AP 1191: How Can I Reinvigorate an Ecommerce Business That’s Stalled?

AP 1191: How Can I Reinvigorate an Ecommerce Business That’s Stalled?

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 1,191 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur, just like you, and today we're speaking with Tracy Diane Jones. She's actually a geologist and an author, and the owner of the website Mini Me Geology. Has a nice ring to it, and it's great because it's also for kids, and teachers, and parents, who want to have their kids explore rocks, right, and Tracy does literally rock. She's also somebody who helps people with understanding and getting excited about rocks, and at a time when STEM education and things like this are on the up and up, her business was doing pretty well, but then COVID happened.

A lot of that business was lost, and now she's in recovery mode, as many businesses are. Today, we're talking about, well, how might we, and what ideas might I have for this recovery plan, and what can we do? You're going to find some principles in my answer in what we discover today that you might need to hear, because by the end of this, you'll hear that Tracy, she knew that these are the things that she had to do, but perhaps was a little bit scared, or reluctant to do. So what are they? Well, make sure you listen all the way through because these are important. Again, you can find Tracy and her website at MiniMeGeology.com, and let's talk about it. Here she is.

Tracy, welcome to AskPat. Thanks for joining me today.

Tracy Diane Jones:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Pat:
I'm excited that you're here too. Tracy, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Tracy:
I am a geologist, and I've worked in the environmental field for a very long time. Several years ago, I got an idea to start a business making rock and mineral kits for kids, and schools, and people that can use them at home for their collecting and hobbying, and things like that.

I was at my son's kindergarten class a long, long time ago when they had parent day, and they wanted us to talk about our professions, and I didn't really think kids would understand what an environmental consultant did, so I just took a bunch of rock and mineral samples. They really loved them, so I went and looked to see if I could get some for my kids, and I just didn't see any that I really, really like, so I decided to create my own. That's kind of how the whole Mini Me Geology business got started.

Pat:
Is that the name of it? Mini Me Geology?

Tracy:
Yes.

Pat:
Wonderful branding, by the way, that rolls off the tongue. I got to agree, I have two young kids, 11-year-old, and an eight-year-old. And for most of their life, they've totally been into anything shiny, anything rocks, anything nature. This is the time of their life to get interested in that kind of stuff. I just want to commend you for seeing that opportunity, and making it awesome, and especially, anything involving education for kids is something I can get behind, so well done on that.

Tracy:
Thank you.

Pat:
Where's the website. and where can people learn more really quick before we dive in?

Tracy:
The website is MiniMeGeology.com, and there's tons of information on there about me, and how it got started, and about everything rocks and minerals, and we have a blog with lots of information, and experiments, and things that people can do. It's kind of, hopefully, a hub where people can get kids interested in science.

Pat:
Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. And especially, with the push towards STEM education, this is like perfect timing kind of stuff.

Tell me about the business a little bit. Like what is the business model? How are you generating an income from Mini Me Geology?

Tracy:
It's always been an ecommerce business, everything that's on the website, I've developed myself or written. We have a whole line of rock and mineral kits. We also sell all of the samples individually. I've also written several books, some nonfiction books that help teachers and parents teach rocks and mineral identification to kids. Then, I've also written a kids’ book series, like a fiction series, called the Crystal Cave Adventures, where these kids go off traveling through time, collecting rare rock and mineral samples. It has a bunch of activity books that go along with it. Everything that's on that site, I've created myself, and it was going along fairly well. I think I've been running it about 15 years now. It was kind of steadily growing over time and things like that.

It got to a point where kind of behind the scenes, I was kind of in a bad situation. I had a marriage I needed to get out of, and the business was a big concern in that. Where I live, the fact that I owned a trademark, and a bunch of copyrights made it a little hairy, so at that point, I had to kind of stop the business. I wasn't able to produce any new books, or kits, or any kind of materials, and so the business just kind of came to a screeching halt.

Now, I'm back to where I kind of almost need to relaunch it at this point, and so that's where I'm kind of trying to figure out where do I go from here.

Pat:
Gotcha. So what do you have available to you now that you can use as sort of an asset?

Tracy:
In the past, I mean, I have a pretty extensive blog, and there's never-ending stuff that I can write about on there. I did start a YouTube channel answering questions that kids would send into me through the website. We've got all the social media channels. I've done some paid advertising.

I just, at this point, I feel like there's so much that I've tried over the years. I'm not sure where to go back to, to kind of relaunch what we have, because our customers really like the kits. I don't think we have like issues with products and things like that. I can always develop new stuff for that.

