Transcript

Advice Line with Monica Nassif of Mrs. Meyer's

0:05 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show. who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. Alright, let's get to it. Joining me this week from Minneapolis is Monica Nasif, the founder of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day. Monica, welcome back to the show. Glad to be back, guy. So it's great to have you as you were I think on the show almost a year ago. Uh and you told us the

0:49 amazing story of building Mrs. Myers cleaning products. Um and for people who haven't heard it, we'll we'll drop a link into the show notes. Um you basically had this I mean it came about during an epiphany when you were And you looked at the shelves of soaps and cleansers and you thought, you know, I can probably do this better. This was I think late nineties. Right. Uh and you did go on to launch a line of cleaning products in two thousand. It was called Caldrea. Eventually got that to Williams and Sonoma, and then Monica was worried other brand would knock off

1:24 Caldrea. So so you would create your own knockoff version of your your own brand and you called it Mrs. Myers, and then that brand of course grew really fast and then it was sold to Sy Johnson. in two taus eight miss a real human Mrs. Myers is named after your mother. She's still alive. Still, ninety three. She still reps, right? She's go still goes and like reps the brand. Even though she's not on the case, she still reps.

1:53 Yeah. Did your mom hear your episode of how I built this? She did. She she really liked it and she knows I'm doing this, uh

2:02 advice line thing and she's very excited. We should have had her on with you. Oh man, maybe w all right, we're gonna figure that out. Oh man, she'd be good. Um Before we bring on our callers, I wanted to ask you a question.

2:20 You know, a a lot of the companies that we have on the advice line and some that will come on today are focused on trying to figure out how to build a And from the very beginning, you guys had such a strong voice and identity, right? I mean Um even the copy on the product would say like it works like the Dickens on dirt, and your your mom is the brand inspiration. She is Mrs. Myers. What

2:45 advice do you have and do you give founders who are trying to figure out how to like build the voice of their company and their brand. I think it has to be true to the founders mission, you know, you have to be authentic. You can't fake it anymore, you know, the consumer's way too savvy. There's so many brands to pick from. If I mean if you don't resonate r emotionally with the consumer

3:05 You're just gonna have a really hard time. Yeah. And Also, I mean in your case Your mascot was real. Like like your mom would go Yeah. Like there was this was a real human who really did the cleaning in a house of nine kids in Iowa.

3:20 And now you can get the The c the cleaning products inspired by her. Oh yeah, she was the real deal. In fact when we first started doing media interviews in New York, every time we had a new product launch, I try to coach her with three key messages that was A disaster. So I just let her rip and she just talked honestly about Raising nine kids, she was the original earth muffin. She had a garden, she recycled, repurposed, made every meal from scratch. You know, she was kind of the original

3:47 Eco friendly mother, if you will. Yeah. Did you ever have to say and bomb, don't say this. Please. Yes. Don't say this. Yes. Did did I ever tell you the story, guy? Maybe Can I tell you a story? Can we stay on the air? Okay. Yeah. She wrote a cleaning book, right? It was a marketing tool for us. We're in New York. We go around trying to find a publisher. We've got an agent. We've got six meetings. We go into our first meeting.

4:12 And this woman just immediately hugs my mother. She's from Texas and she's Tall buxum's got the big old draw and she goes Before we begin, how in the world Did you have nine children? In ten years. And my mom says, Well, I had a box of forty eight Kotex and I never got through it.

4:31 That was her opening salvo. I love it. Oh, the reporters loved it. I was mortified. I was so embarrassed. I don't think the intern that was taking notes knew what a codex was. We I couldn't wait to get out there fast enough, but that's my mother.

4:52 The truth. I love it. Um Monica, are you ready to to bring in our first caller? I'm ready. All right, let's bring in our first caller. Um please introduce yourself, tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one quick line about your business. My name is Alison Ombre's calling I'm from San Diego and I'm the founder of Encilia Hair.

