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Ep 493: Scaling a Luxury Resale Empire: Luxe Du Jour’s Growth Story with Tammy Phan
00:37:55
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- [00:00]
Tammy
We were spending over like 100k a month on marketing, paid media and agency fees. But our organic always reigned supreme. They were outpacing what we were paying on media. So we were like I think a lot of D2C brands really need to think about the future shoppers when it comes to how is your company going to be sustainable. The only thing we can do as a DTC brand is constantly seek out our consumers feedback. What problem can we solve for them? What problems are they encountering? And I think a lot of DGC brands don't do this. It is doing those surveys for your customers. Remember, it's the customers that you're trying to solve for. But if you don't ask your customers then you might never know and you might be thinking of a solution or the next innovation, not knowing that that's not even what your customers wanted.
- [00:54]
Eric
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- [02:15]
Tammy
Thank you Eric. I'm excited.
- [02:17]
Eric
Luxe du Jour is such an interesting brand and it's such an interesting product. It's a tech product, it's a community, it's an experience. Walk me through your hero's journey building Luxe du Jour.
- [02:28]
Tammy
Oh well, it really helped being a bag addict. Let me tell you that to build a community, a platform for other bag addicts or designer luxury enthusiasts came so easy only because I'm that ideal clientele. And I think that just really went hand in hand. So I wish I could tell you an elaborate hero story, but really the hero story is, look, I grew up poor and I really, really wanted to own something Luxury. At one time in my life, it was the milestone. It was something that was going to motivate me, right? And one day I told myself, you know what? I'm going to own one of those nice authentic Louis Vuitton bags and I'm going to make it. That's going to be an achievement, a milestone of mine and really have a taste of what that's like. And throughout that journey of trying to achieve that, eventually I did get that and I started learning the resale value of certain bags that started getting so interested in more of the craftsmanship, the history behind certain brands. Why do some of these brands increase in value and why do some of them not? And how are these bags fake and how are these real and authentic? And because of that interest, I started sharing that on Instagram, creating a community, a platform on Instagram, selling my collection, eventually solving my own problems as I encountered them as a bag addict, a collector, and someone that is in that vicious cycle of look, I, I have an appreciation for a damn good designer handbag and f, I love fashion. But you get in that vicious cycle of needing to sell it, then you eventually want to rent it, then you eventually want to restore some and Lux Du Jour does all that. And I eventually, throughout the years have just developed Lux du Jour because I encountered the problems of a bag addict and I solved them through Lux Du Jour. And I knew that other people were experiencing those problems. So now Lux Du Jour is this platform where you could shop, sell, rent, or restore authentic pre owned designer bags all in one place. We make it easy. And I made it, I made it here now talking to Eric.
- [04:29]
Eric
And if you do it right, it's probably less of a vicious circle because you can re monetize your purchases through different ways.
- [04:36]
Tammy
It's, I'm a businesswoman also. So when I thought of that, I'm like, there must be also bad collectors out there that want to monetize their designer luxury closet. Everyone's making money. They're either making money through Turo, renting out their car when they're not in use, they're making money on Airbnb, renting out the rooms or homes when, when it's not in use. Why can't the designer luxury enthusiasts monetize their designer luxury wardrobe? And that's not for everyone. But there is some woman that look, we don't want to feel guilty about our expensive purch purchases. If I can make it make money for me, why not? And that was just one of the ways that people can monetize. It's. Yeah, it's when you buy pre owned too and you save like 70 off. Oh my God. It's like a treasure hunt. Eric, you might not understand this, but just put this in your world of like watches, okay? Imagine you got such a good deal on a luxury watch, like for 20, 30, even 30% off. That's saving thousands. And then finding out that in the retail boutiques, they go up in value, like Rolex for example, they have price increases, they make it harder for people to achieve and then you get to resell it in the future for a higher price. I was like, I'm in. I'm all in on this company. I need everyone to experience what it's like when I went through this.