It's the marketing side where I'm trying to figure out what's the best part to spend my time on moving forward, to get it back to where it was and keep it growing.

Pat:
What was working really well for you beforehand?

Tracy:
I feel like it was mostly the blog. When I started the business, there was Facebook and things like that, but there wasn't as many social media channels as there are now. I really spent my time writing blog posts, and using those to come up with things that I could post on social media that led back to the blog, and to the website.

I kind of feel like that is kind of like the best place to go, but it's been so long since I really was consistent with that. I've been hesitating on really diving into that headfirst.

Pat:
Yeah. Honestly, nowadays, things have, of course, changed a little bit since. Things are changing all the time, but having a blog was like the thing back in the day, and if you just had the blog itself, and if that's where you focus, then things would work, and that still seems to be the case for many, but then there's also a lot of other options, right.

You have the option of YouTube and really focusing on that. You have the option of these short-form video places like TikTok and REELZ. You have podcasts, of course. I think that they all work. They can all do what you're trying to do, but you have to pick one, and go, and commit, and be consistent, and you got to go for it, and it could still be the blog. It could be the YouTube thing. It could be the podcast, but the truth is, I know a lot of people who are in a similar position of, "Okay, well, where do I market this thing," and they try to be everywhere. As a result of being everywhere, they're actually nowhere, right?

It's hard because it's like, "Oh, but there are people on YouTube who watch. So I need to do be there, but then I also need to do the TikTok thing because they're there, too, and that's where the kids are hanging out, but I also need to be here." But again, if you divide your energy across all those things, you're not going to be showing up fully anywhere, and so it's hard because it feels like we're letting go or we're missing out, when actually, the opposite is true. When we focus on one and we like learn everything about it.

For example, if it's the blog again, okay, "Who's ranking for what keywords, and SEO is now a part of the equation. How do I build my email list on my website?" That becomes a part of the equation. All things website is like, what matters and nothing else, you stay in your lane, right. Or, if it's YouTube, it's like, "Okay, the blog, that's just going to be sort of like a secondhand repository, but the YouTube thing's going to be the first thing that I really want to focus on. So how do I do well on YouTube? Where do I go to learn? How do I write good titles and thumbnails? How do I keep users engaged on YouTube? And let's just go all in on that."

It'll have to be a choice, and that's going to be your choice because, truthfully, any of those platforms will work, and all of those platforms have people, and resources, and teachers that can help you master them.

Tracy:
Yes. And part of the problem, I think, with the type of business I have is a lot of our products are geared toward kids, but they're not the ones buying them. So you need to get the kids interested, but you have to get the parents hooked into making that purchase.

Pat:
Right, and this is not a unique situation for just you. I mean, it is in the world of business, but there's a whole set of people who promote study guides to kids, and they get the kids interested in the exam, or they know they have to take it, but it's the parents who make the decisions, right.

If you think of other, just comparable items, other educational things, I mean, I look at, for example, can't remember the name of it, Wiz Kit, or something. I can't remember, but there's a YouTuber named Mark Rober, who had partnered with this company, and they make like these tinker toys that you can get a subscription box for every month sent to you, and they have a new, like month one is a catapult, and month two is this other mechanical gear doohickey hokey thing. He's kind of partnered with them. This speaks to, "Okay, if you have a company like this, then maybe you might want to partner with and find a influential YouTuber who has kids who watch their videos."

Those things are selling out like crazy because that company's getting in front of their audience the through that way, so that's just, again, is an example of "How is that company doing it? Okay, well, they're working with influencers. What other influencers might exist that I can get in front of?" That might mean you having to spend some time building relationships with people, and offering a kit to somebody, and seeing what they think about it. That's a very common way that ecommerce brands are building today is through the power of who owns the attention right now.

Have you done any digging into potential avenues of that way?

Tracy:
I have thought about it, but I have not really pursued that at all.

Pat:
Gotcha.

Tracy:
Because, and the reason I haven't is because I feel like rock kits are different than like engineering kits. Engineer kits, you can build something. Rock kits are more like collecting and doing experiments.

To me, they're not as flashy, I guess, as a kit where you can make a robot. So I haven't done that just because I'm not sure, haven't decided if people would actually be interested in what I have.

Pat:
Okay, so we have to backtrack a little bit and go, "How can we prove that this is interesting because that confidence or lack of confidence in it is definitely going to hurt," right. If you're not sure, then it's not going to happen, and I think we need to get to the truth of this geology kit, rocks; pun intended. I'm sure you hear that all the time.

