eCommerce Master Plan

eCommerce MasterPlan | 571: The Power of Focus: How Neve’s Bees Grew by Doing Less, Better – with Julie Macken

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Julie Macken is the Deputy Queen Bee of Neve’s Bees a family business turning the produce of their bee hives and local beekeepers into products that are now certified 100% natural. Founded in 2017, they switched focus to eCommerce in 2021. They now sell via their WooCommerce store, wholesale, and a couple of events, and have now reached £100,000 a year and have just sold their 80,000th product. 

She shares how focusing on what truly works — and saying no to what doesn’t — helped her turn a local gifting brand into a six-figure sustainable skincare business. Hear how she refined her eCommerce strategy, built a lean but powerful team, and is now leading a mission to make the skincare industry more honest and eco-friendly. 

It’s always a treat when a past guest returns, and Julie’s comeback episode is packed with even more insights you can apply immediately to grow smarter and operate more sustainably.

Hit PLAY to hear: 

  • The simple shift that helped Neve’s Bees double down on what really drives sales 
  • Why splitting one brand into two strategies unlocked major eCommerce growth 
  • How Julie turned sustainability into a standout marketing story (not just a value) 
  • The key roles she outsourced — and how it boosted profits and freed up her time 
  • The brand placement mistake that nearly hurt their image — and how they fixed it 
  • Julie’s bold mission to take on the skincare industry’s “ultra-processed” problem 

    •  

    Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

    [04:32] Skincare Definition: Face vs Body 

    [06:39] Skin Care eCommerce Revolution 

    [12:17] “Skincare Website Revamp Focus” 

    [16:09] Finding Income Through Quick Solutions 

    [17:27] Small Business Operations Explained 

    [22:23] “Pure Ingredients, No Water” 

    [23:13] Skincare Industry Reform Needed 

    [27:32] Listen to Julie’s Top Tips! 

     

    Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/571  

    —

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    WEBVTT

    00:00.571 –> 00:02.275

    [SPEAKER_02]: There are so many options out there.

    00:02.295 –> 00:11.057

    [SPEAKER_02]: You’ve just got to focus on what works, and what you can do, think about the customer touch points and think about consistency and cohesion on those.

    00:11.438 –> 00:14.445

    [SPEAKER_02]: Collaborate with yourself, make everything cohesive.

    00:17.598 –> 00:20.105

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    00:20.747 –> 00:24.718

    [SPEAKER_00]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

    00:25.259 –> 00:33.362

    [SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

    00:36.093 –> 00:38.496

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.

    00:38.536 –> 00:42.481

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

    00:42.922 –> 00:46.206

    [SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we’re catching up with one of our past guests.

    00:46.587 –> 00:53.917

    [SPEAKER_01]: We’ll have quite a few of these episodes coming up over the next couple of months, as a little continuation of our 10-year anniversary celebrations.

    00:54.397 –> 01:02.488

    [SPEAKER_01]: We haven’t managed to do quite as much on the 10-year celebration front as we wanted, as I have lost a few months of my year.

    01:02.468 –> 01:04.630

    [SPEAKER_01]: to Perry Menopause symptoms.

    01:04.971 –> 01:06.552

    [SPEAKER_01]: Not going to go into that right here right now.

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    [SPEAKER_01]: If you want the blow by blow, it’s in my LinkedIn post and LinkedIn newsletter, but we have managed to do what we planned with the past guest catchups.

    01:16.563 –> 01:19.326

    [SPEAKER_01]: And we booked quite a lot of those in to record.

    01:19.346 –> 01:21.928

    [SPEAKER_01]: So we’ll be drippling those out to you over the next couple of months.

    01:22.509 –> 01:28.375

    [SPEAKER_01]: And we’ve selected them as guests who we thought brought an awful lot to their episodes last time.

    01:28.355 –> 01:31.499

    [SPEAKER_01]: Some of them are from way back in the early days of the podcast.

    01:31.519 –> 01:36.325

    [SPEAKER_01]: Some of them are a bit more recently, and who we believe will have plenty to bring you again this time.

    01:37.566 –> 01:45.496

    [SPEAKER_01]: And I’m really pleased we’ve managed to pull off this part of the 10 year celebrations, because I think it’s probably the idea we had that will make the most impact on you are listeners.

    01:45.516 –> 01:48.640

    [SPEAKER_01]: And that is obviously the point of all of this is to help you with your businesses.

    01:48.900 –> 01:56.269

    [SPEAKER_01]: So I’m all right with the fact that we’ve had to get to some of the other ideas, because we’ve managed to deliver on the one that really is going to deliver.

    01:56.435 –> 01:58.560

    [SPEAKER_01]: Right, back to what we’re talking about today.

    01:58.600 –> 02:04.572

    [SPEAKER_01]: Back on the show for the first time in four years is the always insightful Julie Macken from Leave’s Bees.

    02:05.074 –> 02:11.828

    [SPEAKER_01]: She’ll be catching us up on what they’ve been up to over the last four years, sharing insights into pretty,

    02:11.808 –> 02:25.917

    [SPEAKER_01]: strategy, shaking, insight, they gathered some cool marketing tips and she will also be sharing what’s got her most excited about 2026, which if she pulls it up, it offers going to be phenomenal.

    02:25.937 –> 02:31.268

    [SPEAKER_01]: And make sure you listen to the end because she’s also sharing some really insightful top tips in that final section as well.

    02:37.120 –> 02:52.699

    [SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest, Julie Macken is the Deputy Queen Bee of Neves Bees, a family business turning the produce of their bee hives and those of local beekeepers into products to now certify 100% natural.

    02:53.200 –> 03:01.170

    [SPEAKER_01]: Founded in 2017, they switched focus to e-commerce in 2021, and they now sell via their WooCommerce store wholesale, and a

    03:01.150 –> 03:09.963

    [SPEAKER_01]: a couple of events here and there and they’ve now reached £100,000 a year in sales and have just sold their 80,000th product.

    03:10.403 –> 03:11.204

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Julie.

    03:11.665 –> 03:12.386

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Chloe.

    03:12.927 –> 03:14.709

    [SPEAKER_01]: Lovely to have you back on the show.

    03:14.850 –> 03:16.973

    [SPEAKER_01]: How have the last four years been?

    03:17.013 –> 03:20.177

    [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it’s quite interesting.

    03:20.478 –> 03:21.860

    [SPEAKER_02]: I was saying this to you earlier.

    03:22.020 –> 03:30.432

    [SPEAKER_02]: I listened back to the podcasts that we did for the four years ago and it was really interesting

    03:30.749 –> 03:36.458

    [SPEAKER_02]: and what changed quite significantly, I should say, and what has stayed the same.

