This Is Not How This Ends
Introduction:
This week, we bring you what we’re calling an Entrepreneurial Fish Bowl with Chris Hutchinson. As you may remember, we recorded one of these at our 21 Hats Live event in Fort Worth, where I shared some of my challenges trying to build 21 Hats and got feedback from the group. We recorded that conversation and turned it into a podcast episode. This time, we’re doing the same thing except it will be Jaime Echt, founder and CEO of The Crafters Workshop, who is going to explain her challenges to a virtual group of 21 Hats entrepreneurs. As you’ll hear, Jaime’s challenges are real: Her sales are down. Her customers are aging. Her lease is up. And she’s not sure what she should do next. We’re going to see if a group of 21 Hats Founding Members can offer some support and advice.
— Loren Feldman
Guests:
Chris Hutchinson of Trebuchet Group, along with his colleague, Katie Huey, plus David Billstrom of Flashing Red Light, Chris Campbell of Ritzr, Tony Castaldi of Profit Mindset, Harry Elston of Midwest Chemical Safety, Jay Goltz of the Goltz Group, Tricia Groff, executive advisor and coach, Channon Kennedy of Kiwi Vision, Kris Maynard of Essential Ingredients, Michael Raphael of IndeVets, Lauren Raouf of P.O.S.H., Jaci Russo of BrandRusso, Porsché Mystique Steele of MystiqueRose Publishing, Joe Tabet of Xpro Partners, Mike Wolfe of Delgado Stone Distributors, and Michelle Wyatt of St. Johns Rivership.
Producer:
Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.
Full Episode Transcript:
Loren Feldman:
Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for coming to this without having any idea what you were coming to. I really appreciate it. I think this is going to be really interesting and something that we’re going to want to do again, but we’ll see what happens. This is a little bit of a trial for us, although Chris Hutchinson has done this many times before. We saw him do it in Fort Worth, and I’m really confident we’re all going to get something special out of this. Chris, why don’t you give us, again, just a real quick overview of how you’re going to do this.
Chris Hutchinson:
This is a simple process of us getting to clarity together as entrepreneurs on behalf of an entrepreneur who’s going to share her story about what’s happening in the business and sort of asking us for some support. So we’re going to first have a process where we listen to our entrepreneur. We’re going to do the interview. We’re going to capture some of that context. And then each of us, all of us, will be invited to step up to the microphone, as it were, say their name and business, and offer a question—an open-ended question. Not one, like: Don’t you want to try X? It’s more about understanding what’s happening together. I get to moderate that.
And then, once we have those answers, the entrepreneur will look at those and say: I want advice around this piece. It’s come out that this is kind of an important part, this nugget. And then, we’re gonna go into breakouts so that we can, in small groups, come up with a next step, a cautionary step, or a success tip. Those will all be collected. We’ll do some magic behind the scenes. And then each of those folks who have the most liked questions will come up to the mic again, share those, and that’ll help our entrepreneur at the end. Hopefully, one to three pieces of that advice is just stellar, and we’ll help them commit to that and support them.
Loren Feldman:
All right, so let’s get going. I’m delighted to introduce our guest of honor, Jaime Echt. Jaime, tell us where you are and what you do.
Jaime Echt:
I am in Elmsford, New York, which is just north of New York City. I own The Crafters Workshop. We’ve been in business 27 years, I am the founder and CEO. We manufacture, design, distribute arts-and-crafts supplies, specifically stencils and mixed-media products.
Loren Feldman:
And you’ve been in business for a while. Take us back. How did you come to start the business?
Jaime Echt:
The fashion industry led me into doing crafts, selling crafts, teaching crafts. So I opened a store in 1997, and the only thing missing was stencils. I mean, there were stencils out there, but there weren’t stencils that the more sophisticated fashion-trend-oriented person was looking for. So I drew my own, had them made, stuck them up on my pegboard in my store, and they sold really well.
I mean, well enough that they actually—I was a destination store, so people came from all over on their way on a business trip or on a family trip. And then my stencils would end up in Florida, California, the UK, Canada, and I’d get calls from other stores asking if I could sell them my stencils, which I thought, “Sure I can do that.” And little by little, that’s how my wholesale business grew to the point that I made the decision to close my retail store in 2005, and just focus 100 percent on wholesale.
Loren Feldman:
For those of us like me, who are not all that familiar with crafts, can you tell us a little bit more about stencils? Why did they connect? How do people use them? What’s this about?
