as much as I do.

I am really fortunate that my Facebook community and my instagram and my coworkers and people were sharing it just because they wanted to support it. It's so nice. It also timed, I strategically timed it up with Mother's Day for gifting so I got a really nice little bump in the beginning because it was around holiday where you gift and so that's kind of lunch. Yeah. Honestly when I look back and I'm like I think I did that intentionally but I don't know you can't remember.

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. So was there ever because I know some people, I don't want to suffer from this more than others, but it's true. Like was there ever moments in all of this where you're like, what am I doing? Like why am I doing this? What is this going to work? You know what I mean? Like that second guessing and what were you just like we're doing it?

I mean I have, this is like the story of my life. I even today just decided to do something that I'm launching next week, why don't decide today? I decided last week, but today I really am pulling the trigger on it and I'm so I'm constantly doing that where I think about things for a really long time and I, my window of thinking about it and not action on it is getting shorter and shorter as I get older. So there is improvement. Yes. Yes. Yes, I mean, especially when I was working full time, I mean, being a buyer in retail is a really intense job and you know, working at least 50 hour work weeks, 50 to 60 hour work weeks continuously. And then, you know when I was getting really close to launch and it started to feel real, I thought, okay, well, I'm not really sure how I'm gonna figure this out, but I have to because suddenly I was also the shipping department and so I'm all the departments, I'm wearing all the hats and so it started to feel a little chaotic, but I think really what, where It got intense is in 2020 because my business really, really grew that year because suddenly, you know, obviously we were all at home and couldn't be together for these big life events, people were still having babies or you know, getting married or postponing their weddings or suffering losses or you know, all these things where you couldn't physically be with somebody. So the gifting business really grew and took off and I started to question everything in terms of like how can I handle all of this? And I'm also an ex extreme type, a perfectionist. So I had to just like let go and be like, okay, my corporate job is wild right now, insanely busy and my personal business is wild and I just have to like doing it is better than not doing it, you have to just put something out there. And so I'm so happy that I did, just kept moving forward instead of stopping because I wouldn't have been able to step away, you know, I didn't know that a year later I'd be stepping away or less than a year later I was just able to.

So what did that look like? Like was that a a spur of the moment, was this like a long, you know, drawn out plan or you know, I reached this amount and I'm leaving?

Yeah, I mean it's a couple of things, I think in the summer of 2020 I started getting this feeling of, oh my gosh, this is actually a real business now, this isn't just a side hustle project. So I was feeling it in the summer, but no intentions of leaving my corporate job because the business wasn't really there yet. And then as I got closer and closer into Q four, the holiday time period, the business just completely took off and that's whenever I said, okay, actually think that I could do this like based on the traffic, I was getting to my website and the custom gifting side really blew up in Q four and I was just like, you know what, I think that this could actually sustain. So um my husband and I were strategically saving that year anyway and so it kind of happened. I mean we had planned to do that before Covid and to buy a house. So we were originally doing that and then Covid expedited our savings because we weren't going anywhere. And so we were already really aggressively saving and then when I got into Q four and the business really grew, I thought, I think I could probably do this. And then a series of luck events happened where we started looking for a home back closer to where our family was at. We found a house really, really fast and then it was like everything just fell into place and I was like, I think that this is this is the okay, this is gonna sound the universe is telling me to just follow this path because it's dropping all these things in my lap repeatedly. It's like one after the other, there were all these things that kept kind of happening because I don't think I would have stepped away if I didn't have that. Like forceful push. I really stretched myself to the limit. It was really like in the Q four time period in December, I was stretched to my absolute max and I'm the kind of person that has to be pushed Beyond my comfort level before I will make a really big move like that. So same series of events. Yeah, it wasn't a long term, it wasn't a long planned out thing, but it kind of got sped up.

I love that, I love that. And so when did you actually leave corporate?