    03:36.678 –> 03:42.246

    [SPEAKER_02]: And part of the change is the change to our business and what we’ve done.

    03:42.286 –> 03:53.483

    [SPEAKER_02]: But then part of the change that you don’t notice as it’s happening, it’s like an evolution is what has happened in the world of e-commerce and the world of digital marketing in general.

    03:53.851 –> 03:59.378

    [SPEAKER_02]: and it was really interesting listening back, some of the things that I was saying, oh my god, this is an amazing thing that we’re doing.

    03:59.458 –> 04:01.160

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, oh, god, that’s so routine.

    04:01.820 –> 04:09.590

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, Ditto, some of the things now that I’m using, that I just think that I’ve been using forever, I clearly haven’t even, we weren’t even using them then.

    04:09.670 –> 04:12.233

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that’s been quite different.

    04:12.974 –> 04:21.664

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the changes that we’ve made as a business is we’ve worked out that we’ve almost got two businesses here.

    04:22.100 –> 04:24.302

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we’re selling skin care and gifts.

    04:25.243 –> 04:31.709

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember going into a new retailer that we just listed in a couple of years ago.

    04:31.749 –> 04:37.775

    [SPEAKER_02]: And she was saying, well, do you want to be on the skin care shelf or the other shelf?

    04:38.136 –> 04:39.397

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I’m like, what do you mean?

    04:39.597 –> 04:42.460

    [SPEAKER_02]: She said, well, skin care is your face.

    04:42.860 –> 04:45.242

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, why does skin all over my body?

    04:45.262 –> 04:47.084

    [SPEAKER_02]: She’s no, no, but skin care is your face.

    04:47.805 –> 04:49.947

    [SPEAKER_02]: I thought this was absolutely bonkers.

    04:50.382 –> 04:53.465

    [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, we went with it and Goli was she right.

    04:53.765 –> 05:05.597

    [SPEAKER_02]: So the way that the consumers see the market is that skin care is something you put on your face and then other products are things that you put elsewhere.

    05:06.498 –> 05:06.938

    [SPEAKER_02]: Who knew?

    05:06.958 –> 05:19.731

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it became very clear once we started to sort of analyze this a bit more that we have a range of products

    05:20.116 –> 05:25.000

    [SPEAKER_02]: at face-to-face events, I pop-up shops and through retail.

    05:25.521 –> 05:27.603

    [SPEAKER_02]: And these are things like our gifting products.

    05:27.643 –> 05:33.228

    [SPEAKER_02]: We have lip balms and hand-sales and little gift sets, little nail and cuticle product.

    05:33.368 –> 05:36.411

    [SPEAKER_02]: And they’re all kind of 20-quid and less products.

    05:37.352 –> 05:42.937

    [SPEAKER_02]: But then we have the inverted commerce, now I’m not even putting inverted commerce proper skincare products.

    05:43.618 –> 05:48.402

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think you have the proper as well, but… And they sell online.

    05:48.787 –> 06:02.357

    [SPEAKER_02]: I did some analysis a while ago and 70% of our online sales are our facial skin care products, 90% of our retail and pop-up shop sales are gifting products.

    06:03.063 –> 06:05.666

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve basically got two different businesses.

    06:06.267 –> 06:08.209

    [SPEAKER_01]: That’s such a dramatic split.

    06:08.229 –> 06:14.617

    [SPEAKER_01]: I get, you know, you go into the retail store and you’re talking to the retail and you get clarity on the different areas your product could sit in.

    06:15.118 –> 06:24.630

    [SPEAKER_01]: But then to see it that stalk in your face to face in your online, yeah, like a totally different merchandising strategy for the two different scenarios.

    06:24.670 –> 06:31.298

    [SPEAKER_02]: Totally different merchandising strategy and totally different communication strategy,

    06:31.582 –> 06:38.409

    [SPEAKER_02]: I was chatting to Neeve, who’s my daughter, of Neeve Spees, who is now 23, nine, when I’m happy.

    06:39.009 –> 06:45.096

    [SPEAKER_02]: Right, and she’s very savvy young woman, and she was like, well, duh, that’s obvious.

    06:45.736 –> 06:47.758

    [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you’re one, you’re going to have to explain that one to me.

    06:47.778 –> 06:54.325

    [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, well, because there are certain products that people want to read about, take the time reading about, and those are e-commerce products.

    06:54.345 –> 06:59.530

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, of course, people are going to want to buy their facial skin care online, when they’re happy to buy gifts and stuff.

    06:59.864 –> 07:02.167

    [SPEAKER_02]: in a shop because you want to read about it.

    07:02.187 –> 07:03.649

    [SPEAKER_02]: You want to find out about it.

    07:04.369 –> 07:06.072

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that was a real revolution to me.

    07:06.112 –> 07:12.219

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I think one of the big changes we’ve made as a business is that we are now competing.

    07:12.720 –> 07:18.266

    [SPEAKER_02]: We have an e-commerce shop that sells in the £3 billion skin care market.

    07:18.807 –> 07:27.998

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’re no longer in the sort of I think it’s something like £50 million is the is the lip balm and

    07:28.315 –> 07:30.538

    [SPEAKER_02]: the £3 billion skin care market.

    07:31.299 –> 07:36.605

    [SPEAKER_02]: So the nuances in branding are much more significant.

    07:36.905 –> 07:46.857

    [SPEAKER_02]: The cleverness and the budgets of the competitors are much more highly tuned, much more fine tuned.

    07:47.097 –> 07:49.580

    [SPEAKER_02]: And there’s a lot of nonsense.

    07:49.620 –> 07:51.402

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m a scientist, I’m a chemist by training.

    07:52.363 –> 07:53.665

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s a lot of utter

    07:55.045 –> 08:24.816

    [SPEAKER_02]: If I’m not allowed to wear it right, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

    08:25.285 –> 08:49.212

    [SPEAKER_01]: So have you got to a point where you’ve worked out the customer and event or a customer retail will buy the gift products and then come and explore the more complicated products later is there that kind of like, in quite funnel stage, they’ll buy the lip balm so they remember who you are and then they’ll come and look at the stuff they had look out on the table but they weren’t ready to buy.

    08:49.632 –> 08:52.255

    [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that’s a really interesting question.

    08:52.741 –> 08:54.183

    [SPEAKER_02]: some degree that works.

