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In today’s episode you’ll learn:

  • How to price your products
  • What to do when you have underpriced wholesale margins
  • How outsourcing parts of your business could help you scale
  • Building a relationship with your target customers through product samples
  • Utilising the power of LinkedIn to connect with the right people

Where to find Sarah, and the books and podcasts she talks about on the show:

Books:

You Are A Badass At Making Money

 

Where to find her

Check out Sarah’s podcast: Products to  Profit

https://sarahjcross.com/

Transcript

Dahna Borg

Hi, and welcome to the Bright Minds of eCommerce podcast. I’m Dahna founder of Bright Red Marketing, your eCommerce advertising specialists. Today. We’re here with Sarah Cross from the Creative Product Institute.

 

She wants to help you grow a thriving product-based business through the power of wholesale. In today’s episode, she shares the power of wholesale, what you need to do to be successful in the wholesale market and her favourite strategies to find new wholesalers and so much more. So let’s get into it. 

 

Welcome to episode 28.

 

Dahna Borg

Today. We’re here with Sarah J. Cross, Wholesale Growth Strategist and Women’s Business Coach. Hi Sarah.

 

Sarah J Cross 

Hi. Hi Dahna. Thanks for having me.

 

Dahna Borg  

It’s so good to have you, so tell us a little bit about yourself and how your business came to be.

 

Sarah J Cross 

Well, I am a business coach for women with product-based businesses. So I am quite a niche coach. I specialise in B2B wholesale growth strategies to help my clients build $1 million businesses.

 

Dahna Borg

Amazing. And most of that is around that wholesaling market, right?

 

Sarah J Cross 

Yes. Correct.

 

Dahna Borg

Fantastic. So what kind of businesses can wholesale and who does it work best for?

 

Sarah J Cross 

 

Well, product base, I specifically work with homeware giftware and fashion-based brands. Wholesale is traditionally always based around products. So it’s basically being able to create a design and manufacture a product that you can sell wholesale to stockists and retailers.

 

Dahna Borg

 

Perfect. So if someone’s thinking about wholesaling, what are some of the things they need to do before kind of making that step?

 

Sarah J Cross  

There’s probably about four data, four steps that they really need to look at to check, to see if they’re viable, whether it’s going to be profitable, you know, revenue stream for them. The first one is pricing. And pricing. It really, it’s a bit more straightforward. It’s looking at whether you actually a price for profit. If you were to take 50% off the recommended retail price that is establishing your wholesale price, cause retailers wanna be able to put their margin on of usually, you know, a hundred percent. So, and then we’ve gotta basically go back 50% again, to get your cost of goods and your labour cost. So let’s say, for instance, a product is costing you $7 annual making jewellery. You need to also factor in which a lot of people get this wrong. They actually only work and calculate out their margins on their cost of goods.

 

The cost of materials, what they need to do is also factor in the labour and handling because when they start to grow and they’re obviously having to factor in time, they’re going to be obviously hiring staff to help them with assembly. For instance, if they’re putting together earrings. So generally as a rule, there are fixed costs as well because a lot of my clients will grow beyond their garage or their spare room that they’ve been working out of. And then they’ll have some fixed overhead. So you need to leave some margin of at least, you know, sort of a few dollars like $3 or $4 in terms of adding that onto your cost of seven, that would reach $10. That is your total cost of goods, including your labour and handling. And then you are going to double that and that you would be then wholesaling at $20 so that your profit margin would be that $10.

 

And then when the whole, when the stocker gets it and per purchases at that $20 mark, they’re going to then mark it up for a recommended retail of $40. So that’s sort of chain of pricing. And I guess a lot of the time, some people aren’t in a position where they can’t reduce those costs to any less than it might be costing them 15 or $18. So there’s really no margin in it at all. And most stock is the warning because they’ve got fixed costs, especially if they’re bricks and mortar and they’re paying for staff and, you know, lease and all the rest, they, they need to be able to make their full margin, their full markup. So it’s profitable for them. 

