SUMMARY:

This podcast episode discusses the importance of being cautious when taking advice from strangers on Facebook business groups. Selena Knight, a retail growth strategist and multi award-winning store owner, encourages listeners to evaluate the source of the advice they receive. She emphasizes that advice from a professional with experience and expertise in their field is much more reliable than free advice from strangers. Selena also mentions that she has gone live on Instagram every day for the past month to help her clients with their retail businesses. This is because she often feels inferior on Instagram due to everyone looking amazing. Selena recommends only putting on makeup for important occasions such as business meetings or client visits.

The speaker is discussing their experience with Instagram, and how they decided to use it differently than the standard perfectly curated accounts. They wanted to use the platform to talk about strategies and speak freely without the stress of having to act in a certain way. After making a few mistakes, they realized there were flaws in their plan and figured out a better way to use it. Through this experience, the speaker found a new way to use Instagram and was able to engage with an audience that came along.

The speaker was discussing the importance of being structured when trying to create content for an audience. They had recently done a podcast about the mistakes they made in their first week and wanted to do another about the mistakes they made in a month. They spoke about the pressure of going live on the weekends, and how they didn’t quite make 30 days, missing two weekend days and one other day. They discussed their plan to repurpose the content by chopping it up into sound bites, and also sharing some of it on the podcast. The speaker then highlighted the differences between crowdsourcing advice on social media and getting advice from experts in a mastermind. They used the example of someone making an extra $11,000 in one week as an example of the benefits of the latter.

Mavis and the speaker had a conversation about how getting the right advice can lead to great results without having to do a lot of work. The speaker then encourages listeners to leave reviews on their platform of choice to help spread the word about the podcast and help more ecommerce store owners build profitable and scalable businesses. They then jump into a replay of an Instagram Live conversation where they discuss how Crowdsourcing answers on social media can be dangerous, as it can lead to confusion with the many different answers people receive. The speaker then welcomes anyone who may have experienced this situation before.

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TIMESTAMPS: 

0:00:00 “Navigating Business Advice on Social Media: Strategies for Success”

0:03:06 Exploring the Benefits of Instagram Live: A Reflection on My Experiences

0:04:32 “The Benefits of Repurposing Content and Crowdsourcing Answers on Social Media”

0:06:53 “The Benefits of Seeking Professional Advice for Your Business”

0:08:48 “Retail and Ecommerce Growth Strategies: Avoiding Common Mistakes”

0:10:41 “Gaining Insight on Product Development Through Crowdsourcing”

0:12:08 The Dangers of Crowdsourcing Product Decisions and Pricing Strategies

0:16:38 Exploring Crowdsourcing Answers: A Guide to Crafting Effective Questions

0:18:12 “Crowdsourcing Advice on Social Media: 3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do It”

0:22:48 “The Benefits of Investing Time and Money in Growing Your Business”

0:24:44 “Advice for Growing Your Business: Join a Mastermind and Take Advice from Those Further Along Than You”

0:00:00 Salena: If you are seeking advice in a business Facebook group, for example. A Facebook group, but one that’s got a business plant, this is where I worry. Worry where you could end up bankrupt. Because if you’re taking advice from people who have never done what you do, who have never been further than you are now, so if you’re turning over a million dollars right now, there is there’s no point getting advice from someone who is just a startup and hasn’t sold a product yet.

0:00:29 Salena: If you’re getting free advice from an expert, you have to think to yourself, why are they giving you that advice and from what knowledge? Which is why I tag my own business page so people can go, oh yeah, like she has some kind of idea what she’s talking about. But if you were just getting 150 answers of people who are not even in your field or like, I see this every day, like trademarking advice, like legal advice. Don’t ever get legal advice from a freaking Facebook group, people.

0:01:03 Salena: Hey there and welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. If you’re looking to get more sales, more customers, master your marketing, and ultimately take control of your retail or ecommerce business, then you’re in the right place. I’m selena Knight, a retail growth strategist and multi award winning store owner whose superpower is uncovering exactly what your business requires to move to the next level.

0:01:33 Salena: I’ll provide you with the strategies, the tools, and the insight you need to scale your store. All you need to do is take action. Ready to get started? Hey there and welcome to today’s episode of the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. I’m Celinai. I’m a retail growth strategist and I’m here to help you make more money, get more customers, and more growth in your retail or ecommerce store. Now, if you have been following on for a while, you know that I made a packed to go live on Instagram every day for a month now. The reason for this is because Instagram isn’t really my jam.