So I left corporate in February of 2021. So really the decision was made within two months I would say um because I got through the holiday season and when I could pull my head up above water I thought okay, we got we found this house really fast and I think that this is a thing and I'm just going to do it, planning part intuition yeah, here I am. And then when did you hire your first business coach and all that Holly, so Holly Haynes, who, that's how we met through obviously her mastermind, that was the first time. So in January of 2022, it's the first time I've ever invested in myself and my own growth. I've had other trainings and things I've invested in um to help me grow the business, but I never had, I would say a personal development investment, I have never really done that before and I am so I cannot even believe I waited this long to do that because that's what I wondered, I assumed it was earlier. No, thank you. That makes me, because what Holly was able to do is just give me a platform in a space to be able to open my brain up to doing things differently. It's something I've always, you know, I was always pushing myself, but sometimes you just need that outside perspective to say, okay, have you thought about it this way, or let's think about it that way and I joined her group and I think I was one of the only product business owners at the time and it didn't even bother me that I was the only product based business in there because that's not what I was in there for. I was in there to expand my skill set and think about things differently and so I don't know how I'm investing in myself next, but it's got to happen maybe with her again because I love her so much.

Yeah, I know it was a really good time for sure, and I'm like that too, I've had a few different coaches and I'm like, I feel like each one serves, its like chapter, you know what I mean, and like people who are in the mastermind serve their chapter and I just, I love meeting the different people throughout my journey because it's all I'm a firm believer in the two, so like everything happens for a reason, we were put in there to be to do it for a reason and I think it's really, I think it's really cool to reach out to other types of coaches or do different types of training because if you stick in one lane or one type of person or just, you know, somebody that specializes in one thing and you just bounce around to different coaches that have that different type of training, you're gonna just kind of be iterating on the same thing all the time and I feel like I'm I'm excited to see what I do next, I invest in next because I just in being in that mastermind learning from Holly but also learning from the other women like you that are in that business that also have coaching in that mastermind that also have their own coaching businesses. I learned so much and I'm like okay, I can see the value of investing in other women that have different skill sets from you because you're just gonna constantly be learning and pushing yourself to try things differently, which if you own a business you have to constantly be doing that 100% and so I'm pretty sure you know this, but I started in network marketing like years ago and I really think that's one of the things that allowed me to get to the top of my network marketing business because I invested in a coach and a mastermind and I was taking all these ideas from these really serious business owners who were not necessarily in network marketing, but then I was applying that to my network marketing business and so like it made me stand out so much differently than, you know, the normal like MLM tactics as I was hearing these things from all these different business owners and like I do the same thing like you said with my own coaching business, someone someone shared their offer, I'm like, oh that's a really good idea, I could do something, you know, in my own niche and structure it this way and I've never tried that before, I should give that a try, like yeah, it's like you pave your own, you kind of pave your own path whenever you do that.

And I think the network marketing example is a perfect example of that because because you can join, I have never personally done network marketing of a ton of friends who have and so you know, little tidbits of it, but I know that you can join and you have the path laid out in front of you to give you all the tools and resources to be successful, but the best, most successful people are the ones that do it a little bit differently and create their own path. And so I think in any type of business, that's what you have to do and unfortunately for a lot of us the path is not paved out, so you've got to figure you got to figure out something.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. So you have added coaching in now, what does that look like in your business? Are you spending like equal time with that in your subscription box? Like what's that, what's your plan with that in the future?