Jaime Echt:
Yeah, because I know the first thing you might be thinking is, “Oh, this is a kids’ product.” Well, actually, my customer tends to be an older woman—and by older, like over 50, 55, 60, 65. She is very into card-making, scrapbooking—we call it paper arts—journaling. She might be dabbling in mixed media. I have crossed over into the fine arts area where artists are using stencils to add texture background designs. These are very pretty stencils that help people who aren’t necessarily artistic feel creative.
You know, even for myself, if I want to draw a lovely tree, it’s gonna take me eight or nine tries. And if I already have this beautiful background, and I don’t want to ruin it, I want to be able to put a stencil on top and go, “Oh, that’s right where I want that tree.” And I can trace it. I can put some of our modeling pastes [on]. We have our own particular piece called stencil butter. We have 43 colors now. And these are dimensional colors that don’t leak underneath the stencil. So it’s definitely a finer craft, if you want to call it that. And it’s definitely geared, currently, for a more mature audience, somebody who has time and a little bit of money. She might be a nurse, a nursing assistant, a teacher, a teacher’s assistant. So big chunks of time off, and some extra spending money to spend on herself.
Loren Feldman:
You told us that you initially had a retail store, but you closed that after a while, correct?
Jaime Echt:
I did. Well, in New York, it’s very competitive. And we were open seven days a week. I opened with a two-and-a-half-year-old, and soon after that, I had a newborn. So, doing a seven-day-a-week gig with two little kids who were with me the entire time. I was in a marriage that wasn’t the most supportive, let’s say. So they were always with me.
I ran 30 classes a month out of my store, some of them I even taught, and then, running this wholesale business on top of it. Oh, and I had an 82-year-old father-in-law who lived with us who was in a wheelchair and on dialysis. So I kind of had to look at my life and see what was working and what wasn’t. I had to stick with the marriage for a little while. But the retail business, I think, was taking the most out of me, and I learned a lot from it that I could apply to my wholesale business. That was more than you asked for!
Loren Feldman:
No, no, not at all! When would you say the business was at its peak? What were the best days?
Jaime Echt:
Good question. I would say 2012, ’13, ’14, it was amazing. And I would say, looking back, the reason is that we owned the stencil arena. We were the only ones making very unique stencils. And that is still what we predominantly do, and we were known for that. But little by little, other people would add stencils onto—they made rubber stamps: “And we do stencils, too.” Let’s say we make papers, beautiful printed papers: “Oh, and we make stencils, too.” I do make stencils for some of those people. So I do OEM, and therefore I get a little piece of that pie, which is great. But little by little, all the me-toos coming in, and also making stencils, started nibbling away at the piece of the pie that we had—even though the pie was probably big and getting bigger.
Loren Feldman:
Can you give us a sense of how big the business was at its peak?
Jaime Echt:
Under 2 million, but close.
Loren Feldman:
And how many employees did you have at that point?
Jaime Echt:
At least a dozen. We manufacture in the United States, and we assemble right in Elmsford. So all the assembly, the shipping, the billing, everything happens out of our warehouse office.
Loren Feldman:
So now, if you would, bring us up to date. Where do things stand now? How’s it going?
Jaime Echt:
So, I track my sales in 12-month increments, so that kind of takes out seasonality. We had some really, really positive months, years during the pandemic. And I mean, I know a lot of people suffered, but people were home, and they were kind of getting in touch with the things that brought them peace and made them happy. And crafting was one of those things. So, we did well. I mean, I totally understood that it was gonna be here, and then it could be gone. But I was hoping we wouldn’t lose ground. But unfortunately, I feel like we’ve lost more ground as people travel more and aren’t going back as much to their hobbies.
But I’m also hearing that people are feeling very, very concerned about the money they’re spending at the gas pump and the money they’re spending at the supermarket. So I’ve seen a real dip. I was hoping that our trade show, the art trade show in April, was going to give us the shot in the arm that it normally gives us. It’s always been a good place to kind of get that boost. You see a little dip before the trade show as people save up money, waiting for those great deals. And then the trade show comes, and people were like, “Here I am.” But it wasn’t that same flurry of orders or the kind of orders that we’re used to.
My distributors, my number one and number two customers, also, I’m not seeing as much from them. And they too are now getting into the space that I’m in. If they don’t manufacture their own products, they’re buying companies that do. So now I’m kind of competing with my numbers one and two customers. Numbers three and four are direct-mail companies, and they also have their own lines that I compete with. So the marketplace is definitely changing. And I’m not getting those nice bumps that I used to get.