0:02:23 Salena: I go to Instagram, I quite often feel very inferior because everybody looks amazing. And I’ll be honest, I spend most of my days in workout gear or my swimsuit if it’s super hot. And I generally only put makeup on if I’m recording a podcast or if I’m going to see to a business meeting or to see a client. And so that concept of everybody always looking perfect and everything is perfectly curated on Instagram isn’t really my jam. I feel like I hang out on Facebook. Maybe that’s because I’m old, maybe that’s because that’s the first social media platform that I ever really hung out on back in 2007.

0:03:06 Salena: But generally I just find that you have conversations on Facebook rather than Instagram. But I decided to give it a chance to give Instagram a chance, but not in the perfectly curated way that everybody else does it. In fact, I was at the gym doing sled pushes when this thought came to me. It’s like, you know what, I find Instagram and social media really draining because they’re forcing me to act in a way that I don’t normally act. And that puts a lot of stress on you, on your brain, on your body.

0:03:44 Salena: And what I’m good at is strategy, and I’m good at speaking. So what if I just put those two things together and went live on Instagram doing those two things? And I thought, that’s great. I’ll just do Instagram lives and talk about whatever I feel like I want to talk about today. And so I’ve talked about a lot of different things. There were quite a few, I’ll be honest, there were quite a few mistakes that I made because I kind of just went into it like, screw it, I am going to do this thing and see if it works. But after the first week or so, I realized there were some flaws in my plan.

0:04:21 Salena: If I was going to do anything with the, you know, the I guess the audience that comes along. The audience would be the word that I would use if I was going to do anything or help the audience.

0:04:32 Salena: In a specific way.

0:04:33 Salena: I had to be just a little bit more structured in the way that I went out. And it wasn’t putting a script together. Sometimes I would write some notes down so I didn’t forget anything, but realistically it was well, let’s just say I did a podcast on the mistakes I learned after the first week, and I think I will do another podcast on the mistakes I learned after going live for a whole month. But there were little things. Like when I said it, I didn’t really think about the weekend.

0:05:01 Salena: And on the weekends I didn’t really feel like going live, like I don’t work on the weekends. And so it felt like the pressure was back on again. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite make 30 days. I think I made 27 off the top of my head. So two of those were weekend days and one was just a day where I got to the end of the night and I realized I hadn’t gone live. It was on a weekend as well. Now, the whole point of creating content in whatever format works for you is to be able to repurpose it. So we currently have a contractor working on chopping all those Instagram lives up and making a little 30, 60, 92nd sound bites.

0:05:41 Salena: But also I wanted to share some of them on the podcast because some of them were really, really good and got quite a lot of engagement. And this one today’s, one about crowdsourcing and how crowdsourcing answers on social media and how it can send you broke, did get some engagement and some questions and in fact, Inside My Mastermind, it’s a conversation that we’ve been having. Because obviously, inside a mastermind, the advice you get is from experts. You get you get one on one advice from me, and you get advice from my team who are experts in their field.

0:06:17 Salena: And the difference between that and crowdsourcing is someone like mavis who in one week made an extra $11,000 without having to do an awful lot of work. And it was actually that conversation with mavis about how when you have the right advice and you have someone who’s listening to you and where your business is at and knows more about your business and your customers, then you can actually get advice that gives you results and doesn’t mean that you end up putting a lot of work and throwing so much at the wall to see what sticks.

0:06:53 Salena: Instead, you get pretty much instant results and instant results that make lasting effects. Like, I’m sure everybody here would love to make an $11,000 increase in revenue in just a week without having to do an awful lot of work. Yeah. Now, just quickly, before we jump into this replay of my Instagram Live, I would love it if you could leave a review. You’ve probably noticed that I don’t do any paid sponsorship inside of this podcast. And so it means that I need you guys to help me spread the bringing business to retail love.

0:07:26 Salena: Because the more retail and ecommerce store owners that we help build profitable, scalable businesses, the world is a better place. It means you get to shop at amazing stores. I get to shop at amazing stores. We get to help more customers and more families build businesses that change their lives. So I would love it if you could leave a review. It only takes you about 60 seconds. Leave a review on your platform of choice. I will love you forever. Thank you very much.

0:07:53 Salena: Okay, let’s jump into this replay of my Instagram Live, how Crowdsourcing answers on social media will send you bankrupt.