5:11 And Celia is putting an end to subpar wigs. Wigs are itchy, hot, fit women poorly. Inspired by my own journey with hair loss, I set out to bring the same comfort and flexibility of yoga pants to the wig industry. Awesome. Alison, thanks for calling in and sell your hair. Okay, so you make wigs. Tell me how this How did you start a wig business?

5:33 I was eight months pregnant with my son, second pregnancy, and I had one patch of um bald uh balls about the top of my head and within twenty days I lost eighty percent of my hair. Wow, which is a lot more common than people realize. Alopecia, right? Yeah. I have alopecia universalis, which is the most aggressive form, so I have no hair anywhere, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. And it's just happened while you were pregnant. Yeah. No total fluke. The doctor's

6:00 We really didn't understand. I I got sick. It's it's sort of a long story, but I lost fifteen pounds in the eighth month of my second pregnancy. So it was stressful and All that. So And I'm sure it was really traumatic, right? Because you all of a sudden

6:16 Have to figure out, okay, how am I going what you know, what am I gonna do? Yeah, I had to go shop for wigs With a newborn, um I lived in San Francisco at the time and so just I mean awful experience wig shopping. You know, I went into one shop uh in the mission and um the guy looked at me with my baby he was in the car seat and was like you have thirty minutes to try on five wigs. Wow and had no private room. I I just I had a terrible go with wigs. Um It crushed my self esteem. Uh my first wig was two sizes too big. It was itchy. It wasn't my style.

6:53 Everything about it just wasn't Me and you're super self conscious in the wig to begin with. And so I became obsessed with wigs. I started learning about wigs online and I went to a wig training program. And so I ended up starting a wig consulting business that I operated. For two years. And so I learned a lot about

7:12 The industry, what women like, what women don't like. And a lot of the frustrations. And then you decided to start your own brand. Yeah, the wick industry is to put it really simple is you have A handful of legacs that have been around for ever.

7:27 You can get an affordable wig and your wig life is not all that great. Or if you want something that fits well and something that's comfortable, you're spending up to five to ten thousand dollars. And I just got tired of that story. I I'm sure it's a larger market than most but what is the Do you know what the total addressable market is for wigs in the United States?

7:48 Um so the total wigs in extension is eight billion, um and then for just wigs it's about six. Six billion six billion dollars, did you say? Yes. Yeah. That's massive. I mean that is an amazing Opportunity.

8:03 Well, thank you. I'm trying my best and that's why I I mean, Monica, you're a a a genius when it comes to marketing and creating brands and guy, you as well. I'm such a huge fan of you. Your show, um That's why I'm here because like I I have a strong sales background, but marketing for me is I'm not my specialty.

8:24 She's trying to figure this out. And just before I bring Monica in. What makes your wigs different? The material is stiff, rigid itchy on your head. Itchy, not breathable, heavy bulky. And I'm just taking everything. the complete opposite approach. So you know, think of

8:44 the power mesh material and then the seamless flexible stitching that you get in your athletic Clothing. That's what the wig feels like. Um but it's hidden, it's unseen, you can't Um See it from a picture and so

8:59 I'm having a hard time figuring out how to reach more women and how to educate them on the unseen aspects of the wig that are actually the most important aspects. Okay. Monica, I want to bring you in here. A really cool story. Um Well I think the most exciting thing about your story is Alison, this is an unbranded category. Yes. Six billion in revenue. And no one's building a brand and you have a really differentiated story. I

9:28 I was listening to you talk going, Oh my gosh, it sounds like Nike, you know, fashion and fit. Hey, tell me this, that market that you mentioned, the women that you want to go after. How do they find you? D I mean, do th do they find you how? From They have they have cancer, they've lost their hair, they ask a friend and the how does that work? So um Right now I haven't done any advertising. I actually just started advertising on Meta and Google this past month.

