From $800K to $2.2M: The Secret Sauce of This Chocolate Brand’s Success

Summary

Living The Red Life: From $800K to $2.2M – The Secret Sauce of This Chocolate Brand’s Success

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of Living The Red Life, host Rudy Mawer sits down with Andy and Barbara, the dynamic duo behind a rapidly growing chocolate brand. The conversation delves deep into the strategies and mindsets that propelled their business from $800K to an impressive $2.2M within a single year. Listeners are treated to actionable insights on building irresistible offers, optimizing ad spend, leveraging customer lifetime value, and more. This summary captures the essence of their discussion, highlighting key points, notable quotes, and invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs and online business owners.

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1. Introduction to the Chocolate Brand

Rudy opens the conversation by highlighting the remarkable growth of Andy and Barbara’s chocolate business, transitioning from $800K to $2.2M. He sets the stage for discussing the five critical strategies that fueled this surge.

Rudy's Opening Statement:

“800K to 2.2 million. That's amazing growth. What are the five big picture things we're going to talk about today?”
[00:00]

Barbara’s Background: Barbara provides a brief history of their venture, explaining how their passion for Austrian chocolate led them to import and sell it in the United States. Starting with a modest selection, they quickly scaled up to 90 flavors, overcoming initial challenges like needing a warehouse.

Barbara Explains:

“We started with 90 flavors. We knew we can't do it out of our home. We needed a warehouse. And this is how it started.”
[02:22]

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2. The Five Key Strategies for Growth

Andy outlines the primary factors contributing to their business expansion:

1. Irresistible Offer
2. Investing in Ads
3. Focusing on Lifetime Value Over First Order Profit
4. Investing in Social Media and Newsletter Content
5. Leveraging Customer Reviews and Social Proof

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3. Crafting an Irresistible Offer

Barbara’s Implementation: Barbara recounts how Rudy encouraged them to create an offer that prioritized customer acquisition over immediate profits. They introduced a 50% off deal, which significantly lowered the barrier for first-time buyers.

Barbara Shares:

“You really pushed that mindset and started making us think that we should try it. And then we tried it and it was like amazing how people took on this offer.”
[04:18]

Rudy’s Insight: Rudy emphasizes the importance of making products accessible to generate long-term loyalty.

Rudy Advises:

“Do whatever it takes to get it out there. If you really believe in your product and that you believe that once they get it, there'll be lifelong fans.”
[05:16]

Impact: This approach not only increased customer acquisition but also fostered a 30% return rate, with 20-22% becoming regular monthly buyers.

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4. Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value

Focusing on the lifetime value (LTV) of customers proved pivotal. Instead of stressing over profits from the first sale, Andy and Barbara concentrated on nurturing long-term relationships.

Andy Explains:

“We make the money on our second and third and so on order. So it's the lifetime value that actually makes the whole thing work for us.”
[16:07]

Strategies Employed:

• Daily Newsletters: Transitioning from bi-monthly emails to daily newsletters significantly boosted engagement and repeat purchases.

  Barbara Highlights:

  “We started sending newsletters every day. It's so worth it because we know every single time we send out a newsletter how many people come and order just because of that.”
  [08:33]

• Follow-Up Emails and Texts: Implementing post-purchase communications, such as discount codes for second orders and requests for reviews, further enhanced customer retention.

  Barbara Adds:

  “After 10 days after they get their first order, they get an email with a discount code for their second one. That helps in a big way.”
  [09:43]

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5. Strategic Ad Spend

Initially cautious with their advertising budget, Andy and Barbara shifted their approach after Rudy's guidance, embracing a more aggressive ad spend strategy based on LTV.

Andy Reflects:

“We just trusted you, you know, and did that. So we spent a lot more into ads. At some point we spent $1,000 a day or something like that... and it just worked.”
[14:29]

Mindset Shift: The key was moving away from expecting immediate returns on ad spend and understanding that customer lifetime value would ensure profitability over time.

Rudy Reinforces:

“If you have the data and you see results, why not spend more? You know, if you know that you make $2 back from $1 spent and it works for you, why not spend $3,000 or $5,000 if you know you make the money back?”
[16:32]

Results: Their newsletter subscribers grew from 4,000 to 25,000 within a year, demonstrating the effectiveness of increased ad investments combined with robust customer nurturing.

