TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
love, people, customers, founder, burglary, business, shoes, marketing, brand, challenge, listeners, bigger, fun, utah, starting, learnings, inventory, e commerce, viral, sharing
SPEAKERS
Noah Rahimzadeh, Liz Reyes, Mariah Parsons
Mariah Parsons 00:04
Greetings and welcome to retention Chronicles podcast with learnings from expert e commerce, brands and partners. I'm Ryan Parsons,
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:12
and I'm no Rahim today, if you're here, you're either on a quest for E commerce enlightenment, or you accidentally click the wrong link. Either way, we're thrilled you stumbled into our corner of the internet.
Mariah Parsons 00:22
And hey, even if you're not on the E commerce hype train, stick around. We promise it'll be worth your while. We've got pearls of wisdom for everyone, whether you're running a business or just trying to keep your house plans a lot. Exactly.
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:33
So before we unleash the brilliance of today's episode, let's give a shout out to our fantastic sponsor Malomo.
Mariah Parsons 00:40
They're the wizards behind the curtain, making the post purchase experience smoother than a jazz solo,
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:45
hit that subscribe button like it will increase LTV overnight, and check out our other episodes go malomo.com That's GOMALO mo.com yet
Mariah Parsons 00:55
ready for insights chuckles and possibly a profound realization or two. Here's our newest episode of retention Chronicles. Hello, everyone, and welcome to retention Chronicles where we talk about customer retention quite a lot. Super excited to be back with you all today. Liz, thank you for joining, I am thrilled to chat with you. I know we were having fun even before we started recording. So I'm excited to continue doing so if you would say hello to our listeners and give a quick introduction of yourself that would be much appreciated. Hi,
Liz Reyes 01:28
again, thank you for having me. My name is Liz Rand's I am the founder of soled shoes. And we have been in business for about six years now.
Mariah Parsons 01:39
Wonderful. Thank you. So can you tell us a little bit about sell shoes, you know, like what inspired you to start it? I always think it's great to give context to listeners just before we dive into like more of the tactical side of things, and really give us like a rounded picture of yeah, just like your founding story and what that was all like, because I'm sure it's been fun time.
Liz Reyes 02:02
Yeah, I mean, it's the complicated answer that honestly can be answered in so many different ways. But ideally, so when I, when I first graduated college, I went into marketing and sales and a bunch of other stuff. And I started to gain weight. And I didn't like shopping for pants or like clothes because it was, you know, depressing, which it shouldn't be. But that's a whole nother conversation. Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 02:30
that's for another day. And we won't dive
Liz Reyes 02:33
into that. But, um, shoes was like my only thing that I really loved shopping for because I was obviously the same size. And that was kind of what sparked it. And then I'm met the people that made the shoes. So my parents brought me a pair. I'm from Mexico originally, my parents brought me a pair of what we call watches. And I was wearing them every single day. And so then long story short, we met the people that make them it's very much like a cocoa situation where it's like, aunts, uncles, it's like a family affair. it's generational. It's like, it really is a work of art, like people handcraft, the shoes, all of our shoes are handcrafted. They're all genuine leather. So long story short, it became something bigger, it was more of a way for us to one, bring our culture stateside and like share that with everyone else. But also provide living wages for all of these artisans. So that they didn't have to rely on tourism, whether it was up or down, especially during COVID. Or the weather even so it became something bigger than initially it was like initially, it was like an innocent. Oh my gosh, I just love shopping for shoes, because nothing outfits, but I became something bigger after that.
Mariah Parsons 03:51
Yeah, I love that. They are beautiful. Like of course, I was doing my due diligence and all of in your website yesterday. Our listeners will know that's not Yeah, surprising that I do that all the time. And so yeah, they're they're beautiful shoes. And I love that. It kind of came from this place of like, were you ever were you ever planning or had any interest in owning your own business? Or truly was it just something you saw? Like there's such beauty and elegance in this craftsmanship and like I want to continue to bring that to other people who would benefit from having, you know, the issues in their life.