9:55 But I have it's just been organic. So through just purely ranking on Google Um, organically and then on my little lonely Instagram page that I work really hard on. I did have a wholesale side of my business that I've kind of ended. So I got some more full business from that.

10:14 At one point I was working with twenty wholesale white boutiques across the US. But it just got overlooked and overshadowed by some of the leading brands. It's hard to get people to change what products they recommend. I don't know anything about this market, but

10:29 If you are s if you are a woman looking for a wig, clearly you've dealt with these pain points, the itchiness, they don't fit well, they're heavy They're not working for me. And so Is there a world where you literally like make videos, short videos, you're showing people what the inside looks like and why

10:49 you are making let's say like the Lululemon, you know, performance where like literally turning it inside out, stretching it, and then comparing it to what's available on the market and why This one is very different. Yeah, I agree. I think the visual ex it's it's exciting, you know, in terms of what guy's saying. And um, you know, especially you, you're the real deal, right? You don't have any hair, now you have gorgeous wigs. Yeah.

11:16 Yeah. That's compelling. And you are the model in a lot of these films, right? Yeah, right now I am because I I don't have the funds to outsource that and it's hard. I I'm sort of a A big believer in having models who have hair loss, um and it's hard to find them. So it's

11:33 Hard to get the The right photos. the from the right people sort of thing. I I think I think you're just a compelling personality. That you should be doing these videos. You know, bald inside out, showing how it fits.

11:48 Yeah, I mean you are the I agree, Monica. I mean you are the brand here. You are. Are you putting yourself out there and in in any way. Besides on the website. I mean, I've been very quiet with the brand on purpose. Manufacturing has been a a huge hurdle. The the industry is very opaque and

12:07 hard to break into. So it's only within the last actually six months that I have had I have diversified my manufacturing and I work with some of the largest wig manufacturers in the world now. And I have very strong relationships with them, and so I haven't had the confidence that I could keep up with demand and so I didn't want to like shout to the world like

12:30 Here's this amazing wig that's just groundbreaking and then not be able to deliver on it. Yeah, how are we doing with sales, by the way? So last year I did and again it's just myself a bootstrapping sole entrepreneur, no advertising. I last year I did ninety thousand. I only had one product, which was the The sport headband wig, active wig. And then this year I introduced my full wig.

12:54 Which I'm wearing um and a few other accessory products and I'm doing um I'm gonna hit above two hundred this month. Amazing. Good for you. If you're gonna bring in two hundred K this year in sales. You gotta think about how much of that you can put into marketing and advertising. Usually it's about ten percent. It's a lot of money, it's twenty grand, right? But you want to think about what you could if you could spend that, what you could do with that. money. I mean, it seems like you have an opportunity to really

13:23 You need to get in front of the camera. p really d dive into what you can do for free, which is you and social media. And And then think strategically about how you want to spend some money. on uh targeted ads.

13:39 And Where Where would you spend it? If you had if you were me I have some thoughts, Monica. Do you have things I was the social media is where I would spend it. Okay. Meta. Yeah. Th think about a TikTok store. It's tougher these days. You know, customer acquisition is tougher on social media, but you gotta try. I wouldn't put all of your eggs in that basket right away and I would try different

14:00 small experiments, you know, start with a hundred dollars. And then maybe five hundred and a thousand. And see where that goes. small micro influencers for a category like this critical. I mean if you can find

14:14 Uh, somebody with a thousand or five thousand followers You know, you could probably work with them for a few hundred bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it works. I mean it it's um I I've done some um micro influencers before, just people that I love that have I've seen over the years.

14:32 And as soon as I send them a product I get I usually get revenue back. I usually make sales from it. I would also think about investing in a video about you and your story. A two minute video Telling your story. You know. Liquid Death launched its brand with a fifteen hundred dollar video.

14:49 I mean really, that's that is the story. And so Your story is so compelling. Like this happened to me, I didn't expect it, my life changed, and all of a sudden I'm a young mom trying to find wigs, and it's It sucks.

