We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kasey Orr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kasey below.
Kasey, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
When you are starting any new endeavor you always hope that your family and friends are going to be your biggest cheerleaders. Most of us will have at least a few of those from the start. If this is the case, great, but don’t expect it. Certainly don’t get upset or internally criticize anyone for not supporting or purchasing from you. When you start a business you don’t have the luxury of blaming other people for your lack of business or sales. That’s on you.
Getting those first few customers can be tough! Naturally, the easiest thing to do is try to offer your product or service to the people you know, first. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. For example, offering to pay a friend to model for you or giving away something in exchange for a review. I always like to make sure I’m doing something to offer value in exchange. This is an easy way to fast track to those first few sales. But if you don’t get any takers, you just have to save up a bit and wait until you can pay someone like an influencer to help.
Memes and reels talking about this very subject have been coming across my page lately. Videos that are basically calling out all people who, for example, buy a cake at a store when their friend just started a bakery. Making them the “bad guy,” when in reality, it’s your job to fill your pipeline with potential customers. Going out there and making your business and products the best they can be so that people WANT to support you, not feel forced to.
Not receiving support from the people you want it from most, sucks. I get it. I’ve been in many of those exact situations myself. What helps me most when someone I know buys from another company is actually to blame myself and find a way to take responsibility for it.
I think…
Have I been late on an order for this person in the past?
Is my product truly as good as what they got instead?
Have I marketed my product as much as my competitor?
There is always something I can take away from these situations to make my business better.
Remembering that encouragement and support can also come in many forms. A person may not buy from you for 5 years, but they have been the first one to like all of your posts. Your husband might not yet be showing interest in what you are doing, but he’s stepped up to pick up your slack with house work without being asked. Your family may not use your service, but they are more understanding when you say you can’t make it to a family event because of your workload. Etc.
In life and in business we all are going to have different starting points. One person has someone saying, “You’ll never make it. You can’t do it.” While another person has someone saying “Oh it’s okay if you can’t do it, sweetie. This looks hard you shouldn’t be working so long. It’s okay to quit we will still love you.” You might think the person who has all of the support in the world from their family has it easier, but they have never had the other side of the spectrum. Never had someone lighting the fire underneath them and giving them a reason to push on because they refuse to fail and let that person be right.
Your success is your responsibility. No one else’s. Unless you gave your friends and family a percentage of your business, they have no reason to be just as vested as you are. Consider them the cherry on top of what is already a great business withOUT them. Building a business can be lonely it’s just part of the game. Harness the energy of any support that comes your way and follow your own dreams. Remember why you set out to do this in the first place. It probably wasn’t to only sell to 10 of your closest family and friends. It was probably to build an amazing business that made customers all over the world. Keep pushing on and they will come around.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
The reason I got into leather work was to make my own horse tack! Horses were a big part of my childhood through 4-H, OHSET and High School Rodeo. My first job at 13 was cleaning saddles and washing horse blankets.. I was a trail guide for a dude ranch..I was a horse girl. Some of these girls I was competing with had beautiful hand tooled tack and you could just see the quality in it. I could never afford to buy myself something that nice, but I wanted to learn how to make it.
I offered a local boot maker to be his apprentice and basically do all of the grunt work and run errands. He agreed and in exchange taught me the basics of leather work. When I first picked up leather tools I was 16. I’ve had many hobbies and jobs over the years, but leather work is the one thing that, now 27, I’ve still never quit. I’ve been a full time leather worker for about 8 years.
To this day I’ve still never made any tack, but I have made many other things. We do all kinds of custom work. Earrings, wallets, scrapbook covers.. etc. Nearly anything, but horse tack really!
What I love most is working with brides and building them wedding packages. You always hear about “bridezillas” but I have found bride-to-be’s some of my best, kindest and favorite customers. They are at an exciting time in life and it’s fun for me to have a small part in such a special event. It makes me happy and a little bit proud when they post photos of their wedding day and seeing that they chose me to make their pieces for a once in a lifetime day.
The KJLD Online Leather Course is also something that we offer. It’s comprised of over 30 lessons that help new leather workers fast track their skills and take the guess work and frustration out of where to start. I made the course I wish I had when I started over 11 years ago.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My business primarily operates on Facebook and Instagram. Occasionally I will get someone who I know personally who will reach out for a project, but that’s less than 3% of my sales. Being able to source customers from a marketplace that is free for business owners is insane. I am thankful everyday to be alive in a time where it’s possible to message a customer and take their order from my own house, on my phone in the middle of the night. How lucky are we? Seriously.
Leather work was just a hobby for me at first. I would post what I was working on because I was just excited about it, I loved it! It’s such a dying art and I think it was uncommon for people so the posts always did well. After doing that for a while on my personal pages, I started official business pages.