0:08:00 Salena: Are you there? Remember that time that you put a business question into a Facebook group and you got inundated with 147 answers, and now you are more than confused because you have absolutely no idea what to do with the 147oz, which are all very different. Maybe that was even you today. Now, if it was, hey, Gold and palms, welcome. Hey, Detoxicate. Oh, cool name. So it’s that to you if your default mode is to go into generally a Facebook group and ask a business question. Now, this could be a business question related to your website, related to a customer, related to products that you should bring into your store.

0:08:48 Salena: I always have a fun saying it’s like, been there, done that, got the box of t shirts in the storeroom to show for it. Hey there, entrepreneur damon. So if that is your default to jump into a Facebook group and try and crowdsource answers, I want to give you a heads up because I have seen businesses go bankrupt because of bad advice and I do not want that to happen to you. Now, generally what I see and I try really hard to go into the business Facebook group books, that business Facebook groups that I’m in every day or two and answer as much as I possibly can from an expert point of view.

0:09:32 Salena: So what I’m saying here is I am going into a group as a retail or e commerce growth strategist and I’m giving advice based on that knowledge. I don’t comment like, oh, I’ve never been in that position, but here’s what I would do because that’s not helpful. So there are a few things that I see people doing wrong. So I just want to cover a couple of those in today’s episode of Going Live on Instagram. And hey, if you are new to seeing me here, this is my social media experiment.

0:10:05 Salena: My name is selina Knight. I’m a retail and ecommerce growth strategist. And I’m here trying to see if going live on Instagram every single day, which is the opposite of what everyone is saying, like going on, speaking, doing strategy, be keeping it real, no makeup, all the things. And just keeping it real and messy and authentic to see if that actually works. And so far it seems to be doing okay. So if you’re looking for someone who is real, is authentic, and is happy to kick you up the ass to get what you want done, feel free to dm me and we can see if working together would be an option.

0:10:41 Salena: Okay, so here are like the top. I don’t know, we’ll get there. Three things that I see people posting inside of Facebook groups. Now sometimes these are your own Facebook groups. So let’s start there. Say you have a vip Facebook group. Now generally I don’t see these as any vips. It’s just anyone who’s on your email list who joins the group regardless. So what I see people doing is they post things into their own Facebook group to see if customers are going to want to buy them.

0:11:13 Salena: Now this can be a great source of engagement because it’s going to give you a little bit of an idea of whether you should bring products in or not, right? No, not the case. Why? Because generally the people who are in those groups and I’m saying generally, generally the people who are in those groups are the kinds of people who are looking for freebies, they’re looking for discounts. They’re kind of just hanging out to be part of the crowd.

0:11:39 Salena: They’re not your vips. They’re not the people who will spend money before a product even comes in. And I’m going to give you an example. I read a little example out. I’m going to give you an example in a minute of if you really feel like you need to crowdsource an answer, here is how you can frame it to get some kind of advice that won’t send you broke. All right? So say you put up two sweaters, a pink one and a blue one. And you say, which one should we bring in? And everyone says, oh, Pink.

0:12:08 Salena: Pink’s great. The pink’s great. The pink’s great. You’re like, hell yeah, I’m ordering in the pink. And you get the pink and nobody buys it. See this all the time. Sometimes this might be you get product in because maybe a couple of people asked for it. But again, what I see mostly is people buying a product because they’ve done this kind of experiment or social media, crowdsourcing of answers. And then when it comes down to it, people don’t want to part with their money.

0:12:39 Salena: Here’s a tip. What people say they will do and what people actually pay for are two totally different things. So unless those people are prepared to pre order something, that’s a great strategy that you’re getting in there. Unless they’re prepared to pre order and put their money where their mouth is, take their responses with a grain of salt. Like use it as engagement, but don’t use this as your sole decision to whether you bring stuff in. Like whether you bring a product into your product mix or the amount of times I used to get people in my stores come in asking for baby hooded towels, I’m like, all right, you all want freaking hooded. Like, what’s the point of a baby hooded towel? But I would buy the hooded towels in.

0:13:30 Salena: Guess what? No one ever bought them. They would come in and ask for them because that’s what they thought they were looking for. But actually, when they were there, we had so much better stuff that they were like, who wants a hooded towel? So just because people are asking for things doesn’t mean they will give you the money for them. All right? Hey, little woods, thanks for joining me. Like I said, I am very tell it like it is.