- [05:53]
Eric
So this one stop shop for bag addicts. How did it start though? Because you've got so many different aspects to the business. I know it all runs off of an app, which must have been a really interesting thing to build. But how did it, how did you get your feet wet with it?
- [06:07]
Tammy
I got my feet wet when I eventually had a collection of like 20 designer items in my closet. And my friends also were really in into collecting designer handbags. But eventually we had to sell them. And because I was poor, my parents were going through something financial. I wanted to sell these bags to fund certain financial issues, but I couldn't find a place to sell them. In Canada we don't really have platforms that at that time, this was eight years ago, right? It was ebay, it was Kijiji, Facebook marketplace wasn't even thing. So it was a nightmare to try sell. Trying to sell something luxurious on ebay or Kijiji. You were getting scammers, you were getting low ballers. It was such a pain. So eventually I just decided to, you know what? I'm going to use Instagram, that's the only social platform that I knew how to use. Didn't know how to make a website or anything. And I started listing the bags on the Instagram page which was called Lux du Jour and it means luxury of the day. So I started posting it on there and because of the value I was adding, I was giving the Instagram community tips on how to spot fakes. Here's how you should prevent Scammers don't do this. Beware of this. They were interested in the product later and then they ended up buying my, my collection as well as my friend's collection. My friends listed their items on there. It all started on Instagram. That's how it started. It was actually ran through Instagram. People were sending email transfers to me, bank wires to me for these expensive bags. Now that I think about it, I'm like, how did you guys trust me?
- [07:43]
Eric
And is that because you built up content about how to spot fakes? Right? Like you actually were like an authority on that?
- [07:49]
Tammy
Yeah, I built up the trust, I built up the community and eventually they bought the bags that were being listed on that platform and it was ran on Instagram solely with no paid media for five years.
- [08:02]
Eric
Wow. We talked a little bit about your challenges with growing through ads and we'll get into that in a bit. I'm just curious about fit. You mentioned fakes. How do you, what system do you have in place now that you're not just all kind of going through you? How do you make sure that all the bags are authentic?
- [08:19]
Tammy
There's a three step process. There was, was not. This is the nightmare that keeps me up at night. It's we should never ever pass a single fake because that reputation is everything. So the three step is so important to us. So here's how it works now. Now we have an in house authenticator at each head office case. So someone has actually physically feel, smell and actually inspect the bag. Then it goes under Entropy. So Entropy is a AI machine device that actually scans at a microscopic level. So it is only made to determine counterfeits based on its stitching. Their leathers, their engravings, their fonts. And so that's the machine that scans the authentic items. Then it goes through a third party professional. So someone that actually specializes in that brand only. So one is a generalist authenticator. Then it is microscopic AI machine learning. Then it is the specialist in that brand. And that's why Luxor Jor can back up with a lifetime authenticity guarantee. If someone bought a bag from us five years ago and all of a sudden was like, hey, you know what? Actually this was deemed counterfeit, which I don't know how they would be able to because we, we had a three step process, but that's the reassurance we get. It's you. We offer that lifetime gift guarantee because that's how confident we are in our authentication process. We rather turn away Something that is even has a single tiny red flag than to even process.
- [09:49]
Eric
That makes sense. Yeah, because again it's that it's all about the trust that you're building with this community. Exactly where does most of your growth come from now?
- [09:56]
Tammy
The growth really comes from still organic. We are still crushing it in the organic game. I can't stress this enough to my marketing agency that we actually are now moving to in house marketing person because that's the detail we need in there. But it was always we were spending over like almost 100k a month on marketing, paid media and the agency fees. But our organic always reigned supreme. They were outpacing what we're paying on media. So we were like not happy with the agency. At one point we're like, how is our organic outpacing our paid media for example? But yeah, it's, it's still really, really strong when it comes to organic and our community.
- [10:37]
Eric
When you remove the paid media, does your organic go down? Like, because with, with like for us, with an, as a newsletter we. The more we spend on ads, the more we get from people, you know, clicking through to our Instagram handle and subscribing organically. How, how much of a correlation was there between your heavy ad spends and your organic or is it independent mostly?