15:03 And so I decided to start the company to do this. Like that is a simple, clear That

15:12 You should You know, turn into a two minute clip and put it on every social media. Sight you can. Totally agree. Do you think it needs to be like super professionally done or just No, I think it needs to be real and and you're real. I think it needs to be authentic, you need to show look, I'm bald, now I'm not and and tell the story guy just said.

15:32 Yeah. Alright, you got your marching orders, Alison Umbre and Celia Hare. Uh good luck. Yeah, thank you guys. Such a big fan. Thank you. Thank you. There's calling. Okay, next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your business questions right here on the advice line.

15:52 How I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz and my guest today is Monica Nassif. She's the founder of Mrs. Myers and we are taking your call and let's bring in our next caller. Hi Guy and Monica. Um it's been a dream to be on your show, so thanks for this opportunity. My name is Nick Halman, I'm the co-founder of Randamals. I'm originally from the UK, but uh I've lived for the last 32 years in Sun Valley, Idaho. Randomals are combination animal plush figures, beanies, and two award winning books with a simple message. What makes us different? Makes all the difference in the world.

16:42 All right, thanks for calling in. So random moles like random animals. Is that is that the Portman two here? That's right. That's where it came from. I'm looking at you I'm looking at your website. So I see a frame of Framel, which is a frog camel. So like as frog arms and legs and a frog head but a camel like the camel humps and there's a

17:02 A hork. So sharks. A shark on a horse. A girdle, which is a giraffe with a turtle back.

17:11 Tell this is super um in interesting, very How did this Come about. Tell me the story behind this. Oh thank you, guy. Um there's two inspirations. The first inspiration this was a pandemic company back in two thousand twenty one. Um And

17:29 I had a dog. uh a bassador, uh part basset and part lab. He had all the lovingness of a lab and the stubbornness of a basset. And that's where the uh idea came from. But More importantly, the book and the origin story of the Randamals. Uh that inspiration came from my wife's daughter's love of toy story and specifically the inspiration of the little boy next door, Sid, that used to like to destroy his toys. She always thought that he needed a redemption story.

17:57 Um and so in the book, Ollie the Bassador, choose all the little girls' toys She's devastated, she finds bits and pieces everywhere, but she finds a way to put them back together and create The random ones. I love it, yeah. Uh

18:13 Imagine if you could cross breed a gorilla and an elephant. You would have an Elerilla as you have. And you're cast of of plush choice. Okay, so you start this business, you make pl and and ha and I'm assuming these are mainly sold online, or do you also sell these in shops? Probably uh ninety percent of the business is uh online, but we just recently had uh just a really successful story through an unlikely place. The company called Ripley's Believe It or Not and Ripley's Aquarium. They've seen one of our viral videos. And they did a test in a couple of stores. Um they bought ten cases to start with, and a few weeks later they called back and said we're gonna need some pallets. So they ordered ten pallets, and then within three months they went national and they now order by the forty foot container. And uh the manager of uh the retail department said they've never seen

19:06 Anything that's brand new fly off the shelf so fast. What do you expect to do in sales this year? Last year we did just under a million and this year we're hoping to do just over a million. All right, that's great. Okay. So Before we dive in further, what's your question for us?

19:22 The question is we think that randomness is a an important inflection point. We want to capitalize on our momentum. Um but we think uh Strategy's become a little scatter shot. We've launched in a couple of other countries. We've dabbled in rep groups. We're meeting with uh animation companies and toy companies. And we often talk about bringing on investment and hiring some real marketing and

19:46 expertise in e commerce and we'd love any advice do you have regarding where you think we should focus our attention and what path you think we should take to scale the business to the next level. All right. Monica, I want to bring you in here. Randomals Definitely and I uh

20:05 Take on the stuffed animal. Uh category. funny and odd and lovable all at the same time. Um just listening to you, I really think you have to focus. In terms of I would just focus on the US market. And how many toy stores are in the US?

