In the second episode of "Meet the Makers", we dive into the world of marketing for makers and 3D printers. Our guest, Ryan from Flora Marketing Collective, shares his expertise on how to optimize your online storefront to increase your conversion rates and ultimately generate more sales. We cover topics such as creating a strong brand identity, leveraging social media platforms, and how to get started with limited time. Whether you're a seasoned maker or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help take your shop to the next level. Tune in and learn how to make your online storefront work harder for you.
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Links Mentioned
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Flora Marketing Collective Linktree: https://linktr.ee/FloraMarketingCollective
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
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Come be a guest on meet the makers: https://forms.gle/wTqzxqGpsu9hZ39F6
Follow misfit printing on TIktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@misfit_printi...
In the second episode of "Meet the Makers", we dive into the world of marketing for makers and 3D printers. Our guest, Ryan from Flora Marketing Collective, shares his expertise on how to optimize your online storefront to increase your conversion rates and ultimately generate more sales. We cover topics such as creating a strong brand identity, leveraging social media platforms, and how to get started with limited time. Whether you're a seasoned maker or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help take your shop to the next level. Tune in and learn how to make your online storefront work harder for you.
.
.
Links Mentioned
________________
Flora Marketing Collective Linktree: https://linktr.ee/FloraMarketingCollective
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
.
.
Come be a guest on meet the makers: https://forms.gle/wTqzxqGpsu9hZ39F6
Follow misfit printing on TIktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@misfit_printi...
[00:00:00] A lot of people think going viral is really cool and it's cool. It's a cool feeling, But if it's tied to sales and it's tied to more work that you have to do that you're not ready for, then it can be your worst enemy.
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Meet the Makers podcast. Today I am joined here with Ryan. If you're not familiar with Ryan, he is from the Flora Marketing Collective, and you're like the one minute website review guru in my mind. But you do a bunch of things from marketing to website optimization.
so with that said, I don't know if you wanna just give us, a little more of a detailed background than I just gave on yourself and, we can jump into it. Yeah. Back when Covid hit really hard, everybody was stuck at home, right? And me and a couple of friends of mine had realized that we were always complaining about our bosses and we had this idea that we could start a business and make it work our way and we could do what we want.
So with that, we all had comparable skills. That's why it's floor marketing collective. Cuz there are technically three of us, but I'm the one [00:01:00] who's like the main facing of it. Basically we decided that the best skill that we would have is fixing people's websites for them. Now, if you've ever worked with Shopify or known anybody who's worked with Shopify, like it can be easy, but it can also be difficult at the same time.
It's the, it's a very unique platform like that. so that's pretty much what we started doing. That was a big thing that maybe we can get into a little bit later about using TikTok for organic growth. cuz that's where like I learned how to manipulate TikTok and make it work for me.
and we basically just found all of our clients through TikTok growth people. our main focus has been small business owners and peop like a, an individual, not like some big company that can afford a million dollar website, build people who have 200 bucks to their name. You know what I mean?
And one of the things that I learned the most with that is do basically give away everything that you can for free, which is where the concept of the one minute website reviews came from. the cuz the way that I started structuring. Was, [00:02:00] I wanted anybody who watched it to be able to get something of value from it, as well as the person that specifically requested that, that
website.
So that's the approach that I've tried to take with it. and that's basically what we've been doing for the past two years. It's slowed down a little bit. The last, I don't know, maybe five or six months, I hadn't really been as active on there. but we're getting back into it in actually before the end of this month.
We have a couple plans. People start seeing us post a lot more often and we're only gonna hit a hard sample. Wow. Okay. So you gave us a lot to unpack it right off the bat. And I have to start by saying I was like a huge fan of those one minute website reviews. I love this idea of just, giving back as much as you can and maybe it's just this like very idealistic thing, but I truly do believe.
The more you give, the more you get back. One of the things you said is you were it started from this place of wanting to maybe like just get away from, your job and like go out on your own. Are you able to talk a little bit about like maybe what you were doing before you got into doing this and like what your background?
Yes. most of my background is actually in [00:03:00] marketing, not as much in the website development, which is why I'm the front facing of that. before any of that, I really was just working like a regular like labor. Just like a regular work, I was working in composites before that where I would basically just sit and watch the a line run, just like anybody who's been in any type of standard work, what you would expect for nothing business related.
and I found myself having a lot of free time listening to a lot of audio books, doing a lot of like self-education that made a huge influence. tons of different books. Just I can name one specif. Gary Vaynerchuk was a huge inspiration for during that time. and I don't know, man, it just like I found whatever free time I could.
I was able to reach out to a couple people online, some one person that I knew personally, and he knew people who knew people. And, I was able to get a little bit of a more directed education through them. Directed self-education. I should. [00:04:00] And, with that they were able to help me, like basically start my first shop, my personal Shopify store.
And from there it just spiraled and continued on. once you started then you, you have to take all these different pieces and move them together. And since I had grinded through that for two and a half, three years on my own, I already
knew all the bullshit that you had to get through to be able to make something work for.
So I figured why not just, this can be how we market. Just do this for anybody who needs it, and clients will come as they come. One of the things that really stuck out in there for me, that you said along the way was you're doing these jobs and maybe it wasn't like the number one thing you wanted to do, but like you're, you have this background time, you're like listening to audiobooks and you're learning all this stuff.