- [10:58]
Tammy
I really think that's a great question. I really think that of course it goes hand in hand, but we could survive without paid media and we'd still be doing very similar revenue without paid media is what I'm, I'm quite confident in.
- [11:11]
Eric
Super interesting. What are the brands? I'm just curious from your, from your perspective, what are, when brands hold their value, is it more based on the model and maybe the year that they were built? Or are certain brands going to rehold their value a lot better than other ones?
- [11:26]
Tammy
Yeah, there are certain brands that are just going to hold their value a lot more. But it's so important to understand the styles because here my husband made this mistake before and he thought any Hermes bag held their value. So he would just go into Hermes, buy me any bag off the shelf and be like, well, it's a good investment. You told me like you like Hermes. I was like, not that one. But there are certain styles for brands. But the brands are Louis Vuitton Classics, the Monograms, the Demier, Benny Prince. Then there are the Chanel classic Flaps, the. Then there are the Hermes Birkins and Kelly's. If you can get your hands on any of those. Of course they retain their value really, really well. But yeah, there's certain things you have to know about each style because that's just, I, I can't give you the whole book of, you know, the design. If I could create an encyclopedia of all the best investments based on the 10 years that I've been in the design, I could. But there's just so much you need to know. So it's not just any Louis Vuitton is going to hold its value. That's not true. That's absolutely not true. But Louis Vuitton, there are a lot of styles within Louis Vuitton that will hold their value, that could hold their value. There is Chanel, a lot of Chanel styles that will also hold their value. Just need to know what styles. And that's why people follow us because we give them that information and we, we help guide them through that journey. And then there's also Hermes, but there's like brands that absolutely any style from that brand does not hold their value. That would be brands like Chloe, Valentino. These are the brands. Balenciaga has tanked a lot too because of controversy. There is a givenchy, there is Fendi. That doesn't hold their value. These are those brands you should absolutely buy on the pre owned market because you're going to get 50% off retail price if you buy it in a lightly used condition most of the time.
- [13:14]
Eric
And none of these brands probably discount much at all on their own.
- [13:18]
Tammy
Those brands that don't hold their value, sometimes they will have sales and that's the ultimate reason why they don't hold their value. Whereas Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, they house sales on their bags and accessories.
- [13:30]
Eric
So I'm not, I'm not a bag addict, but I have been known to be like a bit of a shoe horse. I enjoy my shoes and I'm like when I'm buying a pair of boots, it's like I will look at boots, I'll look at their silhouette and I'm looking for just such subtle differences in the way that they're oriented and the kind of leather. I'm just curious from your perspective, like what are some of the psychological triggers that really makes someone want to buy, you know, a 5K bag?
- [13:58]
Tammy
100%. It's a craftsmanship. It's understanding the history also behind certain brands. And it is really, I think it's a sense of feeling. It's like when you, why do people sometimes buy that luxury car? It's like that sense of accomplishment knowing that you're not rocking a fake. Because I'm telling You, if you are buying the fake, you don't get that sense of accomplishment. You are impressing people you don't actually really care about with money you don't really have to spend. But when you buy an authentic you, like, it almost feels like you're being authentic yourself. And you're like, you know what? I can hold this with pride. And there are certain characteristics of the bag, like if it has a top handle, if it's a classic rectangular shade that is really classic and that really appease to a buyer. But really, I think what people. When people buy authentic designer luxury, it is really a sense of that accomplishment for them. Same. The same way and appreciation for the brand and the style and the designer. Whereas you get that same feeling when why do you buy a luxury car? It's. It's almost that sense of accomplishment and you have that appreciation for that brand that all the little works that went into that car. Whereas you don't get that with a fake. With a fake bag.