Liz Reyes 04:31
I think a little bit of both. So my like I come from a family of entrepreneurs like my dad's an entrepreneur. His whole family really is and when I graduated college, I actually started a marketing agency with a friend from college. And that went for a couple of years before I exited and wet and basically traveled. So I had already owned a business previously and So I liked the freedom of it. When I came back and I started working in corporate, for a few years, I felt like something was dying inside of me. Like having to work nine to five. It just it's not my lifestyle. And so I knew I wanted to do something different. And honestly, like, it's hard. It's hard being an entrepreneur most of the time, but I still love it. Like, the benefits are still outweigh the cons for me.
Mariah Parsons 05:30
Yes, yeah, that is totally fair. Um, so speaking of, you know, like benefits and cons, what I think there's a lot of learnings to absorb, especially for our listeners, who are, you know, either in the midst of founding their own brand or who are thinking about it, there's a lot to be said about learning from other people's challenges. And so one of the things that I love to do is kind of dive into, and we can get as tactical as we can on this of what was what would you say was your biggest tactical challenge when you were starting out? And is that still a challenge today? Do you think it'll forever be a challenge? Or if it's not? What is? How did it what was the storyline of kind of solving, solving that challenge?
Liz Reyes 06:18
Um, I mean, when you're starting out, I feel like everything's a tactical challenge. Like, even just knowing where to set up your website, right? Like, there's so many different options. And, like, not knowing anything about any of them, when you're starting out, you like have no idea how to pick the right one. And most people pick Shopify, which is luckily what we ended up doing. But I, I've heard other people that have chosen other options, and it sounds like a nightmare. So luckily, we just like, by chance, like I mean, I did a little bit of research, and I was like, this looks easy enough. So I'm going to do this one. And then just setting up the actual website with a theme and all that stuff, and then setting up like shipping and like operations for that. So I think it's like diving into something new that I had no idea or knew anyone that was doing it in my like, immediate network, that it was just kind of like, go for it. Like I'm just gonna figure it out. Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 07:22
yeah. It's, it's that like mentality of, I think a lot of entrepreneurs find themselves with it. Like, this is a problem. Let's just go see what we can do. And we'll get somewhere, right, like, yeah, the misstep, and you might have to backpedal. Luckily, it sounds like you all made the right step of starting with Shopify, for setting up the website and kind of getting operations up and running. Was that was that solely you? Or did you have any help? Yeah,
Liz Reyes 07:48
so my sister, I co founded it with my sister. But everything tactical and everything was on me. She was mostly just like, finance, and then monotonous things, which is not my my wheelhouse. So I had to set everything else up, like our Instagram, our website, like, eventually our email marketing and everything else that comes with it. But yeah, so mostly, I had to do everything and just kind of googling it, honestly.
Mariah Parsons 08:18
Yeah. Right. A lot of the times, I think, yeah, I think to myself, like the accessibility of just how to solve all these different problems and having the internet it's not lost on me. Yeah. Yeah. Just like all the visibility that you have into the experiences of others. And I hope people use this podcast in the same way, right. So obviously, that hopefully is no longer a challenge of having to get all that stuff up and running. So would you say that, that, like, the biggest challenge you're facing currently is in the realm of just making sure like operationalize or optimizing all operations and marketing and still focusing on on that? Or is there a new problem that you all have grown and have kind of established yourself in this space that you're you all are facing? Yeah,
Liz Reyes 09:06
um, I mean, it's, we're kind of in an interesting spot right now, because we had a burglary happened recently. Oh, yeah. So they broke in and took like, $50,000 worth of our inventory. Sorry, that's crazy. Oh, yeah, it was wild, which like, obviously, being in business for so long, that had never happened. And so it's a new challenge that we hadn't had to deal with. And so, right now, I guess our challenge is more on the operational side, like we were running smoothly until now. And so now it was kind of it was like right after Christmas. So it was kind of a nightmare trying to fulfill unfulfilled orders with stock that like inventory that had been stolen, and then it was more it was kind of going back to ground zero of physically counting and everything, seeing what we could fulfill, like, what do we have on ECAM inventory right now? Does it match? What like, what are we missing that kind of thing. And so it's been like eight weeks now. And so now we're finally kind of getting caught up of like, okay, I think we caught up all of our orders. Anything we couldn't fulfill, we had to refund, obviously. And then now it's like, Okay, now this is our inventory that's available. So now we can start selling again, essentially. So yeah, all right now, I guess our biggest challenge is operations, but totally, fairly, because they weren't working. It was more because we just had this random challenge happened to us.