20:24 Could there even be ten thousand? Yes. So if you're going to go wholesale, you really have to work smartly with your rep groups to make it happen. Never ever leave rep groups alone.

20:35 Never. You've got to do ride alongs, you've got to do training, you've got to get them excited with incentive because they're walking into a toy store with ten to you know, twenty brands and why is your brand at the top of their bag? That's one thing for sure. I would not go to other countries. Right now. Right now.

20:54 Oh, I was just gonna say I I I I agree. I agree. Uh the one good th we did go to the London Toy Fair back in January and the happiest of accidents happened. Uh a guy with hardly any followers did a video of me telling the Random Little story, and within a couple of weeks It hit thirty six million views and that really got the attention of not only people calling from uh from like producers and also retail stores. So Uh that was a really a true blessing in disguise, but I I agree with you that uh refocusing on the US'cause I'm sure we haven't scratched

21:29 the surface of it, yeah, is probably the way to go. And then that's not even Target, Walmart, Toys R Us. We're talking specialty and then you're gonna move to Mass. So you have a huge opportunity here in the US. Yeah, I mean w how uh w tell me a little bit about your your about supply. I mean h how are you financing A are you having problems financing Purchase orders?

21:52 With our success that we've had and the some of the viral videos, yes, that's been a very frustrating uh aspect uh to begin with. We started with a hundred thousand dollars. Uh we haven't taken any money out of the business for the last five years. Everything goes back into keeping up with inventory,'cause I'm sure as you both or no, running out of inventory is is criminal. And it's happened to us on more than one occasion, especially when these videos pop up online that we have no idea about. Just within the first couple of weeks of us launching, I thought that it was our uh killer marketing uh and and social media posts that had blown up our store. But it turns out it was a a toy designer in Chicago that just saw the brand online, ordered all the products, did a uh unboxing and And we sold out of everything and it essentially broke the store. And and obviously Yeah.

22:44 takes two or three months for the product to to get over here. Tariffs have been a bit of an issue. So yes, keeping up with inventory is is definitely a challenge. Nick, h how many SKUs do you have? How many products do you have? We have uh sixteen plush toys, eleven hard toys, Ten beanies. And three books.

23:05 Okay. So you're not overassorted really. That's good. So you can really control do a better job of controlling your inventory. I'm always wanting to create more. I've got lots in the pipeline, but yes, my other partner tells me to slow down. So really and and so the question is the many questions do expand outside of the US Um and I again I agree with Monica on this. I wouldn't do that right now. I would I would really focus on fixing your your supply chain, right? Because

23:32 And this happens. You get an order from a toy store or a toy company And then you go and manufacture it and then they cancel it. And so you're left with all this product, right? And I mean there are ways around that. You can you can create some mechanisms to protect yourself, but at the end of the day, you want to find the cheapest and most efficient way to make this at the highest quality. And and so the the Ripley's thing is interesting, right? How many uh do you know how many shops they have? I think we're in about 21. Um it's the Ripley's believe it or not, which is the oddities, and then there's also the Ripley's aquariums. So they really like the ones, the ranimals that have an aquatic uh theme, and they've had a brilliant merchandiser, and that has been a key to our success in retail, I think, having a merchandiser.

24:16 Yeah. I mean it seems like you want to follow the pull. Right. And and and the Ripley's To me seems like that's sort of the clearest the clear sign of a product market fit right now.

24:29 I think you want to give that more time. And really use the time to Focus on Operations. before you really push out further, just maybe take a step back. It may be a little frustrating because it's exciting.

24:43 But you want to focus on having uh an efficient supply chain and you want to focus on having a strong relationship with that customer. And then maybe even building out in the cities. where those Ripley's are located, right? And Targeting independent.