I. Can relate to that so much. I remember I was like 18 at the time and I was working at a car wash very, it was so cold and it was wet and it was manual and it was like nothing like what I wanted to be doing. But every day I would have my little earpiece and I would listen to my audiobooks all day While I was there, Gary V was like a huge influence, a bunch of other people.
but I think that's like such a [00:05:00] great message for maybe the person out there. Can't afford to go to college or,maybe it's just like the timing isn't right. I think audio books or books in general can be such like, it's, I think it's such an underutilized tool and we live in a day of age now where anything you wanna learn is so accessible,
I was fortunate that I did get to go and have a formal education at, a university, but I can really say for myself and maybe not everybody's experience is the same, but I learned so much more.
From books and, following these different people online than I actually did at my Yeah. Formal education. I think it works better that way because it's more, you have more control over it. if you're in a class, sure, you can choose what class you're taking and you can, you can direct it yourself.
But if you're listening to even just like a keynote speak or just some TikTok, some informational talks, you can just leave it whenever you want. You can just go to the next thing. I'm done with that and that's not what I'm looking. And find what you need out there. That's what's so great about it, and for anybody who's still concerned about that, there's [00:06:00] literally every single avenue that you can think of.
There's a path of education in that avenue. If you're a Reddit user, you can, you're just talking with community members of whatever community it is, and you will learn stuff. That's how I learned a lot of stuff about 3D printing was
through Reddit and through TikTok. Same thing, Whatever it is, there's a pathway for you to learn more and achieve more for yourself.
Yeah, absolutely. Not to put you on the spot with books, cuz this is like always a very difficult question for me. , maybe is GaryVee or maybe it's somebody else, but are there any books for you that, throughout your path of getting started that like really stood out for you or really.
Made a big, notable difference in kind of you going out? there's a ton. There's one that is coming to mind and it's silly because it's always been seen as a silly book, but Rich Dad, poor Dad. I dunno if you've read that or not. It's, yeah, it wasn't like, it was some huge inspiring like, oh, now I can go and do all this crazy real estate stuff or anything like that.
It was just like, oh, this is a different perspective and a different way to look at money and [00:07:00] how you can like acquire money and run a business. It doesn't have to be, Evil corporation vibes. Like you can make yourself comfortable financially without it needing to be like you're taking advantage of people or you know you're screwing over the little guy.
In fact, you can do it the opposite way. You do it by helping people and that's. That definitely probably is the biggest one. rich Dad, JTE, if you haven't read it, it's definitely a great book. I kind, I actually stumbled into it like later, in my reading journey. The takeaway that was really interesting for me in that book, and I think, is probably in other ones that I had read, was I came from like a background having a very blue color family, very traditional like mindset of there's, the only way to, gain wealth or gain money in life is, going to school and getting a good job and working that job for the rest of your life.
Um, I think it, oh yeah, I know. Ugh. but it's, there's so many people that I encounter in my day-to-day life still that still it, like to the deepest part of their heart, believe that like the only way that they will be successful is [00:08:00] Go to school, get a good job, and just work, at that job forever.
so I think at least for me, like hearing that message and that, that wasn't the only way to be, successful in life. was more transformative than anything I could really express. So That's a great book to hear. Oh yeah. you mentioned that for us. it's a great one.
I wanna dive into a little more about exactly what you're saying, like helping, these small businesses. particularly like on the website side. So I guess it
sounds like who you typically work with, correct me if I'm wrong, but like people who are maybe like just getting started for the first time or smaller businesses.
Yeah. usually those are the people who, people who are just starting specifically are the people who are more willing to seek help and not get stuck in there. I know what I'm doing, I'll do it myself, mindset. Okay. but I mean we have had some clients and some people who've been.
they've been in the game for a long time, and they just want a revision and they, I don't know, they either see me on TikTok or they found us through some other means and they just wanna [00:09:00] reach out. But yes, that's been our main focus. We have, I, we, we do have a plan of growth for ourselves to where we can and are willing to take on like larger clients like, I know McDonald's or Walmart or some huge, yeah.
we try to see all the different levels of that, but you can't, and this is something that we've talked about a lot, is we can't just focus on trying to get to that higher level. You can't just think big, you have to think small at the same time that you're thinking big. So cuz otherwise, first off, there's so many people that you could be helping that you're missing out on helping, you're, and.
even if you're being strictly greedy about it, that's less work for you, that's less money for you. That's a smaller portfolio. So I just see it as nothing but beneficial to help anybody who asks for it. if somebody can't afford anything, then I still find ways to help them. I think that's how you should do it, and if somebody can afford it, then great.
we can make a business transaction, whatever it [00:10:00] is. That's, I, our whole approach is we are here to take care of the things that you either don't want to take the time to learn. You're running a business. You shouldn't have to learn how to build a Shopify store at the same time, or run a marketing campaign.
that's what we're here for. With that in mind, the thing that you had said about like when you're starting out with somebody who maybe is a little newer to. Maybe they're like, just, they're more receptive to what you guys have to say
let's just play out the scenario of somebody who, they're brand new to business. They've, this is their first shot at entrepreneurship, whether it's, a consumer product or a digital. They're looking to sell something for the first
time. Where do you come in and start that, conversation with somebody
usually they've already taken a couple of steps before that, that first contact would've been made. they would have already gotten to the point where they've gotten into Shopify. to step back from that, first off, they would learn about Shopify as opposed to Etsy or even like WordPress or Wick or any of these other platforms that you can use to sell.
