Successful Ecommerce Entrepreneur On Business, Scaling 10x, and Finding the Right Partners

Successful Ecommerce Entrepreneur On Business, Scaling 10x, and Finding the Right Partners Michael Erickson Facchin: What's going on, Vagination? Welcome to The PPC Den podcast, the world's first and longest running show all about how to make your Amazon advertising life a little bit easier and a little bit more profitable. Today on the show, we're going to be switching gears ever so slightly, where we typically are down in the weeds, learning about PPC techniques and strategies and all the specificity that comes with that. Today, we're going to be zooming out And I think this is going to be especially useful for the ecommerce entrepreneurs out there. It's an incredibly rare opportunity to sit down with someone who's a successful serial entrepreneur, taking a business from zero to multi-million in just a few years with an incredibly great product. Being able to effectively find and work with vendors can be really impactful to an ecommerce brand. And Francis breaks down a lot of his philosophy on business Finding vendors and working with vendors and I found it incredibly useful to hear Francis's philosophy on a lot of this. So with all that said, let's jump in to the episode. All right, Francis, to kick it off, I have a tough question for you, which is, what's harder, being a trained cook, bonsai enthusiast, or entrepreneur? Francis Leger: Interesting because when I first started, entrepreneur is less certain. There's no question. With bonsai, it takes incredible patience because it takes forever. Cooking was hard physically. You do cooking professionally. It is a young man's game. I really enjoyed putting things together, making people happy, but I looked at the older fellows that were doing it and it was not where I wanted to be. You know, very hard to have a family life, late nights, holidays, everything, a lot of drunkenness and Chasing waitresses, which is not attractive when you're 50, you know, all those kind of things. And so I really enjoyed it as a young guy. I immensely enjoy it still, the cooking part of it, but the professional part was very grueling. The bonsai I took on as a young guy, because I've always been kind of You know, I'm a hyped up guy, go, go, go. And I did it to find my Zen, if you will, teach me patience and that it did. And I kind of puttered with it now for like 30 years. It's only been in the last few years that I decided, you know, my little trees, I need to pay more attention. And that came about because I started looking more seriously at what The really good guys were doing and I realized how amateurish I still was. Now, a lot of people were impressed but like any discipline, when you get into it, you realize, oh no, there's what most people think is good and then there's good and then there's what the experts know is good. And I'm still, I wouldn't call myself an expert but my trees Look way better now. And I'm having actually more fun with it. The entrepreneurial thing, though, is the most fulfilling. Good, bad and ugly. You got to have a strong stomach. I used to think everybody should do it. But I've had some partnerships over the years. And I came to learn that everybody thinks they should do it. But it takes a rare breed to be able to do it and mostly because of the uncertainty. And so it takes a certain amount of confidence, but not a false bravado, but it takes a certain amount of confidence that the hole I dig myself into, I can get out of it. And the way I talk to myself is I just realized, you know what, no matter what I'm faced with, somebody else has faced it, and they've gotten out of it. I have enough confidence that, okay, that can be me. And I'm not afraid even at my age now. I still talk to my friends a lot about different situations and I get advice. Most of it good, but always has to be moderated, modulated to fit my situation. And I think that's also what I like about it the most, always learning. And I think I'm blessed with The fact that I love business. So now I'm doing organic fertilizers. And I like it because I'm doing good, but and making money. So doing well by doing good. But it's not that my calling was always Oh, I got to make this organic fertilizer. I've had a number of businesses I love. The business when I was a chef, I realized after a couple years, you know what, I like this cooking stuff. But mentally, I wasn't a true artist and to stay in that business. It's so hard that if if you're calling is Oh, I must create this new dish. I was more of a craftsman, but what I really liked was building the team and implementing the systems. And that's still true. And ironically, when I started the fertilizer business, it reminded me a lot of good and bad of being in the culinary world. By that, I mean, I would be mixing my formulas, making the different products. It was a lot like Recipe building in the food world. And it was grueling, like making huge banquets for 300 people and all that. And it was very similar. But it also helped me because I was able to set up efficient production, if you will. So, you know, in and you hear a lot of people say this, at a certain age, everything can teach you lessons. And there and you can pull from all these different experiences. And find relevance without stretching. I mean, I see some real relevance in all the different things I've done, even with the bonsai, which is, you know, just a hobby. And people say, Oh, you should sell some of them. And you know, you could probably do really well. Yeah, but every time I start thinking, which one? I'm like, nah, nah. It's like your kids, which one are you gonna do with that? You know, you get attached when you're growing a tree for 30 years, that, yeah, even for big money. Michael Erickson Facchin: There's some real lessons in so much of what you just said. One thing that really sticks out to me is the balance between being a hard-charging serial entrepreneur and the stillness of Bonsai cultivation, I