AP 1175: Where Are They Now? Sarah Murphy from Alchemilla Apothecary

AP 1175: Where Are They Now: Sarah Murphy from Alchemilla Apothecary

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here. And welcome to episode 1175 of AskPat 2.0. And this is a special episode, because you're about to listen to a Where Are They Now episode? Just like on Shark Tank, right? They do the little pitches and then several months go by, years go by, and then they come back and they check in on somebody. That's exactly what we do here. And today we're talking with Sarah Murphy, who was on the episode back in 1120 where she was trying to figure out what she should do. Because she has a business, an apothecary sort of business, where she creates a lot of skin lotions and things like that to help people. Alchemilla is the name of her website, A-L-C-H-E-M-I-L-L-A. She created this thing called, like it was a sausage tree sort of mixture that people around the world would want.

And so she had a lot of options. Maybe she creates some online courses to help people with some of this stuff. Maybe she goes deeper into products and manufacturing. Maybe we go into building more of a client base. And so we discovered a lot of great things there. And today we're going to catch up and see how she's doing. And I'm just going to give you a little bit of a preview.

Unfortunately, the pandemic hit very, very hard. And I just got to give you a warning because you might get a little bit triggered in this because so many things seem to happen all at once to Sarah. But I do want to tell you I've never been around somebody who's had so many things happen to their business, yet feeling like I was always seeing somebody smile on the other end. And you're going to hear that smile through this entire process and how she's picked herself up, how she's learned from what has happened and how she's still looking forward, despite all the things that have happened. So what happened? Well, you're going to have to stick around. So here she is, Sarah Murphy from episode 1120. Here we go.

Sarah, welcome back to AskPat. It's good to see you, good to hear you again. How are things over there?

Sarah Murphy:
Oh, great. Thanks for having me on. It's a little bit strange. We're still in the full lock down here in the UK, but hopefully things are beginning to look more positive. The sun is out. And yeah, things are on the up.

Pat:
That's good. Things are on the up and up here too. And last time you were on the show, that was episode 1120, we talked about growing and selling more product without overwhelming yourself. And to the point where you were worried about if you do more things it would compromise the quality of what it is that you were doing. Can you remind people what it is your business is and then we'll kind of dive into how things have gone since?

Sarah:
Yeah, I think the last time I spoke to I was really at the start of a new journey. I was rebranding my business, looking for all kinds of things. I was really a little bit like a caterpillar with so many feet, I just didn't know which way to walk. I was going in all directions. Shall I do online courses? Shall I build my client base? Shall I develop this product?

Pat:
Because you're doing a lot of one-on-one stuff at the time, right? It was mostly one-on-one.

Sarah:
Yeah, I was before the great event happened. So yes, I decided to focus on my sausage tree green, because that was my cash cow. And it was really doing quite well and adding quite a lot of tension. Obviously the key word, it's quite an unusual thing so I was coming top of searches for that particular product. And it was doing really well. And I think the last time I spoke to you it was probably about three weeks before the lockdown happened across the world before the bigannouncement. And I just thought if I could go back to that time again and somebody could say to me, "Do you know what's going to happen?" I think I might have made a different choice. I manufactured the product and found myself trying to get into stores when all the shops had just decided to close. So yeah, I did manage to get into a couple of stores and it was quite exciting for a very short window of time.

Pat:
Oh good.

Sarah:
And then what happened was, obviously everybody started to go online. So I was finding my sausage tree green popping up on other people's sites because they were put their shops online. So that was still to diluting that that was not the idea I have in mind when I decided to launch it to the stores. So that was one problem. And I had to think quite quickly about how to sort of get that back and take ownership of it again.

Pat:
On one hand, them promoting your product sounds like a good thing, right? Why was this a bad thing?

Sarah:
Yeah, because that was actually then taking quite a bit of my traffic away from my website.

Pat:
They were buying it elsewhere. Got it.

Sarah:
So a little change of tactic, I decided to approach some of my fellow herbalists and sell wholesale to them, because they were still open. And they had clients that were coming for stress acne and maskne. Did you know that was a thing, maskne?