Loren Feldman:
You mentioned that the age of your customers might be a little higher than we anticipated. Is that a cause for concern on your part?
Jaime Echt:
I feel like that’s more of a long-term concern. But still, I mean, I used to say that my customers might be 55 to 70. And now she’s definitely mid-60s, getting close to 80. And, I mean, God willing, they all live to be 100. But the reality is, I’m thinking of the basic things like arthritis. Arthritis could be a big killer of doing handcrafts, being able to have that dexterity. I do come out with products that make holding things a little bit easier. I have a line of brushes that are nice and chunky and easy to hold, have good balance. So I’m addressing that. But I’ll jump ahead with what people are probably thinking: Currently my customers are like Linda, Susan, Barbara, Debbie, and I need to get in touch with Nicole, Danielle, Emma. I need to find my younger consumers. I need to figure out what she wants and how my needs and my abilities can fill those needs.
Loren Feldman:
Before I turn this over to Chris, and we open it up, one last question: I think you have some concerns about your location where you do all of the magic. Tell us about that.
Jaime Echt:
Well, my five-year lease is coming to a close, and this is New York. We have something called triple-net leases that maybe some of you lovingly know as well. I mean, I pay for everything, everything except, like, if the roof caved in. And so, it’s all on me. And I even pay the property taxes, the insurance, everything. So it’s a hefty lease. I moved here in the pandemic and things were looking good. And I thought: This is where we’re going to be. I’m rethinking that. I’ve got 5,500 square feet. We came from a very small area. And so we can do a lot with very little. I have an amazing bay door that allows us to bring in pallets, which we often do.
So I’m at that kind of crossroads of: Do I stay here? How much can I renegotiate on my lease? What does the market look like out there? I’m also talking with somebody about subletting, but you know, they’re only as good as the month they’re there. Maybe the subletter will leave. Or do I move? We are in an old, densely populated area north of New York City. There’s no sprawl. What is is what is. Nothing new is building up. So I’ve got to work with what is in the marketplace, which, of course I’m going to be looking. Yeah, so that’s my challenge for the next probably three months: Should I stay or should I go? Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. [Laughter]
Loren Feldman:
Chris?
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, well, I’m sure many of you already have a complete business plan and all the things that Jaime has to do sketched out on a piece of paper next to you. This is actually a time when I want you to hold off on that entrepreneurial action button. And what we need to do, ideally together: People will raise their hand. They can do it formally or informally. And I’ll call on folks, you’ll say your name and your business, and then share an open-ended question. Open-ended questions don’t start off with, “Well, what about doing X?” That is not an open-ended question. You know, “Shouldn’t you try X or Y?” That is not a question either. Those are all solutions in disguise. So, push the solutions off. This is the: What do we need to know?
So those questions usually start with, they’re not answerable by yes or no, that’s one thing. So if it’s a yes-no answer, I’m probably going to ask you to shift the question. “Why” doesn’t really help. Because asking is a kind of blame. You know, when my parents would say, “Why did you drop the milk?” If I said, “Gravity,” they would not have been happy, right? That technically is the correct answer. But you know, it’s slippery. So try not to ask a why question.
Really great questions start with how, how much, or what. How much is this an issue? What’s this thing about here? So remember, this is not answering the question. This is trying to figure out how to help Jaime. So I have a couple of people in line. That’s great. And I’m looking forward to it. So I’ll go ahead and call on you—remember, your name and your business—and then share your question. Michelle, would you start us off?
Michelle Wyatt:
Can you describe the customization for stencils that you currently offer the marketplace, please?
Jaime Echt:
Customization? Are you talking about when I do OEM?
Michelle Wyatt:
Sure. So, for example, can you take a logo and convert it to a stencil? Or what type of customization can you do for the marketplace?
Chris Hutchinson:
There you go. What type of customization? Great question, Michelle.
Jaime Echt:
Okay, so I can do anything. I can take the thought in your brain and turn it into a stencil. I cut stencils in the thousands. So, somebody called yesterday, and she has this idea for her art project, and: Can I cut these stencils for her? And I said, “If you’d like me to cut any of those, each design, I have a minimum order quantity of 300.” So she was like, “No, I just want one.” I said, “Well, from the time it takes for me to set everything up and to run it, 300 is my breakeven point.” I cut about a thousand per design. So yes, I can do all of that. But we’re talking about super big machines. My stencils, I can cut one 12-inch stencil in three seconds. So setting up gigantic machines with tons and tons of plastic to cut one is not where my capabilities lie. Does that kind of answer the question?
