← The Product Boss with Jacqueline Snyder
The Product Boss with Jacqueline Snyder
651. Dream It, Build It, Own It: Crafting Your 2025 Vision
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Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists or.
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Food and beverage businesses.
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I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into a successful business and what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy and support and you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Hey, hey, Product boss, let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like you're struggling and spinning your wheels trying to grow your business online? I know it can be so frustrating. I went through it with my own product based business and I know that you're dealing with so much like managing inventory, to shipping, to making all your products, to creating, to marketing. All the things, right? I know you're wearing all the hats and you're worried about so many different things. And I need to tell you something. Your website doesn't need to be another thing to worry about. So that's where Shopify comes in. Now listen, Shopify isn't just a website builder. When I started my business back in the day, I mean, there were just website builders. No, Shopify is amazing. I wish I had it. It's our go to and number one e commerce platform built to make running your product based business even easier. So whether you're selling handmade jewelry, organic skincare, delicious treats, you might be a manufacturer, you might. It doesn't matter what you're doing, because this is the deal. Shopify is going to give you the tools to showcase your products beautifully, to manage inventory seamlessly, and to connect with your customers around the world. Because listen, customers need a good experience, right? It's all about the user experience. And that's why I'm so obsessed with Shopify. Because you don't need the tech skills required to create this amazing seamless customer experience. So with features like automatic payment processing and one click checkout, Shopify will actually help you focus on scaling your business and not having to worry about all the techy things that come with building a site and a site that converts really well. So, my friend, if you're ready to make selling your products online easier, you can grab your free trial of Shopify today@the productboss.com Shopify. That's theproductboss.com Shopify. Now let's jump into the show. Hey, hey, product boss. Oh, well, if you are listening to this in real time, happy New Year. Can you believe that we're standing on the edge of a brand new year, 2025. I mean, where are the flying cars? How did we even get here? And what I love about the new year is it's a restart button, right? It's a. It's a time to refresh and restart. And I am honestly very done with 2024. In a similar way of how I felt about 2020. It was a rough year, right? It's an election year. In the US Things are always a little wonky during election years because people are always uncertain. And it's very hard to sell when people are uncertain about things. And it was just a year. Even though I guess every year I feel now I'm saying like, it's a year. But as we're on the precipice of 2025, this is the time. No matter what year it is, it's that turnover. It's the new year. And this is the time that we get to dream big, we plan. And here is the kicker, we actually commit to making this the year we dream of, right? And I want to make this your most abundant year yet. So in today's episode, I want to take you on a journey to help you vision what's possible for your business, to help you vision what's possible for your life, and how to get the freedom that you probably desire, which I know most of us do, because that's why we became entrepreneurs. So how do you get that freedom in 2025? We're going to make this a little bit of a workshop style. So if you get a chance, go grab yourself a notebook, settle in, grab a delicious beverage, right? Maybe it's a hot cup of coffee, some cocoa, tea, whatever it is, and let's dream big together. So before we dive into 2025, one of the first things I like to do is I like to reflect, right? We can't know where we're going without looking at where we've been. So I want us to think about this past year and start to think about what your wins were, right? What were your Wins. What challenges helped you grow? Because yes, challenges are challenges, but they do help us grow. We come out of it on the other side. And what do you actually want to leave behind in 2024 as you step into 2025? So. So here are your prompts for your notebook. I want you to write down one big win from 2024, and one thing that you're ready to let go of as you embrace what's next. So a win and something you wanna let go of. And then you can write down one to two challenges and then teach yourself by writing down how did those challenges help you grow? Right, no pressure, no diamonds. So how. What were the diamonds that you got from that? Because what I love to do, and we do this when I open up any of my groups that I'm live in, whether it's my masterminds, the lab, you know, our weekly coaching calls, in the product boss, academ, it's going to be also thinking about what was a win, what did we do or what challenge came up and what do we want to grow? And also what are we going to let go