0:13:56 Salena: I get so fed up with all the experts and gurus kind of throwing stuff at you. And realistically, it’s probably all just a whole bunch of made up. I’m not sitting in front of my bro lamborghini. I’m not a bro marketer, just person. Been there, done it, made a shit ton of mistakes and happy to help you guys to grow your businesses as well. And hey, if you want to work with someone like me, send me a dm, we can have a chat. No obligation.

0:14:24 Salena: And yeah, see what that looks like. All right. So the next thing I see so first one was trying to crowdsource product decisions from Facebook groups. The second one I see is quite often around pricing. My God, you probably cut it. My eye starts twitching when I see this because you should never, never, never, never have I got it. Never price your products based on what some people in a Facebook group tell you they would pay for it.

0:14:59 Salena: See point one above where what people say they will buy and what they actually spend their money on are two very different things. So when you’re pricing your product, you have to take a couple of maybe I should do a instagram live about that. All right, maybe I will. Let’s just scrap that and I’ll give you the condensed version. Pricing your products is related to so many things. It is not what your competition are charging. It is not what people are prepared to pay. It comes down to numbers. It comes down to profit.

0:15:30 Salena: And quite honestly, it comes down to how good your brand is and what freaking hell you can get away with charging stuff for. You can charge more than your competitors for the exact same product. So going into a Facebook Group and I see this a lot with new brands, so probably not necessarily you guys who are watching me because you’ve all been in business for a while. But I see this a lot like, hey, I’m thinking of get this product in and it’s going to be $75.

0:15:54 Salena: Would you pay that for it? Not the right question. So I said before that I would give you an example. If you feel the need, even if after you’ve watched this and you still feel the need to crowdsource answers, can I give you a suggestion on how you might phrase that? All right, let me have a think. All right, say you’ve got a sweater and you think it should sell for $120. All right, option number one inside of crowdsourced answered facebook Group or any other social media platform, hey, I’m thinking of getting this sweater in. Would you pay $120 for it?

0:16:38 Salena: Inevitably, 100 people are going to say no. You might get a few people who say yes. However, if you really must do that, have something along the lines of, hey, if you are your ideal customer, right? Your ultimate customer. If you are 30 to 35 years old and you earn more than $150,000, and you generally shop at stores like anthropology or Seed or harrods, depending on which country you’re in, and you generally pay more, than $75 for a sweater.

0:17:17 Salena: And you purchase stuff online or in store, whichever you are. And you’re even happy to put things on pre order, even if you haven’t purchased before. Would you pay $120 for this sweater? Because now we have niche down to the person who’s actually likely to buy your thing. Does that make sense? So instead of just asking the person who is broke and the concept of spending $120 on a sweater would never enter their mind, ask the person who comes in and does that because they’re going to give you somewhat of an answer. But I still wouldn’t make my purchasing decision on that. I would do here’s an extra tip, a presale strategy. But if you are thinking about something like that. If you’re trying to test out a different product or a different range, try doing a presale, get the cash up front. You could always refund people if you decide not to go ahead with the purchase.

0:18:12 Salena: All right, so the first thing we talked about was choosing products based on whether your Facebook groups say that they like those products. The second one was trying to price your products based on crowdsourcing information. My third one is going to be general business advice. So this is where I go in so often, I reckon I probably spend at least half an hour every day or two. This is my civic duty going into some of my most popular Facebook groups that I’m a member of and just giving advice. And also I go in as a personal profile and then I tag my business profile so that people can see that I actually know what I’m talking about.

0:18:54 Salena: Okay? I am not just some person who is just starting out or has never been there before. So if you are seeking advice in a business Facebook group, for example, a Facebook group, but one that’s got a business plant, this is where I worry where you could end up bankrupt. Because if you’re taking advice from people who have never done what you do, who have never been further than you are now, so if you’re turning over a million dollars right now, there is no point getting advice from someone who is just a startup and hasn’t sold a product yet.

0:19:30 Salena: Hi, ayla J Active, welcome to the show talking I’m up to so far the third reason of why you shouldn’t crowdsource answers inside of social media, most specifically Facebook groups. Okay? So if you are getting advice from someone who’s just starting out, then that’s not going to be relevant to you. And they haven’t been through all the things that you’ve been through. So I guess one of my cautions would be if you’re getting free advice from an expert or someone who is just giving you to someone who’s got nothing better to do than troll Facebook group, you have to think to yourself, why are they giving you that advice and from what knowledge? Which is why I tag my own business page, so people can go, oh yeah, like she has some kind of idea what she’s talking about, whether they choose to take my advice, that’s just me being helpful.