- [15:13]
Eric
As a Canadian, too, I just feel like I. I'm. I'm sort of like ruthlessly transparent a lot of the time. So I remember I. I had. When I was in Thailand many years ago, I bought a pair of fake Yeezys. And I would. People would be like, nice Yeezys. And I'd be like, they're fake. I would just, like, have to tell them reflexively, like, I couldn't try to pull off that they were real, even though they looked real to everyone else. It's like that feeling wasn't there. So I would just. Would be like. And then it's like, what? Then it. Then that's not a cool look. Yeah, you're telling everyone you're wearing fakes.
- [15:40]
Tammy
It's an awkward position to be in because then people are like, oh, well, then now I'm going to start questioning if everything else of yours is fake.
- [15:45]
Eric
Exactly. So being an app, being this marketplace, being, you know, that you guys, you run this app, you own the app, you must be generating a lot of data. There must be like a lot of data on, like, resell. Like, is there anything that you're doing? Like, how are you using the data that you're generating with the marketplace that you've created?
- [16:04]
Tammy
So we created a proprietary quoting software because the one thing about our business is we don't have a business if we don't have supply. And the great thing about luxury is we get our supply direct from consumers like you, Eric. If. Eric, if you have a Louis Vuitton duffel bag, you may be the one trying to get a quote from Lux du Jour and trying to sell it and get a price from Lux du Jour. Right. So the data we've collected is really on pricing resale items and really seeing what sells, what doesn't sell, what will they sell at, what price will they sell at on the resale market? Right. Seeing what's in demand, seeing what's not in demand, seeing what's the trends of these designer luxury items and styles. So we are collecting that because through our quoting software there is a purpose to us. We don't just collect data for the heck of collecting data. We have to have a purpose for it. And our purpose is making sure we price really competitively with the market. So of course, Eric, when you're getting a quote from Lux du Jour, you can at least get a quote with confidence knowing that it is not just a random 16 year old giving a price for your Louis Vuitton duffel bag and saying, hey, it's worth 200 bucks when it's not. Right. So we have to make these informed and educated decisions that as a business, but it's beneficial to the seller, the consigner to make sure that they feel confident. And this is what my item goes for. Because a lot of people, Eric, they think their item is worth way more than it really is. I'm sorry, that sentimental value, you're like, what do you mean this is worth 50% less than what I paid for. And then they get really upset. But the purpose of us collecting this data is we're telling you if you listed this item close to retail price, it's not selling. So it's just a waste of both people's time now. Right. And it's doing a disservice to that seller because you're not going to get what you, you, you paid for it. Realistically. But at least people know with the data we're collecting that they're going to get a quote that makes sense. You're not going to get undervalued. No, we're not going to be selling your items for pennies to the, to the dollar. But you are going to get that competitive market resale value because we are in the resale world. Right.
- [18:11]
Eric
You'll understand what the market will bear.
- [18:13]
Tammy
Exactly.
- [18:14]
Eric
How do you guys make money? Are you charging a percentage of each sale? Is there a fee for listing? How does it work for you for your end?
- [18:20]
Tammy
Yeah, so we process everything, we take in. So we make, we offer two quotes. So Eric, let's Say, let's go with that Louis Vuitton duffel bag example again. If you were to submit your Louis Vuitton duffel bag as a quote, we would give you a consigned quote and a buyout quote, which you can choose from. So the consigned price is, is you're going to get more for your, your item back if you're just patient and wait for it to sell. Because then we pay you only when it sells and we take a commission. And that commission could range from 14 to 20%. It's a tiered system, it's transparent on our website. Or we're going to offer you a straight buyout. Eric. So let's say we offer you $1,000 for your Louis Vuitton duffel bag because we are going to plan, we plan on listing it for let's say 1800. Right. That's really great. For customers that don't want to wait for the item to sell, they just want an easy, seamless transaction and buyout is the way to go for that. So we make money through the commission or the margin we buy in an item from and then sell it from. And then we make money from the restoration upsells and then we make money from the rental rentals as well.