 

I think the other thing to factor in if you’re going to be wholesaling is it is based on volume. So it is about fulfilment. If you are hand-making, which I do work and coach with a lot of people who are making candles, skincare, jewellery, earrings, all sorts of things, you know, that they will actually be assembling planners and things like that. You’ve gotta be able to produce it in volume, in a tight turnaround timeframe. So you can’t sell something to someone and then fulfil it in three months’ time because, and I think a lot of people get a bit frightened about wholesale for that reason, cause they sort of think, wow, like I’m gonna be up all hours on the kitchen table, you know, pouring out candles, which has happened or four with clients where they’ve had such a rapid growth phase that it’s taken over the house, you know, and all the family and friends pitched in. And my former business, I’ve been in business for 24 years and I started my business at 24.

So that makes me 48. 

 

When I started my very first business at 24, I was in my two-bedroom apartment and I received a really large volume order. I was doing gift hampers gift boxes. And I’d only really just started. And I got a referral to a law firm for a friend and they placed an order for $30,000. That was 800 hand gift-wrapped hampers. And I was in my two-bedroom apartment. And I just said yes, because it was such a great opportunity for me, like the dollar signs were flashing and I thought, wow, this is, you know, this is my lucky break.

 

Dahna Borg  

Especially at 24, that’s super exciting. <laugh>

 

Sarah J Cross

I had a car loan. I had, you know, big goals to grow the business. My first goals really in the business was to sustain it as a full-time income because I was doing some part-time jobs. And I guess I sort of wanted to set out to prove that I could, could actually build a small business from scratch. I really only had like, I think $2,000 in a computer, I had nothing. That was a turning point. So I was very niche for the 10 years. I ran that business. It grew to be multimillion. I sold it for half a million dollars. I outgrew three warehouses. I had five minute staff. I had an assembly house that was offsite that would pack all the really large volume orders. And it was such a rapid gross, very highly profitable, but a rapid gross journey for me. And I was completely naive. I was just bright eye bushy, tail passionate. And I brought in friends and that very first order I thought, oh my goodness. I just said yes. And I thought I’ll work it out later. And I did everything the long way.

 

I did think that I look back on, you know, like a few years down this track thinking, what was I thinking? How could I have done that at that point? I didn’t know. You could outsource something to a packing house that is set up for that. I just battled along and did it all on my own with my mom and family. And it was hard, hard work, but it was so rewarding. And I really loved that business. It was a massive business, a massive beast of a business, but at the same time, it was highly profitable. And also it became, came very successful. And then I had that big sale amount. 

 

Sometimes it’s about just putting on your big girl pants and saying yes, and then working things out later. So sometimes people are a bit frightened about the whole sailing because they sort of are worried about how they’re gonna produce something in volume in a quick amount of time, but it’s all always possible. There’s so many ways you can skin a cat.

 

Dahna Borg  

Yeah. I know something a lot of we’ll come back to the other three things people need to think about before wholesaling in a second, but I know something, a lot of people struggle with, especially when that pricing is, they’ve already got a business they’ve already priced things and then they decide they want a wholesale and realise they don’t have enough. What do you kind of suggest in those sorts of situations when they’ve kind of underpriced themselves to wholesale?

 

Sarah J Cross   

Review pricing and put it up, put your pricing up. I work with so many people and I have to say that 90% of people, when they start coaching with me are all very underpriced and it comes down to sometimes just are confident decisions. Maybe they’re overthinking it. I’ve had clients that have increased their beautiful baby journals by $10 a unit. And no one has linked eye. She said, if anything, her sales have increased.

 

Dahna Borg 

It’s just again, big girl panties on and do it.

 

Sarah J Cross

You know, I think so many people like working with a new client recently, she’s been in business for 15 years. She’s never increased her prices.

 

Until now. And I sometimes that’s sometimes a bit of a, a battle, a bit of a push that they need initially is to set yourself up that you are profitable from the very start that you know, you’re going to be. It’s not just an expensive hobby. It’s actually a business that’s providing you with an income that you can, everyone sets out to have their own business for the freedom and flexibility. 

 

And a lot of the times the business ends up controlling them rather than the other way around pricing is probably one of the most important things to look at and then there’s targeting. But I think targeting is another area that sometimes people who are unable to scale or unable to sort of grow, they’re not quite clear on the targeting that they need. I mentioned earlier, like with my corporate gift ham for business that I had for 10 years, I was always very, very specific that I only worked with corporates because I wanted to be able to scale my business very rapidly with volume orders. So that was actually like one working with one client and doing fulfilment of a thousand or, I mean, some client orders, their budgets were $50,000. So was a really substantial amount of volume there that I knew that’s where the direction and targeting that I was always gonna focus on for that time in the business.