25:00 Toy stores. That's where I think you want to really kind of build out the brand, you know, in other stores around there. Yeah, I would agree and it get a good sales group to really pound away, let's just say, San Francisco. other major markets where they're just strong independent toy stores. We we've had quite a bit of interest from different sort of animation uh studios and um And producers as a result of that uh

25:26 That video that went viral? Do you think that we should uh pursue that hard. Uh obviously that would be a tremendous exposure for the brand if we were to be able to get anything like a T V show or just YouTube short. I think it would be a great way of telling the story uh bringing that to life. It's tempting, isn't it?'Cause it's so sexy, right? So you have to ask yourself, What business are you in? And you're so small, you have to pick a path right now. I'm not saying forever.

25:54 But for right now. You gotta pick a path. In terms of way to grow. I agree. I think you're being stretched and already being stretched in too many directions right now. I think you need discipline.

26:06 I think you need operational strength. think you want to focus on, as I say, supply chain It's not I'm not saying for a year or two, I'm saying for like Three, four months. Really get that down.

26:18 Right. If you are Doing too many things. That turns into chaos. And not strategy, right? You've got a good it'll it sounds like you've got an i you've got a good brand, IP is g gaining traction.

26:32 Uh you've got this Ripley's thing that's going pretty well. I would look at that as a as a as an opportunity to really lean into and then try and build out geographically based on on those locations. Yeah, I think uh I think you're absolutely right. The brand is called Randomals, Nick Carmen. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thank you guys. Thank you Monica. Alright awesome We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another collar, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Ross, stick around, you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.

27:09 Mm. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Mrs. Myers founder, Monica Nassif. Uh so Monica, are you ready? I am ready. I'm thrilled to be here, Guy. Let's do it. Let's do it. Awesome. Hey Monica, hey guy. My name is Ben Rothenhafer and my company is Chandelier Cleaning VA. I'm based out of Richmond, Virginia and service the surrounding states. We specialize in cleaning and the restoration of antique and modern lighting. Our work preserves the integrity in historic architecture while bringing a new brilliance to the spaces we serve.

27:57 Ben, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. So you are A you've a chandelier cleaning business. This is a highly specialized Job I imagine. Tell me uh how did you get into it? Yeah. Well it was my destiny guy, you know? Um

28:14 I started About four years ago in Washington, DC. And you know, it is my way of serving the community and I get a lot out of it. And we're in a new place all the time, we're in beautiful spaces.

28:27 Historic buildings. Hotels. And you probably are dealing with like really complex, right. Like a l a lot of glass, a lot of crystal, that you've got to be you're taking it down very slowly. How do you clean a chandelier? Do you like dip it into something? Do you t I like I don't even know where to begin. We touch every piece by hand.

28:45 Toys. And sometimes we do undress the chandelier and put it back together just to reach certain areas. By the way, how much does it cost to clean a chandelier, like a elaborate chandelier? I mean if I look at a piece in a half days

29:01 You know, five hundred dollars, or if it's a full day's work, maybe a thousand. So Got it. All right, cool. So you've got this business and uh you're you're in You said Virginia. D C Maryland area.

29:13 And what are you looking to do? There's a lot of opportunity to grow this business. And I service a large territory. But it's a lot to take on. But I just I'm in a I'm in a growth stage of two years of owning the business and we want to expand

29:29 And um We're ready to pay for more marketing, get in bigger magazines. My question is I want to scale, am I ready to scale? Monica and bring you in here. Questions uh for Ben.

29:41 Well, I w one thing I always think, am I ready for scale? I I always say it's research and math. Meaning Okay, how big is your market? I mean you're okay, you're in hotels, you're in homes, you're in lighting showrooms, where are you? All these How many are there in how many markets?

29:57 And if you think really big Frequency of service. I might I mean are you cleaning chandeliers for someone's home twice a year, four times a year, once a year, once Figure that out. Write that down. Okay. The cost per service.

30:11 You know, you said a thousand dollars for a full day. That doesn't seem like enough, but I don't know the category. I mean you're c I kinda s think of you as a high end car detailer. You know, you're you're going after this very sophisticated, very high end service, white glove, all of the above. Yes, it's luxury.