- [19:27]
Eric
Super cool. I'm just on your Instagram page now, 205,000 followers, looking at your content here. Are you. So are you, are you doing less of the educational content at this point that you kind of started out with?
- [19:38]
Tammy
Yes, we are doing less of that because we had new content creators and they're, it's, it's hard to teach them the passion that I had in the 10 years. Right. You either hire someone that is a designer, luxury advocate enthusiast, a bag addict myself. It's hard to find those people because those clients are rich. Those, they're not looking for a content creator job at Luxury. So it's a little bit harder. So their niche is really creating relatable content, funny viral content that is approachable and relatable to our clientele. So they've been doing a lot of that. Whereas I sometimes still come in and I still make a lot of the content for Lux du Jour. Because I still want to share my passion. Even though I am the CEO and founder of Luxur. I hope I never have to stop sharing my passion and being and feeling connected to my community.
- [20:30]
Eric
Totally. How big is your company now?
- [20:32]
Tammy
31 in place.
- [20:33]
Eric
31 employees. And is that mostly in, in BC?
- [20:36]
Tammy
I'm not even in BC. Calgary.
- [20:37]
Eric
Oh, Calgary. That's Right. Is that all? Is that almost everyone in Canada?
- [20:40]
Tammy
21 in Calgary and then the rest is in Irvine.
- [20:45]
Eric
And you mentioned challenges with ads and it's. And I, and I, at first I was like, oh well you just show these amazing bags but you can't because you're reselling them and so you don't have the trademark ability. So what, what was, what worked best with ads and what made it so difficult to scale profitably?
- [21:01]
Tammy
What made it difficult is you can show these designer brands that have the copyrighted and trademarked logos because Metta will flag that. So we were never able to successfully really run any meta ads until just four months ago. And I think what was successful is really just posting about the reviews, posting real videos of customers that had an experience with lux du jour. Real influencers. Why do they rent? Really running those organic user generated content really, really was the best for our brand.
- [21:38]
Eric
Do you see any future applications of things like blockchain or web3 when it comes to authenticating bags in the future?
- [21:47]
Tammy
Oh, 100%. We're already looking into that. The blockchain is so important to see where these bags came from. I think it would be such a unique thing to have a, a track record of did Jennifer Aniston own this bag? You know how much more that bag would have been worth if, if you had proof to prove that this was Jennifer Aniston's bag through the blockchain or that it came from a reputable company, which reputable company came from? Because fakes might not have that blockchain. Right. So there's so many things with blockchain that I 100 agree that the resale world needs to, to get into.
- [22:24]
Eric
Yeah, it seems sort of, it seems sort of inevitable across all of society. You're going to have people not knowing what video is real everywhere. And so we're going to need all sorts of ways to potentially authenticate what actually has happened or is real. And I think that chain of ownership is, is a really smart idea as well.
- [22:40]
Tammy
And there was something that I was even thinking about two years ago when almost three actually when NFTs were really in the mainstream. It was what if anyone who bought a designer bag from us also had a NFT version of that in their Web three world or their. They got that NFT version of their bag which links to the authenticity which then linked to the ownership of the bag. Anyways, we didn't get that far with that item. So if someone else could carry that on, great. But yeah, that was just an Idea.
- [23:15]
Eric
I could see it. I could see it happening. DTC audience, take it and run with it. Okay. Have you had any, I think of like Airbnb and like stories of like, you know, bad guests who, like, trashed a place or something like that? Have you had any nightmares when it comes to renting bags and people, you know, not taking care of them properly?
- [23:31]
Tammy
Yeah, not a lot. When people are renting these high end designer handbags, it's almost like when they're renting a exotic car, you're most likely going to take care of the exotic car a lot more than a Honda Civic, for example. That's just the reality of luxury items. And we've only had a couple experiences that were nightmares which actually came out of Montreal. They actually tried to run off with the bag, but collections, everything that they signed, the underwriting process, like, we ended up getting our money back. Right. And it just went to their collections, whatever that is. And there is, there was someone that got this ink mark on the outside of their bag and it was like the size of a toonie. I. If there's Americans, it's like a meatball size.