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6. Leveraging Social Media and Influencers

As ad costs on platforms like Meta began to rise, Andy and Barbara pivoted towards influencer marketing, particularly focusing on micro-influencers.

Barbara Details:

“We collaborated with influencers in exchange for product only... we have almost 400 pieces of content in a little bit more than 12 months through influencers.”
[18:55]

Benefits: This strategy not only reduced direct ad spend but also generated authentic content and expanded their reach organically.

Content Repurposing: High-quality influencer content was repurposed for ads, enhancing their marketing materials without additional costs.

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7. Enhancing E-commerce Infrastructure

A fast, user-friendly website was crucial for maintaining high conversion rates. Andy and Barbara focused on technical optimizations to ensure a seamless shopping experience.

Andy on Technical Aspects:

“You have to have a fast web store. It has to be, you know, snappy. It has to be easy to manage, easy to go through and check out, navigate.”
[21:23]

Implementations: Incorporating features like Apple Pay greatly improved checkout efficiency and user satisfaction.

Barbara Notes:

“We just implemented that because you mentioned that. It’s something that has a big impact.”
[21:50]

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8. Harnessing Social Proof through Reviews

Accumulating and showcasing customer reviews became a cornerstone of their marketing strategy.

Barbara on Reviews:

“We have about 600 or 550 on Google and almost 500 on Google Shopping... it's a massive part of it.”
[11:35]

Rudy’s Perspective: Rudy underscores the necessity of reviews in justifying premium pricing and building trust among new customers.

Rudy Advises:

“If you don't have a lot, it's very hard. Especially when you start charging premium prices.”
[12:54]

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9. Overcoming Challenges: The Hurricane Ian Incident

Despite their successes, Andy and Barbara faced a significant setback when Hurricane Ian devastated their warehouse shortly after launching their irresistible offer.

Barbara’s Experience:

“We lost our warehouse, we lost all of our products. We had three weeks, no power, so there was no way that we could stock our warehouse back again.”
[23:28]

Resilience and Support: Fortunately, with support from their landlord and their Austrian partners, they managed to recover within three weeks, mitigating the disaster’s impact.

Barbara Reflects:

“It was scary because... we saw the warehouse roof failed, we had no power, the chocolate was melting away. It was really in a growth phase. So this really hurt us.”
[24:13]

Lesson Learned: This ordeal reinforced their ability to withstand unforeseen challenges and underscored the importance of robust support systems and contingency planning.

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10. Final Insights and Recommendations

In wrapping up, Rudy emphasizes the blend of strategic planning and adaptability that drove their success.

Rudy’s Closing Thoughts:

“It's the ways to implement and keep living the red life.”
[26:56]

Barbara’s Favorite Flavors: To entice listeners, Barbara shares some of their most beloved chocolate flavors, encouraging engagement and trial:

• Butter Caramel
• Brown Butter Toffee
• Amarena Cherry
• Dark Chocolate Mousse
• French White Nougat with Currant and Chili

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Rudy Mawer:
  “If you haven’t heard of that, I have a number of episodes talking just about that from, like years ago.”
  [07:31]

• Andy:
  “And you know, at some point those are the small things that can have a big impact.”
  [21:56]

• Barbara:
  “When people try our product, they love it.”
  [05:30]

---

Conclusion

Andy and Barbara’s journey from $800K to $2.2M is a testament to the power of strategic offers, smart ad spending, focusing on customer lifetime value, and leveraging social proof. Despite facing significant challenges, their resilience and adaptability, coupled with Rudy Mawer’s mentorship, paved the way for their substantial growth. Entrepreneurs and online business owners can draw invaluable lessons from their experience, particularly the importance of building a strong foundation, nurturing customer relationships, and continuously optimizing marketing strategies.

For those interested in tasting their exquisite chocolates, visit zada.usa.com. To explore their expertise in e-commerce, check out their agency at smargasy.com.

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Transcript

[Rudy Moore]

800K to 2.2 million. That's amazing growth. What are the five big picture things we're going to talk about today?

[Andy]

One of the major things is the irresistible offer that they put in place. And the second one was investing into ads. Then the third part that is important or was important not to wanting make money on the first order.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah. The lifetime value.

[Andy]

Yes. That was a big change for us. And then investing into social media, newsletter content and that helped us grow.