 

Dahna Borg  

So is that is targeting the second thing people need to think about before wholesaling?

 

Sarah J Cross   

I think the pricing, the profitability, I think being able to fulfil and do for all you yes. I think targeting is another, a really big one that you need to be able to do. And I think sometimes it’s just a matter of having also looking at, you know, your systems and processes, if it’s just you on your own, it’s not gonna work so well when you are wanting to scale up, going to need to outsource. 

 

Some people are a bit. And I mean, I think everyone’s guilty of this is that they think that they’re the only person that can do what is right in their own business. They actually don’t think that they could possibly outsource it to someone else who could possibly be better than them. And I think that’s the thing that I learned in that earlier business was that you have to let go, you cannot continue to wear all the hats that you wore when your business was starting out.

 

And two years into your business, you might not have a passion for social media. You might not really love or understand Facebook ads. That’s when you need to actually be able to outsource rather than upskilling yourself. 

 

And I personally don’t like crunching numbers and doing bookkeeping. That’s sort of usually something that the first thing that people will outsource is, is their, accounting, you know, their bookkeeping followed by social media, followed by paid ads. Like what you do. There are all the things that you have to kind of sort of take that hat off that you are trying to, you know, master everything. There’s only a certain amount of time in the day that you can actually do these things and getting off the tools is what I really sort of probably push my clients to do the most is getting off the tools and doing things that are more suitable to their skillset. 

 

So packing orders and preparing them for shipping isn’t a skill set that they would need to have. They can actually outsource that and hire staff or use a, you know, a 3PL which is a third-party logistics to handle all their orders for them.

 

Dahna Borg 

And I mean, it’s what you said before too. And it’s so right. Like we don’t get into business to work harder, like the whole goal, like the end goal, obviously like obviously you have to work hard to get your business to that point in the first place, but the end goal is always that, that freedom and flexibility. And if you’re packing orders and doing your Facebook ads, like half of those are full-time jobs. <laugh>

 

Sarah J Cross 

And that’s a thing like the business can take over their lifestyle, take over the dream of being able to work around your children and raise your family and build a business. All of a sudden, they’re, they’re madly trying to pack and make orders on the kitchen table till, you know, 1:00 or 2:00 AM in the morning, and that’s not gonna give you the best lifestyle or the best, you know, obviously lack of sleep that can really impact on people’s health and can be overwhelming.

 

Dahna Borg 

I definitely agree with you there. When you mentioned pricing earlier, you talked about adding a couple of dollars here and there for your, your fixed costs and those sorts of things. Do you have, I suppose, any more strategies or tips around getting that pricing, right, so that you are able to outsource, you know, at a later date?

 

Sarah J Cross  

If it’s going to be basically by unit, a rule of thumb would be, if you are paying someone, let’s say $25 an hour, you would actually be able to time it so that you could see what can be produced in that hour. So it might be 25 earrings they’re assembled or 25 candles or a port and labelled it’s really coming down to working out from a salary or a wages hourly rate, what can be produced in that hour and then working out the unit price.

 

Dahna Borg 

And I suppose that’s why it’s important to have flexibility with your pricing, cuz when you are making it at your kitchen counter at three o’clock in the morning, there will be very different costs to when you’ve got a 3PL and you know, a production team.

 

Sarah J Cross  

3PL will generally cost you sort of roughly, you know, three to $4 is the industry rate for them to actually box up and label and get your orders ready. Sometimes there’s some inventory costs for them to store your products as well at the warehouse, but effectively it’s sort of the same cost as if you’re doing it. 

 

So I am always a big believer in outsourcing as much as you possibly can. So then you can actually focus your energy on your best skillset, like income-generating on your sales and marketing. So you are working on the business rather than in the business.

 

Dahna Borg

I know that 3PL is one of those things. A lot of people struggle with that decision. Are there pros and cons of going with a 3PL or do you just think everyone should go with a 3PL?

 

Sarah J Cross

I think that it really comes down to your outlook, your mindset on how big you wanna grow your business, or it’s not everyone’s dream to have a warehouse and hire staff. I mean, I formally did that and I vowed when I sold my business that I would never hire staff again and that I wouldn’t have a shelf life product and that I would always outsource the fulfilment. 