30:29 And then Yeah, and then you can project your revenues. You know, once you answer all those questions on a spreadsheet Then you go, okay, that's the Richmond market. Then I'm gonna move, you know, close at hand. You're not gonna go run on running off to Austin, Texas for example. So I that's the way you answer the question, Am I ready to scale? is to do the math. Yeah. Do you have any employees right now?

30:51 We have two that help me with the labor, yes. Got it. Okay. And how comfortable do you feel bringing on additional employees? That's a really good question because I still show up to every job. And I'm you know, this is a high risk job and I wanna be there for it. So over the past year and a half I have been really putting time, energy, money into training.

31:12 these associates to hopefully be able to do the labor Because I still do show up to to every job site. I think a big part of this is education. I mean, and it's also just kind of a glamorous business when you think about it. Yeah, I would think social media, anything visual, but it would be super exciting to show chandeliers. I mean the whole process of getting up on a ladder, how you clean it.

31:35 I mean people love to watch that stuff. And I would think if you were the expert, like the top of the line car detailer, that's Kind of what you are with these chandeliers. Thanks. You know there's a few other businesses out there. I and to be

31:49 Uh really short. I Got really lucky when I moved to Richmond A guy had recently retired from chandelier cleaning. And what started is a gentleman's handshake turned into

32:01 a letter of agreement where I've ha serviced his clients over thirty years now. And in D C something similar is happening. Do you think that it's a business worth You know, taking over the market like you're saying, Monica, and purchasing these other businesses? Well, I I think you have to do the math. That's what I was saying earlier. You really gotta figure out how big is this, how can I service guy was going there with how many employees so you know your expense structure.

32:24 But you gotta really sit down and sp invest time in figuring out is it big enough? Ben, what are you doing in sales this year? What do you expect to do in twenty twenty five? Seventy five thousand. Okay, so seventy five thousand dollars. So and you're thinking about expanding, which means you've gotta hire more people or

32:44 hire more people and charge more money or do both. And uh and so What you you mentioned buying another business. What what opportunities are there to buy other businesses like yours? a former my my former employer who taught me how to do all of this in Washington D C. Twenty plus years of

33:02 client she's moved away to Florida. So there's been discussion. She's a dear friend of mine. And Currently she does send me some clients for a referral fee. I mean, I'm just kind of curious, what do you think the valuation of her business would be that you would acquire it? versus just plugging away. Yeah, I would only buy part of her business, m perhaps her client list.

33:23 But th that to me seems like the most interesting thing, right? The client list. And maybe you could you could just buy that and or Or negotiate some kind of you know. Rev share because Really? I mean you know how to do the work. You probably have a truck. You probably have the tools.

33:40 Really it's just about the client list. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, you're and then you have opportunity to build your own brand of level of expertise, service. Experience. Absolutely.

33:51 My clients mean everything to me. Yeah. Uh I mm it seems to me like You could run a great business as you're doing, right? You could do

34:00 eighty, ninety, a hundred grand a year, maybe more. And have some part time employees who help you out. And you could do that for the rest of your life and grow, you know, slowly and have a really Great, robust, profitable business. Or you can try and scale it.

34:18 Which, you know, really requires another at least one more tech like you. Who can be autonomous, who you don't have to Supervised. And until you get there I don't think that it's it makes sense. to uh to try it to think about scaling yet. I think you want to focus on really

34:37 developing somebody who who is gonna work with you and who has an incentive to continue to work with you. I would agree. It's this is a difficult business to scale. It's all talent driven.