They would go the [00:11:00] Shopify. And then from there, they're gonna search at some point for help with the Shopify store. It's not something that you just pick up and you you can learn as you go, but that's so time consuming.
You're gonna Google some shit, you're gonna ask some questions. Yeah. and that's where we would pop up. Hopefully that's our plan is, Hey, like you, okay, you have a million questions. We have a million answers. what do you need? And from that point, they would just contact us in whatever means, either a dm, I answer every d.
Or an email or whatever it might be. In like the maker space, a big, platform that a lot of people use is actually, people go directly to Etsy. I'm sure that this could be a very long answer, but what would you say are the benefits of being on a platform like Shopify as opposed to, something like Etsy?
If I'm looking at it strictly as opposed to Etsy, because Etsy does have its benefits. you have full control, y you can. There's way less fees. You're actually making, what you make Shopify has very minimal fees. They charge a monthly fee. Their basic plan is like $29 a month, [00:12:00] and if you sell one thing for $30 a month, then you paid for your Shopify for that month.
Anything on top of that is revenue up until you make it enough that you can get approved or that, yeah, that you can get approved for shop by credit card. I think it's like 6.9% annually after. or something along those lines. It may have changed the last time I looked at it. so the fees are phenomenally lower.
Like you, you can make so much more money and you can use that, funnel that back into your business. also, I'm not as aware if Etsy allows you, to use any of your product pages as a landing page from an ad. I know that in Shopify, if you search for something on. And you click on my ad.
I can choose anywhere on my website that I wanna send you to send you
straight to the product page, the homepage, the about us page, the terms and conditions page, whatever. I don't believe Etsy lets you do that. but that's one of the benefits to Etsy. Is if I go there and I search for something, you can pop up like it's a search engine.[00:13:00]
Yeah. With Shopify, it's not like you go to shopify.com and you search Cool 3D printed articulated dragon, and it shows you all the different websites of that you are operating a business, so you are in charge of getting people to your store, but as well as that you can. It being your store, you can customize it.
that's my main thing. And not just, you can customize it, but you can customize it in different ways. And this is where the conversion rate optimization comes in. Because some websites, we've all seen fantastic websites and we've all seen not fantastic websites. and Somebody, I've seen some where people tried their best and it just, they needed a few pictures, moved around and just a button needed to be like more of a circle instead of a square and just a few light touches and boom, there you go.
Like you have a great website now, and other ones where it needs a full overhaul, but you have all of that control. And Shopify and Etsy, you don't I, the only thing you really have control over in Etsy, [00:14:00] visually is like your product images, which you have control of as well in Shopify. So the, you have control over everything.
it's way better, but you are responsible for marketing, driving your own traffic. That was something I personally learned the hard way. I in the past I've had Etsy's and I've had Shopify, and the first time that I came into Shopify, I built what I thought was like the best website I could have made at the time, and.
I was doing pretty well, not crazy, but like decent for myself on Etsy, so I just felt like a natural transition. I was gonna move to my own website and, I was so used to having Etsy feed me that traffic. so it was definitely a little shocking the first time that I moved into Shopify and I was like, oh, I am, need to make the traffic.
yeah. maybe that's something we can get into a little later is,like just strategies for driving that traffic, but,I really agree. Everything that you said, about the differences and I can't remember the exact timeline, but I know not that long ago, there was something where Etsy had raised, I think it was pretty significantly their fees.
And so many, sellers on there at the time had,[00:15:00] gone on like a strike and they, it was really hurting their business. I always say I wanna be in control of as many factors as possible. And when you're on these. Platforms, be it Etsy, be it, whatever else.
you're definitely, you're playing by the rules. yeah, I, that's what I really like about a platform like Shopify's. It gives you so much more freedom in that sense. Yeah, it definitely does. And also your competition isn't literally right next to you. if you go to Shopify right now and type in 3D printed Articulator Dragon, you will get results and you'll get way too many.
There're all these different sellers and like you just looking at that, you're like, how do I compete? At least with owning your own website, it's somewhat of a walled garden. When people are on your website, they're on your website. Sure. They might and themselves be looking at different websites comparing and stuff like that.
we all do that, but when they're on your. It's not showing you that your competition right next to you for a dollar or two cheaper, what are you gonna do for pricing? Honestly, I know my shopping behaviors and [00:16:00] if I'm on somewhere like, Amazon or Etsy, I ju, I hate to say it, but like I know that I have a tendency to be like, Is there like a cheaper option?
that's gonna be comparable? I think what's so great about a Shopify is, you are like your own anchor for pricing. You're not competing, like you said, against these other people's pricing that they're showing up right in the same marketplace and you almost get to set like your own atmosphere of
what you want your, pricing your product, your quality to be like. So I think that's a just a whole nother facet that could be a whole other rapid. Oh, absolutely. I mean that everything ties together in the strangest ways too. that's another thing that ties into, conversion rate optimization is not just like making your website more scientifically and mathematically, like navigatable for your users, but also making it.
In correlation with your brand and how you want your website to feel. if you go on Apple's website, they have the, some of the coolest scrolling effects and the most futuristic, you scroll down and all of a sudden the iPhone like snaps into place [00:17:00] and then it zooms in as you are like, keeps scrolling.
It's really cool and it feels like you're on Apple's website. you couldn't do that if
you were just on buy phones.com I really feel having that customer journey when they come onto your website and like evoking a specific feeling, like it's not just go on Amazon and all the product images have a white background and it's very generic and sterile.