Michelle Wyatt:
Yes. Thank you.
Chris Hutchinson:
All right. Perfect. Thanks, Jaime. So I think Harry was next, and then we’ll have David.
Harry Elston:
Harry Elston, Midwest Chemical Safety. I’m one of the smallest of the small businesses here. I don’t know if this is an allowed question, Chris, but Jaime, you have identified a lot of risks to your business. Okay, are those the only risks that you are seeing right now? Or do you have much more to look at?
Chris Hutchinson:
What other risks are looming? Perfect. Thanks, Harry.
Jaime Echt:
I would say my risks are A) myself, in that I do much of the things that are required, although I do have a book that tells everybody what I do and how I do it. But that’s still a risk. Another risk is that I have two very big distributors who make up a large portion of my overall sales. If something happens to them—for instance, one went through a sale a couple of years ago that nobody knew about, and they fell off the face of the Earth for a while. That was scary. So, that’s definitely a risk.
Another risk, I would say, is that stencils can be made in China. I find my stencils made by Chinese manufacturers all the time. So there’s a very low entry to this, and people steal designs all the time. So that’s easy enough to do. That’s another risk. Let me think what other… I’m sure I have plenty. Feel free to add to it.
Chris Hutchinson:
That’s good, Jaime. And no surprise that Harry’s business is actually risk reduction.
Jaime Echt:
Love it.
Harry Elston:
Business risk reduction. Mine’s chemical safety. So I do talk about risks in all kinds of fashion.
Chris Hutchinson:
Absolutely, thank you. So David, we’ll go to you next, and then we’ll go to Mike. Thanks.
David Billstrom:
Hi, I’m David Billstrom with Flashing Red Light. So can you educate us, can you teach us about your margins relative to the distributors, the DTC that you might have, and the kissing cousin, the pricing of the relative stuff? I’m particularly interested in the OEM pricing.
Jaime Echt:
Good questions. My profit margin is good. So, I have my retail price, my B2C. Actually, when I sell on my Shopify site, it’s a little bit higher. And my thought is that I don’t want to be competing head-to-head with the retailers who are my bread and butter. So if something sells for $10 MSRP, I might have it on my Shopify site for $11. And I don’t typically do free shipping like many of my customers, my independent store owners, do. So that’s my B2C, which is very nice.
I also didn’t mention I sell into Amazon. And I looked at what my Amazon—because Amazon takes a lot. When I distill it down, what I take from Amazon is the equivalent of what I take home when I sell to one of my distributors. If MSRP is up here, wholesale is half of that. And then my distributors get between 25 and 30 percent, or some deal close to that, off of that. And when I do that, I still have a decent margin, 30 percent of a margin when I’m selling to my distributors, 40 when I’m selling to an independent.
And obviously, B2C is lovely, and I really need to perhaps focus more on that, because the other thing: Independent stores are having a very tough go. And they don’t necessarily run the kind of businesses that I can depend on and pay my rent on. Some of them, their idea of budgeting is when their credit card doesn’t work anymore. That’s when they stop purchasing. Or they put in orders that I fill, and then we go to ship it, and their credit card doesn’t work. And they say, “Oh, that’s right. Can you hold it for another week?” And that week turns to a month, turns to three months, until their credit card works again. And then sometimes they don’t want it because, you know, it’s old. So those are some of my challenges. But yeah, I do keep an eye on my margins.
Chris Hutchinson:
Thank you. Great question, great answer. Mike Wolfe, we’ll go to you next. And then we’ve got another Michael here.
Mike Wolfe:
Thank you. Mike Wolfe from Delgado Stone Distributors, just up the road in Brookfield Connecticut. Nice to meet someone local, Jaime. I had a question, not being familiar with the industry: What type of material do you use to make the stencils and where does that material come from?
Jaime Echt:
It’s polyethyl tri—it’s PET. It’s a hazy polyester. Ultimately, it comes from China. But it goes through a lot of iterations. It has to go to a fabricator and something else to be cut down to the sizes that eventually can be used and put through a machine.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, thanks. Michael, go ahead.
Michael Raphael:
Hi, Jaime. I’m like Michael Raphael, IndeVets is my company. My question is around brand and competitors, and how do you differentiate yourself from the rest of the groups out there?