    08:54.764 –> 09:11.991

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now we’re aware of it, we are really, really careful now about where we sell our products because if you’re selling a product that actually is competing with, you know, the likes of Augustus Bada, who’s literally 400 pounds for 100 grams, very happy to share the ingredients and how people are getting ripped off with them.

    09:12.772 –> 09:19.963

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then you’re also selling in a

    09:20.163 –> 09:30.834

    [SPEAKER_02]: you can’t go to, you know, Mrs. Miggins t-shop because that’s not going to be that the brand placement is really, really important product-class post-promotion, right?

    09:31.334 –> 09:36.339

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you start realising how important the places in the, in the delightful four piece of marketing.

    09:36.880 –> 09:39.122

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that’s that’s been quite an interesting one.

    09:39.983 –> 09:44.888

    [SPEAKER_02]: But we’ve got now being aware of that sort of funnel if you

    09:45.425 –> 09:57.355

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s some very obvious things that you can do, such as we obviously give out discount cards when we meet people and they buy something from a festival or a pop-up shop from us.

    09:57.955 –> 10:02.419

    [SPEAKER_02]: And we’re literally just going back to making some paper leaflets.

    10:02.639 –> 10:09.145

    [SPEAKER_02]: Get this, I am buying just about to commission some A4, threefold paper leaflets have done those for like 30 years.

    10:10.506 –> 10:15.330

    [SPEAKER_02]: But it’s just a really nice way of physically giving

    10:15.496 –> 10:22.028

    [SPEAKER_02]: or they’re just inquiring, you can physically give them, we’ve given them QR codes that don’t click through, giving them a leaflet with why we’re different.

    10:22.610 –> 10:25.956

    [SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a QR code that you can click to if you want to and here’s a discount code.

    10:26.517 –> 10:37.538

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, just being a lot more savvy about actually getting people through, but trying to explain why our products are different, which is quite an interesting one.

    10:37.687 –> 10:42.654

    [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned on the wholesale front that you’re being careful with placement of the skin care range.

    10:43.055 –> 10:45.939

    [SPEAKER_01]: Are you still letting anybody have the gift products?

    10:46.199 –> 10:51.908

    [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, we’re not, we don’t know, and that’s partly, and again, I was listening about this.

    10:51.928 –> 10:53.250

    [SPEAKER_02]: So this happened a while ago now.

    10:53.350 –> 10:55.974

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I mentioned this at the last podcast that we did.

    10:56.034 –> 10:59.479

    [SPEAKER_02]: We sold something on a wholesale site that then went to a retailer.

    11:00.520 –> 11:04.386

    [SPEAKER_02]: We found it on some really dodgy e-based shop

    11:04.720 –> 11:10.168

    [SPEAKER_02]: rubbishy pictures and there was selling it at like 50p more than the wholesale price that we’d told it to them.

    11:10.188 –> 11:12.030

    [SPEAKER_02]: So there’s no way they would make anything out of it.

    11:12.091 –> 11:14.174

    [SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, you know, we give them a decent margin.

    11:15.055 –> 11:16.196

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that was part of it.

    11:16.297 –> 11:18.960

    [SPEAKER_02]: But then we realised that, you know, in some settings.

    11:19.501 –> 11:22.606

    [SPEAKER_02]: So other comments, somebody came up to a sort of pop-up.

    11:22.986 –> 11:24.188

    [SPEAKER_02]: It was quite a smart pop-up.

    11:24.568 –> 11:26.071

    [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, I saw this stuff.

    11:26.511 –> 11:27.032

    [SPEAKER_02]: She said, I’m

    11:27.248 –> 11:33.114

    [SPEAKER_02]: I just nipped into a little gift shop because I had to go and buy the parking and it was free if I bought something from gift shop.

    11:33.134 –> 11:34.455

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s just a little trinket really.

    11:34.495 –> 11:36.497

    [SPEAKER_02]: I picked it up and my God, it was amazing.

    11:36.517 –> 11:42.562

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m going to buy some more but she bought it because it was a cheap little trinket that was going to pay to the car parking for us.

    11:42.582 –> 11:45.445

    [SPEAKER_02]: I know that’s not what we’re trying to do here.

    11:46.646 –> 11:57.036

    [SPEAKER_02]: Worked out well right because it was really good and when she saw it, she bought it again and then she up up sold, you know, she bought some more expensive stuff as

    11:57.337 –> 11:58.338

    [SPEAKER_02]: and we form, really.

    11:59.921 –> 12:00.742

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s an interesting one.

    12:00.762 –> 12:01.523

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a challenging one.

    12:02.404 –> 12:11.517

    [SPEAKER_01]: So would you get to a point paying site Devils Advocate here where on the website you would remove the gifting items from the site?

    12:11.577 –> 12:16.824

    [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you think you’ll keep all products in all channels but with different strategy and different channels?

    12:17.585 –> 12:26.297

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’d love to say we have enough profit to be able to just say we’re not going to sell all the products to all the people, but we don’t have that luxury.

    12:26.632 –> 12:33.899

    [SPEAKER_02]: However, what we have done and again, this is one of the significant things we have done is we’ve completely redid the website again.

    12:34.099 –> 12:40.345

    [SPEAKER_02]: We just done it when I spoke to you four years ago and we’re just finishing off doing it again now.

    12:40.385 –> 12:43.387

    [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that we’ve done is it’s a skincare website.

    12:43.708 –> 12:54.057

    [SPEAKER_02]: There is a section that you don’t see immediately on gifts and we obviously have the skincare gifts as well because people buy self gifts and you know, more luxurious gifts for people as well.

    12:54.458 –> 12:59.684

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a section for sort of stocking filigifts, which is the, you know, where we have the sort of smaller products.

    13:00.105 –> 13:08.995

    [SPEAKER_02]: So the emphasis on the website is most definitely skin care products, rather than the sort of smaller gifty products.

    13:09.536 –> 13:11.478

    [SPEAKER_01]: Which is both as an easy thing to do.

    13:11.498 –> 13:19.948

    [SPEAKER_01]: Now you understand what the customer journey is and how they’re buying the product and how they’re research products and who’s buying the product as well.

    13:20.528 –> 13:23.672

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

    13:24.057 –> 13:26.360

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s really interesting.

    13:26.380 –> 13:28.243

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’d recommend to anyone that’s been in business a while.

    13:28.403 –> 13:37.036

    [SPEAKER_02]: Just go back and look at some old plans that you did for the year or some, I don’t know, podcasts that you did for instance, or something like that.

    13:37.056 –> 13:38.479

    [SPEAKER_02]: And just go and see where you were.