 

So I guess pros and cons of a 3PL if or not wanting to go down that path of having your own, you know, signing a lease, making that sort of commitment. Some people that is their goal. They’ve always like thought that they’ve got the opportunity on their property. You know, they might have a large workshop, I’ve got one client who’s very successful with botanicals strain candles. And she had one of those mad Christmas with her mom pouring candles and they were tripping over boxes and they’ve got these videos of all the family.

 

Sarah J Cross 

The dad was the courier driver and the, you know, the brothers were poor, were labelling and her big goal was to build this big studio on her property. And now that they’ve almost outgrown that, so that was really successful that she was able to do that so quickly with the growth of her business because they just ran out of room and she’s got young children and expecting another baby. And yeah, so she’s actually set up so that she’s still on her property. The business is, you know, that was always what she’d hoped for.

 

Some people wanna actually have that division where they can actually close the door at night and leave and go home to family. So they want that division. And then other people wanna scale by probably if your items are being contract manufactured, let’s say someone with skincare or beauty where they’re getting a manufacturer to actually fill all the vessels and label the vessels and box them. That’s when you would easily be able to use a 3PL or if you are importing products from, you know, China, Vietnam, Thailand, they would all go directly from port to the 3PL be fulfilled from there.

 

So it does come down to what the product is, but in terms of costs, I think that it’s less headaches and less responsibility. You are able to work remotely. You’re able to travel and you’re able to work wherever when you don’t actually have a lease and staff, unless you’re got a business manager running the business for you.

 

Dahna Borg 

Yeah. I suppose that it’s general business advice. It comes down to what your business needs and what your goals are.

 

Sarah J Cross 

That’s right. It tends to be a personal thing. I have actually been able to sort of persuading a lot of people that I can see that they’re wearing a lot of hats and they just are overwhelmed and they’re up at night packing orders and they’re getting really exhausted. So that transition of just pushing them to go down the path of the 3PL to try it, to see what it’s like, they never look back. They actually say that’s their biggest turning point because now they can scale as much as they want without dreading to have, you know, having to pack orders and make things.

 

Dahna Borg  

Fantastic. You mentioned obviously outsourcing is a big thing in just growing businesses, generally. We all talked about a couple of different ones, but is there anything that, you know, with all of your coaching clients that is something that people don’t think about or outsourcing, but makes the biggest difference?

 

Sarah J Cross  

Definitely. I think the 3PL that makes things go a lot faster. I think hiring staff at the right time in your business, everything goes faster, engaging.

 

Dahna Borg 

That’s the hard part though, isn’t it? The right time.

 

Sarah J Cross  

<laugh> The right time engaging and working with specialists in e-com is really, really important. I think by the time people sort of, you know, if they go and do a, a DIY, you know, course, and then they try and run ads and then they try and work out the algorithm, they try and work out all their audience and their testing. They’ve wasted a lot of time. It sometimes costs them more than if they have engaged with like a Facebook specialist, for instance.

 

So I think it’s timing. Is everything working out when you are actually at that point in your business where you just simply need to start to outsource in order to scale.

 

Dahna Borg 

Brilliant. Obviously, something that I know for some of my clients that do wholesale, one of the biggest challenges is finding more wholesale customers. So like businesses to sell to, uh, do you have any, you know, strategies or tips around how to approach that? Whether it’s your first wholesaler or your hundred?

 

Sarah J Cross  

Well, that is my specialty. That’s what I could talk till the cows come home. <laugh>

 

Dahna Borg 

Let’s talk to the cows, come home.

 

Sarah J Cross   

The reason I love whole selling so much is that it just brings so much visibility and brand awareness to your brand. It’s a predictable way of cash and it provides consistency with recurring orders. So cash flow is one of those really big things like in any small business. So I think it also brings it reduces your cost of goods when you are able to buy in such volume as well. So you’ve got buying power and it’s just so scalable. So I think that’s what I really love, I guess, in terms of like, from what you’ve asked me. 

 

A best practice approach would be that a lot of people sort of go down the route of cold calling and spamming people with emails and that’s not something that I teach in my signature sales, wholesale system, it’s product to profits. And it’s all about really identifying your target or target stockers, like who it is that would be on your bucket list and sometimes to cut corners.

