January and February are notoriously two of the slowest sales month... which can be a really hard punch in the gut for small business owners, especially after an amazing holiday season!
In this episode, you'll learn about the ONE platform that is known for actually being a big sales driver in January and February and how you can take advantage of building your business with this platform in mind to BEAT the seasonality we otherwise face! Here's to your growth, even in the "off-season"!
LINKS MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
Sign up for the Faire Masterclass to learn how to get in front of your dream boutiques and stores that are a perfect match for your products... instead of letting another platform just collect DUST!
LEARN MORE FROM MONICA LITTLE
Website: www.monicalittlecoaching.com
January and February are notoriously two of the slowest sales month... which can be a really hard punch in the gut for small business owners, especially after an amazing holiday season!
In this episode, you'll learn about the ONE platform that is known for actually being a big sales driver in January and February and how you can take advantage of building your business with this platform in mind to BEAT the seasonality we otherwise face! Here's to your growth, even in the "off-season"!
LINKS MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
Sign up for the Faire Masterclass to learn how to get in front of your dream boutiques and stores that are a perfect match for your products... instead of letting another platform just collect DUST!
LEARN MORE FROM MONICA LITTLE
Website: www.monicalittlecoaching.com
[00:00:00] Monica Little: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Product Biz podcast. My name is Monica Little and I am so excited to share with you today another episode of Quick Tip Wednesday. So in Quick Tip Wednesday, I give you actionable tips and insights, 15 minutes or less for you to learn something that you can go back and apply to your business.
[00:00:22] I'm super excited today to be talking about the number one place where you should be focusing your time in January. This is the time of year where things start to slow down. And I wanna start with a very quick story of when I left my full-time job. It was December 31st, 2019. I had my last day. . I had a pretty good holiday season on Etsy.
[00:00:47] I had participated in some markets throughout November and December before I left my full-time job. And I was like, all right, things are going good. If this keeps growing at this rate, things are going to be amazing. I [00:01:00] am so ready. I left my full-time job January hip, and I was like, oh my gosh. Where did all of my sales go?
[00:01:10] What is going on? Why are things so slow? And it's so funny when you work for your business full-time, you're like, okay, I can now dedicate 40 hours per week to my business. My growth is going to get more and more and more bigger and bigger. Bigger, more sales, more sales, more sales every single day.
[00:01:27] Because the more time I put in, the more my business. . I had known of this thing called seasonality. I had worked in corporate jobs where we talked about seasonality all the time. At Expedia, we talk about seasonality with when people are booking vacations, but for some reason, I thought seasonality wasn't going to affect me, and I had quite the rude awakening in January and February after I left my full-time job.
[00:01:51] That seasonality is a real thing, and especially this year, some of the economic things happening. [00:02:00] People are watching their spending after the holidays and it's normal and it's okay. So I wanna just mention that story and mention that a slow January or February is totally normal. And even if you're putting in more time than ever, more effort than ever, more investing than ever.
[00:02:22] If you're not seeing the results in January and February, just know that it's going to take some time. There's seasonality and you're setting yourself up for success. Once things start to pick up again, just know that deep down. But the one thing I wanna mention is the one place there actually is an opportunity in January and February, which I wasn't aware of back then, which is selling.
[00:02:46] So if you don't know what Faire is, Faire is a wholesale e-commerce marketplace. So what this means is retail shop owners, people who own physical brick and mortar stores, people who have [00:03:00] boutiques, people who own online shops, They go on fair to search for products to buy to fill their shelves. So if you think about a boutique in Chicago who is buying items on Fair that fit the theme of their shop perfectly in order to sell for the upcoming months, this is basically what Fair is.
[00:03:20] Fair is a wholesale e-commerce marketplace that brings together boutique and retail shop owners with the independent small business owners like. Fair is an incredible platform to be on because they do a ton of marketing. There's hundreds of thousands of retailers on the fair platform. You can get into so many stores that you might not be able to get into with your own sheer effort of reaching out to stores.
[00:03:50] Right? So Fair is a beautiful place to have your product. The interesting thing about Fair, the interesting thing about January and February is that [00:04:00] it's a big time for trade shows. So if you know what a trade show is, it's basically like a market, right? We've you and I, we've sold at markets. . A trade show is a huge, huge market where a lot of buyers from different stores, different chains, different huge stores like Whole Foods, for example, are walking around looking to see what perspective new products are out there that they wanna have on their shelves.
[00:04:26] That's what a trade show is. Those happen a lot in January and February as retailers are getting ready for spring, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, even Mother's Day, they're looking for fresh new stock for the rest of the year. There are these physical in-person trade shows, which cost literally thousands of dollars to participate.
[00:04:48] Set up your booth, put up your products to be in front of these huge name brands. an even better way to do this that won't cost you thousands of dollars, doesn't require [00:05:00] travel, doesn't require getting set up at a physical trade show, is to be on fair and to participate in their fair winter market. The Fair Winter Market is basically an online trade show where they hype up all the retailers, the buyers, the store owners, and encourage them to shop during these three days.
[00:05:21] to get some great deals on. Fair. It happens from January 24th to 26th, and I think there's a one day before at like a V I P shopping day, but it's an online selling event. And basically what Fair does is they are promoting to all the retailers, shop owners, boutique owners said, Hey, this is a time to shop on fair.
[00:05:42] You're going to make great sales.
[00:05:50] They're basic. This is the time to shop on fair, because you're gonna get a great deal. There's gonna be some sales, you're gonna have a ton of awesome small [00:06:00] businesses on the platform. They're refreshing their catalogs, and now is the time to shop. And what fair does is to incentivize the small business owner like you and.