Mariah Parsons 10:40
Yeah, God, I'm so sorry. Again, that is one of those I have not Yeah, I haven't come across another one of our guests or founders or any brand operators who have had to face that challenge of it. So are your Yeah, it's completely out of your not responsibility out of your hands, I guess. Yeah. So can I can we double click on? I have a couple of questions. But I want to be sensitive, obviously, of what you all are experiencing? I'm curious what and share as much, or as little as you would like, what the experience of like a burger Larry looks like from, like, customer wise, of, are you sharing that with customers? Because I know that one of the things when we're looking at the post purchase experience when people are waiting for their orders to arrive to them is we're always aware of not wanting to frustrate customers when, you know, expectations change or all that. And I think like proactive shipping notifications help on that end, but something like a burglary where you're not expecting. Whereas shipment delays, you can you know, give or take a little bit more. What is your approach with? Yeah, just customer communication and how you're kind of trying to mitigate potential customer frustration?
Liz Reyes 12:04
Yeah, so I mean, it was interesting. So I mean, a little bit of backstory is that we were with a third party fulfillment this last year, like a three PL fulfillment center. And we actually decided to take it back in December, which was a terrible choice of timing. But it just in mostly it was because of our post purchase. Like our customers were getting frustrated, they had taken over our customer service emails, customer support, and customer support software. And so it was they weren't communicating with our customers like we would have. And you're right, like we didn't have like a great post purchase flow or like customers weren't very happy, they weren't getting frustrated. So we decided to take stuff back. And then that's when we suffered the burglary. And so it was kind of a mountain of like, people were already getting frustrated, because the three PL wasn't handling things very well. They weren't communicating on stuff. And so that's why we had initially taken it back and then half of our inventory was gone. And so we communicated over, like we obviously sent newsletters, we posted it on our Instagram. And luckily most people were very understanding. There were a few people that maybe they weren't on social media. And so they like they weren't aware, and they were just frustrated, because they're like, Where's my stuff? And we're like, Wow, just so you know, stolen? So it was it was really frustrating trying to sift through things manually again, and like being like, Okay, do we have this? Can we fulfill it? Let's email this person and like emailing every single person, to let them know whether we have it or we don't have it? Or here's a refund or whatever it is. Um, so yeah, I mean, we really like to communicate with our customers. I think it's better as a business if you just let them know what's going on. I do think there's like this stigma. And I think it's mostly going away. But I think there's a stigma of like, Don't Tell, like, you don't let your customers how much you don't let them know how much you're suffering right now. Or like how bad it is because you're supposed to keep it together. But I think customers obviously customers are human. And so I think customers have more of like an empathetic approach to understanding you if you let them know.