- [24:23]
Eric
Okay, there you go. That's very American. Perfect.
- [24:26]
Tammy
That's pretty American. The. And then the luckily is that they were willing to pay for the restoration of that bag. So It's. It was 300 to just pay to restore that designer hammock. But luckily we have bag spot with Luxitor. And that was the perk. It was if you ruin the bag, anything bigger than there's a certain size, a pea size amount that you would be liable to paying for that restoration if you ruined it. So we don't have a lot of bad wrenches and a lot of our clients don't want to ruin that relationship with Luxor because you get disabled right away.
- [24:59]
Eric
What's your favorite brand? And here actually my question is as. So as a bag addict, are you a recovering bag addict? Has being around all of these bags lessened your actual love for collecting them?
- [25:11]
Tammy
Most people don't ask this, Eric. I don't even carry a designer bag most of the time anymore. I just carry my key class that has all my keys. I hold my phone in my hand. And because I'm a mom also, like, I'll carry just a random tote that I could just throw when throw around and I don't worry about it. And I think it's because I've been around so many of these bags. I know with the amount of bags that Lux Du Jour owns also that my Perk as the CEO and founder is I can rent any of these bags for free. So I get free bag rental. So if I do need it, I have it. But I probably only have a collection of probably now six Hermes bags in my collection. Very minimalistic compared to where I was before. And I don't. My husband does not buy me any more designer bags because he knows that look, we don't need to buy that. I'm here for the experiences now.
- [26:00]
Eric
So Hermes would be. Is your, is your number one then.
- [26:02]
Tammy
Those are the ones that you're my favorite brand. Yes.
- [26:05]
Eric
Nice. I'll have to look at them next week. We're actually releasing a podcast with Portland Leather Co. Which is a really big. They're not in the same stratosphere of these big designer brands, but they've done something like half a billion dollars or something. They're just this unbelievably big. Yeah, they're just a huge, huge leather company. But I think they're a lot more practical maybe than. They don't have that quite designer sheen quite yet. But it is crazy how big the world of designer luxury fashion is. Do you see it like as you know, economic challenging times, do you think like is it like luxury doesn't really get affected by that in a way. Right? Because there's always like more and I've heard like billionaires were like the fastest growing wealth class over the last four years. Like that there are more and more really hyper wealthy people. So what do you see about the future of luxury? Do you think it's only going to increase?
- [26:56]
Tammy
Yes, it's actually the pre owned, the secondhand market is growing faster than the designer luxury, brand new market. So here's where I think the future is, is a lot of people have already shifted to pre owned and used as the new new and it's only going to constantly keep doing that. And the luxury giants, the brand new, the LVMH need to find a way how they're going to complete that cycle and get into the resale world. They're already figuring out how to get into the pre owned and control their own pre owned market. Because I really do believe the future generations, the millennials, the Gen Z who are the future shoppers, you have to understand what drives them. They are driven by spending on impact, sustainability, purpose. They that that's their MO. So I think a lot of D2C brands really need to think about the future shoppers when it comes to how is your company going to be sustainable in the future.
- [27:52]
Eric
So it's super interesting and I know that there's, there's issues around especially like electronics and stuff about like the right to repair and I know that, that a lot of companies you know would like it that like and I wonder if these companies would ever institute something like the blockchain or NFTs or something where they make it harder to resell or they, you'd have to change some serious laws to make like resale illegal or something like that. So that's probably not on the, on the roadmap but it'll be interesting to see how these big companies adapt.