Yeah. there's certain websites where you'll visit and it's it sounds goofy, but like you can almost get goosebumps. It's so good. yeah absolutely. I could talk all day about horrible and amazing websites.
even Amazon, like there, there are two websites that I'm thinking of. One is Amazon, which is amazing for e-commerce. It is. So their conversion rate is only like 7% or something like that. And they're the biggest e-commerce website on the planet. 7%. that's unheard of. if you can get to 3%, like you don't need me, seven is ridiculous.
But then there's another website. It's I don't know exactly the url, but it's Greta Thunberg website where as [00:18:00] you scroll down, it's like a 3D modeled version of her. And as you scroll, she turns and a time. Comes around it. And it's not, they're not trying to sell you anything. They're not, you're just there to learn about like her life and key moments in her life and stuff like that.
But That website is just beautiful. I hate it. I'm like, how do you guys do this? It's so good. It's rare too, but every now and then you come across a website where it's just wow. Yeah, this is amazing. Yeah. it really is. It's phenomenal. Yeah. To back up a little bit, maybe for the people who aren't as familiar with these terms that we've been using, but, we've been talking about a lot about like conversion, re optimization.
Can you just, explain to maybe somebody who's not familiar with those terms, kinda what that means. Yeah. a conversion as far as websites go is anytime a user does something you want them to do. So specifically, if we're talking about, e-commerce and you want somebody to buy something from you, it doesn't matter where they click on your website.
Doesn't matter if they add the cart, you want them to pay, right? That's, you want them to buy your product. So conversion rate is, it's like a [00:19:00] mathematical equation. So let's say you have a hundred people come to your website, 10, 10 people, add your product to their cart and add of those 10 people, one person actually buys it.
Your conversion rate is 1%. Part of the reason, no, not part of the reason. One
of the things that we do is our whole goal with conversion rate optimization is increasing that number. We want to get you from that 1% to a two. From a 2% to 3%. And the way you do that is by structuring your website so it feels the right way.
And so it's trustable and so it makes sense to navigate, and Shopify is pretty good about having, having that kind of built in, but it's still very easy to mess up. And regardless of if you're using like a template or something pre-built that can get people to take those actions that you want to.
There are still ways that you can improve it. even if it's just changing the way you're talking to them. your text and the images actually looking like real images instead of stock images, There's a million [00:20:00] little things that you can do to just make people navigate your website the way that they want to, and that's what conversion rate is.
I was going through all of your videos and I truly learned so much . One of the things that, stood out to me, I had never heard this point made before, but I actually thought it was very interest.
it's such a small detail too, but you talked about, I believe it's called bespoke imagery and like where do you use bespoke imagery versus doc images and how that translates through. could you talk a little bit about that? Oh, absolutely. This is one of the things that I love explaining to people, and I like clients are people who aren't clients.
Anybody. I love this because once you see it, you can't unsee it. so as you brought up earlier with Amazon and their product, Sometimes you'll see some product images of a person throwing a Frisbee, and then as you scroll through the product images, you'll just see the Frisbee with the plain white background, right?
So bespoke images are first off, the product image with just a plain white background is fantastic for your product [00:21:00] page. Bespoke images are the images of your products that go everywhere else on the website that add to the feel of the website. So if you have a fris. You don't want a plain Frisbee on your homepage, you want somebody throwing it, right?
You want to see people interacting with it, cuz then the human brain is gonna fill themselves into that gap and say, oh, this is what I would feel like if I was throwing that Frisbee and this is what I would, if I was driving this car, then
that's what I would do. Which is why if you watch, car commercial.
They always have the car where someone's driving it around, they're driving it in snow, doing whatever on a night street and getting out of it. And the, it's all cool. And then as it gets closer to the actual pitch, then the human is less involved in the commercial. And by the time it gets to the very end when it's oh, the new Ford F-150 truck or whatever, it's just the, it's just the truck there.
You, you want to think that same pathway through your website. So when someone comes to your homepage, they see somebody driving the cool car, and then as they navigate to that checkout [00:22:00] page, then they're just looking at the car. So it's a whole journey that you're, it's a whole story that. Telling your clients that and your customers that they can fill themselves in to be the hero in that journey?
I will be the first person to say in websites I've built. I've never knew that, but it completely makes sense of what you're saying and, I'm like a very visual person. I'm a very,one of the things, I'm not sure if you follow Jordan Belfort at all. he has this book, it's called The Way The Wolf About Selling, and he talks about how people play a story in their head when they're like going to buy something.
And people have these different thresholds. Like some people only play the happy story about how like they're gonna buy this product and it's gonna make it so great. And then maybe like more pessimistic people will pay, play the story of all the things that could go wrong. But I think those bespoke images.
They put you on the path of that story of this is what could go right, but then transitioning it into more of those, like in-depth product pictures, I think it almost helps, like later in the buying journey, when they get to those, settle in, like those beliefs that you might have of what could go wrong with the product, you can see the details and be like, oh, [00:23:00] it, it has this feature.
It has that feature. There's so many, details that you talk about that you might never think of, but just the way that you frame your pictures, throughout the journey of the website. It was just one that really stood out to me. Oh, yeah. it's similar to just walking in any store, like in the mall or something.
if you walk past the Apple store in the mall, maybe not the Apple store anymore, they're too like futuristic now, like h and m, right? models outside the store on the big pictures of models. Then as you go in, they're sure there are
mannequins and stuff, but everything's dedicated to the products and it's the same thing.