Jaime Echt:
That’s a really good question. Let’s see, well, our tagline used to be “We’re the nice guys”—not that there were not-nice guys, but because we are, I say, recovering retailers, we get the whole lifestyle of a retailer and how you’re putting in orders at 2 a.m. And you’re juggling family life, and you’ve got customers in and out all day long, kind of like Cheers. So we do understand what the retailer goes through. We try to make our minimums easy for them to place orders frequently. We also turn around our orders very quickly. That’s super important to us, where other companies may sit on them for a while. What else?
We are thoughtful, both in the way that we work with our partners, but we’re also thoughtful in that if we think of something that might help one of our partners, we will be proactive and say, “Hey, we threw this in for you. I saw you were doing this, and we had a sample. Hope this helps.” Or, “Hey, did you happen to see this on YouTube? You know, I see you bought this and this, here’s a link.” So I guess it’s relationship building. But the flip side, the more tangible side, is we have really great designs. And I produce things that I know that I would want to carry in a store. It’s not just what I think you should carry. I really get into the mindset of who our consumer is and what she wants, and I think that’s one of my strengths.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, we have, Kris, a quick question. And then, Loren. And then we need to shift to having people think about how to support Jaime in the situation. Kristopher?
Kris Maynard:
Hi, guys. Yeah, I’m curious, Jaime, you talked about potentially a move. I’m just curious if that’s just strictly limited to a local move, or are you open to kind of a big move—like you, geographically, the business, geographically? What’s that box look like?
Jaime Echt:
Very good question. And I’ve thought about it over and over. I mean, we are in a super expensive part of the world. No joke. And I have run the numbers—like, what would it look like to move to Missouri? What would it look like to move way upstate New York? And the dollars would be cheaper, and some parts of the Midwest would be great for a lot of my customers and shipping-wise, shipping times. But the truth is, I have amazing, amazing employees here. And it’s been 27 years of finding people who play well together, who care.
We all bought some lottery tickets a few months back, and on their own, somebody asked in the family, “What would you do? So are you going to quit, Mom?” And she said, “You know, I wouldn’t quit. I just think I’ll take Monday off.” And the other employee was like, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I would take Monday off”—if we won the billion-dollar lottery. Those are my folks.
So I am going to stick right here in expensive New York, someplace safe. We moved only five years ago after being in the same place for 23 years. And that was because an illicit massage parlor moved upstairs, which made it a little bit difficult. So safety is super important, and keeping my amazing employees comfortable and safe is very important. So we will be sticking in this 10-, 15-mile radius of very expensive rentals. Or maybe buy something.
Chris Hutchinson:
I’m gonna go to Loren, and then we need to shift to the groups.
Loren Feldman:
Jaime, I just wanted to ask you: You’ve told us you’ve been doing this for a while now. You’ve obviously had some ups and downs. Could you just give us a sense of where your head’s at?
Are you excited? Are you eager to try to rethink aspects of the business? Are you feeling burned out? What are you feeling?
Jaime Echt:
Oh, that’s a very good question. So I’m in my mid-50s, and I am not burned out. I certainly know what that feels like. This is not that. I feel like I am baffled and perplexed. When I’m kept up at night, it’s because I’m trying to think my way through this. And I probably didn’t say it forcefully enough. I mean, I’m at the point where I am using my savings, my line of credit. I am no longer bringing in the dollars that support my monthly nut. And we are very, very scrappy. There’s not a whole lot of fat here. So for me to get to that point is very worrisome.
When I talked to my employees about this, I said, “This is where we are.” And I said, “Tell me how you feel about this.” And they were like, “We’re not ready to see this go. That would be sad after all these years of working toward this.” So they are also energized to make this happen. I’m a planner, and I believe in playing the long game, so this is not how this ends. Like, we’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through 2008. I’ve been through a divorce, a cancer scare with my daughter. I mean, a lot of stuff. They’re all with my business and all with the people here. This is not how this ends. But I do need some help thinking my way through it.
Chris Hutchinson:
Perfect. That is a perfect segue. Thank you, Jaime. So what we’d really like from you is to narrow the scope on what the advice you’d like is. You’ve got all these experts here. What’s the thing that you’d really like them to focus on to give you a next step, a caution, or a success tip around?
Jaime Echt:
Well, you tell me if I have to go in a little finer, but where do we put our energy? Where would our energy be best spent? You know, the two rules of thumb are: spend less, make more money. Really, my overhead, my rent, is my biggest expense. So I know that. That’s a no brainer. So how do I make more money? Where do I find it?