think that's really vital. Many of the successful entrepreneurs that I know do that very thing. I think that's a general success trait that even, you know, doctors, lawyers, you know, non-entrepreneurs still practice where they're able to find some stillness to balance out the Flurry of activity in their mind almost. So with that being said, you said something else that I think is really interesting as well, which is you enjoyed the building teams. You enjoyed the mechanism of building a system that could host a banquet. Is that how you have generally viewed business in general? And the reason I ask, because sometimes I believe that to be the case in my own businesses, Where, oh, I'm creating a series of systems. What is the business more than a series of systems? I'm curious how you think about the architecture and the engineering of it all. Francis Leger: Well, that's interesting. All about a series of structures, but you know, what's really changed and I have a friend who's very successful and he's built a business. He has about 250 employees and my son was asking both of us about business one time and his answer was like, well, that's how you get leverage. You know, you have other people do it and there's some truth to that. But I also knew as we were building GS Plant Foods, you know, at first, it was just me. And, you know, I was making every product, I was doing all the ads, I was designing all the labels. And of course, you outgrow that pretty quickly, and you find you need help. What's interesting is, I don't know, you know, you hear in, you hear a phrase about, in every life, there are seasons. Employees are very expensive. And I enjoyed managing employees and I was pretty good at it. I think most of my employees liked me because I was very fair. So there were a lot of things I liked about it. But with this business, the world has changed so much. There are so many tools available, so many resources where some of them are free, like bottling, for example. We used to do all our own bottling, but we quickly realized to get to a different scale, We would constantly be investing in new equipment because you might need, I might need a $200,000 line to make our runs right now. And yet I only need them, I don't know, one day a week. And so it's hard to justify that. Plus you would need a staff that can, you know, that equipment is sophisticated. You would need somebody more than a minimum wage guy to keep that thing going. And yet I can more or less rent that capability. from a big player. And that's true of Of everything, like we use AdBadger, and that's a prime example. For me to hire somebody full time, doubtful I would get somebody with that skill level. And yet it would cost me way more to keep them busy all day, every day. And then ironically, something else that my partner Jeff and I have learned, when you use these outside sources, you not only benefit from their expertise, but you benefit from, like with advertising, The fact that Clement deals with other customers, so he can bring that knowledge to ours, whereas if somebody was just working for only me, they would not get that experience. Same with my bottler. He comes and he goes, well, your product's different than this other guy's, but I see now we're having this issue or that issue. This is how we handled it before. And so again, that experience really draws in. And so it is amazing to me. I mean, at my age, I'm 63. So I've been around from pre-internet and the sophistication that we have today. So it's been really fascinating to see, you know, I get pissed when I hear people talk about, oh, how hard it is now. Shit, it's so much easier now than it ever has been. But you just have to Open your mind to what's available out there. I mean, AI coming on, I think it's just, it's unbelievable. And I find it very exciting because I'm trying to learn all about it. I don't know how many more years I'll be doing all this, but probably till I die, because I enjoy it. And the other thing about using all these resources, if I had a big team, not only would it be very expensive right now, but you know, it takes a lot of energy. And again, that's When I was young, I had that energy. I'm still pretty energetic for my age, but I don't have that desire to be managing all that stuff. So when I don't have actual bottling going on, I don't think about it. When I don't have any of these different areas, I know I'm paying somebody to be concerned about it. And my mind can be cleared because the one thing I realized Is high level strategizing is really where my value would come in. And, you know, so control freaks might find entrepreneurialism hard, because you have to be willing to let so much go. But I learned a long time ago. There are a lot of other people. You let everybody fall into their peg and not only it's better for me, they like it because they're treated, they're respected for what they're bringing to the table. There's no other way to do it as far as I'm concerned. Now, some businesses are going to require more of a team internally. There's no question. And Jeff and I look like, what do we need to have in place? I read a book a little while ago. I can't remember. It was talking about scaling up. And it said, what do you need to have? What do you think if you grew your company by 10 times, what would look different about it? And so I try to think about that. I go, well, I don't know that we would continue to be able to do it just me and Jeff working from my laptop, you know. But a lot of it I could. My partners would probably be happy because they would get bigger checks out of it, right? Because that would be a bigger part of their business. But I probably would need to make a couple of internal structural changes. And so it's kind of interesting to think about, okay, what do we have to add to do this? And picturing, okay, with 10 times more of what we already do, what could we handle? Well, I would probably need help in some areas, customer service support. But, you