[Rudy Moore]

My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill. Take the red pill. Join me in wonderland and change your life. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today, if you like chocolate, well, you are in for a sweet treat. Let me tell you why. Andy and Barbara are joining me and we're going to dive into five specific ways that they took their business from 800k to 2.2 million in just one year. Five tactics that I had the pleasure to wash and help them with that they implemented massive growth and hopefully some big lessons for you guys. Welcome to the show.

[Barbara]

Thank you.

[Rudy Moore]

So, you know, obviously we're going to dive into some juicy markets and stuff. Right. But if someone doesn't know, you know, the chocolate side and you know, you have the agency side, you mind just giving a quick overview to everyone on what you guys do?

[Barbara]

Of course. Happy to start. So the chocolate business started as a fun on the side business. The chocolate maker or producer is an Austrian, very famous Austrian chocolate maker. And we knew them for 20 years already and they are working with our agency for 22 years now. And when Andy and I immigrated to the United States, we missed the chocolate. Yeah, really?

[Rudy Moore]

And then American chocolate's not the same.

[Barbara]

And then we started talks with the owner and said, how about us starting importing soda chocolates to the United States and selling it? And that was like 10, actually, exactly 10 years ago. And then we just started, I thought, oh, let's start with 20 flavors. And the owner, Joseph Todo, said, no way. We make like 500 flavors. So we started with 90. We knew we can't do it out of our home. We needed a warehouse. And this is how it started.

[Rudy Moore]

Right. And then Andy, you obviously help. Right. And Right. You help with the business and maybe even some of the chocolate. Right.

[Andy]

I have been feeding. Obviously we have to test the chocolate at some point before we bring them to the market. Of course, that's very important.

[Rudy Moore]

Right, right. Business. But also your agents.

[Andy]

Yeah. So our agency, we are our part, the agency is responsible for all of the technical stuff. Okay. So everything, the E commerce sides, the technical side, that's what the agency does. Everything ad related, the agency does. And like Barbara said, our introduction to the chocolate manufacturer was actually through the agency side because we met him 20 years ago and he said, you know, I want to have an online store. And I said, I cannot imagine selling chocolate online. Oh boy, was I wrong. Because now he's one of the strongest E Commerce stores in Europe. And all of that has been built by us. And so we have got a lot of experience obviously because of that. And then when we came to the United States and we figured, okay, we have to do that, we took all of that knowledge we already had and put it here into place and put everything on.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah. And, and you know, so I'm excited to dive in. You know, you came obviously you've been working with us for a couple of years and you know, you guys, whatever, you, you follow instructions, you go implement stuff, you know, you always pushing and innovating. It's been so great to watch. And you know, obviously today we're going to focus on those tactics for everyone listening. So let's dive into, you know, how obviously what you learned from me there. But I would love the practical application of how you implemented it.

[Barbara]

Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday when we were at your office and you were telling us why not going after the low hanging fruit, which is the E Comm store. Right. And then building an irresistible offer and like 50% off the regular price. And I was shocked because I wasn't ready to think about selling something, not making money on it. But you really pushed that mindset and started making us thinking that we should try it. And then we tried it and it was like amazing how people took on this offer and we finally had a way getting the chocolate into people's hand who wouldn't have spent more money at the beginning. Then they got hooked. And that's what we knew. If they try the chocolate for the first time, they get hooked, keep coming back. So this was amazing. We started this more than two and a half years ago and we haven't changed that offer. It's still the same, still works great.

[Rudy Moore]

I think it's so important for anyone listening if you sell any product that does better when they get it, it's so important to get it in their hands and you do have to lose some money or cut the prices or give free shipping. If you really believe in your product and that you believe that once they get it, there'll be lifelong fans. Do whatever it takes to get it out there.

[Andy]

Exactly.

[Rudy Moore]

It's never going to help if they just see an image online. Right. Especially any meat where you have to taste, feel, touch, experience. You've got to do what it takes to get it, you know, out there. And. And obviously you've got a lot more customers now because of that.

[Barbara]

Right.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Because we know, like you said, you know, when people try our product, they love it. Okay. But the difficult part is to get them to try. So the, the 50% off deal, the irresistible offer made sense, but we just didn't have the idea or the mindset. Right. What's important, though, is you have to look at the numbers too, at the data. Because we know when we. When we get something to the store and buy the product, we know about 30% of those people stay with us.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And buy again. So when we look at the lifetime value of those customers, it totally makes sense. But that's something we learned from you because we didn't do that before.