    13:38.499 –> 13:46.110

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a real insight to see how far you’ve got and then challenge yourself, how, what could I change now?

    13:46.150 –> 13:48.614

    [SPEAKER_02]: What do I still need to challenge myself on?

    13:48.634 –> 13:53.541

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what, where could our strategy carry on evolving?

    13:54.112 –> 13:57.596

    [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned as well that you’re about to launch a new site.

    13:57.736 –> 14:01.360

    [SPEAKER_01]: Are you sticking with WooCommerce or have you shifted platform in that?

    14:01.681 –> 14:04.123

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we are sticking with WooCommerce.

    14:04.143 –> 14:05.986

    [SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, we have just launched a new site.

    14:06.006 –> 14:09.950

    [SPEAKER_02]: And again, it was not a, let’s build a new one and stop and change.

    14:10.030 –> 14:11.892

    [SPEAKER_02]: It was a, let’s build it as we go along.

    14:11.932 –> 14:14.796

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it was a refresh, quite a significant refresh.

    14:15.456 –> 14:16.778

    [SPEAKER_02]: We are with WooCommerce.

    14:17.839 –> 14:23.005

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m not sure whether I would still be with WooCommerce.

    14:23.356 –> 14:30.885

    [SPEAKER_02]: Our web chat was really into WooCommerce and actually he does say it’s more secure and it’s built for a bigger business.

    14:31.046 –> 14:31.867

    [SPEAKER_02]: That’s his view.

    14:32.768 –> 14:43.221

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think for the scale we’re at at the moment and if I was going to start or if I was going to be a small business shop if I’d does seem to have the better integrations with other affiliate programs and that’s just my observation.

    14:43.241 –> 14:53.093

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know whenever we’re taken on by a new affiliate they’re like, oh we can do a shop-flame integration really easily and I’m like, where we come is, oh well that’s a bit more

    14:53.815 –> 14:58.041

    [SPEAKER_02]: scaling and bigger businesses, but I’m just taking his word on that.

    14:58.081 –> 15:03.069

    [SPEAKER_01]: As both there is that re-platform is it can be a massive distraction.

    15:03.529 –> 15:04.791

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s a huge part of work.

    15:04.912 –> 15:10.400

    [SPEAKER_01]: So that doesn’t just end when it goes like because everything has to be re-learned, everything has to be re-integrated all the rest of it.

    15:10.440 –> 15:22.658

    [SPEAKER_01]: So to be able to do it, little by little on the same platform as you’re on without it being a massive project when it’s, I’m assuming the business is still something you’re all doing as a bit of a side project.

    15:23.043 –> 15:36.242

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yes and no actually so so I would say but so my husband and I now both run it we have four contractors we’re both taking salaries out of it we don’t have any other work outside of this.

    15:36.712 –> 15:37.493

    [SPEAKER_02]: the kids of Blacktime.

    15:37.513 –> 15:38.354

    [SPEAKER_02]: We don’t have a mortgage.

    15:39.295 –> 15:40.496

    [SPEAKER_02]: So the income we need is a bit less.

    15:40.516 –> 15:42.178

    [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, we’re definitely taking salary out of it.

    15:42.198 –> 15:43.600

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s no longer just a hobby.

    15:43.660 –> 15:49.927

    [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, he had a real rant at me this morning because I was saving some of all the centrals because I like to play with them when he was like, you can’t, this is like, there are a lot of dates.

    15:49.967 –> 15:53.131

    [SPEAKER_02]: They might get to muddle up in the need to be stocked up like I just want to play with them.

    15:53.151 –> 15:53.811

    [SPEAKER_02]: You’re not allowed to.

    15:54.452 –> 15:58.517

    [SPEAKER_02]: So no, it’s definitely, it’s definitely, yeah, it’s probably business.

    15:58.597 –> 15:59.678

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s definitely in proper business.

    16:00.239 –> 16:04.103

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now, which it perhaps wasn’t before and again, I think that’s a bit of an evolution.

    16:04.437 –> 16:07.021

    [SPEAKER_01]: Have you found you, you think about it differently now?

    16:07.061 –> 16:08.182

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s your main focus.

    16:09.204 –> 16:17.315

    [SPEAKER_02]: Um, possibly, although I was a bit obsessed with it before, but I think one thing that does sharpen the brain a bit is, you know, we have four other mouths to feed.

    16:17.816 –> 16:22.483

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, there’s, we’ve got to get the income coming in every month.

    16:22.723 –> 16:33.178

    [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, sometimes you find yourself doing some slightly more tactical things to get, like, yesterday I just put three mailers together because we need to get some more mailers out and I haven’t done that even two weeks.

    16:33.530 –> 16:36.794

    [SPEAKER_02]: and the lady that normally does them is off poorly for the moment.

    16:37.235 –> 16:42.422

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, and then a few weeks ago, we had a whole town of honey, but it normally sells honey.

    16:42.842 –> 16:44.264

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I thought, you know what?

    16:44.825 –> 16:47.128

    [SPEAKER_02]: We need, you know, a few hundred quid to pay the bills here.

    16:47.148 –> 16:51.354

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’ll stick a blog up on honey and we sell it a few hundred quids with the honey.

    16:51.374 –> 16:54.939

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, little things like that, you find yourself doing a bit more perhaps.

    16:55.099 –> 16:55.960

    [SPEAKER_02]: But, um,

    16:56.513 –> 16:58.056

    [SPEAKER_01]: And what are your contractors doing?

    16:58.076 –> 16:59.659

    [SPEAKER_01]: What is it you’ve chosen to outsource?

    16:59.940 –> 17:04.388

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, and again, I’m glad you asked about that, because I think this is a really, really important thing.

    17:04.408 –> 17:11.382

    [SPEAKER_02]: And again, something bad to what I said before, and one of the things I said is, if you think it’s expensive to get a professional to do something, try getting an amateur to do it.

    17:11.402 –> 17:15.410

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I, oh my God, I so wholeheartedly believe that.

    17:15.771 –> 17:16.412

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, I,

    17:16.747 –> 17:22.452

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m quite a good market here, but I’m a sort of top-level, that sounds like a big head.

    17:22.472 –> 17:23.673

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m a strategic marketer.

    17:23.693 –> 17:28.417

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think the plans and the big pictures, I’m really not good at the tactical stuff, I get born.

    17:29.358 –> 17:31.220

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I’m a pretty good chemist and formulator.

    17:31.900 –> 17:35.403

    [SPEAKER_02]: My husband was an ops director.

    17:35.423 –> 17:43.611

    [SPEAKER_02]: So he is very good on factory things, and he’s made it, much bigger factory than it really is, a little factory, and he’s really good at regulatory.