know, It's fun to think about. It's also been a very valuable exercise because, you know, that old thing, fake it till you make it and act like you're already in the position you want to be. When I was young and I wanted to get promoted, I always did that. I was the assistant GM. I'm like, well, what would I be acting like if I was the GM? And I'm not talking about from an arrogance perspective. I'm just talking about being willing to take on the responsibilities of the next position before you're paid for it. And a lot of people have that problem. I ain't doing anything if I'm not paid for it. They only get what they pay me for. No one's going to promote you like that. If you think, well, I'm only doing what I'm paid for. And then they go, look, that guy does what he's paid for, but we can't picture him in that next position. Well, it still holds true even as an entrepreneur. If you're like, well, I'm not gonna worry about building out my business to handle more business because I don't have it. Well, then you won't get it. And it's just such a, to me, it's such an obvious And I'm here to talk to you about entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur. And I want to start by saying, and yet a lot of people are confused by it. And sometimes that means taking a bit of a risk. But really, that's what entrepreneurship is all about. You got to be comfortable with that. Like I was saying earlier, some people, I thought everybody wanted to be an entrepreneur. And then I realized some people just don't like that uncertainty. And I'm cool with that now. I used to not be. I used to not understand it. Maybe not somebody else. Michael Erickson Facchin: Right. It's constant problem solving and for sure. You mentioned sometimes I heard this quote that really sticks with me, which is as an entrepreneur, you have to be careful of how many monkeys are on your back in the sense of how many tasks am I managing right now? How many things am I doing? So I think a lot of times I do talk to a lot of entrepreneurs doing what I do who are doing their entire business operations and strategy and so on and so forth. And then they also dedicate tons of mental energy and time towards their digital marketing. And not only just thinking of their digital marketing, but also implementing their digital marketing. And I would say, and you mentioned something really interesting, which is, you know, You're sort of delegating these out to contractors and vendors and sort of renting their time elsewhere. I think that's a really fascinating thing. I think people don't realize how valuable it is to understand what your superpower is and then do that superpower. You mentioned the strategy of the thing is really valuable to do. I feel like sometimes That is hard to quantify on a day to day. So it takes moments of inspiration. It takes stillness to be able to do that. And I would say, yeah, I have seen a lot of entrepreneurs maybe over focus on implementing their digital marketing strategy and they miss out on some of the overarching business strategy. So I thought that was really interesting that you said that. And would you say that's how the story transpired? Because you did say that you did manage like the PPC, for example. Would you say those are the sort of switch points that happened where you sort of realized like, oh, I need to give this to someone else? Francis Leger: Well, what happened with that was, you know, when I first started on Amazon, for example, 2012, It was pretty unsophisticated, if you will. And by that, I mean, it just, hell, I knew nothing about it, but I was pretty good at it. I would get in there and I would put all the words I could think of. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. Francis Leger: And some hit some didn't, you didn't get penalized for having bad words. And yet when someone clicked on the right word, and we, you know, we did great. I kind of enjoyed it. But it was also It took a lot of my time, but at the time, my company wasn't big enough. I found two things out. When you're really small, you don't have the money to pay the proper people, but also they don't care either. You're not an account. It's not that they're greedy, but they have needs as well. There are exceptions and that takes a little bit of luck, but also as relationships deal with, That, you know, you find sometimes if you have a good relationship with one of your suppliers, they might make exceptions for you because you've been a good client and they see where you're going. And these exceptions might not be something that they can justify opening up to everybody that comes by because that would be too problematic. By that I mean like my bottler, for example. They had minimums and some of the bottlers, when we were looking around, have huge minimums that we just, we would have had to invest in big equipment to cover the gap between when they would accept us and where we were. We found a bottler with a fairly reasonable minimum. It was a stretch for us. But now that we're working with him, he does our really short runs for new products just because he knows where it will grow into. But with the PPC, I mean that is a beast on its own. And we find that As we grew, it was taking more and more time. But also, I just knew I wasn't doing it as well as it needed to be. And we were leaving too much opportunity on the table. And we went with a couple of jokers, you know, brand management companies, then I realized, hell, I should start my own brand management company, because I'd be better at it than these guys are. And they were doing what I needed to be doing, which was finding proper freelancers to do the different jobs that we needed of them. Michael Erickson Facchin: Technicians. Francis Leger: Technicians. And not that that's an illegitimate way for them to build their business, but I was already past that. I mean, I was sophisticated enough, our little company to, we can handle that part. And I honestly, I don't know how we came about with