[Rudy Moore]

And how many come back generally over time when they. When they buy the first one?

[Andy]

30% come back.

[Rudy Moore]

30%?

[Andy]

Yes.

[Rudy Moore]

How would Winberg and those 30 probably come back again and again?

[Andy]

Of course.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah.

[Barbara]

For gifts and Christmas and Valentine's Day, etc.

[Andy]

When I say 30% come back, it's more than one time they come back. Okay. Because we have some. They come back for once and buy a second time in a year or so. But then we have a bunch of them, about 20%, 22% that buy the whole year, every month.

[Rudy Moore]

Do you think your top customers spend. Have you looked at, like, some of the top. Top customers? They spend hundreds, thousands, I guess.

[Barbara]

Yeah. Top customers. Yeah. We have people who buy 60 bars every two months, which is a lot. I mean, it's not the regular customer, but there are some super fans.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah, that's great. So, you know, that's the first one irresistible offer. And, you know, everyone listening. If you haven't heard of that, I have a number episode talking just about that from, like years ago. Go find it. But it's really the concept of standing out. Right. Giving something that is hard for them to say, you know, no to and making it so it's like, oh, what's the risk? Right. This chocolate may suck, but look, it's discounted. It's cheap or cheaper than it should normally. Obviously, still have a premium brand.

[Barbara]

Right.

[Rudy Moore]

But it's maybe more affordable to be like, what the heck, let's try it. And because you have a great product, once they do try it and you're really relying on that follow up and that upsell and cross sell, which is probably, let's lead into that. The second thing, which is the lifetime value and upselling. Right. So can you talk a little about how you do that? How do you get them to come back?

[Andy]

Yeah, we have newsletters. Since again, when we, when we met you and we learned from you how important newsletters are, we started sending newsletters every day.

[Rudy Moore]

And what were you doing before that?

[Barbara]

Maybe once every second month.

[Andy]

Yeah, just something we just let, let so much money on the road, you know, it's on the table. It's. It's wild. So now we do it every day. It's a lot of work, obviously, because we have to figure out every day the content that we send out and a new. I mean, we try to repurpose some of them after a year or two, but it's still a lot of work. But it's so worth it because we know every single time we send out a newsletter how many people come and order just because of that. Yeah.

[Rudy Moore]

And the thing with selling every day, sending every day, is a lot of people fear it. But one thing I explain is most of those people aren't opening that email every day. So I guess you send every day and as the business owner, you're like, wow, this is a lot. Most of them only see one or two of those emails.

[Andy]

Exactly.

[Rudy Moore]

So it's not like, you know, maybe the top fans see them every day, but they like you, so who cares, right? Like if I see my favorite brand's email every day and social post, it's like, I like that brand, I'm okay with it, you know, and, and yeah, it's it again, you're working so hard to get the customer. You spend that money. It's like you just, you, you got to do that second part. Right. Which is following up with them. So you email every day. Is there anything else you do to get more repeat sales? Yes.

[Barbara]

So after 10 days, 10 days after they get their first order, new customer, they get an email with a discount code for their second one. That helps in a big way. We send them a text message after three weeks to write a review for us. But even that leads to orders because they get reminded, oh, that was that awesome brand. Or that's what we do, because they.

[Andy]

Have to think about when they Write us an email or a review. They think about it us, do you think about the product? They experience food.

[Rudy Moore]

They mean the taste. How many are left in our cupboard in our kitchen?

[Andy]

Exactly.

[Barbara]

Also what we also do when they get their box, they have a card in there with referral program to invite a friend. They get like $15 off their order, their friend get $15 off. So this is also a great way and a cheaper way than ads to gain more customers.

[Rudy Moore]

And those customers are generally better too if it's a friend selling it for you.

[Andy]

Right, right.

[Barbara]

It's a warm recommendation.

[Rudy Moore]

A lot of things there. So emailing every day. What about upsells? Do you upsell at the car post purchase?

[Barbara]

The upsell in the cart?

[Andy]

Yeah, see so we have cross selling in the cards obviously. And we see that because people, when they come in into our irresistible offer, it's a low price offer basically. But we see a lot of customers that order more than just that, you know, reduced package. So at the end of the day we have a nice order value because our average order value is about 60, $65, which is great.