Probably the best thing that you can do is even look at reverse engineering by looking at possibly not so much a competitor website, but someone that you would actually love your product to be sitting on the shelf with, you know, that you, you think is a really good fit. It’s really complementary to what you’re selling. So you could be an eco-friendly product brand and you could be selling Silicon, you know, reusable, Silicon storage, you know, of a really beautiful keep cup or something else. That’s eco-friendly that, you know, you see it everywhere and you could go on and reverse engineer and have a look at who they’re stocking on their website. 

 

So they’ll have a big stockers list and you can actually then start to identify them as a good fit for your brand. So they’re gonna have an ethos of eco-friendly plastic, free sustainability, and you think, okay, some of those stores would be a perfect fit for my own product.

 

So you can cut corners by going directly down that path. And my overall strategy when I’m teaching clients, is how to approach wholesalers and how to get the cut through. And the, and the orders is really about, it’s a bit like dating. You know, if you went out on a first date, you wouldn’t want someone to put their hand up the address or propose marriage, you know, you’ve gotta actually introduce your business in a professional way that you’ve gotta spark their interest. 

 

And if their interest is there for instance on Instagram, then they will start following you back and starting to get familiar with your brand. And then we use LinkedIn as well. And LinkedIn’s another great B2B networking platform, with fantastic opportunities for international sales that we’ve used before. But, you know, that’s where a lot of the bigger buyers are sitting. And it’s really about building up some warming people up really, to be able to learn more about your business, find out about your product. 

 

And then what we do is an offline strategy of sending them a sample lumpy pack of your product. So they’ve physically got something in their hands. I think a lot of people get very confused. They think that just by emailing that they’re going to get the cut through and that’s just not the case anymore. It’s too competitive. A lot of industries like candles and soap and you know, a lot of jewellery, even fashion, uh, scarves earrings, that’s very saturated in order to stand out, you’ve gotta do something that’s different.

 

Dahna Borg  

That’s a fantastic idea because like, even like candles and things like it can look beautiful, but what does it smell? Like? How does it burn? So then you can’t tell what it looks like from an email or from a website. So it’s a brilliant idea.

 

Sarah J Cross  

And I think the thing is people, even if they are emailing, they forget to customise it. Like they forget to, they actually make it about why it’s, a great match for that store and how it could actually add benefit to their customers. They’re just basically doing like a cold email to say by my staff. And a lot of the times it’s just a blanket email without any personalization, which is not gonna get you any cut through either.

 

I think that’s the thing it’s about those, you know, they say that seven touchpoints, which I’m understanding that there’s a lot more now, but it normally takes seven touchpoints for someone to feel trust, to buy, you know, that no, like trust seven touchpoints where they’ve senior brand that they’re open to talking or placing an order. Yeah. And orders come, orders can come just simply through engagement on Instagram and doing some nurturing there and liking and following and commenting.

And it can spark enough interest that they go, Ooh, this looks interesting and they follow back and then they start to see what a good fit it would be, you know? And then they might reach out with a DM and say, we’d love to stock you, or how can we get some more information on pricing. Fantastic. And that happens a lot.

 

Dahna Borg 

You mentioned LinkedIn. I didn’t think LinkedIn worked anymore for anyone. So I’m curious to hear how, how LinkedIn is working for your clients. Have you got any suggestions or strategies around that?

 

Sarah J Cross  

LinkedIn is amazing. I think it’s very underrated in Australia. It’s huge in US and in the UK. There are something like 600 million users and it’s a juggernaut of it’s actually set up for B2B networking. So it’s all about how you can connect with someone else in your first-level connections to do business together or collaborate together. It doesn’t always mean that you have to sell something. It could be that they, and look a lot of the times it is when people are sending invitations they’re then going to then do an email message by my staff, by my staff.

 

Dahna Borg  

Million boxes full spend.

 

Sarah J Cross  

I’ve actually found a fabulous VA on there that I’ve worked with for a number of years. I’ve also collaborated and worked with other business coaches that I’ve met on LinkedIn. So it’s not always just about selling your things. 

 

But if you are an eCommerce business and you wanna reach an international or you wanna be able to wholesale more, you need to be on LinkedIn. It’s really, really important. It’s growing so rapidly. It does come down to making sure that your profile is set up. So it’s not like Facebook where you can post up something about your pets or your kids. They love video content. 