    17:43.791 –> 17:46.433

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we keep that in house,

    17:46.885 –> 17:47.686

    [SPEAKER_02]: we outsource.

    17:48.026 –> 17:50.789

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we have a chat that does the all the website stuff.

    17:50.850 –> 17:54.974

    [SPEAKER_02]: Then we have an also a separate and IT people that just do the security and back up.

    17:55.655 –> 17:59.620

    [SPEAKER_02]: We have a graphic designer and she’s been with us from day one.

    17:59.820 –> 18:04.465

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we used to pay each other in terms of I did some marketing for her and she did the graphic design for us.

    18:04.926 –> 18:16.639

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a recently we’ve just taken on a PR lady who does things like journal requests and she writes the blogs and she does mail us for us

    18:17.176 –> 18:24.165

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, we need that and she’s so much better and so much quicker than me, you know, there’s an overlap there, but she’s much better at the tactical stuff and

    18:24.382 –> 18:25.644

    [SPEAKER_02]: She just does it brilliantly.

    18:25.884 –> 18:29.028

    [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, PR is such a different skill set.

    18:29.929 –> 18:31.331

    [SPEAKER_01]: Such a different skill set.

    18:31.912 –> 18:32.913

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, for sure.

    18:33.654 –> 18:35.437

    [SPEAKER_01]: Not one I have any skill at at all.

    18:38.481 –> 18:47.052

    [SPEAKER_01]: So last time we caught up in that previous episode, you said you never wanted to grow the business above quarter of a million.

    18:47.112 –> 18:50.997

    [SPEAKER_01]: Your halfway there at the moment.

    18:50.977 –> 18:51.618

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

    18:51.638 –> 18:54.922

    [SPEAKER_01]: I would some pretty major strategic shifts since we last caught up.

    18:55.203 –> 18:56.124

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

    18:56.344 –> 19:00.310

    [SPEAKER_01]: You now, now you have this different view on the business.

    19:00.370 –> 19:04.796

    [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to go massive or is it still wanting to cap it at that level?

    19:05.617 –> 19:09.983

    [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think I want to run a business that’s a million pound business.

    19:10.343 –> 19:11.925

    [SPEAKER_02]: I just think it would be stressful.

    19:12.486 –> 19:20.477

    [SPEAKER_02]: It would be lovely if something we’ve created somebody else wanted to come along and

    19:21.048 –> 19:21.869

    [SPEAKER_02]: driving to do.

    19:21.889 –> 19:23.672

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think the difficulty is though.

    19:23.753 –> 19:33.910

    [SPEAKER_02]: So no, I have no ambitions to, I was saying this to before we went on air is that there’s a, a competitive brand that many people will have heard of called wild deodorants.

    19:33.930 –> 19:35.373

    [SPEAKER_02]: And we make a range of deodorants.

    19:35.453 –> 19:41.864

    [SPEAKER_02]: And to be honest, their packaging is, is that they have some nice sort of aluminium packaging, which has got pretty patterns on it.

    19:42.445 –> 19:43.947

    [SPEAKER_02]: I would say our ingredients are better.

    19:44.087 –> 19:45.570

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m going to be biased, but I think they are.

    19:45.938 –> 19:46.819

    [SPEAKER_02]: But it’s a nice product.

    19:47.119 –> 19:47.880

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m not lying about it.

    19:47.900 –> 19:53.527

    [SPEAKER_02]: And they’ve got very good distribution network, but they’ve just sold to you and leave for 252 million quid.

    19:54.007 –> 19:58.212

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you leave, I came knocking on my door and said I’m gonna give you 252 million quid jilly.

    19:58.252 –> 20:00.255

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’d go, oh, let me think about that.

    20:01.376 –> 20:04.179

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think most people would probably take them up on it.

    20:04.219 –> 20:12.469

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now, that’s not like to happen because we haven’t built the business to be at that level, but I don’t want the stress of running that bigger business.

    20:13.040 –> 20:15.123

    [SPEAKER_02]: That said, we are still having fun with it.

    20:15.243 –> 20:28.520

    [SPEAKER_02]: And to be honest, we’ve built the business with all the infrastructure is there such that if suddenly things did take off, then it could be that sort of scale of business.

    20:28.640 –> 20:31.103

    [SPEAKER_02]: It could certainly scale up to about a million pounds.

    20:31.403 –> 20:35.448

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m not sure we’re at the sort of several billion that I’m sure you leave a week while be.

    20:36.069 –> 20:39.013

    [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so it’s not what we’ve set out to do.

    20:39.533 –> 20:46.573

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I suppose we’ve been inadvertently set up some processes and practices that could make it be that sort of scale.

    20:47.330 –> 20:48.311

    [SPEAKER_02]: be careful what you wish for.

    20:49.613 –> 20:54.098

    [SPEAKER_01]: It is the case when you’re making your own life easy with your systems and your processes.

    20:54.118 –> 20:57.662

    [SPEAKER_01]: You’re also building it for ready for growth at the same time.

    20:57.722 –> 20:59.204

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a good point actually.

    20:59.244 –> 21:00.385

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s a really good point.

    21:00.405 –> 21:01.987

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s you come, come hand in hand.

    21:02.047 –> 21:12.139

    [SPEAKER_01]: So given you’ve now got the platform ready for doing whatever you want with the business in the next few years, what’s got you got you excited looking into

    21:12.727 –> 21:17.954

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I should explain a little bit about our USP and our formulation.

    21:18.334 –> 21:23.000

    [SPEAKER_02]: So the skincare industry in the UK alone is worth 3 billion quid.

    21:23.020 –> 21:25.043

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think globally it’s something like 40 billion.

    21:25.083 –> 21:27.146

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just bunkers the size of the business.

    21:28.167 –> 21:34.736

    [SPEAKER_02]: And up until about 100 years ago, all skincare was pure active ingredients, right?

    21:34.776 –> 21:40.303

    [SPEAKER_02]: So things that would moisturize your skin, things that would help nourish your skin.

    21:40.553 –> 21:43.637

    [SPEAKER_02]: The manufacturer’s worked out how to add water to skin care.

    21:43.898 –> 21:54.513

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you’re in manufacturing and you work out how to add water to a process, you’re on to a winner, because water is about half a p-liter and some of the oils we use are about up to 100 pounds a liter.

    21:54.794 –> 21:58.078

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that’s quite a good margin reduction or margin increase.

    21:58.819 –> 22:05.669

    [SPEAKER_02]: Problem was, when you add water to skin care, you have to add quite a lot of processing chemicals.