[Rudy Moore]

Buy dollars on order is great. And the thing, the psychology behind it, which is interesting is when you sometimes do an irresistible offer, the order value still gets really high because people feel they got such a deal. I'm willing to spend a bit more because I got such a good deal here. And so you see that. Yeah, it's like if you get, you know, say you get free airfare, flights, right. Or super cheap, you might go, well, we'll spend a bit more on the hotel. The plane was free. Right. The flights were free. So you justify it in your head and it can work really well. So upselling, cross selling, email, text message and package placement referrals and pushing reviews. Right. How many reviews do you have?

[Barbara]

We have about 600 or 550 on Google and then another, almost 500 on. There's Google shopping. It's a separate platform for reviews, product related. So I think we come up with all across the platforms like Yelp and TripAdvisor maybe. Yeah, in total.

[Andy]

Yeah, that's. But the majority of that we just gained in that one year because we didn't do that before.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah, I mean we talked a lot like, you know, and obviously when I teach it, I go beyond reviews. I talk about social proof, but reviews are a massive part of it.

[Andy]

That's. Yeah. And we take those reviews and show them on the website. So every single time when someone comes in, we, we have small pop ups that show up that's the social proof part. And again, it makes a huge difference when people come to the shop, they didn't know us before and then they see all of those nice, you know.

[Rudy Moore]

I mean the last 10 years we're so. Because of Amazon and stuff. Now we're so. And TripAdvisor, we're so seasoned to look at reviews. We watch movies based on Internet movie database and you restaurants based on reviews. A haircut on reviews. Right. Like everything's review driven. Right. And every website now shows reviews. So if you don't, it's very hard. If you don't have a lot, it's very hard. And especially when you start charging premium prices.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Rudy Moore]

Unless you're a Louis Vuitton and Gucci, they don't have reviews because they're a Louis Vuitton on Gucci. If you notice Lambda Vini, you don't see review. Right. Because they've got such a premium. But if you're anyone else and you're still in that premium range, it's so important because you've got to justify it. Especially if you can't taste a bite first at supermarket, grocery store. Exactly. So, so next is. I would love to talk about ad spend but one thing that I think is so important for everyone listening is yeah, obviously we should spend more on ads. But you guys kind of. And what I try and do with people is take them through mindset shifts because that lasts forever. Right. It's like a habit forming thing. So can you talk about the mindset changes with ad spend?

[Andy]

Well, before we knew you, we did ad spend, but it was a very low budget. Yeah, okay, considerable low. Because $30 a day because we just, we just, our mindset was every dollar we spend in ad needs to come back immediately in the first order. And that was just not happening. You know, especially in the food industry, it's very difficult to make money on the first order. So when we learned you and you told us, you know, you have to be a little bit less scared and spend more ads because that's the only way you can grow at the end of the day, we just trusted you, you know, and did that. So we spent a lot more into ads. At some point we spent $1,000 a day or something like that. Three or $3,000 a day, from $30 a day to 3,000 a day. So that was, that was really a big step for us and it, it just worked.

[Rudy Moore]

I mean, well, now you have the customers for life.

[Andy]

Right.

[Rudy Moore]

Because making money from that.

[Andy]

Yes, that's two years ago. Yes, that's exactly what happened. You know, we started with how many customers did we have when we started.

[Barbara]

The whole campaign, the newsletter subscribers was about four grand.

[Andy]

Yeah. So we had 4,000 users in our newsletter subscribers and about at the end.

[Barbara]

We had almost 25,000.

[Andy]

After the year we had 25,000 in the newsletter.

[Rudy Moore]

That's right.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Rudy Moore]

It is 20,000 more leads.

[Barbara]

Yeah. You buy customer data too with that. I mean, not everyone comes back, but a lot comes back, is coming back. And let's say when I look back the last year, we reduced our ad spend drastically, but still have our client base we can nurture through our newsletters, social media, etc.

[Rudy Moore]

It's kind of like you do the hard work and then you can rest a little. Now you've got a good customer base. And they create a ripple effect too because they reviews that for people, they post on social media and they gift.

[Barbara]

It during the holidays. Holiday gifts are great multiplier for us.

[Rudy Moore]

Mm, I love that. So that was the ad spend and what did you, you know, mindset wise, what tips would you, would you say someone watching that's maybe similar to you? They're like they're, they're worried about ads or they don't see the value in spending much on them.