So yeah, this year has been all about figuring it out, getting over myself and just doing it. Um and the way that it has looked so far and I worked with Holly a lot on this too is okay, I'm the type of person that if I start to do something, I want to just go full force into it. And what I found in the beginning of the year is that I was like being really pulled and called to doing that, but I was taking my eyes off of Bocu which is a full fledged business and I'm like okay, hold on a second, I can't do this. So what I realized when I started to think about it this way, it's kind of been a game changer for me, I used to have a full time business and I would do, I would build Bocu on the side, that's what I now do with coaching. I treat it like Bocu is my full time job because it is, it just looks different and in my spare time I create a smaller pocket of time for coaching now I'm not burning you know the midnight oil the way I used to but I just structure my days and my weeks in a way where I can a lot certain time blocks where I can do coaching related things and the majority of my time is spent on as being the main part of the business. Yeah, that makes total sense well and that's what I tell a lot of my clients too is they want to have being two companies for example and I'm like we can do that but we got to go all in on one and build it to where we want and then we can add, you know something else on the side or you know make sure that you're not splitting your time equally because yeah, you have to pick the thing, that is the main thing and really say 80% of my time is going to be spent in this business and what the 80% looks like, you can figure it out, you know, and then the balance 20% is used on the new thing that you're thinking about and then you can kind of compartmentalize it, another pieces, you know, I think you need to get the other the main business to a point where you could say can I outsource something so that I can have some time to invest in this other piece of the business and if you can't afford to do that then maybe that's not the right thing to do in this moment, continue to brainstorm or a smaller percentage of your time needs to go into that until you grow the other business to a point where you could outsource or you know an outsourcing doesn't have to mean hiring somebody, it could just mean you know, investing in an app to automate something. It could be something as small as that. Um So there's just a couple of ways I think to think about it in a way where you're not spending too much time on the new shiny object. Yeah, you're not treating all your time.

I'm so glad you mentioned outsourcing because that was my next question for you, Do you outsource if you do, when did you start, what does that look like?

I do outsource. Um And it's another thing I've been working on. Um So I pretty much I will say I have a V. A. That let's see it would have been June of this year when she started I'm about a year at least behind on needing to have brought her into the business. So yeah. Yeah so that was um that's a big eye opener and it's been fantastic and growing every month we add more onto our plate. So it's been great. Um I made the decision to bring in a higher level of V. A. To help with higher level tasks so that they're able to do some of the thinking for me, which has been a really big relief. Um In terms of yes, it I think could be an O. B. M. So it has a V. A title but like a little bit higher level versus like more entry level tasks. Um So my next step would be to have another more entry level via to take some of the more entry level things off. Um I've been investing heavily in systems this year to investing not just financially but also time to get systems in place so that things are more automated and and things like that versus my initial instinct was to hire all these people and then I realized that my systems actually weren't set up for scaling and so I really, every Q four I scale past what I expect that I could because of just business growth and then it causes me to see all the areas of my business. Yes. And so last Q four I was I thought to myself, yeah, okay, I need systems in the business before I hire another soul. And so it's been system investing. It's been via investing. And then um I have some people that I outsource certain small things to like project based. Um And then I have people that rap, there's 11 person that comes in weekly and wraps and then at the holidays bringing in more people. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. The whole physical product. Yeah.

A whole other side of things that yeah I was gonna ask you about, the systems you use, what did you end up doing with your website?

So I have um based on Shopify and so everything's shoot through Shopify which if you have a product business or you're thinking about it, that's the platform I would definitely recommend um because they have a ton of apps and things that you can add in to really customize it. So I use Shopify for um for all of the gifting side of the business. And then um there's a landing page for the coaching component that books out and connects to Honey Book for that booking and invoicing. Oh nice, nice. Yeah I love that. And then do you zap zap here? Yeah. I don't use it yet. I think that there will be some needs. I'm working slash brainstorming on some things for Q. One of 2023 I think that will be needed for that to connect some more things. Um But right now because most things are housed in Shopify, it's all kind of working that way. Yeah. Shopify. My sister uses Shopify for her jewelry business that we have to talk about.

What's her business? I need to look it up, let's give her a shout out. Yeah, she is Bellabling jewelry, so it's https://www.bellablingshop.com I believe. Okay, I'm writing it down. Yeah, let's give her a shout out. She's going to love that. Funny. Like I very rarely talked about her business on this show and I'm like oh my gosh sometimes you know, you know family you don't think. But um she really like Shopify and I know that it's been working really well for her.

Yeah, it's great for you can do. I've been playing around with it with digital products um you know like housing my own freebie on there and so you can do things like that, which is really nice. What will get complicated is the course component um So yeah, Q. One, I'll circle back and let you know how that goes. Okay, that sounds good.

Now do you do email for Shopify too, or?