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, Katie is typing those into the chat. So that should persist. That’s the question to go answer. We’re only going to give you eight minutes together. We’re having you in groups of three, so you can share ideas. In fact, we’ll probably make it so you can like them immediately. If you like that idea, you could like it, and the most-liked ideas will be the order we’ll go through these in. Any questions before we send you out to the rooms? Okay. So, we’ll see you in about eight minutes. And we’ll see all your ideas as they come up. Thanks.
[Loren Feldman Voice-over]
Okay, so at this point, Chris splits everyone up into virtual breakout groups of three and four, and he gives them about 10 minutes to brainstorm ideas, which they can then enter on a virtual white board. Then, all of the participants “like” the ideas they find most promising for Jaime. Once that’s done, we go through the ideas, starting with the ones that have been liked the most.
Chris Hutchinson:
All right, so thank you all for your brilliant ideas. The idea here is, go into the ideas. You only can “like” them once. If you like them twice, it “unlikes” them. Like the ones that you think—based on what you heard of Jaime’s situation and what her request is— what would help her most? What would really help her in their search for: Where should her energy be best spent? And how she can make more money, and where does she find it? If there’s a duplicate in there, I think people are pretty good about duplicating, but you can like both, that’s fine—or the one that’s most effective. And you can like your own idea. So we’ll take about a minute here. Not a lot of time. This is a quick, fast group. And then we’ll sort them by likes, and I’ll ask you to share that idea, one at a time, from the top down. We’ll see how far we get. And then Jaime will commit to doing something.
Okay, are we ready to go through these? This is a horse race. If somebody starts liking one and it moves up, we’ll get to it. But it looks like the first one is “brand ambassadors on TikTok.” If you could just say your name and your company and just share that idea. If there’s a little bit more information, great. And we’ll just go through these one by one. So who’s brand ambassador?
Porsché Mystique Steele:
So that was me, Channon, and Harry. We kind of came up with that. So, hi guys, Porsché Mystique Steele, owner of MystiqueRose Publishing. I publish books for business owners. What we were talking about was how this particular product, the stencil, sounds like it has the potential to be a viral product. So I don’t know if you guys know, but many of us purchase products from TikTok. So if you were to get brand ambassadors to utilize these stencils on TikTok, it will become a viral product.
I’m a huge fan of arts and crafts parties, and I follow different people on TikTok who do that. So they go out to these different spaces, and they host these arts and crafts parties. People sign up, they have the kits, and they just sit down and have fun—kind of like a paint-and-sip. But if your stencil was part of those packages, because the brand ambassadors are using them, the product becomes viral, and now everybody wants to use it. Now I understand that brand ambassadors usually want a pretty penny upfront—it can be costly—but if you do not have the capital to make that initial investment for brand ambassadors, you consider brokering a deal for commissions. So if they were to get those stencils into the hands of consumers, they would earn a commission for each package or special they sell.
Chris Hutchinson:
Awesome, thank you so much. Let’s go to the number two. And there’s a contrasting comment that says, “No, I think you should go with the market you have.” But who wrote “perhaps energy should be spent”? Can you share your name, your company, and that one? Maartje?
Maartje Bakker:
That was me. My name is Maartje. I’m a career coach for women who are in a season of career confusion. I was wondering what kind of marketing you are doing right now. And I wrote also the one below that, which is the same as the TikTok with the brand ambassadors. I feel like this has so much potential to be amazing for a younger generation of crafters who love to watch a process on a video. So these Reels where you see the stencil being made, or you see the stencil being used—people just eat that up, and then they want to do it themselves. So then they want to order it.
So I thought for the first question, maybe your energy could be spent trying to reach that younger audience, maybe on Pinterest or TikTok, maybe through brand ambassadors, which could increase your sales. And it could already set you up to solve that problem that you are inevitably going to run into. As you said, you see that as a problem that’s coming up, where people are getting older. You might be losing your current audience. So you’re setting yourself up for having a smoother transition into that younger audience. That was my thought.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, great. So “the online marketplace, people design and sell.” Whose comment was that?
Mike Wolfe:
Looking at ways that you could spend less and make more, having other people do the work for you. They design it, you host it as the expert. And it seems like it’s a pretty niche category. So you get everyone in there, and they’re gonna design it, they’re going to order them, basically, and you would be able to produce and take a percent. It would also tie in with some of the influencer stuff that was mentioned previously, where if influencers design their own thing, they would promote that as well. So it works as a marketing and revenue-generating tool.