Pat:
Uh-uh.

Sarah:
Mask because people have acne because of wearing masks all the time.

Pat:
Oh right, right.

Sarah:
I only just discovered this yesterday. Somebody hashtagged me, #maskne, M-A-S-K-N-E. And I thought, "Oh, well, that's a thing I've never heard of." So yes, I began then selling wholesale to practitioners rather than to shops. Do a little bit of work around that. So that was a temporary solution.

However, I found that as well another problem, which I hadn't thought of, was that people don't like change. And my new product was a little bit different from the one that I have been making in my kitchen. So even though I have gone to all of this expenses making, in the manufacturers, finding packaging, branding, or doing all these nice things, organic ingredients, people were still emailing me, "Can I have the old version? Can I have the one that you make?"

Pat:
Really?

Sarah:
Yeah. So then that became almost like a bubble. I was still making things in the kitchen but also trying to promote this new cream. And again . . . they're making, I think everybody was just really in such a desperate attempt to re-evaluate the whole business model, weren't they, to make sure that the income was still coming in. And so I was really in quite a vulnerable place this time last year.

Pat:
Yeah, this time last year was very hard for a lot of people for all different kinds of reasons. And it seemed like a lot of the hard work that you put in was just kind of being put at a halt. I mean, having gone into stores, seeing how joyful that was probably, and then stores getting shut down — the beauty is you know now that you can do it. And when we come out of this, hopefully that's the direction you go down again because that's going to be really neat. But with regards to the recipe changing, you're right, people don't like change. I don't know. Was that a quality issue or was that more of a recipe change issue when manufacturing was brought on board?

Sarah:
My original recipe had quite a big water content because it was a lotion. And that was an issue with shelf stability on preserving the cream. It had to be changed for safety regulations to get around that which made product a little bit thicker. And people liked the fact that the old version was more absorbable. So I'm still trying to work around that. Another disastrous part of the chain of events was that the manufacturer actually had a fire in the factory after my first batch.

Pat:
Oh no. Are you kidding me?

Sarah:
I know.

Pat:
What?

Sarah:
So I'd managed to get my batch out, but now I'm not able to do another batch for a while until the reissues.

Pat:
Geez, when it rains it pours, doesn't it?

Sarah:
It's challenging, but it's a big learning curve, isn't it?

Pat:
Yeah, I mean, you've been smiling this whole time though, which I think is really neat for those listening. And I'd love to know now we are a year past the start of all this, how are things going now? Where have things settled? And again, like I said, bright future coming. Where things like at this very moment for you?

Sarah:
Yeah. After I talked to you, I did lose quite a lot of sales because then again, we had Brexit of course. We made the trades so with selling to the US — I did have quite a large number of customers in the US. And so they were being hit with huge customer charges on top of the additional postage charges. And the fact that parcels were just taking ages to get through because it's specialty and lorry's being blockaded and not being allotted. Planes not being able to get off the ground. So I just thought, "Right, okay. Let's just have a complete fresh start." I decided to take a load of material I had on a memory stick and begin looking at creating some online courses in the summer. I would be doing herb walks, I would be doing manufacturing workshops in-person. And of course, all of that was on hold. And I have a wealth of material, so I just bought a plugin for my website and gave it a whirl and had to go create an online course.

Pat:
That's great. I mean, what a nice compromise, a nice pivot. Part of entrepreneurship is adaptability, right? Like here's the situation presented to me, what's possible now? I think that's really smart. So how did the courses go? How did the workshops go for you?

Sarah:
I did a first cohort in February. So that was just sort of a test run of 10 people. So the course is live now. And maybe I can't mention the name of the book, I don't want to sort of want to promote anybody unfairly. I am looking at maybe doing a membership option where people are paying a monthly subscription. I've really got into slow TV, which I know is a bit of a niche area. I bought myself Oprah because all we could do is walk. And luckily it was in a really nice part of the world. So off I went on my daily walk and three hours later I've got so much footage. There's nobody about when all of these plants growing. And nature was thriving everywhere because obviously everybody was inside. So now I've got a ton of footage. And I was thinking, "How can I turn this into" ... I mean, do you think there are people that would sit and watch a three hour hike around Cornwall?