Mariah Parsons 14:29
Yes, I love that you kind of rounded out this point of I totally agree. Like I think at surface it is more surface level to say like, oh, just don't tell you know, don't show don't tell. And I feel like that applies to just so much outside of life. Right and like as a society, I really hope and think that we're moving away from like, showing something is weakness and like showing vulnerability. And so like I love that they You're then business, we're moving away, societally, but I think this is such a unique use case, or just circumstance in which to have that approach as well. Because that is something that I've seen in the space of other founders being worried like, Oh, if there's a delay, we shouldn't tell customers or if there's something that goes wrong, but the opposite is true. And that's where it's also kind of a counter. It's a counter argument to something that at first glance, might not sound right. But when I think about me being a consumer, it's like, I would much rather have someone reach out to me and be like, hey, there's an ice storm, you know, nothing about like across the world. Here is your updated delivery. And it's just so it's a small, small thing in the grand scheme of like running a business and keeping it afloat. But it means so much to the customer on a personal level of like, we understand that this was your expectation that you hadn't you purchase something under this expectation, we're sorry that we can't meet it. And here's what we're doing to help you get visibility into these new expectations that hopefully, will help mitigate customer frustration. And I think I would hope any person would, under the same circumstances of suffering or burglary would understand of that is something bigger that you all obviously are having to navigate in the empathetic in that seat. And so I am glad to hear that most were and I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe there were some that you know, you just can't communicate to all customers at once. So, in that, that is just a crazy, crazy challenge to rub up against on top of reorganizing your you know, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like when the going gets bad, right? It only gets tougher, whatever saying the thing. Yeah. So I would love to maybe shine a brighter light on some stuff around like learnings. And thank you for sharing about just just a little bit about the burglary I'm sure it's there's so much deeper, that can be in the past episode, right? So where other than kind of just like straight up Googling something and trying to find answers to specific problems, or just getting your hands in a problem and working through it? What are some of the, I guess the resources are there places that you're looking to think about, like innovative ideas of how to approach certain certain things, or their mentors, or their leaders in the space like thought leaders that you're really tapping into, because I love to give shout outs. I know, like Mackenzie Bauer connected us and she I looked at her as one of those people who is constantly innovating and sharing what she's doing. So there are others in the space that you really are paying attention to, or looking, you know, reaching out to when you're trying to solve different issues.
Liz Reyes 18:02
Yeah, I'm mostly Yeah, like, I think my network and I think to be honest, I feel like as a new founder, it was hard for me to even find that network or tap into it. And there's like a whole other set of conversations we can have behind that. But it was mostly like, it took me a few years to really step into that like, oh, yeah, I'm a founder, I can talk to other founders. And so I'm Mackenzie, whenever people ask me, I always say McKenzie, Bauer is number one, like, she is such a mover and shaker, she will 100% go out of her way to like, get you an answer. If she doesn't know it. Like you're like, I'm in several group chats with her. And someone will ask her and she'll be like, I don't know. But so and so on, my team probably knows, I'll get you an answer by tomorrow. And so, which is very different, like she's just very approachable. She'll give you access to essentially her team. And she will mentor literally anybody. So like, she is just a girl girl. So I think she's probably one of those people that I really like look up to, I don't like to bug her too much. But like, she's definitely one of those people that like, I want to be Mackenzie one day. And then there's other people that will join you in that. There's other people that I specifically look for, like they do certain things. I mean, they do everything really well. But like one specific thing like Darcy Wilde from Cheyenne cosmetics, her affiliate program is insane. Like, the way she has that set up. I like will text her and she's one of those people to that, like, she'll sit down with me and she'll be like, let me help you set this up. Like we can log in together and like do this together. So she's like one of those where it has to do with affiliates. She's like one of those oh two is another really great one. For me that's also become like a personal friend is Rena from perc energy? Which Utah as well. And she just like, she just helps keep me grounded. She like has real conversations with me. She's like, I know business is hard. But like, we're still standing kind of thing. So I would say those are the names that like, usually come to mind. Lindsay white. Also, we always love to Lindsay white for social media stuff. She's so good at like, connecting with her audience, organically on her social media. And so that's someone that I usually talk to about that stuff, too.
Mariah Parsons 20:42
Yep. Mackenzie also connected me with her. I don't know if you saw but we just had her on the podcast.