of? Take some time and write that down or think about it. You can write it in a journal, you can open notes in your phone. Whatever works for you. Just kind of get it pen to paper or, you know, typing two notes. How do you say that one? All right, now, once you've done that and we've reflected, I want you to think about looking forward. So let's start to vision. Cast for 2025. So we did this in the last episode. So if you've missed it, in the last episode that we aired last week, on Monday, we talked about, and I'll drop it on the show notes, but we talked about visioning. We really started to vision. And so if you have a chance right now and you're in a safe place and you can close your eyes or maybe you're driving or with your kids, I want you to daydream a little, and I want you to imagine it's December 2025, right? It's a year from now. We're right on the cusp of rolling into the new year, and you're looking back at this year at 2025, and you're looking back at how you've grown, the freedom you've created for yourself, perhaps the impact you've had in your family and your community, with your friends, how you've modeled for them, how scrappy and creative and courageous you are as an entrepreneur stepping into your own business. So again, we Visualized this. Last week I took you through a visualization exercise. Right now I want you to actually write it down. So what does your business look like in 2025 at the end of the year? Are you working fewer hours? Are you starting to pay yourself good money? Are your products selling really well? What is working for you? What do you want your business to look like? The second thing I want you to think about is what do you want your day to day to feel like? Do you have a certain time that you work and a certain time that you get off, that every day you want to pick your kids up from school? Or maybe you don't. Maybe you want to take them to school. Maybe every day you're hitting up a yoga class or you're walking, or you're able to meet a friend for coffee. Maybe you're only working in your business a few days a week. What have you been able to hand off and give to someone else to do? Have you hired? Do you have a team? Have you gone on that dream vacation and knew your business could still function? Are you enjoying your weekends off? So once you just visualize and write down what your business looks like and what your day to day feels like. And once you've done that, I want us to dig into the numbers, which again, last episode, we dug into visualizing numbers and starting to make it feel real, right? Cause if we can imagine it to be real, our brain is just gonna find the ways to make it happen. So what do your numbers look like? Imagine you open up Shopify right now. You open up your, you know, your E Comm site and you look at how much you've made in 2025. The total year, year to date, revenue made. What does it say? Open up your bank account. What does your bank account say? What number is sitting in your bank account? What have you paid yourself this year? What beautiful, amazing salary have you paid yourself? How about profitability, right? That's what we pay ourselves. That's the money that goes back into the business. Are you making good profit? This is what I teach inside the Mastermind. Like, I want you to be between 20% to 40% profit margin. If it's a little less, that's fine. But we really want to work on profitability. Like, we're not. This is not a hobby. So what does your profit look like? What money is left in the bank? Write all of this down. As you write it down, I want you to let yourself feel what it would be like to live in this vision. In fact, if you can Write it as if it's already happened in present tense. I have a hundred thousand dollars in my bank account. I've made $350,000 this year in sales. I pay myself a hundred thousand dollars in salary, right? Like whatever you say, write it as if it is already happening. Write it as if it is in present time, as it, if it has happened, not I want to. Your brain will say, okay, let's make it happen. Okay. If you can see it, if you can visualize it, if you could write it down. This is starting to get you to your path of where you want to go. So I know you've heard me talk about this over the last few weeks, but the next thing I want to talk about are, so we've visioned, we've audited, and I want to now talk about the three areas to focus on in 2025 to really transform yourself and your business. Because I want to take the vision that you've been working on, right? And we want to move it into reality. But moving into reality does not mean you have to do, do, do, do and do everything. It's going to be about doing the right things. So here are three things that I am going to recommend to you for 2025 that I believe that have been so successful for the transformation of me and my business and where I am now. And all I can do is speak from my own experience and share it with you here on the podcast. So number one, which might be the hardest for most of us, maybe not, but for me it definitely was, was focusing on simplicity. All right, so that's the first thing to think about for 2025. I want you to stop trying to do it all. You'll hear me talk about this whether you come into my challenge, whether you're in one of my programs, whether it's, you know, the Product Boss Academy or design a scale lab or my inner circle Mastermind or multi stream machine. I talk to you about this. I want you to focus on