[00:06:11] they will match a certain percentage of the promotion that you set up on the platform to incentivize you to provide a discount, but also to make that discount even more lucrative for the online boutique retail shop owner who's looking to buy unfair during this event. So let's put it in example. . I think what fair is doing this year is if you participate in Fair Winter Market and you offer, let's say 20% off Fair will add an additional 5% that they will cover.
[00:06:45] So now your products are 25% off, but that 5% fair is covering, so it's not affecting your margin. But now instead of 20% off, the retailers are getting 25% off. And because of all the hype that Fair builds on this, they're getting more [00:07:00] retailers, more boutiques onto the. They're encouraging small business owners to provide a discount to participate in the fair winter market, and this is the online trade show that you have to be selling your products in, because otherwise, January and February can be pretty slow, so you have to make use of the opportunities at hand, and this is an amazing way to do.
[00:07:26] just to put it into context, the last fair market, I sold $3,400 worth of plant-based beauty products across the three or four days of the market, so that's $3,400 worth, and there wasn't much that I did other than previously. I had optimized my fair platform to make sure I had all the right information, the right photos, the right tags, the right details that retailers need, the right settings that make it appealing for.
[00:07:56] and I had my products eligible and on [00:08:00] sale for this promotion during the winter market, $3,400 in sales. And then I have this really fun strategy on how to keep the momentum going after the fair winter market is over. And I got an additional $600 worth of sales in the four or five days after fair winter market ended.
[00:08:19] So a total of $4,000 sold in about a week and a. for a normally slow period. Like that's amazing. That's a game changer for a small business, especially for a small business who works for themselves full-time, which you may or may not be, but this is where you have to be unfair. One thing I wanna mention, unfair is a lot of people have this misconception of, if I just get my products on fair, if I get accepted on fair, the retailers are gonna come to me.
[00:08:50] And I've seen this happen time and time again when people are like so excited they got accepted out to Faire and they just can't wait for all the orders. And I wanna tell you that Faire [00:09:00] is like any other platform out there. You have to know how to work it for it to work for you. It's just like Etsy. If you put your stuff on Etsy, but you don't know how to do it the right way, you're not going to get the results that.
[00:09:13] If you get accepted unfair, and you put your products on there without knowing the right way, you're not gonna get in front of the right retailers. And this is what I hear over and over from people, is that they struggle with getting in front of the right buyers who are actually interested in their products and want to purchase.
[00:09:28] And this is where we talk about optimizing the algorithm. And people maybe don't like to hear these words of optimizing an algorithm, but it's the nature of the beast. So when you get. , you have to optimize it in the right way. If you're currently on fair and you're not getting repeat orders or even initial orders to begin with, then that means that there's some work that needs to be done.
[00:09:54] But just know that this is an amazing platform to be on. [00:10:00] They provide these awesome. Two times a year that bring retailers and boutique owners to you. You get your products stocked in shelves, nationwide, even worldwide, based on the retailers that are shopping on fair. And you get exposure to more clients, more customers.
[00:10:17] So this is how we start to think big picture when we talk about this four day event, but how massive the impact can be on your business. So imagine you're now stocked in 10 more stores. From Fair, and they each have 200 customers that come in on a monthly basis. And out of those 200 customers, 20 of them bought your products.
[00:10:43] And if you're smart and have your Instagram label on your products and your website, on your products, which you should, then now they're potentially following you on Instagram and buying from you directly. Or if they're following you on Instagram, now you can promote to them and talk to them and build that no like and trust factor so that they want to buy from you and [00:11:00] continue to try more and more and more of your products.
[00:11:02] So this is how it all comes full circle with this amazing. January event that is at your fingertips. I wanna mention a resource that I have for you, which is my fair masterclass. This is my favorite masterclass because it's quick and it's easy. and you get instant results. I can't tell you how many people have joined my Fair Masterclass and I get messages a week later saying, oh, just made some changes.
[00:11:31] Already got an order on Fair. There is strategy with every single setting on fair. There's intent behind it. There's psychology of marketing. There's understanding what the retailers want, and one reason why I love to talk about Fair is if you get those pieces, Then it's just this passive income. These retailers that keep buying from you over and over and over and over In this Fair Masterclass, it's an hour [00:12:00] and a half and you learn every single setting updates, pointer, tip, unknown, secret to fair that you need to know to be successful on fair.
[00:12:11] It's that simple. It's not like Etsy. I'll tell you straight up. Etsy is pretty challenging. Etsy will require a little bit of time and effort. Etsy, is a different beast. Fair on the other hand, is a little bit simpler, and you can learn the ins and outs in an hour and a half in this masterclass. And then, After that, it'll take you maybe an hour, hour and a half to make the changes and you will be set up to have an awesome, fair winter market that's happening in a couple weeks.
[00:12:42] And after that, you will be set up to get in front of more retailers, consistently unfair, to keep getting more sales, more money, funnily into your business to keep your business growing. I will link the Fair Masterclass in the show notes here, or you can go to my Instagram page on Monica Little Coaching, [00:13:00] and it is listed in the link in my bio, but a hundred percent without, without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best masterclass to join.
[00:13:06] It's simple, it's easy, it's my least expensive course, and you will see instant results and I am just so excited for the people who already have joined, the new people that are signing up. And I'm here to support you and make sure that you have your best 2023 yet. And I'm here to support you and make sure that you have your best 2023 possible.
[00:13:29] So that's all I wanna mention today. It's this little sneak peek into fair. What is fair? Who's it for? Why is it beneficial? How does this play into your overall? Business and where you can get a resource to learn how to knock it out of the fricking ballpark instead of being on another platform that's just collecting dust.
[00:13:49] So let's make shit happen this year, and if you have any questions, reach out to me on Instagram, Monica Little Coaching, and I will talk to you next week on the next episode of the product biz podcast.[00:14:00]