Chris Hutchinson:
Great, thank you. The next one, we have TikTok again, creating videos on how to use them. Just share that idea, and then maybe a sentence or two after that would be really great.
Maartje Bakker:
This was what I already shared a little bit about. So, showing the process.
Chris Hutchinson:
Maartje, you’re like up at the top here. This is really great. Okay, and then we have, “consider becoming a virtual store.” Who shared that?
Jaime Echt:
I do have a Shopify store. I do have B2C.
Jay Goltz:
How much of your business is going through that, as a percentage of sales?
Jaime Echt:
Oh, gosh, as a percentage of sales… One percent.
Jay Goltz:
Wow.
Jaime Echt:
I am not tapping that.
Jay Goltz:
Wow.
David Billstrom:
Maybe one clarifying question: When I did Google your company, I found a website, but it said “you can’t purchase on this website unless you’re a retailer.”
Jaime Echt:
People get very confused. I’m fixing that next month. I will have one website, one landing page. There is actually a place to go if you’re wholesale or retail, but it’s confusing, and I get people who are frustrated. You know, “Why can’t I order from you?” And then I say, “Oh, here it is.” So TCWstencils.com is our retail B2C site. Confusing. Next month, hopefully not.
Jay Goltz:
So wait, there’s two different names? You have two different names?
Jaime Echt:
Two different websites. The landing page is thecraftersworkshop.com. And then from there, you have three choices: retail, wholesale, and our defunct blog. So, definitely due for a facelift.
Chris Hutchinson:
Awesome. Well, there’s lots and lots of ideas. There’s a lot of resonance between some of them. And actually, Jaime, the most important thing is not that it’s voted highly. It’s that you look at that and go, “I want to do that.” Maybe one or two or three of these. When you look at them, and we haven’t talked about them, you can ask the person, “Who said this?” and “Tell me more.” But the idea being that this is the point where we look at you and say: So, how would you like to capitalize on this advice? What would you like to commit to and maybe we can follow up on later?
Jaime Echt:
So the one-offs are not—I can’t do that. I can’t just do one at a time. It’s a great idea. Maybe with different machinery. It’s not a “no.” It’s just “not right now.” But TikTok has certainly been something that we have thought about. My only question is, does the group feel that TikTok is here to stay, with all of the odd media that it’s had? And by the way, we are on Instagram, and we have about 27,000 followers. So, we’re not new to the social media space. Our ladies are too old for TikTok, but obviously, there are some people here who are ready to see it on there.
Chris Hutchinson:
And Tricia raised her hand. Tricia?
Tricia Groff:
I think that video is here to stay. And so if you post it on TikTok, you can keep it and repurpose it into whatever new social media platform exists in the future.
Jaime Echt:
So, I’ll read between the lines, which is: Own my own. Don’t film it on TikTok. Don’t film it on Instagram. Film it myself and repurpose it so that I always own it.
Porsché Mystique Steele:
I was just gonna say that cross-posting is always a thing that you should do. So, though I don’t think TikTok is going to completely disappear—it can’t. It generates too much revenue for everybody involved, so I don’t think that’s going to happen. But you can cross-post to both TikTok and Instagram: same content, same strategy, same hashtags.
Jaime Echt:
Thank you.
Chris Hutchinson:
Excellent. Kristopher?
Kris Maynard:
Yeah, I’m probably on as much social media as Jay is, so I don’t think either one of us are experts in this. But if we’re trying to find or identify a new market—not the existing market, which could be your Instagram customerst—I think TikTok, I understand, kind of caters to the younger generation, and that may open up a brand new market to you.
Chris Hutchinson:
Yeah, thank you. And Jay has his hand up.
Jay Goltz:
So I was just gonna say: These are all good solutions. I just want to emphasize what I believe the problem is, because I’m living in the same world she is. It’s the Baby Boomers—they’re getting older, and they’re dying, and the market is shrinking. And Baby Boomers framed a lot of pictures, and now they’re not. So the entire picture frame business is 50 percent of what it was to the local retailer. And then you’re also selling the stores like I sell. And I can tell you the part you left out, probably: I assume a lot of them are closing, right?
Jaime Echt:
They are.
Jay Goltz:
Right. So my whole point is, you need to evolve. And these were all good suggestions of figuring out going after this different market. Because that other market, it’s going off into the horizon. And we can’t be in denial, and I’m in the same spot you are in. I’m making adjustments. And God, you used the same words I do, “I’m not going out like this.” I ain’t going out either. We’re not going anywhere. We’re gonna be around in 10 years, because Loren needs us to be around. And we’ve got to do this for Loren. [Laughter] And there is a way out of this. And this is about evolving and getting into the new market, because you clearly have some unique things that people like.