No, so Shopify has automated emails um put the post purchase order confirmation, the delivery out for delivery um to the delivery confirmation and what's the other one? Um like cart abandonment and things like that. So I have those just kind of automated one setup but I use clay vo for the actual email platform, which is more of a product based business platform. Um It's not as user friendly or beautiful as like a flow desk but it's really incredible um in terms of segmentation and things that you can do to really um optimize your list, especially if you have Shopify that links in and connect with that so you can do some unique things there. Yeah, yeah. Um someone asked, cause we're live right now, I was curious how hard Shopify is to learn. Do you want to speak to that? So Shopify, I would say, okay, so I would say, you know, it's not that hard if you understand if you are willing to learn some basic coding um and I don't mean coding in terms of like you need to be a super data person, you know, you don't have to be a coder, but if you go to Youtube and you're comfortable to like search how to do some things, you can figure some things out. There's the Shopify 2.0 we just launched or relaunched the Bocu website a couple of weeks ago now and we basically brought it up to the two point Oh theme and it's so much more user friendly than before. So I am learning things daily on this new um the new theme, I have a lot of customization on my site because of the stage than that in my business and also because of the gift box building component. So there's a lot of custom coding done for me, I'm not sure what business you'd be, you know that the person that asked the question is um is looking to build if it's a little bit more simple, there's tons of beautiful themes that you could customize to your own brand. So I would say if you're looking for a more basic site, absolutely can use it and then you might need to hire somebody, Shopify has people that can come in and help you. Um they're really great with customer service asking questions and helping you with that.

So that's awesome. Yeah, I used Youtube for pretty much all of my yeah, that I've ever felt. Yeah, the first thing I did was on was a Wordpress site um and I used bluehost and I, I actually was like teaching myself coating. It was no Wordpress was never in the cards for me. Yeah, and there's a girl in a group I'm in now and she was talking about her Wordpress site and I'm just like, girl, good luck.

Yeah, there are major, major, major brand like retail brands on Shopify. So you don't have to have a fully custom coded site, you can start, I think that the best thing to do is if you're thinking of starting a product business, you get on the right platform to begin with because you'll just be set up for success down the road, you'll already have the framework there and so you can build out a basic site and start to see what your customers, how their shopping, you know what they're doing um when they're on your site, what they're putting in their cart, what the experience is like. So then once you give it some time to get some data, you can then add some apps or bring in a developer to make it a little bit more next level.

Um I waited a couple of years, I would do little changes here and there, but I waited a couple of years and I'm so glad I did before doing a full refresh because I wanted to really like gather information and make sure that I was investing in the right things. If I had Wordpress, I would have had to do a complete website redesign and invest thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to do that because I'm not voting that whole thing. I mean kudos to you girl. It was, I mean like I probably started, it probably took like it just was always, I was always on there like changing something like something and I always needed to do that. Like it was like a full time job, you know? But then itself like, and I remember even just setting it up after I got it because I had no idea, no clue going on. So I like by this like three year subscription, you know, like I'm invested, I'm going and I won't pull it up and I'm like, I don't know it. So I'm just saying yes and thankfully I found, I don't even know who it is to shout them out, but it was like some Youtube channel and it had really short videos, like 2 to 5 minute videos and it walked, it was like 100 and 20 of them and I just kept the tab open and I was three hours every night and then I would just shut my computer, I go to bed and then when I got home from work the next day I would open it up and I go, it was, it is, and the thing is I completely rebranded completely, did you know? And so I, when I stopped paying for it, I lost everything. It's like all that time on the drain. Um, but it was a good experience too. So now I can talk about that that we talked about what not to do exactly what not to do well. And it's so funny because a lot of people complain about the price of Kajabi, which it is expensive totally is, especially if you're not making money yet, but it's so simple, like it's so like your time, like, I feel like it's worth the time that I get back not having to spend the hours coding and trying to get out in.