You're, you're sending your customers on a journey saying, Hey, look how cool this is. Look here. it's a progression. And that's an art form. that's one. Another cool thing about Shopify as well is you can do what's called AB testing, where you basically run two versions of your live website and try different images.
You can say, oh, does the guy driving the truck work better? Does it get into more sales? Or does the girl drive your truck, get any more sales, run them both at the same time and kind of test that out, And other places you just can't do that with.[00:24:00] it's all just trial and error really.
Yeah, definitely. AB testing is something I could nerd out about all day. I love running tests like that. You do some AB testing on,your TikTok account just organically, like trying go, trying a certain pathway and then trying a couple other things yeah, I'll put out an initial video, where I'll just be like, we're trying this new series, give it like a couple days or two, and if it catches on, then like I'll continue down the series and if not, like I'll let it fizzle out.
But, taking that to the extreme, I wanna say it was Ben from its boy in space I heard talking about this. He said that he, I believe would post, like multiple of the same tos, back to back, but all with like different hooks in the beginning and let them all run for an hour or so and then see which one of the hooks is performing the bus, and then delete the other couple.
which I thought was such a great strategy, and I haven't put that into practice, but it's it makes great sense and I'm sure it probably really helps him, with his engagement. obviously he's, I don't know if Ben, but he's huge on TikTok, so I might, , that's definitely the way that you want to, that you want to [00:25:00] do that, it's not just that thinking of how to, make your TikTok blow up.
You want to, you wanna maintain that thinking through pretty much everything that you do in any of. Aspect of the business world. when I first started talks, I was, if you go all the way to the bottom of Flora marketing, the first, I think like 12 or 13, was just a single hit. It was like, Hey, like here's one website that's doing this.
Here's another that's not. This is good for this reason, it's bad for this reason. There you go. And then I randomly was on Reddit some one day and it was like, oh, can you come and review my website? And so there's a whole like
subreddit for that too. I had no idea. I was like, oh, that's a cool idea.
Maybe I'll just try to review doing a one minute website review. And that just skyrocketed. So it's like, all right, I'll just do more of this. it's really interesting finding where things work too. And that's a genius idea, honestly. I'm gonna take a note of how he was trying all the different hooks on each video.
That's good. That's really good. It was a great tip. and yeah, again, like for anybody who hasn't checked out your content, the website reviews [00:26:00] definitely, really blew up and it, again, like everything ties back together, but it goes back to what you were saying at the beginning of, like giving back as much as you can for free.
And it seems like that's really, grown. Your audience like a ton is like being able to dive in, help people super quick and people seem to get a lot of value out. Yeah. it's not even the people that are getting direct value for their websites either. It's people who are trying to do something similar.
Yeah. if you're able to provide, insight on anything, then you establish yourself as an authority in that particular field so people will know, oh, like they, I'm not making a website myself, but my cousin's friend Vinny is, and I know this guy on TikTok who can help you or whatever.
it's no matter what you're doing. I feel like people might misconstrue what I mean by give away what you do for free. So if I could just specify this really quickly. Yeah. it's, it works uniquely for us and for me because of the business that I'm in. For something like [00:27:00] 3D printing, you couldn't really sell your, give away your 3D prints for free all the time, cuz then you never make any money.
But I'm talking specifically about content. So for any social media content, so like with us, our whole approach with it is overwhelm people with so much information that is, is genuine information. You really will have to do all this stuff if you want to fix your website yourself, or here's an option, we can do it for you, right?
Say, I'm trying to find a similar approach to do with 3D print. I haven't quite come up with one yet, but I think I might have something. But either way, like that's what I mean by give away your stuff for free. It doesn't mean just go start giving out everything that you make cuz then you'll not make money That way you'll not be successful and people just take advantage of you.
I'm really glad that you clarified that because I knew what you were talking about in my head, but I'm glad you clarified for maybe [00:28:00] anybody. Was not following along with that. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. you touched on 3D printing and I know we've been like very heavy on, the marketing side so far, but I wanna take like a quick pivot over to the 3D printing space, for any, the makers out there.
what,like initially got you into 3D printing and did it have anything to do with like your business or was it just a completely separate hobby? completely separate, honestly. it's, I had a friend who was like getting into 3D printing, or at least he wanted to. and it seemed like one of those things that like, I knew about it seemed cool, but like whatever.
and then I found that I could get one for 200. Yeah, and I was like, oh, that's not even bad. I thought it'd be at least like maybe a grand or 800 for a cheap one. no, that's, yeah, that's very affordable. that's awesome. So I got it and I've just been into it since then. just like doing it.
It's just a hobby, I don't know. What about you? Like I know that you obviously. You do 3D printing, that's your whole thing. Yeah. So it's funny actually, I, you might be able to see up here. [00:29:00] it's slowly cut off. I have the sign says leave me alone Uhhuh. I used to, actually make all my content around house plants.
And I had, like a house plant, shop online and I had picked up a 3D printer cuz in my mind at the time I was like, you know what? It would be so cool. , my business model actually, I was, outsourcing. Like my, I originally had grown all my own plants. I was shipping 'em outta my house and it scaled to the point where I couldn't do it anymore.
So I started working with the greenhouse and they were doing my fulfillment for me. That was great for growing my business, but it was terrible in terms of making content cuz I no longer. My orders, all my stuff in front of me to make it. that's why I was start, I started looking at different things.