The difference between my business and your business is one stark difference: I’ve got my retail business, and I’ve got my wholesale, and they’ve got nothing to do with each other. I buy from the same sources, but the names are completely separate. I think you’ve got some brand confusion with having two different, similar—I think you need to separate those two things. Because the retailers aren’t going to like that you’re going straight to retail, and then some of the customers buying retail aren’t going to like the idea—they know they’re paying twice the price. So I think it’s worth thinking about separating the two websites.
Chris Hutchinson:
Thank you, Jay. There’s also some great comments in the chat, as well. Yeah. So there’s also really good advice. And I guess what would you like us to hold you accountable to or responsible for, Jaime, to support you in this? And then we’ll just turn it back to Loren.
Loren Feldman:
Before you answer that Jaime—Chris, is there anything you saw in the chat that you think we should surface?
Chris Hutchinson:
Well, there was one that Tricia said about: It seems like the market went from being specialty to commodity, so how do you want to be specialty again? A couple of people liked that. I think that was the main point out there. Just a lot of well wishes and saying, “You’re in the right place. Thanks for asking for advice. Good luck.”
Loren Feldman:
All right. And before, Jaime, you answer Chris’s question, does anybody feel like we missed something here? Is there an important point that was listed that we didn’t get to? One last chance.
Tricia Groff:
I’m just married to mine. Jaime, sometimes I see people doing incremental changes, or, “I do it myself,” versus what’s really going to shift this equation. And so when you’re looking through this, what would really be game-changing for you? Versus a lot of ideas that might move the needle a little bit, but really not flip it so that you have the buffer you need to evolve.
Jaime Echt:
Is there something you see on there that seems like a shiny ball that’s not going to do a lot and I should be cautious about?
Tricia Groff:
Sure. That was great. Thank you for putting me on the spot. Yeah, okay. Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned that you want to keep the—I don’t know if it’s a shiny ball or not— but you mentioned your current rental space. And you’re like, “I want to stay here. I want to keep my workers.” And then you were talking—it was just a phrase that you said. You’re like, “Maybe I should buy the property.” What I don’t know is, if you reduce those expenses, how much does that change the game? It might be significant or not. I don’t have that. But you know your numbers.
Jaime Echt:
Exactly. And it’s funny, that’s exactly where my head has been in these past couple of weeks. And you’re 100 percent correct. Even if I reduced my rent by a few thousand dollars, that’s not gonna make it. It’s just like, I’m bleeding a little bit less. It’s got to be bigger changes.
Jay Goltz:
Wait, I got one important thing. Can I say one thing?
Loren Feldman:
Quickly, Jay. Real quick.
Jay Goltz:
Okay. This is painful, entrepreneur to entrepreneur. The question is, are you sure you don’t need to lay some people off? Because that’s a harsh reality. I’ve laid a few people off. I haven’t done it in years. You want to keep your employees, and you’re a nice person, I’m sure. But like, if your business is off, are you dealing with that? Are you sure you don’t have too many people?
Jaime Echt:
I already have taken that step. So we are all cross-trained and lean. So, yeah.
Jay Goltz:
Excellent.
Chris Hutchinson:
Awesome.
Jay Goltz:
Good entrepreneuring.
Chris Hutchinson:
All right, I think that’s it. I’m not sure we got a solid commitment out of Jaime. But I’m just gonna hand it to Loren and let him wrap up.
Loren Feldman:
Wait. Go back. I interrupted. I didn’t let her answer your question. Ask again.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay. What would you like to commit to, Jaime?
Jaime Echt:
I’m going to commit to getting my rear end on TikTok. Because I think it’s a little bit of a shiny ball, but it also is the first step into that universe.
Chris Hutchinson:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Jaime, for your vulnerability, for everybody’s thoughts and consideration. And a lot of just people listening to each other. Some people would offer things, and everybody would shake, would nod their heads.
Jay Goltz:
Lot of love here, lot of love.
Chris Hutchinson:
A lot of care, a lot of experience, and shared scars, I’m sure, as well. Loren, back to you to wrap us up.
Loren Feldman:
I just want to thank everybody, especially Jaime. I very much hope you got something out of it, and I hope you’ll come back and tell us what you decided to do and how it worked out.