your core products, your hero product, your best sellers. If you have that data. I want you to focus then depending on where you are in your journey, I want you to focus on building sales channels that work for you. I want you to focus on building a direct to consumer sales channel, one in which you can sell directly to that customer and then a scalable sales channel. One word is not relying on you, where you don't have to show up to every single market to make sure things are sold or you don't have to post new product on Etsy Every single day hoping that someone's going to see what you have. Because you can have your direct to sales in person. Markets can be direct to consumer direct sales. But what if you thought about adding on a sales channel like Amazon or wholesale where other people are selling your products and getting in front of your customers. So instead of doing it all, I really, this year we're going to start to focus and I'm probably going to start to talk about things a little bit differently as I've gone through the last year of transitioning with the product boss, of leading it and being fully on my own this year and stepping into the next level of how I'm going to coach you all and guide you and what I've learned this year. So you're going to stop trying to do it all. You're going to focus on your core products, your bestsellers. We're going to focus on creating best sales channels for you today. Still multiple sales channels, but ones that perform for you. So I want one where you're selling direct to your customers and one that's scalable and building systems that will help you stabilize and streamline your business. So again, if you're just starting out, there are different systems that you're going to implement. Then my friends that have hit that six figure mark to multi six and then you're in that kind of multi six heading to seven figures. There's other systems that are going to break and that need to be rebuilt. And then my seven figure million dollar product bosses, there are other systems that we have to do. So no matter where you are in this entire journey, we want to make sure that we're focusing on simplicity and streamlining. Okay, that's focus area number one. Hey. Hey friend. I'm just going to jump in and interrupt the show for a real quick second because I want to talk about the side of your product based business that nobody loves. I know. Tracking inventory, right? Managing all the costs of what inventory you need when you need it and trying to stay organized while you blend it all together. And if this feels like it's resonating with you, I have a solution for you. It's something I wish I had instead of literally printing out Excel sheets and trying to write it all down back in my day. Back in my day, right? So the solution for you, my friend, is Crafty Base. Crafty Base is the inventory management, bookkeeping and production software built specifically for product based business owners like you. And with Crafty Base, you can track your raw materials, components and finished products in real Time so you'll never run out of stock or over order supplies again. And it even calculates your cost of goods sold automatically. Right? It monitors your expenses and it helps you keep an eye on those all important profit margins so you can grow your business. Because remember, I want you to be a profitable product boss. So if you're ready to feel organized, in control, and never run out of your bestselling inventory again, then head to the productboss.com craftybase and we've hooked you up to receive a 14 day free trial to try Crafty base today. Again, that's the productboss.com craftybase.
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Hey friends, are you unsure of what to say on social media or what to even send in your weekly emails? Well, what if creating content could be easy? Would you be looking for a shortcut to creating consistent content? Yes, consistent content. Because you know, consistency is key. Well, let me tell you, you are not alone when you feel like you're struggling on what to post or what to write in emails. And we know that you have that product part of your business down.
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But as you're listening to this podcast.
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You probably already know that to get more people to your products, to buy your products, you need to great content. No, I see I keep saying content and that's the dreaded C word. And we can't tell you how many.
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Product bosses tell us that they want.
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To create great content for their audience and their customers, but they don't know.
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What to say, or they are so.
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Busy they can't find the time, or they really, really, really don't want to be the face of their brand. Well, no worries, because that's exactly why we created a year of content. It is your shortcut to creating consistent content that resonates with your audience and brings more loyal customers who can't wait your products.
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If you want to see how easy.
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This is and how easy it is to create content for your audience and your customers, head to www.ayearofcontent.com.