    22:06.230 –> 22:09.615

    [SPEAKER_02]: And these processing chemicals are not good for your skin.

    22:10.186 –> 22:14.230

    [SPEAKER_02]: borderline neutral, some are really quite damaging for your skin.

    22:15.031 –> 22:20.918

    [SPEAKER_02]: And they’re only added because of the water and there’s a lot of more science behind it, but that’s the bottom line of it.

    22:21.378 –> 22:38.337

    [SPEAKER_02]: So from the outset, I’ve like, I’ve not wanted to put water in the products because I don’t want to put the process in chemicals and so we just use pure moisturizers and pure active ingredients.

    22:38.823 –> 22:39.764

    [SPEAKER_02]: issue this is.

    22:40.124 –> 22:53.759

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you can go around boots or super drug or I don’t know, self ridges and harrods and look at the products they have on their shells, anything from a face cream to a body lotion to a hand, cream to a footbook, foot lotion or what have you.

    22:53.779 –> 22:59.946

    [SPEAKER_02]: 99.9% of the time, the first ingredient will be aqua, which is water.

    23:00.627 –> 23:02.349

    [SPEAKER_02]: And we’re not just talking about a little bit.

    23:02.369 –> 23:05.252

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’re talking about up to 90% water.

    23:06.153 –> 23:08.155

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then

    23:08.540 –> 23:23.177

    [SPEAKER_02]: are just there for the water and they’re not good for anybody, so I’ve become quite impassioned about this because I just think A people are being gaslighted, lied to, certainly have the wool pulled over their eyes.

    23:23.197 –> 23:30.546

    [SPEAKER_02]: And when you see these products, it’s oh, made with argon oil for shiny hair or made with oats for Xmaskin.

    23:31.027 –> 23:38.175

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you actually look at how much they’ve got in and it’s a tiny fraction and the rest of the stuff in there is

    23:38.560 –> 23:46.733

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, I’m really on a mission to try to change this and I sort of encapsulate it by saying, wouldn’t it be great to do to the skin care industry?

    23:47.174 –> 23:50.199

    [SPEAKER_02]: What’s been done to the ultra-process food industry?

    23:50.700 –> 23:58.272

    [SPEAKER_02]: Because the chemicals that are being added are just the same sorts of chemicals and falsifies preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners or that kind of stuff.

    23:58.853 –> 24:02.239

    [SPEAKER_02]: And they’re not good for your skin, they’re not

    24:02.793 –> 24:04.315

    [SPEAKER_02]: good when they’re being manufactured.

    24:04.335 –> 24:09.363

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s an awful lot of emissions and energy being used in manufacturing them.

    24:09.984 –> 24:13.068

    [SPEAKER_02]: They’re not good when they get washed off your skin into the water courses.

    24:13.950 –> 24:17.255

    [SPEAKER_02]: The packaging is associated with making them and shipping them around.

    24:17.655 –> 24:22.182

    [SPEAKER_02]: The packaging is associated with the products that have got them in that are like four times the size they need to be.

    24:22.202 –> 24:24.786

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just the whole thing is bonkers.

    24:25.467 –> 24:30.775

    [SPEAKER_02]: So just on our fairly small scale, we worked out that last year alone,

    24:31.126 –> 24:33.308

    [SPEAKER_02]: of processing chemicals getting washed into the rivers.

    24:33.989 –> 24:35.009

    [SPEAKER_02]: Great, I’m happy with that.

    24:35.470 –> 25:00.812

    [SPEAKER_02]: But imagine if like ourselves were tenfold or another business decided that they were going to change their formulations or consumers suddenly went, I don’t know, I’m going to start looking for stuff without water in it, how much reduction you could make in all these chemicals that are getting shipped into rivers, ship around the world and then they’re not doing anything except enabling the manufacturers to sell water is the

    25:01.130 –> 25:02.992

    [SPEAKER_02]: What does next year look like?

    25:03.212 –> 25:04.973

    [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to be able to do something like this.

    25:05.013 –> 25:10.298

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I would love that the news bees becomes a bit of a vehicle for doing that.

    25:10.778 –> 25:13.741

    [SPEAKER_02]: Realistically, we’re too small to be able to do that by ourselves.

    25:13.761 –> 25:30.816

    [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things I’m really excited about is this could be a big, maybe not e-commerce but certainly digital marketing initiative is that I’ve mentioned to a journalist who’s quite a sort of investigative journalist that we wanted to do to skin care industry,

    25:31.117 –> 25:32.098

    [SPEAKER_02]: which is food interest.

    25:32.118 –> 25:33.340

    [SPEAKER_02]: She’s like, oh my god, that’s amazing.

    25:33.921 –> 25:35.002

    [SPEAKER_02]: She’s had love to do that.

    25:35.162 –> 25:39.628

    [SPEAKER_02]: So she put together some ideas and I was like, okay, this looks brilliant, but there’s absolutely no way I can afford that.

    25:40.188 –> 25:42.051

    [SPEAKER_02]: So she said, well, why don’t we get other businesses together?

    25:42.111 –> 25:50.782

    [SPEAKER_02]: So there’s probably about, I don’t know, six, five or six businesses in the UK who are doing similar sort of formulations to what we’re doing.

    25:50.802 –> 25:52.684

    [SPEAKER_02]: So water free chemical free.

    25:52.704 –> 25:57.310

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I’d always looked at them as competitors in the past and then suddenly we’re like,

    25:57.560 –> 25:59.202

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know what, let’s collaborate.

    25:59.222 –> 26:02.326

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I’m not talking about, you know, we’re not talking about price fixing or anything like that.

    26:02.727 –> 26:16.565

    [SPEAKER_02]: But we’re just talking about what if we pulled our resources, pulled our social media, did some intra company links on our websites, started to put press releases out from all of us, pulled the journalists that we know.

    26:16.585 –> 26:27.499

    [SPEAKER_02]: And suddenly we could actually have be able to make an impact to this massive, massive market that’s owned by,

    26:27.682 –> 26:30.125

    [SPEAKER_02]: you know, the big boys and the glossy magazines.

    26:30.726 –> 26:34.772

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that is my kind of, that’s my passion for next year.

    26:34.892 –> 26:48.831

    [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously there’s an upside from a sales point of view as well because, you know, as well as actually starting to change the industry for environmental reasons and I just don’t think people should be told not to have wrinkles and not to put chemicals on over the skin.

    26:50.073 –> 26:56.001

    [SPEAKER_02]: But also, you know, obviously there’s a commercial upside for our sand for the other businesses competing, not collaborating as well.