- [28:21]
Tammy
It would. It is something that is going to be scary for our industry especially if they want to control their own pre owned sector. Right. And the only thing we can do as a DTC brand is constantly seek out our consumers feedback. What problem can we solve for them? What problems are they encountering? And I think a lot of DGC brands don't do this. It is doing those surveys for your customers. Remember it's the customers that you're trying to solve for. But if you don't ask your customers then you might never know and you might be thinking of a solution or the next innovation not knowing that that's not even what your customers want it or have an issue with. So I think that's what sets really us apart the pre owned world in a small business compared to the luxury brands. Because the luxury brands aren't dedicating their time to really seeing what their consumer needs really are.
- [29:13]
Eric
How. What are your goals? You mentioned bringing marketing in house which is going to be going to be an interesting challenge. What, what do you see as your goals for 2025 and beyond with Lux du jour?
- [29:22]
Tammy
Well, 2025 and beyond is really to grow Lux Du Jour to the the most that I can and really hope that we do complete the ecosystem, the shopping ecosystem system with a luxury giant or a luxury brand or a luxury department store so that we could finish that cycle. And ultimately I don't know if this is going to be good or bad but I really want to find my succession plan. There is. I really want to sit on the board. I want, I really want to find the CEO that's probably had that 10 plus years of connections already built, 10 plus years of experience already built. Sometimes I still sit in my position. I still have imposter syndrome and realistically I'm like wow, that's. This is, this is really a lot of pressure for me but I just know that someone out there has done it easier, better, faster than me and I'm like, I'm over here going through the trenches trying to figure this out all on my own because I'm this 31 year old that has big dreams that really wants to take it to this billion dollar company so that my team can reap the rewards of what I promised them. I said I am going to build you guys up to be the highest paid, the youngest paid executives eventually because they started with me as such a young like I didn't hire initially for skill or talent. I hired for passion and drive. And those people are what got me past the startup phase. They were the ones that wore every single hat. It took grit, it's determination. It took a lot to get to that. Now our scale up phase and now I have to hire really for skill in and. But I really want to still build up my people because I still have a lot of those people still in.
- [31:09]
Eric
The company and some of them in your family. Right from your talk at like did you hire within your family? Kind of in the beginning days.
- [31:16]
Tammy
In the beginning I had free labor for my brother and my husband. At the time it was a one woman show with free, two free assistants. Yeah, that is the price. Yeah. But now they get paid and they're really relying on me because they do believe in me. So I just love that support system that I have.
- [31:34]
Eric
We were all in the sauna at our event and I was noticing you're having some good chats with Andrew Wilkinson. And just hearing you talk about finding an executive sounds like some Andrew Wilkinson advice. Did you get any other great advice from Andrew in the sauna?
- [31:47]
Tammy
He said he's sending me his PDF on the checklist to find the CEO in the future. So. And we will still, we still keep in touch up until today. He's really helping me guide through the process. He's making me actually think really differently of if I want to grow like a maniac or do I want to grow at sustainably and profitably. And it's something that I, I actually took time to kind of reflect on and I'm so glad like now he's my friend that I could lean on him to seek that advice because again, remember, I haven't done an experience as much as he has. So it's so nice and refreshing to have someone that has a blueprint that could walk you through their roadmap so that you could prevent yourself from making the mistakes. Right. I've never had that before. I have no entrepreneur family members. I have no, I didn't have entrepreneur friends.
- [32:35]
Eric
You're faking it till you make it. Like a lot of us, I think, right? I think that's what we're all doing. You're making. You're doing such a great job. Is there anything else you took from either, like, major connections or any. Any other big pieces of advice that you took from the founders retreat?