The first person or “influencer” I ever got to rep my pieces was Adrian Brannan. She did a weekly giveaway called “Buckaroo Cowgirl Giveaway.” Every week she would showcase products from a different small business in the western niche. At the time I had about 300 followers when I reached out and asked to be a part of it. I sent her some earrings for the giveaway and some for her as well. I don’t remember the exact amount, but she had thousands of followers, a big audience even at that time.. 7 or 8 years ago. I was sure that I was going to wakeup over night and have 20k followers. I just knew it. She was going to take me to the promise land with one post (lol) That did not happen at all.
She showcased my pieces amazingly I still remember a smile on my face so big my cheeks were sore while I watched her with MY earrings in her hands.
The fact that I didn’t grow an overwhelming amount overnight had nothing to do with anything she did. It simply just isn’t how social media works and I didn’t understand that yet.
Once I realized that these beautiful ladies decked out in western attire and handmade pieces were actually called influencers and you could pay them to promote your pieces, that’s when things started to grow for me. Working with influencers puts your product in front of a group of people that are already interested in your given niche. Now, like I was late to figure out, it’s not going to be your jackpot. I was still putting in 100 at everything I could do on may end. Posting several times a day keeping up on stories, messaging back potential customers immediately, everything. Utilizing influencers is your cherry on top. You still have to be putting in the work to make sure that when people actually come to your page they are going to click that follow button and stick around.
My advice for someone starting to build a business through social media would be to stay consistent and put in 100 with everything you can do for free.
Document everything you do. What seems boring to you is usually not to other people.
Keep up with the times. If Instagram comes out with a new feature, learn it. If you don’t keep up with the ever changing tides of social media you will get left behind.
Use influencers! I’ve had some newbies reach out to me saying that they are scared to reach out to influencers! They want you to reach out! That’s their business, it’s how they make their money!
Stick to accounts that are in your same niche. If one doesn’t respond to you don’t be sad, there are plenty of people out there who would love to work with you! Don’t reach out to 3 big influencers and give up if you don’t get a response. Keep trying until you find a good fit. Look for accounts that are around 10k. They are big enough to give you a boost at that point, but not too big to blow you off.
Remember if you don’t get a response, it’s not personal.
Some will be happy with a product trade, but most of your bigger influencers do this for a living so expect to pay. Before you approach someone, make sure that you are actually following and engaging with that account prior to the ask. Just copy and pasting a generic “Love your page, I’d love to work with you” isn’t enough. Be genuine. Take the time to at least write a fresh message for each person.
Use your reviews! When you get a message or official review from a happy customer, screen shot it! I never used to re share my reviews because I thought it was considered bragging, but remember, you are growing a business. People are complimenting your product, not you. The same logic applies for a bad review. Remember it’s just the product they are reviewing, not your character so don’t let the bad ones bring you down.
Most of all don’t give up! The only way to fail is to quit.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Taking responsibility for everything. Even things that deep down you know truly aren’t your fault. Still taking accountability for them anyway with your customer.
If I told my customer on a Friday “I’ll get this heading your way soon” and I get it in the mail on Monday, but they say “Oh I thought you were going to mail it Saturday.” That’s my fault. I didn’t communicate well enough. I pay to overnight the package.
If my customer mis spelled the writing that they wanted on a bouquet wrap and doesn’t correct me until its finished, it’s my fault. I will remake it.
If a customer gives me an inaccurate belt measurement, I make it to those specifications and it doesn’t fit, it’s my fault. I’ll remake it.
Those are all real scenarios that have happened and how I handled them. I don’t beat myself up about it, but taking full responsibility is the only thing that will benefit you in the long run.
When my first instinct is to blame my customer for their part in not being happy with the product’s end result I have to turn it around on myself. That’s the only way you can regain control of the situation and learn from it. If a customer isn’t happy.. they aren’t happy.. that’s it.. getting defensive or turning it back on them or trying to explain and excuse your way out of it isn’t going to make them happy. It’s not going to solve the problem. They want to feel valued and prioritized. We all do!
It is imperative for me to end each order on a good note. I have never received anything other than a 5 star review on any product. I just refuse to blame my customer and prioritize that they have a good experience. Sometimes it can be frustrating and I have to put my phone down for a bit and come back to a situation with fresh eyes.
With the shipping scenario, I truly should have communicated better. I should have given them an exact date of when their product would be shipped and stuck to it. Paying for overnight stings a little bit. Now, I make sure that my customer and I are on the same page with everything and don’t assume.
The belt I had to redo.. I just went off a pant size, which can fluctuate a lot especially in women. Now, I insist on an actual belt measurement for accuracy. That situation helped me develop a better system.
Having to redo the bouquet wrap because of incorrect spelling taught me to always send a proof before tooling.
I would rather spend my time redoing a project or my money expediting shipping to make my customer happy and end on a good note, than get anything less than a stellar review. Loosing $50 for shipping is way better in my opinion than having one customer tell 5 friends that they weren’t happy with their experience with my business. I always want my customers to look forward to working with me again. I surely am not perfect, I still make a ton of mistakes, but I have zero interest in being a disappointment, of any sort, to my customers.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kaseyjean.com
- Instagram: @kaseyjeanleatherdesigns
- Facebook: Kasey Jean Leather Designs
- Youtube: Kasey Jean Leather Designs