[Andy]

Well, you have to trust them and you have to look at the data at the end of the day, not just spending blindly and not look at the results and the data. But if you have the data and you see results, why not spending more? You know, if you know that you make $2 back from $1 spent and it works for you, why not spending 3,000, $5,000 if you know you make the money back? You know, that's the whole thing. It's really. For us, the mind shift was not to be frightened and take getting away from the idea to have to make money on the first order. Because now what we are doing is we make the money on our second and third and so on order. So it's the lifetime value actually makes the whole thing working for us. I think that's a major thing when it comes to ad spend.

[Barbara]

I think the combination of trusting the process with ads, learning how to do ads, right, because that was a process to how to target properly the creative, etc. That was definitely a process. It still is, it's constantly changing. But this in combination with learning about lifetime value and how to tackle into that customer data and nurture them afterwards and sell on the backend, this was something we didn't know before we joined Your program not in, not to that extent.

[Andy]

We did know it, but we just did not.

[Rudy Moore]

It was not any emphasizes. Sometimes you have to understand something a little more or really see someone else doing it to be like, okay, I get it now. Exactly the difference between knowing about it. But like, okay, I'm all in on this, you know, I get it. So, so I love that. And, and then I mean another thing along that lines that I know doing well for you now is social media and influencers. Right. So how did that change?

[Barbara]

It's a little bit more than a year now when we started investing into because we, we saw from our numbers and the cash flow and everything we wanted to reduce our direct ad spend because ads on Meta got really expensive. And so we came up with that idea working with influencers and micro influencers, those smaller ones that are building their audience, working on their profiles. They take collaboration in exchange for product only so we don't have to pay them. And this way we were able to expand or getting more eyeballs on the product, on the videos to their audience. And we just started sending two bars of chocolate to those. So we contacted them, most of them say yes and they do it. And some of them do really great content, some not so much. But they are also learning. So it's really a win win situation for us and for them. And this is the way how we got like we have like almost 400 pieces of content in a little bit more than 12 months that you got through influencers.

[Rudy Moore]

And it's great content, right? Part of it, it's great content that you'd pay an influencer 500 to shoe. But now they're just doing it as a trade, right? Yeah, it's a trade. They want to promote it, right?

[Andy]

It's a trade. And if you look at the numbers again, like Barbara said, not every content is great, but if 80% of the content is great, it's a big win for us and it works.

[Rudy Moore]

Do you recycle that on ads?

[Andy]

Yes, we do.

[Barbara]

So sometimes we don't ask them to give us the ad code for that that you need for it. Some give it to us. If it's really good content, then we repurpose it for ad but we don't expect them to release them as an ad for us because it's really a collaboration, a win win situation for everyone. If you want them for ad, they usually want you to pay them.

[Rudy Moore]

Have you looked at TikTok shop yet or you.

[Barbara]

We did, but we are not good at that yet. Big struggle to get into that. But it's something we definitely, that's definitely something for 2025 to dig into that deeper and learn. But yeah, TikTok is pushing that because basically I saw it today, you posted videos and you don't link the two products. You haven't linked it to a product.

[Rudy Moore]

Well, they know the more someone, the more money someone's making, the more they're posting. Right, Right. Yeah, because it creates more content so they can place more ads. So it becomes this big cycle. Right, yeah. So, so any other tips or tricks, lessons from, you know, either the agency or the lessons you've got from us and growing to millions you want to share?

[Andy]

Yeah, I think we shared most of it already from the agency side. What we see is really important when it comes to e commerce, the, the tech behind it. Yeah, you have to have a fast web store. It has to be, you know, snappy. It. It has to be easy to manage, easy to go through and check out, navigate. Everything needs to be easy because people are so used to the Amazon shop, it's one click thing. So you have to be in, in. You have to have something that is similar to that. So the experience needs to be almost like that. And that has a huge impact on how much people actually check out. And when we look at our bounce rates, that's proof that we did the right thing. So that's on the tech side, very important.

[Barbara]

It's way lower than the average in the industry, right?

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah. That smooth user experience, fast, simple. I think again, Amazon are just kind of spearheading that, but they're changing how people want to shop. And now Apple pay too. Like, I'll leave websites if it's ecom, if I can't pay or like, hey.