AdBadger to be started because I was kind of out of that part of the decision, only because I was working on all this other stuff. But it has really grown into almost a partnership, you know, which is, I have two or three, we have a lot of different vendors, you know, some more important than others. But I have two or three really Powerful ones that I, I really believe are taking us to new levels. And that is not to sound like a commercial for you guys, but it's how I know you, right? So Clamont with AdBadger doing the PPC has been one because we're getting into so much more sophistication in terms of our listing quality and things like this, that You know, the other day, a few weeks ago, we were looking back at some, I'm talking about we, Jeff, my partner and I, and Clement, we were looking at some old listings that I thought were, at the time, we were happy with. Now we looked at them and they've been up there for a year or two and we're like, that's kind of amateur hour, which kind of indicated to me how much more sophisticated we become out of necessity. But then our bottler is, is huge. And now I'm looking forward to my relationship with you on the website, which I think will be a whole nother leg. That I'm personally really excited about. And then beyond that, we have a lot of other ones, but on lesser levels. But to me, I can trust you guys to do what I'm paying you for. You work with me. Okay, what's your thoughts on this or that? But I, you already know from my relationship with you, I defer pretty much. Might as well let you see, might as well see with any vendor, you got to trust them. Until you see that they're not worthy of that trust, you know what I mean? Look, when I used to run country clubs, I would be hired, I was a young guy. And so it would be a big job. The only reason they were taking the chance on hiring a young guy to do it was because they had big problems. And I came in with a lot of energy and promise, look, I can fix this, because there's a right way and a wrong way. And I would work my tail off for about six months. And in that business, it always, it was always people problems. If you have the wrong people, Then you got a problem. When you get the right people, you have no problems. And so I would work really hard. And 80 hour weeks getting the right people in place. And after about six months, I was able to golf do whatever I wanted, because these are golf clubs that I was running, because everybody was doing their jobs. And once in a while, I, I wouldn't trust them. One of my favorite things that people come to me with a problem, And I would say, well, how do you think we should fix it? And usually they had the right answer. I said, well, then do that. And sometimes, you know, when they were learning what I wanted and how to how to do things, you know, we would have more back and forth. But after a while, they didn't need to come to me with every little problem because they already knew what would be the right answer. And I would get almost bored because the job would get so easy. But it's because I was successful at it. So I kind of still try to do that with With what we do now, and what that entails is, if we have a problem with this area or that area, we attack it, we work pretty hard on it, but then we're able to let it go for a while. And especially if we have good vendors that we use. I mean, I can't overemphasize how important all that is having the right resources. Whether it's your own employees, depending on your kind of business, you know, you might have to have the employees. My last business before I got into this was we did bridal shows and advertising in the wedding industry. And I always prided myself, my wife and I ran it and we had several employees, but every one of them was a paid or was a sales person. So they were all revenue generating. In other words, if they were doing their job, they made us more revenue than they cost us. And I always thought, wow, that's a great business. And I kind of learned with that, that you have, sometimes you have high margin Low maintenance business, meaning that they're pretty easy, not a lot of moving parts. You have low margin, high maintenance business, like the restaurant business, meaning you have a lot of moving parts, a lot of employees and low margins. And I thought, well, I know which ones I like better. What we're in now is kind of in between. It's not a super high margin business. Anybody knows when you're dealing with online with Amazon and you're shipping products to customers. You have to watch everything. It's fairly low maintenance. The only reason I work what I do and think about it constantly is because I enjoy it. But if I just want to cruise on what we are doing, the systems are in place. It works pretty well on its own. You know, Jeff and I are working a lot because we're loving it. We're going to a kind of a rebirth because we've restructured our partnership and recently and you know, it's we're having a lot of fun and I could do this indefinitely. A lot of my friends are getting at retirement age and I'm like, I'm like Colonel Sanders, man. My best success is coming after after 60 but I'm just I'm just having fun with You know, when you give yourself to something and you see things work, it's fun. Michael Erickson Facchin: The best feeling. Yeah. One of the fastest ways to burn out is to work very hard for no result. Francis Leger: Yes. Michael Erickson Facchin: So when you do, when things are connecting, it's incredibly energizing for sure. You know, what advice would you give any business when they are, because you know, it's, it can be difficult in a online world to find the right vendors to surround themselves with. Um, so what advice would you give businesses who are looking for vendors for anything, whether it be accounting or digital marketing or. Francis Leger: Everybody talks a good game. Right, so that's hard to just go by their marketing or whatever. I mean, you can tell the hacks from the pretty easily. So