Yeah, I feel like if you can use a job be for multiple things, then you have to weigh the investment versus what it can do for you, if you just have one, you know, small thing that you're selling, it's probably not worth the investment up front. So you got to think about a different way to go about it. Maybe it's hosting a site on Squarespace because you can get a free, you know, you can host a free website on there and then you can have something link out to a google drive or something because I think that people are becoming more and more okay with uh anti perfectionism. Is that the word with receiving something that's really high, if you're giving really high value content and what you're giving looks giving to the person that's buying looks beautiful. It doesn't have to be hosted in Kajabi. You know, you don't have to have it be completely perfect. Um It's just about getting it out there and I think before you invest in a website to any degree, you should make sure that you have proof of concept and that what you're doing is actually wanted by your customer.

Yeah. Yeah, 100% 100%. I totally agree with that. Um And wait until they have like specials. Yeah. That's the other thing, that's my other tip affiliate code. Wait till they have some special where it's like three months free instead of one month. And then yeah, there you go. Oh my gosh, there was something else when you were just talking that I was like, oh I need to ask her about that. Um we're talking about proof of concept websites. I should have written it down, I'm gonna forget it might come back to you. I know I know it might um tell us super quick and then I just realized that we've already been on here 30 minutes so then we will wrap up um how do you, so you're an Instagram user? Is that correct? Is that where you like mainly use social or do you use other platforms for social? So yeah, I'm on Facebook and I don't have a huge following on Facebook but people are engaged on there. Um so Facebook um Tiktok trying to use like 65 followers, but hey, I'm on there. And Instagram and I think um I don't know if we necessarily consider Pinterest social necessarily, but also on Pinterest. So and which one do you see the most traffic coming in from, you know, so the most traffic is definitely through Instagram. Um it's, I'm not sure what's going on lately. It's been a little up and down. I think that identity crisis on who they want to be and what they want people to be. Um, but yeah, I think that most of the traffic is coming through coming through Instagram, there's no traffic coming through Tiktok, but that is just because there isn't a strategy behind my posting schedule. So um and then Pinterest, which maybe isn't necessarily um social but that is growing a lot. We have, that's one of the things that um the V. A. Has been owning is a Pinterest strategy and already seeing the results from that. So I'm really excited to see what happens in Q. Four when people are really looking for gifts because we are such a visual brand. I feel like I um have been a little late to the game with actually utilizing Pinterest the way I think that it could be used. So I'm excited to see where that goes. I think it's going to be, I think that's going to be the biggest traffic driver for us. I wondered about Pinterest because I feel like your brand's lens really well to Pinterest like paul please. Yeah I think are being funky. No problem. We can't even hear anything.

So what is your Pinterest strategy if you don't mind?