 

And there are some really powerful groups on there too. So if you were someone that was supplying something to let’s say, executive assistance and VAs and people that were responsible for ordering gifts, say for instance, my old business, I would then tap into those groups. Some of them have got like 60, 70,000 executive assistants in there who would probably be looking for corporate gifts. So you can do a lot of really great sort of targeted marketing in there, but LinkedIn is just offering another great touchpoint for you to be able to get, build that no, like, and trust with your perspective stockers.

 

Dahna Borg  

Fantastic. Honestly, my LinkedIn is so full of scams and people trying to sell me. I kind of have just written it off, but what you said makes so much sense. I might need to clean out my LinkedIn.

 

Sarah J Cross   

If you’re wanting to of work with multi-store buyers or chain stores, the buyers are there on LinkedIn. And it’s a great way to be able to do some detective work and find out the names so that you can customise your marketing to them. Because no one wants to receive something like hello store owner or hello business market, you know.

 

You actually have to flesh out their name and their address and their details and find them on LinkedIn. So you gotta do a little bit of research in order to make it targeted, but that’s when it’s way more effective.

 

Dahna Borg  

Perfect. And I know a lot of people use, like, I don’t know what they’re called, you know, the name, but like buyers agents, is that the right word to get into wholesale? Is that something you recommend or do you recommend doing it in house or is it just kinda depends?

 

Sarah J Cross  

It just depends on the nature of the business. I’ve got clients that have got both and some that have taken it back themselves. It is always a bit difficult to be able to monitor when someone who is based on commission. So on your behalf, you don’t quite know you don’t have as much obviously overseas sort of control as if it was in the house. If you had your sales reps in house. 

 

It works really well if you are wanting to do international selling if you’re wanting to work interstate as well, cause you can’t be everywhere. And that means that the agents usually going to sort of charge around 50 to 20% on orders that they will be taking from stockers. And they will be, I guess the most important thing with finding an agent, if you go down that path is making sure that the products that they already represent and the stores they already have relationships with is going to be a good product match for yours.

 

Sarah J Cross   

So there’s no, I don’t know shoes and they don’t have any shoe stockers, you know, they’re calling in on,  newsagents or something like it has to actually be a really good fit where it would be complimentary. But I find with agents they’re only as good as the easiest product that they can sell. And it might not always be yours because I used to have a lot of agents that would call, call in on me in my former business. And they would sometimes try and keep presenting me with products that I had no interest in. And I’d have to kind of remind them that I, I don’t buy those products. I don’t buy that much in glass. You know, I’m not looking for that, but they kind of will pull out everything and show you that everything that they’ve got, it’s sometimes just finding, I’ve seen it work very, very well done. And I’ve also seen it done really badly as well.

 

Dahna Borg 

That makes sense. I mean, that’s anything, isn’t it?

 

Sarah J Cross  

Yes, it is.

 

Dahna Borg  

Wonderful. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you think you could share that we might have missed or not covered? I mean, I know you could talk about this for hours, but is there anything that you think is a really good point to share before we wrap up?

 

Sarah J Cross  

I think if anyone is listening and they’re wanting to build another revenue stream in their business and they haven’t entertained wholesale, I think if they do the product profitability check and they work out that they have got margins there, then I would really recommend that you go for it, cuz it is a such a, a powerful revenue stream in your business. 

 

I’m never one to promote putting all your eggs in one basket and only selling online or, you know, e-com, I think that there’s usually a lot of, there are a lot more revenue streams that you can have coming into the business. And I think in terms of the best practice approach, when you are wanting to reach out and go down the path of wholesaling, it really, really is important to qualify. You know, by asking at the start, are you the person responsible or, you know, are you the best person to speak with, for purchasing so that you know that you’re going down the right rabbit hole marketing to that person always follow up. That’s my other tip. 

 

A lot of people forget to follow up when they’ve actually reached out, whether it be on Instagram or they’ve sent them something, the fortune really is in the follow-up. So, and it’s all about building that. No, like, and trust once you get that going and you’re consistent with your marketing, you’ll see all the conversions come through.

Like it’s inevitable and that’s when it can be so powerful when you’ve got a really steady stream of recurring restocking orders every month just does wonders to your cash flow.

 

Dahna Borg 

Amazing. Wonderful. Now we’re just gonna get into the last couple of questions that we ask everyone, but this has been amazing. Thank you. 

 

Do you have any strategies or habits that you follow each day to help you stay on track of your business?

