We recently connected with Drea Williams and have shared our conversation below.

Drea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I’ve always wanted to own my own business. There’s something very freeing about having a vision and being able to execute it without having to go through all the bureaucracy you often experience in the corporate world. I’m very much a “Here’s what should/needs be done and now I’m going to go do it” person. Unfortunately, in the corporate world, I found myself getting held back a lot from executing ideas and plans. However, when you own your own business the only person who can really hold you back is you. That being said, there is something nice about knowing exactly how much money will be coming into your bank each month. That’s the only thing I miss sometimes. Well, that and free medical benefits, lol.

Drea, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Aloha Plant Life all started with a new house, empty flowerbeds, and a turbulent end to an almost 15-year-long relationship. In an effort to distract me during the hardest days of my divorce, I threw myself into landscaping the bare flowerbeds at my new house, and from there I continued on to greening up the interior of my home with numerous houseplants. Yet it didn’t just stop at buying plants and bringing them home. As always, I dove 100% into learning everything there was to learn about plants, especially houseplants. During this time my therapist was continually asking me what my life worth living looked like moving forward post-divorce, and all I really knew at the time was that tending to and learning about plants was the biggest thing bringing joy back into my life. So, I started thinking to myself, “How can I bring the joy and help that plants have provided me to others?”. The next thing I knew, I was propagating plants to sell for charity, starting a YouTube channel dedicated to all things plants, and developing my own plant-related products to sell.

The Aloha Plant Life YouTube channel has been growing at a much faster rate than I anticipated which is really exciting. Back in April I officially expanded the business with the launch of www.AlohaPlantLife.com, where I sell houseplants and offer plant related services such as Plant Doctor appointments, Plant Sitting services, and Plant Styling services. Around that time I also started doing rare plant popup shops locally.

One of my favorite parts about the business so far is actually getting to engage with my viewers in the video comments and also now in-person at the popup shops, and hearing about their plant journeys as well as helping them out with any plant issues they are experiencing.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

My business started with the Aloha Plant Life YouTube channel, but I knew from the start that I couldn’t make a living off of just ad revenue from the channel alone. So from the beginning I already had plans for other revenue streams. Through my research I knew that one of the most profitable revenue streams for YouTube channels was actually sponsorships, but typically a channel has to have grown to a fairly large size before it will start getting sponsorship offers. However, early on in my journey I watched a video by Nate Black previously of Channel Makers on the phases of growth of a YouTube channel and key things to do at each phase. At one point in that video he said something that has really stuck with me: “This is the phase where you are going to get really good at asking for money.” As someone who hates asking anyone for anything, I knew this was going to be difficult, but it made sense.

So I started thinking to myself, “Do channels REALLY have to be big to get sponsorships? Or are most YouTubers just sitting around waiting for companies to reach out about sponsorships and those companies typically search for/discover the larger channels first?” This is when I decided to start getting good at asking for money. I wrote out a list of brands I potentially wanted to partner with and I chose to reach out to Soltech Grow Lights first since I had recently purchased one of their products and really liked it. I used my background in marketing to outline a three video plan for promoting their grow lights and pitched it to them.

At first, they wanted to just give me free product in exchange for doing an unboxing/install/review video. For any YouTubers or Social Media influencers out there reading this, do NOT accept these kinds of offers! This is virtually free advertising for the Brand, in most cases it doesn’t adequately compensate you for your time, and if you actually ask for additional compensation most times the brand will say yes. So I replied back to Soltech asking to be setup to do affiliate marketing with them for the first two videos and to have them sponsor the third video. They agreed to the first part and said they would consider a sponsored video down the line after seeing what kind of conversion rates I generated as an affiliate. I viewed this as a worthy challenge and accepted the offer.

Of course, this meant now I had to get really good at asking my subscribers for money, which is even more difficult for me. It kind of feels like asking your family for money, you know? But I did it, and six months later I have an 80% conversion rate with Soltech and they are sponsoring the upcoming grow light video I will be releasing in October.

So you can either sit back on your heels and wait for money making opportunities to come to you, or you can grow your business even faster by getting really good at asking for money early on. As long as you are genuine in your approach and have a solid value proposition that you know will work, anything is possible.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I have three words for you: Genuine, Integrity, and Caring,

I present myself in an authentic way, and that really resonates with people. I share both the good and the bad experiences because that’s the reality of life. This helps generate trust with people, which is key to building a good reputation.

You also have to have integrity in how you do business. For example, I’m overly particular when it comes to the condition my plants have to be in for me to sell them. I want my customers to be set up for success when purchasing plants from me. Unfortunately, a lot of plants on the market today are hitting store shelves without even being fully rooted and then the plants begin to quickly decline when people bring them home. This can make plant parents feel like a failure, when in reality they were unknowingly setup for failure from the get go. When you do business with integrity, your work will speak for itself and your customers will spread the word of how great you and your company are for you.

However, I think the biggest thing for building a good reputation for me has been that I truly care about helping people and it shows. I still try to answer every single comment on every single YouTube video I do. I realize at some point as the channel grows this may no longer be feasible, but for now it’s still manageable. I regularly get comments from people thanking me for responding to them and for taking so much time to thoroughly research my videos and present things in a clear and easily understandable way. When people know you care about them and are willing to help them, they in turn are more likely to care about you and to help you by supporting your business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alohaplantlife.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alohaplantlife/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alohaplantlife
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AlohaPlantLife