Pat:
I mean, you look on YouTube, there are 10 hour videos of the same song playing over and over again with like, a dancing cat. First of all, you have this footage, you never know. So it could potentially be just worth putting up, even for people who want to have more of a meditative walk or a view of something. I mean, that's pretty intriguing. Depending on the quality of it, I can even imagine that being licensed out to different companies who perhaps have that kind of value to offer. But that's cool. I'm glad that you have found something sort of kind of on the side to experiment with and try. But the GoPro's an amazing piece of kit, for sure. It's a lot of fun to work with.

Sarah:
It's just a whole learning curve of learning technology, isn't it, from scratch. And I was thinking back to the first time I stumbled across you was on a thing called Periscope. Do you remember Periscope?

Pat:
Yeah, Periscope. That was like, live streaming video. Kind of Periscope and Meerkat came out at the same time. And then Facebook took over live streaming, and Instagram live kind of came about too. That's funny. That's a long time ago.

Sarah:
I know. I'm thinking how far they've come with technology since then. And if we don't embrace these changes, we are missing out. So it has been a challenge and it's been very stressful to try to really adapt from being herbalist seeing people one-on-one and trying to create a product that is going into the shops, to buying a GoPro and thinking about potentially setting up a community online where people in the US or people that are stuck inside, that can't get out and do these walks and they want to be outside in nature can just experience a little bit of that maybe for half an hour and learn a bit about what's growing in the back garden. I mean, weeds are everywhere. And maybe getting a bit of joy of personally getting away from the screen as well for a little bit and being outside.

Pat:
That's kind of cool. I mean, I could imagine if you were to consistently publish like a walk and I can start to put that and integrate that into my daily sort of routine, I get to kind of look forward to it and subscribe and share it if perhaps has some real nice royalty free music. Or maybe not royalty free music, but you hear the crunching of the leaves on the ground. You just start to kind of like escape a little bit. A lot of people are looking to escape. So this could be a neat experiment to play around with until things get back to somewhat normal and you can get back into stores and get back in to the manufacturing and figure out a solution for all that stuff too. But yeah, try it out. Lean into it, see what happens. It would be kind of interesting to see.

Maybe it's called Walk With Me Today, or something. It's just like a peaceful way to kind of come around town with you and see some parts of the world that I wish I could see, but I can't because I'm stuck at home right now. So yeah, that's kind of cool. I like that. I'm all for trying new things. I started a brand new YouTube channel during the pandemic about Pokemon cards. And it's going pretty well right now. And it's bringing me joy. And even if nobody was watching it, I'd still have a lot of fun because it's something I enjoy with my kids. So there's something to be said for at least amongst all the craziness and all the things happening at the same time, to find some joy somewhere. And if you want to share that with others, all the more power.

Sarah:
I really think that this has taught me that it's so important to enjoy your business and enjoy what you do, because there was a period of time where it was just a matter of scrambling around trying to think, "Oh my God, I need to just completely reinvent this now. What am I going to do? Where is the income coming from?" And it is scary, but at the same time, it is a bit of an adrenaline rush, isn't it? Because you think, "Do I really want to be sitting here doing the same thing in 10 years?" And it's nice, the change is nice as long as you don't allow it to overwhelm you. And I think that's where I've at times fallen down.

Pat:
Well, it's interesting because the last time you were on, we talked a lot about overwhelm and your experiences with that. I don't have any sense of the fact that things are "crumbling" around you. Because number one, you've just had, again, a smile on your face the whole time. But I think that maybe you are learning that these trials and struggles are part of the growing process. It's a part of the learning process. And it's ultimately making you stronger. I mean, you're already making really, really smart decisions and running little experiments here or there, which is what a true entrepreneur would do. And I think out of the pandemic, it has hurt a lot of people. Obviously, it has affected all of us. And it is those who are thinking, "Okay, well, what does this make possible that are going to come out of this even better?"