    26:56.251 –> 27:15.778

    [SPEAKER_00]: That’s what’s getting me really excited next year.

    27:18.020 –> 27:23.829

    [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list us some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

    27:24.290 –> 27:29.759

    [SPEAKER_01]: Over and above your mega PR campaign, which I wish you all the best with that sound super exciting.

    27:30.200 –> 27:31.862

    [SPEAKER_01]: So Julie, are you ready for the top tips?

    27:32.403 –> 27:33.144

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let’s go for it.

    27:33.425 –> 27:34.647

    [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.

    27:34.727 –> 27:39.715

    [SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better.

    27:40.136 –> 27:41.698

    [SPEAKER_01]: Which book would you recommend?

    27:42.387 –> 27:49.535

    [SPEAKER_02]: OK, and I’m going to give you kind of a similar answer to I gave you last time, which is I didn’t MBA about 20 years ago, and I have not read a business book since.

    27:50.836 –> 27:52.057

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it kind of put me off.

    27:52.077 –> 28:01.908

    [SPEAKER_02]: I do read a lot of, um, apothecary books and, um, autology books, which, um, I’m not going to start recommending to people, but, but my top tip, and this is something that I now do use.

    28:02.569 –> 28:11.398

    [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I’ve probably so far behind the curve for the people listening to the program, but go on to chat GPT or Google notes or whatever AI platform you use and just say,

    28:11.733 –> 28:17.465

    [SPEAKER_02]: Please summarize book XYZ in a thousand words so that I can get the gist of it.

    28:17.986 –> 28:19.790

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then you can spend 10 minutes.

    28:20.090 –> 28:31.935

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you could have a Friday and you could read 30 books and get the gist of them all with a little help with your friend tattoo BT it’s it honestly it’s I know that air is revolutionizing everything.

    28:32.692 –> 28:35.395

    [SPEAKER_02]: But that was, that’s a real easy win for me.

    28:35.415 –> 28:36.556

    [SPEAKER_01]: I like that.

    28:36.716 –> 28:42.683

    [SPEAKER_01]: I think that would massively reduce my book buying habit if I start doing that.

    28:42.703 –> 28:48.269

    [SPEAKER_01]: Because then I could work out, do I actually need to want to read this book or not from the actual summary?

    28:48.309 –> 28:48.910

    [SPEAKER_01]: Love that one.

    28:49.310 –> 28:55.077

    [SPEAKER_01]: OK, traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

    28:56.138 –> 29:01.804

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, and again, I am going to get really old school on this.

    29:02.408 –> 29:30.795

    [SPEAKER_02]: The thing, and again, we talked about this beforehand, is that there are so many options out there, you’ve just got to focus on what works and what you can do, and it has to go back to old fashion mailers for me, our audience tends to be slightly older, so, you know, they’re more likely to read an email than read a sub stack or, I don’t know, look on YouTube for input or what have you so, um, yeah, I’m going to say Mailchimp, but my caveat is,

    29:31.096 –> 29:42.292

    [SPEAKER_02]: But actually integrated Mailchimp because I think one of the things that people forget is that it’s so, so important and this is going to sort of lead into my top tip as well.

    29:42.893 –> 29:57.154

    [SPEAKER_02]: But it’s so important that you’re not Mailchimp isn’t just in isolation, it’s part of the journey and it has to be part of the journey and as well as thinking how as people got on to the mailing list and although there are people.

    29:57.640 –> 30:11.529

    [SPEAKER_02]: What can you do with them as a consequence of them reading that mail, how can you get them to do something else or find it about more about you in another way or have you so I do think that it’s got to be male chip or other platforms aren’t able.

    30:12.271 –> 30:16.780

    [SPEAKER_02]: But think it through not it’s not just a one off thing it’s so it’s the whole journey that they’re on.

    30:17.283 –> 30:17.924

    [SPEAKER_01]: Lovely.

    30:18.384 –> 30:19.525

    [SPEAKER_01]: A tool-top tip.

    30:19.585 –> 30:28.053

    [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone-up or just a way of working, is there a call little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

    30:28.534 –> 30:32.557

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, this is a way of working and this has been a biggie for us this year.

    30:33.118 –> 30:39.384

    [SPEAKER_02]: Is think about the customer touch points and think about consistency and cohesion on those.

    30:39.784 –> 30:44.809

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, one of the things that we did is our website, I mentioned that we’ve updated it,

    30:45.110 –> 31:13.311

    [SPEAKER_02]: tied it up made it look more polished and made it look more professional, but we also made it sort of have a feel a color feel and the feel is very dark green because we got told by the soil association that we’re so green with dark green just putting that out there and we’ve made a point of now all our maillers have that color way any physical collateral that we do has that way we try and use the same kind of images and we spent quite a lot of money last year getting some

    31:13.645 –> 31:15.287

    [SPEAKER_02]: again, sell the brand, not sell the product.

    31:15.768 –> 31:26.043

    [SPEAKER_02]: So now everything that we do, even like when we had a store at Glastonbury and we have a store at Winchester Christmas Market and those even have the same colorways.

    31:26.083 –> 31:32.793

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’ve painted the store, the same color and we used leaflets and tags and price tags that are all the same color.

    31:32.813 –> 31:39.923

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that everything, whether the consumer sees us online, whether they see us in reality, whether they pick up a leaflet, whether they have like email,

    31:40.190 –> 31:50.262

    [SPEAKER_02]: Whether they look on our socials, we try and make everything feel and look the same with the same messages so that then I think you can be far more synergistic.

    31:50.482 –> 31:53.806

    [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so my top tip is sort of collaborate with yourself.

    31:54.346 –> 31:55.448

    [SPEAKER_02]: Make everything cohesive.

    31:56.068 –> 31:57.791

    [SPEAKER_01]: I like that definitely counts.

    31:57.951 –> 31:59.472

    [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the carbon top tip.

    31:59.492 –> 32:01.455

    [SPEAKER_01]: This is a new one since the last time you’re on.

    32:01.855 –> 32:03.337

    [SPEAKER_01]: So very interested to hear your answer on this one.

    32:03.697 –> 32:07.682

    [SPEAKER_01]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

    32:08.033 –> 32:09.594

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, two things I’m going to say.

    32:09.634 –> 32:13.238

    [SPEAKER_02]: Number one, our website chat, Roger, our ITB.

    32:13.258 –> 32:18.422

    [SPEAKER_02]: He is a specialist in reducing website comfort print.