[Barbara]

I remember when you said and tested it, I want to have Apple pay. Now we have it and I see how many people use it. It's crazy.

[Andy]

We just implemented that because you mentioned that. So you didn't have that before. But you know, at some point those are the small things that can have a big impact.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah, totally. And then so he talks a lot about big wins, big successes. Scale in from 800k to 2.2 million, which is amazing. Growing the email list to 25,000 from 4. But there's got to be some failures in there. Oh yeah. Every entrepreneur goes through struggles. So, you know, and especially when you scale, it's like pushing your car to that max. You know, the miles per hour that's listed or kilometers an hour that's listed right on the, on the you know, the, the car screen, anything you want to share, any lessons going through it.

[Andy]

I mean, we had plenty of failures, obviously, because, I mean, if you're long enough in business, you have failures. It's just part of the nature, I would say. But the biggest thing in our chocolate business was when we got hit by Hurricane Ian. It was right after we just started our irresistible offer. Yeah, that was. We started in August, actually, and it was just, you know, taking off, taking off. And then end of September, iron hit us hard. We lost our warehouse, we lost all of our products. We had. We had three weeks, no power, so there was no way that we could stock our warehouse back again. So we basically lost three weeks of our most important season. I was in high season. That was really hard. All of our product, it was like.

[Barbara]

17,000 bars at this time.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Rudy Moore]

That was like 100 grand product.

[Andy]

Yeah, that really hurt. And at the time, we were really, for a moment, we had no idea how to survive this, you know, but we had a great landlord that he fixed the warehouse within two and a half weeks.

[Barbara]

Two and a half.

[Andy]

We got our warehouse restocked pretty fast. That was because we have a really great partner back in Austria that produces or creates a product for us. So we got that back. And even though we lost three weeks of our most important season, at the end of the year, we still had some growth, which was. That was because we had this, you know, irresistible offer. But, yeah, that was. That was for sure the biggest failure or thing that happened.

[Barbara]

It was scary because after Ian hit, after the general experience of that storm, which was traumatizing to us, and then, okay, we saw the warehouse roof failed, we had no power, the chocolate was melting away. It was like, what are we going to do? It was so. I was out of ideas. How are we going to survive the seasons? Will we be out of business after that? Because these last months of the year in chocolate are the most important ones. And it was really in a. In a growth phase. So this really hurt us. But yeah, we were, we were still lucky that we got power back in three weeks. It was awesome.

[Andy]

And it made us stronger because now we know, okay, what, what we can survive, you know, and how we can survive. And we know we have ways how we can go over a situation like that. But yeah, it's.

[Barbara]

I mean, insurance covered the lost product months later, but they don't cover.

[Andy]

But they just cover the raw product.

[Barbara]

They don't cover the margin revenue and profit through that time, which is very important.

[Rudy Moore]

So, last question, just to wrap if people want to take. We talked about chocolate for 20 minutes. I want some chocolate now. Sure. People listening to where do they find the chocolate or hear about the agency.

[Barbara]

So the chocolate, they find it on zada.usa.com.

[Rudy Moore]

Yeah.

[Barbara]

USA.com our Instagram is sort of chocolates. So. Yeah.

[Andy]

Yeah. And our agency, if you want to look into e commerce stuff, we are really experts in that. It's at smargasy.com S M A R-G-E-S-Y.com and yeah, we're happy to help.

[Rudy Moore]

Great. I want to just finally, what are some of the amazing flavors they can try? Because I know you've got a lot.

[Barbara]

Oh, butter caramel. Oh, I'm, I'm usually talking about my personal favorites, butter caramel top five.

[Rudy Moore]

That like.

[Barbara]

Yeah. A brown butter toffee, amarena, cherry, dark chocolate mousse. Yeah. French white, nougat, currant and chili. So just to.

[Andy]

It's very difficult because we have 175 different flavors, all of them.

[Rudy Moore]

Great. Well, guys, pleasure. It's been a pleasure, you know, helping you guys, supporting you guys, seeing you grow, implement all these things and, you know, obviously been fortunate enough to taste the chocolates, give them out at Mastermind events. And thanks for coming on today and sharing all those lessons and wisdoms and, you know, hopefully actionable steps people can use in their own businesses. So great job, guys. The ways go implement and keep living the red light.

[Andy]

Thank you for having us.

[Rudy Moore]

Take care.