It was like, what could I start making content with that would be cool. So I knew about 3D printers and I was like, wouldn't it be cool if I could like 3D print plant pots, I could 3D print stuff to go into terrariums. so like you, I looked into it like, oh, they're only like a couple hundred dollars.
I guess I'll pick one up. So started making my, plant stuff. I started doing that on
that channel and I ended up [00:30:00] just loving it so much and getting so involved in it that I now make printing content. that was kinda like a quick transition for me, but, yeah, that's, I love it.
All I started. Yeah, dude, it's so entertaining. Like it's strange how entertaining it is. One of the first things that I 30 printed was a, legend of Zelda. It's a great deco tree pot plant. Oh yeah. Planter. Yeah. It's really cool. And that's interesting, the possibilities of 3D printing are really, and listen, at least for me, I love like weird, wacky stuff in my house.
So it's just, I always print stuff for myself and I, like I said, I don't sell prints or anything like that, but it just, it brings me so much joy, just 3D printing. And it's been, a big, honestly,it, it's. Probably seems stressful to some people cuz my printers are always broken. But it's been like a big, big stress relief method for me.
So I don't know if you feel the same or if you feel the opposite, but I love it. Oh, I definitely, I, it's half and half for me when this thing does mess up it, I want to throw it out the fucking window. But when it's working like it is right now, then it's fantastic. I [00:31:00] was gonna ask, have you. Oh my god.
the rock stuff, there's a whole like community of just, they put the rock on everything. I saw this and I was like, I need that. Like it's the one, the rock thing that I've printed, but I was like, I need it. Like they have normal rouses where it's like just the rock with this one, with the heads on it.
That was my sound point. I was like, gimme that right now. I need that. That's amazing. Yeah. the rock. Side of 3D printing. I, it took me a while to understand it, I don't know how it blew up, but yeah, that, when I first got into it, I was like, why is the rock on? Every single file that I am finding.
Yeah. Everything, dude. it's the internet. The internet's gonna do goofy stuff, Yeah. Yeah. That's, another thing that's I think is something that is really cool about 30 printing that I'm hopefully able to get more into is, cosplay, doing cosplay stuff. I'm sure that you've seen tons of, like cost players, people have been printing on like material.
Yes, shoulders and like cool, like [00:32:00] scar, oh, it's coolest stuff that I think is super impressive and like the way people, I've tried even just 3D printing like a ring for myself and I can't get that to fit. So I'm like, how are you gonna get like a full like Ironman outfit or something? you have to be so specific with your
own body and then like by the time it's done, if you gain one pound, then the whole thing's messed up.
Like how do you even go through all of that? Like it's, I think that's the coolest thing, honestly. I was actually, just before I was talking to you, I was doing another podcast with Mr. Alto and he's actually in the process of building a full Iron Man suit at the moment. And, that's one of the things that he was talking about.
. What he was saying is that, a lot of the, I guess like full models that they make for these Iron Man. They're modeled after Robert Downey Jr. I think. I think that's, I've never seen a Marvel movie, so bear with me, but, I know it's a Mike job.
I'm ready. Just leave. That's simple. I have to go. It's bad. It's very bad. I know. He was saying that, [00:33:00] the most of like the models that, exist for these files are built off of his body and I guess he's got like a more of a slender frame. So what he was explaining to me is having to like remodify and refit it.
Fit his body, but then, you adjust things and it doesn't quite look great cuz you're scaling it out one way but not the other way. super interesting that just so many components of it that I had never even thought go into building something like that. Goodness. Yeah. Even just regular 3D models, like I just find models online and print them if I think they're cool.
Like I tried my hand at Blender and that was just atci. I was like, I don't want to go through and learn all of this. I know it's there on YouTube. You can educate yourself for free. But I, I just couldn't, I was like, I'm not gonna spend all the time doing this. not as I rip them. I have such massive respect for people who take the time to three model things.
Like I even have that poly cam app for my phone, so I can like three model stuff. you just record it and it snaps a million pictures and does it, it's really. [00:34:00] But even that, like you have to go in and tune it and tweak it up and stuff. Yeah, and it just, even that I'm like, no. I have so much respect for those people.
I, I cannot do it. I know. It's just too much. I know. I see, some people, they'll post videos. They're like, oh, I've been working on this design for 80 hours now. I'm like, I can't imagine. I don't even wanna print for 80 hours. Yeah. But hey, I guess there's probably people who on the flip side of that are like building their
first website and they're like, I've been doing this for 80 hours.
I can't do this anymore. I guess each person has their own thing. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I've definitely spent upwards of 80 plus hours on websites before, so I get it now. I was gonna say also, earlier mentioned Jordan Belfort, the. Store. The first like drop shipping Shopify store that I ever built was a pen store.
It was like specific for like fountain pens. that was just really, and my whole thing was like, I'll show you, I'll show you these pens. Okay. Which looking back is be, but like that, it's funny. I love [00:35:00] it. I, I have a horror story with a fountain pen. I remember I got my very first ever, it was like a door to door sales job.
I was actually, selling ad spend for this tiny newspaper at the time. And it was like my first, what I considered like a grownup job. And I was very excited. and it was back in the day, so we. We go to people with these paper contracts and in my mind I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get a really fancy fountain pun to have people sign these contracts with.