 

Sarah J Cross 

Oh, in my business, yes. I am a very big manifester. So I have a manifesting journal and I have a vision board. I’m a big promoter of listening to really good, positive money, mindset podcast and audible books.

 

I think a small business can be a lonely place. I think it’s really important to build your tribe, your network be surrounded by like-minded women. I only coach women and it’s really powerful. I run retreats and workshops and I have a mastermind. And when women all get together, it’s an incredibly empowering energy in the room. And I think that that’s sort of something that if you are wanting to go into small business, it can be isolating. So yeah. Find your tribe, find your community and work on your positive mindset every day. I think that’s really, really important cuz there are times in business I’ve been in business now I over, you know, 24 years that it can really test. You can really challenge yourself and that’s when you need to lean on a mentor or a coach like me or you need to be connected to a community of other people that get you that are like-minded. They understand what it’s like being in a small business.

 

And then I think you have to also work on your mindset. And I think I would have to say 80% is all about mindset. Your success is about your mindset and if you can get that right and keep it on track, then the world’s your oyster.

 

Dahna Borg  

And totally agree with you on the mindset and a community thing, finding some groups of people that are going through the same things as I have been business-changing and life-changing.

 

Sarah J Cross  

Exactly.   I couldn’t agree more cause why go alone?

 

Dahna Borg

Oh exactly. And like the insights you get from people that have gone through what you’re about to go through is invaluable.

That’s it. You mentioned you listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts. What would be your favourite business book or audio book and favourite podcast?

 

Sarah J Cross  ( 

Oh, I don’t know. Off the top of my head. I have so many that kind of caught me off guard. Cause I know that I didn’t quite think about that before we were talking so many.

 

Dahna Borg 

Maybe not your favourite.

 

Sarah J Cross   

I’ve got my podcast that I won’t, you know, do self-promotion on that self promote on that. Probably, so I’ve got my podcast, which is the Product to Profit that I listen to.

 

Oh, I just, there’s quite a few. There’s actually, one that I’ve started listening to recommended through my accountant. Who’s very much into money mindset and it’s a book I’ve got it as an audible called you’re a bad asset making money. And it’s actually quite funny and it’s about her journey to becoming a millionaire where she was completely broke and it was all about giving herself permission to be wealthy, to actually not see money as a dirty word. It’s quite funny and humorous to listen to her, her journey and her skills. 

 

There are so many that I could think of. And I can’t think of a podcast off the top of my head.

 

Dahna Borg  

That’s right. If you think of one, you can message me and I’ll put it in the show. <laugh>

 

Sarah J Cross   

Yeah, but I love, I do love audible. Well, I, I moved down from the city in the middle of this year. I’ve been down, the coast, I’m about an hour and a half out of Melbourne in a really beautiful coastal village. It’s a bit been a bit of a bucket list for my husband and I, and I have quite a bit of driving now when I wanna go back into, Melbourne into CBD. So that’s why I’ve really fallen in love more having the podcasts and the audiobooks to listen to for my driving. 

 

So I think it’s really important to make time for that space, that you know, that third space where you can actually really reprogram your subconscious, that you might have taken a lot of things from your childhood about your money, thoughts and your, your mindset. And I think it’s amazing to listen nowadays to, you know, what people have done and transform themselves. It’s really inspiring.

 

Dahna Borg  

onderful. And if people want to learn more about you, where is the best place to find you? And I believe you have a special offer for our listeners.

 

Sarah J Cross   

I have a special offer. You can go to my website, which is sarahjcross.com and you can click on if contact and if you wanted to book in,  offering a free 30-minute strategy session for your listeners so they can jump in there and look in a free session. And then I can give them some instant strategies and tips that they can take away and start implementing in their business.

 

I mainly hang out there and I, I hang out on Instagram and my handle is sarahjcross_official

 

Dahna Borg 

Amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for joining us. I think anyone who’s been contemplating wholesale or who is currently wholesaling is gonna take a lot out of that. So thank you for sharing.

 

Sarah J Cross   

You’re welcome. Thanks for having me, Dahna.

 

Dahna Borg

Thank you for listening to the 28th episode of the Bright Minds of eCommerce podcast. Don’t forget we load all of the links and show notes onto our website. You can find everything at brightredmarketing.com.a/pisode28. The link will also be in the episode description.

Dahna Borg

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