Liz Reyes 20:48
I did it. I love Lindsey. And she's so Latina. And we're from like, the same like the west side of Utah. Okay, no. Fun. So we're both kind of the same, like Latinas, first generation. And we've gone to networking events together. And we're like, are we the only women here? Like, are we only the only brown women here? Like, yeah, I love her. She's so good at what she does, too. She's so good at marketing stuff.
Mariah Parsons 21:17
Yeah, oh, I was like I, I just from a small conversation. I feel like you can learn a lot about a person and I have this scene and I don't know, Darcy or Reena. But Lindsey and Mackenzie and Megan, the Utah crew just seen like the EECOM, Utah cruise seems like the place to be. And yeah, she Lindsay is so creative. And I really have appreciated, just like following what they're doing and seeing all the seeing all the fun stuff and getting inspired by it. So I love that. Yeah, I'm
Liz Reyes 21:52
not even a mom. But like, I want, like,
Mariah Parsons 21:55
I want us that. Yeah. But I interviewed her. She was wearing one of her trucker hats. And I was like, it was the time when on social media, it was trending of like, getting a surprise trucker hat for like a vacation. And then all of you are wearing different ones. I don't know if you saw that. But I was like, You need to tap into that somehow. Because that is I would wear that hat all the time. So we were having we are having a nice laugh about that.
Liz Reyes 22:20
Yeah, I still buy her like, I'll buy her bras and stuff. Like, obviously, I'm not breastfeeding. But like they're still so comfy. But like I still watch it for that.
Mariah Parsons 22:29
Yeah, exactly. Right. And that's how you can tell it's like a great product is functional. But it's also just so cute and comfy that you want to wear it even when you're not like using it for its function of like breastfeeding or whatever else. And that's exactly what we were talking about on the podcast is like being able to have kind of the best of both worlds, like function and comfort and fashion. So I guess that's the three worlds. So I wanted to ask you a couple of call it industry call it experience specific questions. And you have such powerful stats that I want to read out for our listeners. And you hinted out, you know, like beginning when you were founding soles, shoes, just like the marketing and sales kind of handling more of that sister was handling some of the finances and whatnot. But correct me if I'm wrong. You grew the marketing and sales year over year 235% profitable in one year and then hit seven figures in revenue in 18 months within 18 months. Is that all correct? Okay, wonderful. So probably was it but I have to ask, what was the journey? Like? Was it smooth?
Liz Reyes 23:45
No. Not at all. Yeah, I don't I don't think it was smooth.
Mariah Parsons 23:53
Yeah, rarely nothing. I've met a single founder who said it has so but I will keep asking. Yeah,
Liz Reyes 23:59
um, I think it was, it was especially hard doing it like it. Like I mentioned before, I felt like I was doing it on my own, where I didn't have a network or, like, knew other people doing it. And so it was hard to like, know exactly what to do. And we wouldn't when we first started, it was like, we just kind of posted the issues on Instagram and saw if people liked them. And obviously like at first it's like friends and family so they're just supporting you and then it just kind of starts to snowball from there. And I've like I mentioned I've done marketing before and so that was kind of my wheelhouse and I'm a creative person and so it was mostly having fun with it. And I do I do like to I mentioned Do I like to kind of shoot from the hip. I I'm not a big planner. And so to be honest, like it was bumpy, but it was also like we got lucky as well. Good Getting there. But sustaining that growth was not luck, like sustaining that growth is like, take planning. And so it's kind of taken me like, I have to get into planning, I have to get into like, analyzing data, I have to get into all this other stuff. That doesn't naturally come to me. And so I have to, like, find people that can teach me that. But yeah, I mean, it's been a hard journey. I cry a lot. I think I cry still. I joke about having mental breakdowns, like all the time. Like, even with my mic. I'm not
Mariah Parsons 25:38
joking. Yeah. Try to I actually, it's
Liz Reyes 25:42
funny because I posted a mental breakdown, reel on my personal Instagram and add it like it's just for fun. I'm not obviously an influencer. But like, it went viral. Like, it's still going viral. Yeah. Like, I got like, 5 million views. And I'm like, Okay, well, that's actually my real life.