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Focus area number two. So it's investing in your growth. You're doing it right now. Your time is worth money. I value your time. And I am so honored that you are spending your time listening to this podcast. Right. It is so valuable. And we can invest in things with time and we can invest in things with money. But here is the deal. If you want to grow, growing requires that you step out of your comfort zone. So whether it's hiring help, whether it's joining a program or a mastermind, whether it's learning a new skill. Right? We're investing in that. Whether it is investing into software or machinery to make it easier and better for ourselves. It's going to take investments to grow. And I want you to think of these as investments, not costs, because you're investing in yourself and your business. And you always hear me say this, that action takers are money makers. And so what will you invest in this year to make that happen? What action do you need to take to make the kind of money that you want to make? But that is going to take you investing in a different way that requires you to step out of your comfort zone. So get curious about that. Okay, I did it and I've never stopped doing it. Whether I've invested in courses, programs, experts, one on one, coaches, masterminds, retreats, software, team members, I've invested in courses and programs for my team members, machinery, just all the different things. I'm like, ah, you know, the first time was the scariest and now it's like, all right, what else do I need to do? What else do I need to do? Like, I need to keep leveling up so that I can have what I want, which is growth, growth personally. Growth for my business, growth for my team, growth for all the things so that I can support all of you. Okay, and the third area to make 2025 transformational for you and your business is to not do it alone. The world is scary. Things are scary. We've been through it. You know, we all felt so isolated in 2020 and that's where we all came together and we know what's happened over the last several years and what I learned. But you never heard. Thought I was gonna say this, but I recently went to the second to last ERAS tour concert with Taylor Swift. I feel like I should do a whole episode on Taylor and what I learned from being in that kind of world and community. Cause I went with my fourth. But what I saw there was no matter what you think about her, she models a community that is so kind and generous and giving. There were experiences that I saw. There were things that I experienced at the ERAs tour that I've never seen and I have not seen in a long time to. To the point of an airline that had already closed the doors to let people on, knew that these swifties were running to try and get to the tour. They reopened it and let them on. I was at border crossing as I drove from Seattle to Vancouver. I know cuckoo nets again. I should do a whole episode where border crossing, like we were like hey, you know, like they were exchanging the friendship bracelets. Cops at the concert were exchanging friendship bracelets. I had bought my daughter some swag. We had all these sweatshirts and I was carrying them through the stadium and I was trying to fold them and hold them. And a guy who worked there said, do you need a bag? And he went and pulled a garbage bag for me and gave me a bag to put all my stuff in. I saw a woman who was selling popcorn and candy behind the counter at a stadium, which, by the way, you know, they never want to do anything for free. She, this dad was so sweet and they were having such a good interaction. She gave him a free bag of peanut M&MS. I saw such beauty that of just kindness and women taking care of women and girls and women just like everyone was like in this energy. I know this is kind of diverging from what I was talking about, but it just. When I was in that stadium of 60,000 people and Taylor Swift is. Got grace and she gives. And she was three and a half hours, you guys, my husband's a performer. She took no longer than a minute, 30 seconds as a break after three and a half hours of dancing in heels. We couldn't even stand for three and a half hours. And this, this woman is like incredible. And the energy she's putting out for these people that have, like me, flown and driven across the border, she gave as much as they gave. And when you're in community like that and you feel supported and safe and respected and reciprocal, it makes it so much easier to go through this life. It makes it so much easier to build our businesses. And that's why this year I introduced a membership to what we offer at the Product Boss. That's why I have two versions of my mastermind. That's why I show up twice a week on this podcast, because I know how alone I felt in business for over a decade, but myself trying to figure it out on my own, feeling like my husband didn't get it, people didn't get it. I was just kind of struggling and suffering through it. And then truthfully, the birth of the Product Boss podcast came from realizing there was nobody speaking to product based business owners. And that's how we created it. And then we created community and we created programming and we created all these ways to be in support. So whether or not you're a Taylor Swift fan or not, whether or not you're a Swiftie, it just reinforced for me the impact and power of having women caring for women, modeling dads, men Also modeling and taking care of women. And when I say taking care of, like respecting and supporting and any way in which I can provide a community to you of like minded entrepreneurs and product based business owners and women that are ambitious and growing and wanting to do things differently, that is one of the most important things. So my other focus for you in 2025 that I believe will be transformational is get into community. Do not do this alone. It is, it is way more fun together. So make connections, get yourself out of your comfort zone, get into groups. I've built several communities for all different revenue levels and we have this podcast so that you know you're not alone. Okay? So community and collaboration is the way to go. So I'm so incredibly grateful for you this year for riding through 2024 with me, for listening to this podcast, for all of the reviews you all have left, for the support you've given me in the transition of me fully stepping into the leader and running the company for the last year on my own. Because as you know, I started this with my business partner who is my biz bestie. And as our paths diverged, we went separate ways. And I still love her so much and she's doing so well and we're doing great over here and I'm just so grateful to make it through this year and then to see where we go in 2025. So everything I gave you in this podcast is exactly what we're going to be doing here at the Product Boss and what I'm doing personally. So happy New Year, my friends. Inspire each other, collaborate. Thank you for spending this time with me. And let's make 2025 the year that we dream bigger that the goals and the beautiful dreams that we've set for ourselves that we reach them, but we reach them together. So my friends, I will talk to you next year and 2025. Happy New Year and let's build your businesses together. Keep dreaming. Until next time. Sat.