Yeah so basically we are pinning Um 66 times a week. There are pins going out and been really focused on repurposing and leveraging the content. Having our content do work for us and work longer because with Instagram obviously things go away in 24 hours and they don't even get seen for 24 hours. It's like that first few minutes really that they are seen. And so the strategy has been specifically with bringing the via on board, we started working on Pinterest content in June July and August specific for holiday. So going back on our old blogs and leveraging existing content that we had and also creating new pins that are holiday specific and it for felt like okay that's a weird time of year because no one's really looking for holiday yet, but we all know the data shows that Pinterest takes longer for people to start looking for things and so you need to have the content out there and kind of sitting and waiting for people to start finding it. So um, it's really interesting to see, we've done a mix of holiday. Um, so the gifting that we do that we do hand wrapped gift boxes and for the holiday time period, people consent individual gifts and then we also have the custom gifting side that I mentioned earlier where people can give their clients holiday gifts and that sort of thing. So I've been posting different types of pins and it's just interesting to see what people are already starting to click on the top keywords that they're looking at. So that's really been the strategy is looking like three months ahead to what's coming and pinning now about those things. Yeah, I had heard that like always be like a season or two ahead with your pinning, like pinning October stuff and like you said somewhere and which kind of yeah, let's, let's be real, I procrastinate. So I'm not about to be searching for stuff this far out, but I guess there are people who do that. Yeah, so I think once it's, you know, once it is more up and running, I'll be, you know, we're also pinning the current content that's being posted. So it's kind of a double thing happening right now we're pinning specifically for the future season, but then also repurposing existing current content to Pinterest. So that, that will have a, you know, by next fall are we'll have a whole bank of pins already there, plus we'll start pinning new ones leading up to that fall collection. So it's kind of a layering game. And so we already are seeing results from it. I have this one pin that's pinned from 2018. I've had millions of saves and um, clicks through to the site. It's the most bananas pin and that has been booming the last couple of weeks. I'm like, check it out. I don't know if I'm following on, I have to see is it shop it's Shop Dokubo see you. I'll send it over to you. Yeah, yeah. So speaking of, tell us all the ways that we can connect with you and guys, I'll make sure these are all linked in the show notes too. So you can just click Perfect. So, well, that's the perfect segue because it is, everything is Shopbocu See you. So our website is www.shopbocu.com, instagram is shop do Tiktok Pinterest facebook, all the places. Um so I would love if you send me a DM you know, anybody that's listening to this with any questions if you're looking to start your own shop, feel free to DM me and we can talk about all the things to get you up and running. Yes, yes, and I love the branding, that's another branding tip guys, when you are getting your business going, have everything be the same, like the same handle so that you like, you can not do that at first. So like mine, a couple of mine are different and I'm always like, crap is it? Which one is that? You know, just having one, it makes it really just simple and easy to just be like, just come find me at poku. There you go now, the hard part is just telling people how to spell it. So yeah, um and Kristen before we hop off here, what is your last personal development book that you read that you recommend or favorite podcast? Favorite podcast. Well, I am a big Ash Mcdonald fan speaking of kind of a more woo woo vibes, She's a former therapist and I think just amazing with mindset work, which is something I'm constantly working on because I am a major worker and so I like to have the reminder to kind of lean into my energy, so I really enjoy her. Um the let's see, I'm currently reading, chill and prosper. Um I'm about halfway through that or maybe a quarter of the way through that and of course cannot think of the author's name right now, but I can, I know what you're referring to. Yeah, and it's just, it goes back to the mindset thing, I think as I'm gearing up for Q four, which is the craziest time I've said it a million times, so you're probably hearing but gearing up for that, I have to do a lot of mental work, to prepare myself to remind me to have boundaries and to have I can have a really successful business and not like drive myself into the ground so that mindset work happening to gear up for sure. So what's your routine look like this time of year? Do you try to keep it about the same or do your work hours get longer right now? The work hours definitely get longer. Um But with that said I am hoping that the work I have been doing this year with outsourcing with systems um with hiring more seasonal help are going to really help to alleviate some of that because I have set this expectation for myself that just because I'm in Q4 that means okay my life is kind of over, I can't go to things my family as much, I can't enjoy thanksgiving really because black friday is a couple hours away, you know, I kind of set this expectation, so I'm really trying to change the narrative with how I view my really busy time, the hours are going to for sure increase because that's just the nature of the game but um you know just what I'm trying to do is just get a little bit better each year with planning things in advance, getting content further out, you know, done further out um reducing my different, you know, my school account so that I have less products, which in turn automatically means less work. Um so just trying to get better each season and like take the learnings from the prior, so yeah, yeah, I feel like that's so important is to go back and analyze all that. Like where can we streamline things even more? Yeah, they can always be better. Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh girl, I'm so excited for you and just like proud of hearing like just all your stuff. I mean I know I'm not your coach but your friends. Oh thank you. No, thank you, I appreciate you, you're amazing. Oh I appreciate you too and thank you for your time because I do know this is your busy season. No, I'm not quite there yet, it's getting there. But if this was, I wouldn't have even been able to do this in three weeks, so perfect timing. Okay, perfect. Well guys, make sure that you connect with Kristen all of the places, screenshot this, share this in your stories and tag us with the takeaway we would love to hear from you and Kristen again. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you so much and that's a wrap on today's episode. I hope you're leaving today inspired princess to create own and spread your magic to the world. If you found by you in this episode or no, a girlfriend who needs to hear it, would you screenshot it and send it to her and if you're feeling really generous, pop it up on your IG Stories and tag me at Lindsay Dollinger so I can see you loved it and tell you, thank you. I appreciate you. Now let's go do some amazing things by by.

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