Mariah Parsons 25:59
I love it. You're like, this is funny, but also I know, it's so true.
Liz Reyes 26:03
Yeah. Like, I'm actually mentally breaking down at least once or twice a week. So, um, so yeah, it hasn't been easy, but
Mariah Parsons 26:13
I mean, you're doing it, you're doing it. Right. And you're disclosing like, the reality of the situation? Of it's really hard. And yeah, there's no shame or should it be any shame around crying, just needing to emotionally process something and then just being like, okay, and now I'm ready to go and tackle this next piece. That is on my to do list. Yeah. Then that it's like an extra cake or an extra exciting part that it also goes viral? Just because like, of course, that one thing? The one thing Yeah.
Liz Reyes 26:46
I'm like crying about it. Yeah, I also
Mariah Parsons 26:48
had a like, funny, crazy. Just so silly and stupid video go viral. And I was like, This is what people? Okay. Good to know. Right? Yeah, it definitely, definitely put some context into a lot of different things. I know we're coming up on time, because we just weren't getting around to chatting and all that fun stuff before we even hit recording, or the record button, but I want to get your take on what is one thing that like a tactic or strategy that you think is like necessary for all people to focus on when they're founding a brand.
Liz Reyes 27:29
Um, I think nailing down who you are and who you want to be as a brand. I think especially in the beginning, and even just in general, not even in the beginning. But like, in general, I think it's very easy to start comparing yourself to other brands. And we naturally do that even like as humans, right. And like, we naturally always compare ourselves to people that are ahead of us, which could be good in the way that like, it can motivate you to get there, essentially. But it's also very toxic and detrimental, where you start to like, morph into this person that's like, everyone around you instead of yourself. And so you kind of start to get lost. As a blank, you don't even know who you are as a brand or as it like, story, essentially. And so, I think the one thing to focus on, especially in the beginning, and will help with growth is who you are as a brand and your story. And that's what people will connect with. That's what people will buy. And I tell like, I tell my team all the time, like, people aren't buying our shoes, because, I mean, they obviously like our shoes, but people aren't buying our shoes because of the actual shoe. They're buying our shoes because of our story like because of our brand behind it. Like same thing with like with Stanley, that's like a whole other case study. But like there's nothing different about Stanley Cups than any other cups. Like, it's just marketing. It's just the story. Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 29:01
it's literally the branding.
Liz Reyes 29:03
So yeah, I think just focusing on who you want to be as a brand and what your story is.
Mariah Parsons 29:09
Yeah, I love that. And then I'll round us out with this what is one tech or Shopify app that you all you know, you've like seen the power of that you would give a shout out to that you think is you know, a great, great solving a great issue for you guys. Yeah, I always like to ask and see what is top of mind for founders.
Liz Reyes 29:32
Um, I think everyone obviously should have email and like, again, as a founder that starting out you might not know this but I think everyone needs to have email marketing. text marketing is newer, but clay VO We also tried several different other ones clay Vo is probably the best at what they do for E comm. So Clay VO for email marketing is my number one right accommodation for anyone that starting out.
Mariah Parsons 30:01
Yep. Love it. Love it. Shout out our partners. I believe you. Okay, well, Liz, this has been so great. I feel like we flew through it. I want to have like so many more minutes and hours with you. But this has been an absolute blast. I can't wait to get this out to our listeners. Yeah, it's been an incredible, incredible time and so glad McKenzie connected us.
Liz Reyes 30:23
Me too. Thanks for having me.
Mariah Parsons 30:26
Oh, it's my pleasure. Of course. Anytime you anytime we want to talk about any of those other topics. You're more than welcome back on our podcast.