let's assume that you're past that you're not so naive. And, but even there, there's a lot of jokers, you know, like I said, we went through two or three brand management companies. And one of them was pretty good. But we realized after a while, they don't really do anything that we couldn't do ourselves. And you just have to be a big boy and realize there are things that you got to do yourself. I always look for an easy out. Like, if a company is good at what they do, they should be confident that if you come into our ecosystem, you're not going to want to leave, right? And if they say, Oh, no, you have to lock in for a five year. Well, that's, that's a no go. It's for me, it's too big a risk, right? To obligate yourself to that, because chances are, they're not going to be as good as they promised to be. Okay. It's rare when you get a relationship that works, As well as it should. So what's more important is don't be afraid to start a relationship with somebody. But don't be afraid to fire them. You know, and I'm pretty easy going, but I'm also very direct, you know, and that's what I love about business. And I tell people up front, you know, I'm a no BS or by the same token, I'm not sensitive. If you tell me there's something that you don't like about me, but as a as a client, I have obligations. I got to pay my bills because that's what your vendors are in it for. And I also have to trust them to do their job. I can't micromanage them and then wonder why What they promised me isn't happening when I've been pulling all the strings. So I think it's important for the business owner to find somebody the best you can, you know, look for reviews, try to get some insight, but it's a big world and it's hard to get reviews on all these different people. But don't be afraid to dive in. Trust them to a certain extent, but they have to continue to earn that trust. And if you're not comfortable, don't be afraid to pull the plug. I always liken it to fishing. I'll try a different lure, try a different bait. And if it's not working, the hell with it. If it is working, I want more of that. And that's kind of how I look at our relationships. And then once we get one, then we're all in. Again, that's how we are with AdBadger. And that's how we are with my bottler. And I hope that's how we are with the whole website part of it. Because stress free for me, if I know I have somebody that's doing it, A, they have more competency in it than I do. And I'm paying them for it. And that's what you guys want as vendors. You're like, I don't want a guy who's calling me every day complaining about this or that or wondering why I'm not rich yet. You said you'd make me rich. All that unrealistic and hyper management. I don't know. It's like the old golden rule, treat others as you want to be treated. I sell organic fertilizer. And people sometimes will call and wonder why their lawn isn't beautiful, luscious green after an hour after putting it down, you know. Well, that's not how it works. And when we used to do advertising with my wedding business, one of my taglines was always, it works if you work it. In other words, as a business owner, there were certain things they had to do to make our program work for them. And those that just wanted it to bring them great results, well, sometimes that happened. But oftentimes, no, you have to do your part. So I guess the advice is just in a nutshell, don't be afraid to try new people, make sure there's an out if it doesn't go right, but then trust them to do what you're paying them for. Michael Erickson Facchin: You know, if you think of businesses in terms of chapters, you know, maybe like a first chapter might be zero to 100k, the next chapter 100k to a million, maybe the next chapter after that is 1 million to 5 million, you know, and maybe it hasn't, but how has your sort of view of what you do and sort of maybe the marketing operations, how has that evolved and how do you think it will evolve into the future? Francis Leger: Well, you know, it's interesting because I started it just sort of as a weird hobby. And but being a business guy, I had been told about this recipe for growing orchids. And it worked pretty well. So I shared it with some lady friends of mine. And they sent me pictures of their orchids blooming after a couple of weeks. And they were so excited. And I thought, Wow, I should I should probably sell that if people are that excited. They're sending me pictures. And, you know, I had some rudimentary Photoshop skills. I made some labels, bought some bottles, bought the ingredients at retail. And said, you know, I'll put it on eBay, because I had done some eBay stuff earlier. I said, let me put it on eBay, see if anybody wants it. And they bought it. And so I made a few more bottles. And so I started this business for like $35. And mostly what I put in it was just reinvesting, you know, I made eight bottles. All right, let me try 20 bottles next time. And, you know, of course, it puttered along, I had another business that was Making me a nice lifestyle and keeping me occupied. So this was just kind of a hobby. But it was intriguing enough that I didn't just let it go. And I was like, damn, man, I don't have much time to make anything. But every time I make it, whatever I make sells, you know. And so then I thought, well, let me put it on Amazon, which was kind of new at the time, new to me, you know, 2012. I was like, let me let me see how that stuff works. And at the time, it was pretty easy, pretty straightforward. And so I got me a seller's account. Put some on there. I was just doing it was I was just fulfilling it myself. Got a little bigger. I thought, well, I'll try this FBA stuff. And then it started to become a bit of a challenge because, again, I was just making it in my garage and everything I made sold. I tried to make it look as professional as possible because, you know, I understand business and it wasn't an Etsy thing as far as I was concerned. I was like, well, if I'm going to do