- [32:49]
Tammy
Oh, my gosh, that founders retreat. If I need to, like, shamelessly plug that, everyone needs to go to that Econ north event. Because that retreat, I also met amazing content marketing people. They scrutinize. And I don't look at this as a bad thing. I told them, look at my look at our content right now. Because remember, I've been winging it. I've been wearing the CMO hat sometimes I've been wearing the CEO hat. And I said, tell me how I could improve our content. Right? Our community. And sometimes when you're the CEO, you don't always focus on the small things, right? But. So I've kind of distanced myself from the content. But then when I met them, they were like, oh, here's xyz. Here's everything you could improve on your content. You need those captions. People sometimes watch reels with no audio, so you need captions. You also need the four points and the pillars of a good content, organic content. You need it to be engaging, viral. You need it to be informative, and then you need it to be converting. And I was like, oh, my God, how do you tie in all of that into one content? And they were giving me really great ideas on how to create that and an example that I executed recently. They were like, talk about the top five brands that hold the worst resale value do. Yeah, right? Talk about the top five brands that sell so quickly here at Lux Du Jour and xyz. Like, they were giving me this blueprint because again, they, like, I just love a community that supports and I just learned so much from them. So they were giving me really good advice. I know some founders might be offended and be like, no, I think our content marketing is great. Screw what you have to say. There's nothing wrong with it. But I'm. I'm really open to, to all that feedback and criticism. So I didn't take it. I didn't take it bad. I know that. My content team, though, however, when I was giving them that feedback, there was one comment they made. They were like, you make funny viral videos, but why are we memeing luxury? Like, that doesn't make sense. And so I just took that exact Verbiage. My bad. I should have sugar coated that. I took that exact verbiage from what the founder said and to my content team, I was like, you guys, a really good feedback is we're a luxury brand that we're at. We are trusted luxury brand. But why are we memeing and trolling almost luxury? Like we're making fun of it, it seems like. Right. And that was a comment. And I know my content team did not take it well. They were. They were upset. They thought I was criticizing them. But really I was like, no, it just means that this is a good perspective to shift our. Our content team. I mean, our.
- [35:28]
Eric
And you get set in your ways too. You mentioned that you're, you know, as a CEO, you're not always diving down to the small details. It's also, you set tracks and you kind of. You look up and you've run along the same tracks for a long time. And sometimes it's hard, you know, you look back and you're like, okay, I guess we could use a refresh. My mind goes to. And I don't know, like, if you think about this, but like, back to that. Like comparing real to fake in a way. But again, you don't really want to associate your brand with fake at all. So maybe doing a lot of content about how to spot a fake. How to spot a fake. Hermes, how to spot a fake. Different brands. Maybe you don't want to do that because you don't even want to put the word fake in people's mind.
- [36:03]
Tammy
And the thing is, is, yes, we don't want these manufacturers knowing all the reasons why we caught their fake. And they go, this is the. This is the reality of the world. We want to give that education. But there's a point where, wow, some of these fine little details, every time someone explains it, it gets fixed out there.
- [36:24]
Eric
Yeah. Oh, man, that's interesting. Nice. Well, if you're in our audience and you want to get into the Lux life, you got to go to luxdu jour.com and if people want to follow your entrepreneur journey, Tammy, where do you recommend. Is that. Would that be on LinkedIn?
- [36:39]
Tammy
Yeah, well, LinkedIn. And it's actually LDJ.com we paid top dollar for that domain. Okay, Eric.
- [36:44]
Eric
So, okay, sorry. LDJ.com. what three letter domain? That might be the first three letter domain we've ever had on the DC.
- [36:52]
Tammy
Thousand dollars to get that. The girl that has luxdazour.com and she wanted a million. I. We were not gonna pay million dollars for. So don't go to luxury.com guys.
- [37:03]
Eric
Go to ldj.com ldj.com so that's funny because they saw you as a luxury brand. They're like, oh, well, this is like Hermes. This is like. And so they. So they. That's crazy. A million dollars.
- [37:14]
Tammy
Yeah. They wanted a million dollars. Yeah.
- [37:16]
Eric
That's a lot. Well, 80,000 still up, but it seems like it's quite right. Again, I don't think we've ever had a three letter domain on the podcast. So.
- [37:22]
Tammy
Yeah, well, yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Eric.
- [37:26]
Eric
Yeah, thank you, Tammy. This was a lot of fun. And yeah, I'll see you at the next founders retreat.
- [37:31]
Tammy
I will see you there.
- [37:38]
Eric
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at directtoconsumerall. One word co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.