Tracy:
Yes, our slogan is “where kids rock.” So yeah.

Pat:
Okay, it's in your slogan. Okay, so that's cool. Once you are like so passionate about this thing, like disgustingly passionate, and you know that this thing actually is going to serve people and a certain group of kids, maybe the more science or STEM-based. I pick the tinkering thing because it's the first thing I remember, but you know, that's for that audience, right. That Mark Rober has. He's a scientist who likes to tinker, versus there's a ton of science-based, and family channels, and nature-based, mom, YouTubers, parent-family YouTube channels that would probably just would go gangbusters.

If you were able to portray that passion, you knew that to the point where some people who aren't interested in it are going to go, "Ugh, there she is again. That rock lady," they're not going to buy anyway, but the ones who get excited about it with you, are going to be stoked on it. It might take you reaching out to a few people or experimenting with a group of kids to see their reaction with this.

Once you see that, once you can realize it, then it would actually be almost your responsibility to go up and sell it, and share it with as many people as possible, right. I mean, I say this to myself all the time. It's kind of true. "Gone are days of just hiding behind the keyboard." That used to be the case where you could just write, and hide, and still make sales, and still do well, and build an audience, and you could just type away.

Now, with access to everything, showing up in some way, shape or form, or having somebody else talk about you via word of mouth, or some sort of deal like that is what's going to get you to that next level. I think, if you have, for example, in your customer list, perhaps some people who have a YouTube channel and would want to share and show off some of that stuff, maybe you gift them something as a result of promoting it, and they would be your biggest marketing team because they've already used the product and they've already loved it.

Maybe you have some testimonials that you could reach out to and capture that full story, so it's not just like, "Oh, yeah, we love Mini Me Geology, but no, here's what it did for our kids before. This is what we were doing, but look at them now and they have this big collection, and this is such a great thing for kids to have, gets them off the screen for a little bit," and that kind of stuff.

I think there's a lot of opportunity here. I got really excited about it when you started telling me what you did. I think that if you were to step in front of other audiences and talk about it, it could get a lot of other people excited, too.

Tracy:
Do you think that reaching out to the influencers is a higher priority than developing our own YouTube channel? Or should they go hand-in-hand?

Pat:
They kind of go hand-in-hand, right, and the cool thing about having a YouTube channel, especially if it starts to pick up or actually do something, is now you have a platform where you can invite others on, and you can kind of do a collaboration where you're kind of helping each other. It doesn't mean you have to have the same number of subscribers, but if they're into your stuff, as much as you're into their stuff, it could be a perfect marriage. You could have this nice collaboration where you both put videos out.

I saw a friend of mine, he's in the Pokémon space. He was on a chiropractor’s channel because the chiropractor was just totally into Pokémon, and he shared a video to his 2 million audience about Pokémon and made it relevant, of course. But my friend who has 2,000 subscribers was able to get on a channel with 2 million because they had a same common interest. I think that they both go hand-in-hand to your question. Creating content is half the equation, the other is marketing, and building relationships is a part of marketing.

Is this different from what your friends are telling you?

Tracy:
Yes.

Pat:
Okay. I don't know if any of you listening caught that because I don't know if I was recording or not, but before we hit record, maybe you had said it's going to be nice to talk to somebody on the outside, right, who like is just going to come in with fresh eyes. So I just wanted to make sure I brought something from my own experience to you to help you with where you're at.

I hope this is at least getting the gears turning, and maybe it's adding a little bit of butterflies here and there like, "Oh, I have to, I got to do this now," and I think that makes sense. I was that way, too, but at the same time, that sort of nervousness is a result of you probably knowing this is what you need to do, and it's outside of that comfort zone that's probably going to get you to that next level.

Tracy:
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Yeah, because when you said reach out to people, I'm like, oh, no.

Pat:
Right. Now you know.

Tracy:
I know I need to do that.

Pat:
Maybe this is just confirmation then that is the route to go, hopefully. Or, at least something to try, right. I mean, I'm not saying you're doing this, but I know a lot of people who are listening have done this. It's like if you just sit there and kind of hope for something to happen or just continue to do the same things. I think it was, what, Einstein, who said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result each time." You got to do something different to get the different results.

Tracy:
I think that was part of my hesitation. Like when I was first thinking about how I was going to ramp all this back up was, "Well, I've already done a lot of blogging, and social media, and the ASCA Geologist videos, and stuff." I was wondering to myself, "How is doing all of that same stuff again going to make it actually grow bigger than it was before?" I think the point is, it's probably not.