it, let me make it look professional. And it puttered along. And then with my Business that I was making a living off of, it was a great business, but it was a franchise. And the franchisor sold it. And the company he sold it to installed this Lady who honestly I think had some kind of psychosis and long story short, it just a good thing went to hell. And pretty rapidly, there were lawsuits. And it was just really a bad, stressful thing. Long story short, we were out of that business. And my income went to zero. And all I had was my little GS Plant Foods. And so at the time, I was doing like 160,000 a year. And, you know, it was just pocket money for me, you know, I was having fun with it. And all of a sudden, it was like, Oh, no, I got to feed my family on this. And so for about three years, I ran it and was taking out way too much money for a little company like that. But you know, I had to do what I had to do, I had to feed my kids. And I ended up My supplier for one of my products, we started talking, they liked what I was doing, selling at retail, and they were trying to sell it wholesale. And so long story short, we ended up partnering up, they had more money than me. And they had this relationship with the bottler. So it was good. It was a big relief for me. And We kind of went along and that was, I think, just before COVID. We had a couple of good years. It was growing. I think we about doubled, maybe that 160. If I recall, it went to about 250. And then COVID hit and we exploded because people were at home and they thought, you know, I might as well take care of my yard, grow my garden, get into some of this stuff. I think we went from 250 to 500 to a million to two million, maybe a million and a half during the COVID time. Then after COVID, we were like, well, is it going to fall back to earth now? All this time, I was doing all the advertising myself and handling the Amazon thing. Then it started getting pretty sophisticated. I knew, one, I don't have the time. Nor the desire to be a PPC master. I mean, that's a job on its own. So we started experimenting with some different outside vendors at that time. We kept growing and we're still growing. And, you know, it did fall back to earth, you know, from 100% growth to, you know, a bad year was 15%. 20% you know more normal stuff but still growing and I think lately we've been concentrating a lot on efficiency. Because Amazon has gotten very sneaky and complicated with their fees. And, you know, you got to protect your margins. And it's very easy to lose a 15 or 20% margin if you're not watching it. I mean, very easy. And so we and you're kind of going blind, like what should be a good Cost of goods. What should be a good advertising expenditure? Michael Erickson Facchin: How much do I spend on coupons? Yeah. Francis Leger: Yeah. And everybody has their own opinion. And eventually you realize, well, what matters is what's good for my particular business. Now, we're the manufacturer. I don't know how people sell anymore on online if they are resellers, because it's tough. You know, if you're buying it from somebody else, you better be buying it at a pretty good price. Because cost of goods is It's huge, right? You know, like they used to say in real estate, you make your money the day you buy it, not when you sell it. In other words, you got to buy it right. Well, selling online for us, it's like, we've got to control our cost of goods. Now, from where we are now to continue to grow, we, this year, as you know, we're We're now putting some emphasis on our website and for a couple of reasons. One, we see it as an opportunity for some hopefully new sales. I don't want to just cannibalize Amazon. We want to bring new people to the table. Our brand is stronger now. Obviously, having done it for a while, we have a good reputation that we think will benefit us, but you got to blow your own horn, you know. But also, you know, we don't like having all our eggs in one basket. So Amazon's great, but they are also this massive silent It's like a Dr. Seuss movie where they just roll through the jungle tearing down everything in its way and it's not personal but you might get stepped on too bad. You don't mean anything to them. So we think building more off Amazon business would be good and then we want to get into retail which is kind of I resisted for the longest time, but I think it will help to have a much bigger footprint. We don't really care where people buy from us. Retail is a whole different game, different economics, different logistics, and it's all new to me. Michael Erickson Facchin: Another fun challenge. Francis Leger: Yeah, it's a challenge. I'm excited about it. Different verticals We are completely moving away from retail, but in the garden industry, people still like to spend their Saturday afternoon going to the nursery and looking at different plants. It's very much more of a personal touchy. Michael Erickson Facchin: People are literally getting their hands dirty with your products. Yeah. Francis Leger: Yeah. It's like the antithesis of the We're in the techno world that we live in, and that's where the appeal is. And so you got to be where they are. But it's a learning curve for me, but I'm excited about it. I do think, you know, in the long term, I would love it to be a third of our business. You know, if I could do a third there, a third on our own website and a third on Amazon. Michael Erickson Facchin: That's a great business. Francis Leger: It's a great solid. You know, that's the important thing. You know, we've been going with the low hanging fruit on Amazon. And that's what you do when you start, right? Where is it easy? Why take on these big challenges? Go for the low hanging fruit. But now if we're down to 20% growth, which is still healthy, I'm still happy with that. But I also realized I got some extra energy, man. Let me get these other things while I still can, because one day I probably will say, I don't want to work that hard anymore. I'm not there