And that's what happened to me in 2008 after getting laid off. For a while, I was down in the dumps and not really thinking there was anything good that was going to happen out of that. And then I finally had the courage to try new things. And those things worked out really well. And I'm so glad I got laid off now. So we might look back at this, years from now and go, "Wow, if it weren't for all this stuff happening, this great thing I have now wouldn't have existed." And we're just kind of in the middle of that story right now.

Sarah:
Yeah. Change is as good as the rest, isn't it? Is that the saying?

Pat:
But that's crazy that all those things happened at the same time.

Sarah:
Oh my God.

Pat:
And just the manufacturing plant, and . . .

Sarah:
It was like lockdown. Then it was the Brexit thing. And it was the fire. It's almost like somebody is saying, "Stop now. You need to do something else. But hey-ho."

Pat:
Cool. Well, we will check in with you. We're in the middle of the story right now. Any great hero story has a challenge where they're faced with new demons, new evils, new whatevers. And it is those who persevere, those who get mentorship, those who get help, and those who try new things who come out the other end so much better. Like any good story from Harry Potter to Katniss Everdeen, you're making your hero story right now. And I'm encouraged by the way that you are approaching the tough times. And again, we're all here to support you, Sarah. And I think this is probably a very encouraging episode for people to hear to know that not everybody has unicorns and roses all the time. And I think that this is just one of those stories that I'm looking forward to rounding out with you the next time. So if you don't mind, I'd love to check in with you again and bring you on for another time at some point. Once things get back to normal, once we start to see more of your stuff on the shelves, I think it'll be really great.

Sarah:
Well, hopefully after this everything will be like a piece of cake.

Pat:
Yeah. Sarah, you're awesome. Thank you so much. One more time. Any websites or anything you want to point toward, feel free to share it.

Sarah:
Great. Okay. Yeah. I think last time I was trying to avoid being on social media because it felt a bit overwhelming. And now it feels like a totally opposite direction. Please have a look at my online course. It is based on a real analog workshop that I run at our local health food shop. It's very accessible to everyone. And it's about herbs for liver health, which is really important for everybody and health and digestion, the mood. And yeah, anything that you can do to look after yourself is always helpful. So that would be nice if people would have a look at that on my website.

Pat:
And where would they go to get to find that? What's the website URL?

Sarah:
Alchemilla.co.

Pat:
Sounds good, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah, We appreciate you. We'll check in with you again soon and best of luck to you. Thank you.

Sarah:
Thanks so much, Pat. Take care.

Pat:
Sarah. Thank you so much for coming on for the Where Are They Now episode here. Definitely one that was difficult to do, and I'm sure difficult for listeners to listen to. Because you can't help but feel for you, right? We empathize, we all go through this startup process together as entrepreneurs and to have certain things like this happen all within a short period of time. And it's out of your control with the fire and the fact ... Oh man, that's just like, ugh, dagger, right? However, your positive attitude is what's going to keep you moving forward and that's what's going to get you to win.

I promise you that. Because no matter what happens, and I got this from James Wedmore, that is you either get the result you wanted or the lesson that you needed. True failure, no matter what happens to you is giving up. You keep going, persistence and grit is what will get you to success. So I want to commend you for that, Sarah, because it's definitely inspiring to hear. And hopefully others hear this and they get inspired by it too. And if they want to reach out to you, they can find you at Alchemilla.co, A-L-C-H-E-M-I-L-L-A.co. And Sarah, appreciate you so much.

And for those of you listening, if you'd like to get coached, just like Sarah did back in the day, you can actually reach out to me at AskPat.com. You can fill out the application there, and I might reach out to you and we'll see if we can set something up. So thank you so much, Sarah, for coming in and sharing and being vulnerable and helping us learn and empathize. And we're here for you. We're here for you. And to you, the listener, for listening all the way through. I appreciate you a ton. Looking forward to serving you next week. We got another new coaching call to serve you next week. So make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks for all the reviews. I've been reading them. I appreciate them so much. And I look forward to seeing you next week. Cheers, peace out, and as always, Team Flynn for the win.

Thanks for listening to Ask Pat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Sound design and editing by Paul Grigoras. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess, our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you for the next session.