Pat:
It may or may not, new content, a lot, especially on YouTube. Like this is how YouTube, YouTube used to be, get subscribers, all your subscribers, see all of your future videos, and hopefully they talk about it, and share it with their friends, and you get more subscribers. That's not how YouTube works anymore.

In fact, YouTube has realized that people have a better experience when they are introduced to new people, to new videos, new discoveries, and we could take advantage of that. If we have videos that A, get clicked on, and B, get watched, because those are basically the two things that we want to happen, clickability, and then watch time. YouTube's going to go, "Whoa, this video is awesome. Let's send it to thousands, tens of thousands, millions of more people because we know people watch this, let's show it to more people."

Most people who view YouTube videos are not subscribed to those channels, so you will find new audiences because YouTube and their algorithm’s going to do that for you. Now, it's just a matter of, A, you've introduced yourself now to these new people. Then you get them excited, and get them to want to learn, and do more, and hopefully, buy something. So yeah, the content creation will help you find new people too.

Tracy:
Yeah, and I guess I could use all of that information to cross-promote on all of the other channels, so if I just focus on YouTube, on my stuff, and trying to connect with other people, and then taking that, and putting it back on everything else, then I have less, hopefully, less work and more impact.

Pat:
That's right. That's right. You want to pull the big levers, and I think influencers and relationships are big levers, creating content that gets people to talk, and get algorithms to work for you is a big lever. Then, like you said, "Okay, let's take a little clip from this YouTube video and share it on my Instagram. Or, I'm about to film a video, so let me go onto Instagram stories and just share a little behind the scenes. Hey everybody, I'm about to shoot this video. Look at this rock here. If you want to learn more about this, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel because I'm going to talk about it in this upcoming video." That way, you kind of get people behind the scenes, and they get to sort of know you a little bit more, and now it's not just like, "Oh, here's the website with the rocks." It's like, "No, here's Tracy, and here's what Tracy's doing, and here's who she's talking to, and here's just her world, and I want to be in it."

Tracy:
That makes sense.

Pat:
Woo, so I know that's a lot, Tracy, and one step at a time, of course, but I want to thank you because I know it can be tough to, especially having been away with something for a while, coming back and like everything's different. And I'm sorry you had to go through all those troubles and stuff, but oftentimes, those things make us stronger, and who knows? I mean, I'm hoping that we could have a conversation again in the future where you go, "You know, it was tough in the beginning, and you know, it was a slow start, but, wow, I'm actually glad all that happened, happened because look where we're at now."

Tracy:
That would be wonderful.

Pat:
I'm here for you, Tracy, rooting for you, and if you could, one more time tell people where to go and find your stuff, I'd be happy to send people that way.

Tracy:
Great. You can find me and all of our information at MiniMeGeology.com.

Pat:
Mini Me Geology. There we go. Thank you, Tracy. Appreciate you and want to wish you all the best.

Tracy:
Thank you so much.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that coaching call with Tracy Diane Jones from MiniMeGeology.com, and I hope what we talked about resonates with you, because of all the things that we've talked about here on this show, across all the episodes that I've done. I mean, that's over 1,191, including this one. It's the mindset. Right? And getting out there, communicating with others is so important these days, and long gone are the days of just hiding behind your keyboard. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter if it's ecommerce, or not, you got to make it happen. Go ahead and do that. That's... that's your call to action today. So anyway, Tracy, thank you so much again. You can find her one more time at MiniMeGeology.com.

Now, if you'd like to get coached just like Tracy did today, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com, and you can fill out the application there. I select people at random over time, and I may or may not get to you, but it's not going to happen unless you apply. So make sure to go again, to AskPat.com. You can also check out some of the archives there, as well. And I'd recommend searching for topics that are relevant to what it is that you're working on right now. We've got a load of topics. It's basically a giant Q&A, all happening right there, AskPat.com. And of course, you could even look up AskPat in certain topics on Google, as well, to help you.

Anyway, make sure you hit that subscribe button because we have a lot of great stuff coming your way, and I don't want you to miss it, and you don't want to miss it either because these things are so, so helpful for you, especially when you take action. So make sure you take action. Go ahead and talk to people. Build connections, build relationships, and I'll see you next week. Take care. Thanks so much, peace out, and as always, Team Flynn for the win. Cheers.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our Senior Producer is Sara Jane Hess, our Series Producer is David Grabowski, and our Executive Producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you in the next session.