yet, but let me do that. Michael Erickson Facchin: Well, it's amazing. It's great working with you on the AdVenture side, and I'm excited to work with you on the Search Scientist side on the Shopify site. I think that's really exciting, and I think that's a great lesson for so many Amazon sellers too. If you confirm your product market fit on Amazon, It is likely that you can also be off of Amazon as well, and you do get a little bit more of a diversified traffic channel. Even if I just think of it in pure digital marketing terms, Anyone who relies too much on one specific traffic channel is, you know, I don't think as resilient as someone that has multiple traffic channels. So part of that too, like when I'm thinking of the Shopify site, I'm thinking of even there, you know, we want Google SEO, we want Google ads, we want Pinterest ads, we want meta ads, like there's It creates a richer experience. And I think, too, a rising tide lifts all ships. So, like, if you have a stronger brand, some of the best and easiest digital marketing I ever do is from strong brands where, like, people know them. They like their products. Like, it makes everything flow a little bit easier. So for that, I definitely thank you. Francis Leger: Well, I remember telling you I was I would probably be one of your dream clients because I want to try everything. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, it's great. Francis Leger: Some will work, some won't, and I'm cool with that. The trick is, it's my responsibility to know, all right, we've invested enough in, let's just say, Pinterest. We tried it. I believe we gave it the old college try. Maybe we'll revisit it, but we're going to cut it out now, whatever it may be. On the other hand, maybe that takes off. I'm not so naive as to think that I know which ones ahead of time, especially So for me, it all becomes down to I trust that your efforts in those will be genuine and sophisticated enough that I feel like, you know what, we gave it a good try. Because there's been things that I've tried in the past myself, and then I would have to look back and go, you know, It didn't work out, but to tell you the truth, I got to accept the blame because we didn't do a good job at rolling it out. You know, like we've been using a tool called PickFood lately. Oh my God, I love that thing. And yet every time we do a listing, we fight the urge as we read the reviews, like, how stupid are these people? And then we realize, no, we're the stupid one. For example, We write in our listings on a number of products that it's pet safe and child friendly, right? Because it's organic, it's what we do. And we just kind of take that as, well, of course it's safe, it's organic. Yet we saw on a couple of listings where that text either wasn't in there or it was buried in all the text. And people were saying, well, I want to know if this is pet friendly. I want to know if this is child friendly. We realized at first we were like, Aren't these people reading all this great info we're giving them? Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. Francis Leger: And then we realized, you know what? It is apparently so important to these people that we are not making it clear enough. And not everybody has the same level of knowledge of our product that we do. And it's not their fault or nor their responsibility. And so PICFU kind of slapped us in the face with Those things that were like just because it's obvious to you. It's not obvious to them and that's all that matters. I learned in the restaurant business, you would make a dish and you're like, it's fantastic. I created it. Michael Erickson Facchin: It's not up to you. Francis Leger: It's not up to me. The guy paying the bill is, and you see different, you just got to really suppress your ego in business, really do. And you got to let the market speak to you. Michael Erickson Facchin: That's right. Francis Leger: The market will tell you if you're doing it right or not. Michael Erickson Facchin: I hear that. I experienced that left and right with AdBadger building a software. It's like, okay, I think I've made this page really clear for people to understand. And I'm like, Well, it's not really up to me. And then sometimes I'll watch someone use it and I'm like, oh man, they're missing that button over there. So yeah, that resonates a lot. And the same thing with the actual product that is being sold as well. So I think that's fascinating. Francis, so many good lessons here. It's such a pleasure to work together. I have a Some ending questions. Books, audiobooks, or podcasts? Francis Leger: Oh boy. It's funny because I wrestle with that. I don't read books anymore. I can't sit still that long. So I listen in my car and I belong to Audible, right? Well, I'm like five months behind because I find I listen to podcasts so much more. Part of it is where you are in life. I'll listen to a business book, and then I realize, I should be writing that, you know, I mean, I've been doing this a long time. So it's not my ego is so great. It's that You know, I don't need the same lessons I did 30 years ago. So in that sense, podcasts are more current. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. Francis Leger: Like AI, we mentioned earlier, I don't know anything about it. And it's scary how little I know when I look at how powerful it is. And I really think it's going to be I tell my kids, when I was your age, there was no internet. And when it first came on, I was dismissed of like, that seems kind of weird, you know, get on on this computer and talk to people you don't even know. Who's gonna buy? It just seems stupid. Well, Naively, we got with it before too long. I'm not a Neanderthal, but I didn't see it coming out. I told my kids, I said, AI is going to be the new internet. Whatever you do, you better make sure it's in something that You know, like if I was going into business today, I would be very cognizant of what type of business it was. I'd try to anticipate, do I think AI is going to replace me? Because if it can replace you and do it cheaper and easier, it will. And that's just the way business works. And now, you know, service businesses, product businesses, maybe you're in better shape. And so sometimes I struggle. How do I adapt AI for what I do? Because you know, I'm making fertilizer and my customers are not too interested in us being some kind of tech company, right? I mean, the whole reason our appeal is that it brings them back. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah, to it. Francis Leger: But it is so fascinating. You have to keep learning. So I listened to a lot of podcasts on on business. The books, the audio books tend to be more of a spiritual sense, because You know, I can still learn there. That's kind of an eternal thing. And so I it's kind of funny and I can only take so much of that. So I go back and forth. But on it, I would say podcast went out as far as my my daily listens, but it's a big it's important discipline for me because a it puts your mind. It keeps you going, you know, to always be Learning and thinking instead of just idly listening to music, but there's a time and place for everything. So you relax when you have to, but don't I think about business a lot. I don't work as hard as I used to. I think about it more, so it's become more of a cerebral existence than the physical. But I've worked physically hard, so I know what that's all about. So anything less than putting Tar on the roof to me is a good day. And, you know, people talk about working hard. I'm like, yeah, working a lot of hours and got my computer or talking to people. Yeah, you got it made, you know, working 80 hours in a kitchen with 100 degree heat. You're dog tired and you got to get back up at four the next morning, go back. That's hard. The army was hard. When I first started GS Plant Foods, it was hard. I would work in my warehouse. It was 105 degrees. I put in a thermometer one time. I was like, holy cow, I'm making six bucks an hour when I figure out what I'm making. But people kept buying it. Everything I could make, they kept buying. So I was like, I got to hang in there. One day, I'll be able to make more. I got a funny story for you. I know we got to tie it up. So I would make everything myself and on a good day, maybe I could make, I don't know, 150 gallons, which would be one pallet. And when we started with our bottler, he said, hey, look, we're going to make your run on X morning. Why don't you come over and you drive over to Tampa and you can see us. When we got there, he was already done. We go, sorry man, we're already done. And it was like, I don't know, it was thousands of gallons. It was like 10 pallets wind up against the wall. And when I came in and I saw that, I started getting emotional. I was getting choked up. I was like, I think I went, this is so beautiful. Unknown Speaker: And I knew it. Francis Leger: You would have all those hours, how much work it would have been for me, and it would have still been impossible. And then I realized, you know, I think we're on to something here. I think we're gonna make it after all, you know. Michael Erickson Facchin: That's a cool realization. Last question for you. What's the hardest plant to keep alive? Francis Leger: I don't think any of them are. Michael Erickson Facchin: Yeah. Francis Leger: I mean, you know, people, it's funny, you know, some, most plants fall into pretty easy to grow categories. Some are a bit harder, but you have to, people laugh when I say this, but you almost need a little bit of empathy to be able to grow plants well, because I can look at somebody's limp houseplant and I feel bad. I'm like that little guy just needs some water or he needs some sun or he needs a little feed. What would you do if you were in a pot all day with no sun, no water, no fertilizer? You would look like that too and so I can almost feel it and You know, I work on my bonsai and for the last three weeks, I live in a condo on the ocean. And for the last three weeks, they've been doing this repairs on the outside of the building. So they restricted access. I couldn't go out to the patio where I keep all my bonsai. So I had to bring them all in. And I thought, well, it was only going to take a week. No problem. I can nurse them for a week. Well, after three weeks, they were hurting. And I was getting pretty upset. And I was able to bring them out this Tuesday, finally got access. And within two days, they're already They're already like, I'm free. They're bouncing back. Now, a casual observer might not be able to see much difference between them. To me, it was devastating. So you get kind of in tune with it. I'm not a Mr. Sensitive guy, but with any plants, if you pay attention, you can start... It's like when people own dogs and they say their dog talks to them. Unknown Speaker: I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Francis Leger: But I can kind of relate to it because they understand their animal because they spend time with it. And so with the plants, I think There may be little nuances, but mostly you're not watering them, you're not feeding them, or they're not getting the proper light. Sometimes too much light, sometimes too little, but you know, you just, you got to just pay attention, you know. Michael Erickson Facchin: Well said. Well, Francis, thanks so much for coming on to the show. An absolute pleasure to be able to work together. And we're excited to see what we can do with the Shopify site this year. Francis Leger: Yeah, I'm real excited. Thanks, Mike. This was fun. Michael Erickson Facchin: Awesome. Have a good one. Francis Leger: All right. Take care. Unknown Speaker: I've launched campaigns and picked keywords. I've got my bids, set placements too. Now bad mistakes, I've made a few. I've had my share of broken ones, but I've come through. We are the creepy pseudonym, my friend. We are the PPCs and we talk about Amazon. No time for medicars, cause we fix the gambit of the world.