0:20:26 Salena: But if you are just getting 150 answers of people who are not even in your field or like I see this every day, like trademarking advice, like legal advice. Don’t ever get legal advice from a freaking Facebook group. People that will send you bankrupt don’t get trademarking advice from a Facebook group. Your business advice needs to come from a group of people who are at least at the same point in their journey that you are.

0:20:53 Salena: And generally if you’re paying to be in a Facebook group. So you’re part of a mastermind or a course or a program and there’s a Facebook group with it, then you’ve got some chance of actually getting advice that is going to be relevant. But if you’re just crowdsourcing answers from people who have no fucking idea what you do, how you do it, what your business model is, who your customers are, the products that you sell, why you’re in business, what’s important. To you what your profit margins are, then that is the kind of stuff that if you take action on it, can literally send you bankrupt.

0:21:30 Salena: And that is not what I want you guys to end up doing. I am okay with you. Like I ask questions in Facebook groups too, but the ones that I ask generally in groups that I know have a really high level of expertise. So I know the people in the group. Or I go in there sometimes just kind of fishing for the answers that people will give me so that I can see what kind of objections my customers might have. So this is where you can kind of game the system and that’s probably an Instagram Live for another day.

0:22:04 Salena: And you see this all the time in certain Facebook groups where people ask for advice, but what they’re really trying to do is just drive customers to their website, which is just stupid because it’s a waste of everybody’s time, because the people who are in that group, what’s the chance maybe 1% of those people are actually your potential customers? So when it comes to the one I saw today was about how do I work out whether a product is a good fit for the market when it doesn’t even exist yet? And so the advice I came up with was one, try and pre sell it, or two, try and do a crowdfunding campaign, get your customers or get these people to put their money where their mouth is. Like if people are prepared to pay for it, take their cash and use that in your business.

0:22:48 Salena: See yesterday’s Instagram Live Royal talked about using money to grow your business and how much you should sacrifice your profit to gain a customer. So I think the whole reason for today’s little Instagram Live was one, I just went into a Facebook group that I’m in and saw four comments. One was about trademarking, one was about legal, one was would you buy this? And one was how much would you pay for this? And I just remember thinking like, you’re not asking the right questions.

0:23:18 Salena: One, you don’t get free legal advice from a Facebook group because again, people don’t know the circumstances. But more importantly, what I worry about is that you end up even more confused. You end up with so many answers and none of them are necessarily relevant to you because the people who’ve answered there are too many variables into the equation and you can try and step them all out. But your business model might be different to my business model, which might be different to the next person’s business model.

0:23:52 Salena: Your profit margins could be different. So you can take it as a generic idea, but really, my answer is, why the fuck are you wasting your time? Like the time to go into a Facebook group, the time to spend sitting there sifting through 107 comments before the moderator turns it off? Like, that’s probably an hour of your time. Just think about what you could have, like how much money you could have made in an hour.

0:24:16 Salena: How what could you have done to grow your business in an hour? So if you’re going to ask questions like that, try and join a group that is maybe a paid group, or it comes with a program that you’ve already purchased. Or go and join a Mastermind. We have a mastermind. You can feel free to dm me about that. At least then you know that the people who are in there know you. They know where you’re at in your business, and they can give you advice because they’ve got experience.

0:24:44 Salena: I once heard the quote, something along the lines of, don’t ever take advice from someone in business who’s not further along than you are. Kind of makes sense, right? And it also works with investing. Don’t ever take investment advice from someone who is more broke than you are or doesn’t have as much money as you are. So I would love it if you could give me a comment below if this has been helpful. And remember, if you would like to come and hang out with me, maybe work with me, drop me a dm, we can have a chat and see if any of my programs are great for you. And I will see you back here at some point tomorrow on Instagram Live. If you’ve got a question, drop it into the comments, and I’ll answer that maybe on tomorrow’s Live.

0:25:26 Salena: All right, see you then. bye.

0:25:28 Salena: So that’s a wrap. I’d love to hear what insight you’ve gotten from this episode and how you’re going to put it into action. If you’re a social kind of person, follow me at the selena night and make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently or gave you some inspiration or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action, then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review.

0:25:57 Salena: On your platform of choice.

0:25:59 Salena: Because the more reviews the show gets.

0:26:02 Salena: The more independent retail and ecommerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale. And when that happens, it’s a win for you, a win for your community, and a win for your customers. I’ll see you on the next episode.