34:51 Guy, do you think that person should have stock in the business? Well, maybe, I mean, or maybe you come up with some kind of uh five year plan that over time they get some you know, uh bits of equity, you know, that vest over a five or six year period or or more, and that incentivizes that person to stay with you and help you grow the business. So they don't leave and start a a competitor, right? You wanna your goal is to take over the chandelier cleaning b business in in this part of the country and maybe expand more. You're talking about a limited number of people who have chandeliers, but you want to capture all those customers. To do that, you need

35:30 additional people who can also be cleaning chandeliers in one part of the state while you're doing it in another part of the state. Yes. To the same quality. Yeah. Thanks for your insights.

35:41 For sure. All right, Ben, uh thanks for calling in. The company is called Chandelier Cleaning VAX for Virginia. Uh good luck. Thanks, guy. Thank you.

35:51 Um you know Monica, when you uh you know, when you think about when you started this brand, right? You you the instinct is to just do a million things. It's actually really hard to s to stop and say, We're gonna get disciplined and we're going to Do you remember that feeling when you started like just

36:10 Wanting to when you know just wanting to Be everywhere and do everything and and Partnership and activation and Oh yeah,'cause especially if you're a creative person, which a lot of brand people are, you can already see five years ahead.

36:24 And you just have to be to your point, you have to be disciplined. That's why when we started Mrs. Myers, we just went after market after market. And we just chipped away. We went to we tried the Midwest, that was a disaster. So we just chipped away New York, Atlanta. uh big major markets that would be so much more accepting. And we did exactly what you said. We had one store, let's say the Whole Foods store in Columbus Circle in New York, and then we went after all the other stores in the city. to to generate you know, a lot of awareness in a particular market. It's hard to be disciplined.

36:58 But it really pays off. Big time. It really does. And I think I've learned the hard way, frankly. Yeah, for sure. Monica, when you when you uh you know, g if you could go back to when you were starting your business. And you had done, you know, you'd done work for Target. I mean you had experience, but

37:14 You started a consumer brand and um You know, you also went through some challenges at home and I you know I won't talk about it here, but people should listen to the episode. If you could go back to when you were starting and knowing what you eventually discovered and now what you know is as a as a mentor and an investor, what uh kind of advice would have been helpful for you? At that time.

37:35 You know, I think ignorance some ways is bliss. I knew so little about the promotional dollars required to sit on the shelf of a target or a Walmart or a Kroger. And yet we went after it. And I think if I knew that oh my gosh, those promotional dollars were, you know, I don't know what the math is, let's say a hundred thousand, I may have been a little more scared, but I didn't know. So I just kept chipping away. And they really, you know, a lot of retailers were like, Okay, you're a young brand, we'll give you this space and then as you grow you gotta pay. So there is a benefit of being ignorant, but at the same time passionate and focused and persevering through it all. I think if I had to go back and look, I often wondered, should I have created all these brands? Should there have been Caldera private label in Mrs. Myers? Because we eventually got to Mrs. Myers. So in the end it was

38:24 Right. But sometimes I go Did we need to do all that? It was learning. Figuring it out. Yeah.

38:31 For sure. Uh it's a good point. Yeah. Um that's Monica Nasif, founder of Mrs. Myers. Uh Monica, thank you so much for coming onto the advice line. Delighted to be here, guy. Uh, and by the way, if you haven't heard Monica's original How Built This episode

38:45 You've gotta go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the podcast description and the show notes. Uh, and here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. All of a sudden you've got your mom in the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle, New York. And it's called Mrs. Myers and

39:01 And she's like, I'm Mrs. Myers, but it wasn't like um the Charman Squeeze guy. No. Like she was re she's like the real deal. Yeah, and we would bring her to trade shows and People just like Loved seeing her and she just embraced this whole thing and I'm like But would they ask her like hey how did you invent this? How did you start this business? Oh yeah what would she say? She would she would act like she did it And you know, at first I I kinda always wanted to interrupt and I thought, uh uh.

39:29 Just let her rip. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1800-433-1250. 1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.

40:11 This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Rontina Rablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Nebu Grant, Casey Herman, JC Howard. Chris Massini, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line. on how I built this lab.