It's gonna be great. Oh, with the door do with the fountain. I would like knock on people's businesses and be like, do you wanna buy ad fund? And what was really funny about it, speaking of conversions, is we would sell impressions, like it was like a digital. newspaper type deal. We would sell digital impressions and it was a lot of education and we'd be like, we can offer you a hundred thousand impressions.
And, these little old lady business owners would be like, I can't handle a hundred thousand customers coming in tomorrow. So it was just like, it was just funny, like people's perception of that. But, yeah. Anyway, so I got this fountain pin and I was real excited about, I was [00:36:00] real jazzed and I went to my first, signing somebody was gonna use my fountain.
Exploded everywhere. There was ink everywhere. It was all over me. It was all over them. So I, I am now traumatized from ever using Fountain Pines ever again. Yeah, no, I definitely, I have a couple horror stories similar to that. It is not fun to deal with. It's like actual ink that you're dealing with.
It's not, I think maybe you can see I have a Quill one right there. Oh yeah. It's a quill feather pen. same. Nothing bad ever happened with that, cuz it's never been used. But yeah. Oh, it's very rough. you should've told the older ladies,
like your conversion rate isn't gonna be a hundred percent, don't you?
Yeah, it was,I was almost comical, like how many people I would go into their, it's just like these small mom of pop shops, but time and time again, they'd be like, we can't handle a hundred thousand customers. It's oh, okay. That's, yeah. Not quite what's gonna happen. Oh, man. And see that's, I think that's another cool thing about living in this day and [00:37:00] age is I hope that if we talk about a website here and say oh, you can get a hundred thousand impressions.
If you blow up on TikTok, and actually I knew somebody who did that on their Instagram, they blew up like crazy. And the problem is they did get way too many orders and they were doing custom candles, so Wow. They got like way overwhelmed and they had to cancel all of these orders and they had all these customer complaints to do it.
So that is like a realistic thing is. You do want your stuff to blow up. you want to have the big follower account. You want to post something on TikTok or Instagram or wherever, and that means that you're gonna make 10 sales that day just from posting it. You don't want it to mean that you're gonna get overwhelmed and have to shut your business down because now you have all these potential legal fees, you have all these problems to go with.
So it's a really fine line to, to walk that line of [00:38:00] market. The right way. Cause if a lot of people think going viral is really cool and it's cool, it's a cool feeling, but if it's tied to sales and it's tied to more work that you have to do that you're not ready for, then it can be your worst enemy.
It's all my. Tos that have gone super viral. the biggest one was like 3.2 million views in a month. it was pretty big. I was just talking, that was on a different TikTok account that I don't even, I've got five or six accounts. okay. That one was just like I was talking about like a theory of evolution.
It wa had nothing to do with any e-commerce stuff, but if I was selling e-commerce stuff, then I would've been overwhelmed. That's something that I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate to, to be able to give advice to people on is how do you like tiptoe that growth? And I think it's by establishing your voice on whatever platform you're on.
If it's on TikTok, Instagram or whatever, establishing your voice and building it [00:39:00] slowly, if you get a TikTok that blows up, then great. But hopefully if you've had basically the same kind of content and you've been selling. Body
scrubs or candles or whatever, you might be selling, which of those markets are super saturated?
Don't sell those. no, do so whatever you want. then, that's something that I try to tell people you have to be ready for is blowing up can mean actually blowing, like exploding. has anything like that happened to you or you experienced anything like that where you see like the little ladies get way too?
did anything like that happen? so it never happened to us when I was only at that ad company for a very short time, so I never ex, unfortunately, I honestly would've loved to see the little old ladies of a hundred thousand customers signing out their door. Only in the best way. Yeah. Yeah.
But, yeah, it's, it's interesting, especially again, like coming back to the 3D printing space, I first. Came onto TikTok, and got introduced to the space around Halloween time. And I remember seeing so many people, actually like experiencing that issue. The, I [00:40:00] don't know if you remember, they had the little ghosts with the feet on the feet.
Yeah. Their,oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They would pop outta the bottom. And a ton of people, Etsy was like throttling. They were like, you can't take any more orders. You've gotten like too many unfulfilled orders. they were like running into a lot of p problems and people were like, I'm trying to buy more printers.
I'm trying to outsource my orders. So it, like you said, it sounds like this really exciting, great thing, but maybe it's not always all that. It's,to me, yeah, it's not,it's really not. If you're trying to use like these platforms to sell stuff, I would recommend taking it slow, being very consistent.
Don't try to, don't try to switch it up. One thing that I have seen that is every time I've done it and tried it, it has worked. Don't know why. But if you check out, on floor Marketing Collective, I have all very consistent, it's all like website reviews, and then there's one. Fairly recent towards like maybe in the top 10 newest videos on there.
It says do we exist or like existence or something like that. Oh yeah, I went, I complete left turn. I went [00:41:00] all philosophical on this TikTok on the same, I have an actual philosophical TikTok and I did on this one, but, that one blew up, got like half million views and I don't know, it slowed down after that, but it was just like way too much.
And then I went back to the other. And for some reason, when you are super consistent, you can get really good slow controllable growth that you know you can predict. Then when you throw a wrench in it, TikTok doesn't know what to do, so it shows it to everybody. It's super weird. It's a little pro tip.
If anybody's trying to do something funny you say that. I actually experienced the same thing, so I have very consistently made 3D printing content. And out of the blue, one day I, my something piercing, followed my notes one day and I had this really weird situation going to this piercing shop. Yes. Yeah.