    32:19.103 –> 32:22.986

    [SPEAKER_02]: I would be lying if I said everything that he does, but he does all sorts of exciting stuff.

    32:23.006 –> 32:24.387

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you can find him online, Roger Knight.

    32:25.068 –> 32:27.050

    [SPEAKER_02]: I think Chloe, you’ve contacted with him.

    32:27.450 –> 32:30.673

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, he does all sorts of stuff that I would not pretend to know.

    32:31.313 –> 32:36.538

    [SPEAKER_02]: And for us, built into our products

    32:36.738 –> 32:47.949

    [SPEAKER_02]: have a fraction of the carbon footprint of our competitive products of other products online, so both from a packaging, from a shipping and from a manufacturing of all the other chemicals.

    32:48.550 –> 32:59.501

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, say that’s like one thing for us, and we’ve won a number of green awards because of that because of we’re not, you know, putting the water in the chemicals on the extra packaging blah, blah, blah, blah, so sort of intrinsic within our business with that.

    32:59.541 –> 33:02.924

    [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, there’s all sorts of things that clever stuff that Roger does.

    33:03.225 –> 33:05.547

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I’d say look on his website

    33:06.067 –> 33:07.669

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s, that’s very clever.

    33:07.689 –> 33:10.792

    [SPEAKER_01]: We does love those those tips to Julie.

    33:10.812 –> 33:18.381

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much being and now before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?

    33:19.062 –> 33:23.286

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so website needsbees.co.uk and EV ESbees.

    33:23.947 –> 33:35.280

    [SPEAKER_02]: Socials at needsbees and we also have a TikTok account from last time and now I don’t

    33:35.547 –> 33:37.833

    [SPEAKER_01]: And I believe you may have a discount for our listeners.

    33:38.475 –> 33:39.377

    [SPEAKER_02]: We do, in fact.

    33:39.577 –> 33:49.202

    [SPEAKER_02]: So if you put master plan in on our website, you will get a 15% voucher across the whole piece, which actually we’re just about to set up a Christmas shop.

    33:49.452 –> 33:53.277

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I think when this comes out, the Christmas shop should be live.

    33:53.317 –> 34:00.226

    [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to come and buy your Christmas gifts, then if you put master plan in, you will get 15% off.

    34:00.246 –> 34:01.328

    [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent timing.

    34:01.968 –> 34:04.452

    [SPEAKER_01]: Get those orders in before the delivery deadlines.

    34:05.012 –> 34:06.695

    [SPEAKER_01]: Julie, thank you so much for being on the show.

    34:06.715 –> 34:09.038

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s been lovely to get to catch up with you again.

    34:09.138 –> 34:13.063

    [SPEAKER_01]: And I am very excited to see what happens with your PR campaign next year.

    34:13.364 –> 34:18.647

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, bring us back in four years time, and we’ll see whether we’re at hit the big time or whether we’re still just like, yeah, this is fun.

    34:19.993 –> 34:21.720

    [SPEAKER_01]: We will do.

    34:27.185 –> 34:29.388

    [SPEAKER_01]: lovely to catch out with Julia again.

    34:29.508 –> 34:39.203

    [SPEAKER_01]: For me the two big takeaways from that were first off, really understanding how the customer thinks about the product and how they buy it.

    34:39.283 –> 34:51.741

    [SPEAKER_01]: Those numbers she shared about, the percentage of customers in the real world face to face by their wholesalers and by their own events, the percentage of them that only buy the

    34:51.721 –> 35:03.461

    [SPEAKER_01]: and then online, the percentage of orders that are only the skin care products, and just think of themselves as a different type of business, clearly hugely influential in what their strategies will be going forward.

    35:03.602 –> 35:06.186

    [SPEAKER_01]: So that’s that super fascinating, understanding

    35:07.583 –> 35:16.015

    [SPEAKER_01]: I’m trying to avoid using the phrase customer journey, but the customer experience, I suppose, of your products and how they think about it, a real demonstration of how powerful that can be.

    35:16.796 –> 35:26.649

    [SPEAKER_01]: And then secondly, Julie’s point, Julie’s idea about the big old PR campaign and the collaborative nature of that.

    35:27.470 –> 35:32.477

    [SPEAKER_01]: There’s six, seven companies in the UK all creating

    35:32.457 –> 35:35.104

    [SPEAKER_01]: non ultra-processed skincare.

    35:35.144 –> 35:48.660

    [SPEAKER_01]: Why don’t they come together to create the PR campaign, the activity which gets them their idea, this awareness more exposure that will therefore benefit them all because together they’ll be able to achieve more than they can individually.

    35:48.640 –> 36:04.084

    [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, even if it’s some of those simple things she was saying about swapping email messages and various things doing that with your competitors or with brands on a similar mission to you can be hugely hugely powerful so loving that and loads of other cool stuff in there from Julie too.

    36:04.064 –> 36:13.322

    [SPEAKER_01]: you can get our notes on this episode and there’s full transcripts and a whole lot of other stuff by heading to the ecommercemaster.com website.

    36:13.743 –> 36:18.051

    [SPEAKER_01]: You can also use the direct-to-episode short link to go straight to the right episode.

    36:18.111 –> 36:21.879

    [SPEAKER_01]: That’s ECMP dot info for slash the number of this episode.

    36:22.761 –> 36:25.566

    [SPEAKER_01]: And when you get to the website, you can add yourself to our email list.

    36:25.546 –> 36:34.163

    [SPEAKER_01]: If you enjoyed hearing from Julie, and you want to hear what our first chat was all about, because we did reference it quite a bit in there, that episode 336.

    36:34.624 –> 36:45.346

    [SPEAKER_01]: And I read the notes today and Julie listened to it today, and we can both tell you that 90% of what’s in there is still relevant and a good idea.

    36:45.366 –> 36:47.250

    [SPEAKER_01]: So it’s definitely worth a listen.

    36:47.230 –> 36:58.188

    [SPEAKER_01]: And if you’re on WooCommerce and want to hear more interviews with WooCommerce people, then ECMP.info towards Ash WooCommerce will take you to the page on the site, but we’ve got all our WooCommerce episodes listed.

    36:59.030 –> 37:02.756

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of The Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

    37:03.037 –> 37:11.310

    [SPEAKER_01]: We bring you a new interview every week to help and inspire you to succeed and thrive with your business, including becoming more carbon neutral.

    37:11.350 –> 37:13.474

    [SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help,

    37:13.454 –> 37:17.422

    [SPEAKER_01]: Please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    37:17.802 –> 37:33.032

    [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

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    eCommerce Master PlanBy Chloe Thomas