I had taken it out for that and then the next morning I woke up and my piercing was just gone. It was nowhere to be found. It was very strange. so I had gone to all these piercing shops and [00:42:00] I like had told this story every place I would go. I asked for a 14 gauge piercing, which is what I have, and every person I talked to was like, women don't get 14 gauge piercings.
And I was like, what are you talking about? I've never heard that before. What? it exactly my thought. I never heard of that. but it ended up blowing up that video. It got like a million and a half views. Or maybe it's a more now, I'm not sure, but actually like half of my following is people who follow me from that video.
And it's nice, but unfortunately, like those people aren't into 3D printing and people are always like, oh, you blew up. that's so exciting. But at the end of the day, like I would rather honestly just. Less followers who are all like, really interested in what I do than, not that I'm not grateful for the people, Oh yeah.
So happy to have anyone following. But,I love like really just engaging with the people who love to talk about 3D printing and things like that. So you cool when it happens, but like also it's not always yeah, everything. I think Gary Vanerchuk actually has a TikTok or quarter.
Something like that where you, [00:43:00] he says basically what you just said and if a business mogul like him is saying something that you're saying as well, then like in it's, something's gotta be working with that perspective. But basically would you rather, I think he says would you rather have a million followers that don't give a fuck about you?
Or would you rather have a thousand followers that every single one comments on every single thing that you post all the. It's like you would probably go with a thousand because it's actual engagement. It's not just
followers. That's a really good perspective. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you touched on in this that I was actually really excited to, bring up, you seem to have maybe like some kind of background.
Am I wrong for thinking maybe you have some kind of background in science or physics? Cuz I, I did see that post you had, about like existence, not quite as much. I have a little bit of science background. For a year and a half, in 20, midway through 2018, Congress app craved the, it was like the, some marijuana act where you could smoke weed if you wanted or something.
But that,[00:44:00] Utah was very strange laws, so we were allowed to have C B, D. So there was a local C B D company that I started working for. right before that is when I was working in composites, which is sciencey. It's a little bit more on the physics. but again, just being like a lone end worker there, I learned the basic physics behind it, nothing to advance.
Okay. But when I went to, this C b D place, I almost said the name of that I don't think I can legally. but when I went to go work there, I got super into the chemistry of it. and I've always just always been interested in physics and chemistry and nothing crazy. I don't have a beaker anywhere in my house.
I don't have, I just think things are interesting and I have a lot of books about it too. but it's very light background and science and chemistry and stuff just from jobs basically. I don't have anything to brag about with that. Not like a secret PhD in physics or anything like that?
no. That I, I. That would be really cool. Something. Yeah. I've always been into philosophy too. I dunno if you can make it out. I have a book by Play-Doh right there. [00:45:00] My whole, oh, that whole aisle of books over there is all philosophy. So is that one. and then down there is random philosophy mixed in.
But yeah, I've got, I've just always been into philosophy. I love it. I'm a huge audiobook person. I, I wish I could say that I read more physical books, but I, audiobook is my favorite way to consider reading books is also very highly recommended if you're getting into the business space at all, just like your eyes focusing on words and your brain reading somebody else think to you helps you like gain different perspectives that can help you in the business world.
and that kind of ties into something else that. wanted to bring up was, having enough time for things, a lot of people, oh, I never, you, all they say is, I don't
have enough time for this. I don't have enough time for that. Which is good if you are the one that they're paying to, do the work that they need for you, but for them themselves.
Yeah. If you wanna do it yourself, you can make time. There's so much more time in your life than you. If [00:46:00] you don't, if you would rather read like a physical copy of a book instead of just an audio book version, keep a book in your bathroom and then literally while you're sitting there, take an extra three, four minutes, read one page and you're done.
You do that with, that's one extra book that you have going at the 360 pages. You read that book in a year without even trying, you know if you can fit five minutes in before you go to sleep, then you have another book that you can fit in, you. So it, you have to take that kind of same approach when you're doing business stuff too.
And when you're starting out with anything like this is, we all have day jobs. We all, some of us are like lucky to have businesses that are like running well enough that they don't need to have a day job where they are their own boss, which is not fun. If anybody thinks it's fun, it's not fun being your own boss.
It really. but it's all romanticized and it's just not what's cut out to be. but like [00:47:00] you can find the time, if it's five minutes a day, you can always find the time. Progress is progress. Even if it's you're taking a 10th of a step a day, then that's in 10 days you'll be farther than you where you were 10 days before that.
there's time. Yeah, , I'm so glad that you brought that up because it's,it's something I like consciously, have to stop myself from doing.
It's it's almost a subconscious thing that I've noticed, like I'll do in the past. I don't know if you, ever get into conversations with people, but constantly, like I'll, you catch up with someone, you're like, oh, how's it going? So many people are, oh, I'm so busy and I every, I understand people have very busy lives, but I think it's also important to step back and look at where you have free time.
I think if you put things on your calendar, you can make time for it. And that has been like a really important tool for me. Maybe doesn't work for everybody, but actually just like sitting down with, I use Google Calendars, but like physically blocking out time to do specific activities. And I think what you said is really great too, which is.
You don't have to block out an hour to read every. [00:48:00] Commit to reading a page every day, and like you said,by the end of the week or by the end of the month, it adds up and it really does make an impact. I think, starting and just committing a small amount of time can be a great way to just level up over time.
Yeah, it definitely is. And plus, over time you find that you can fit more time in. You find that you get better at it, you find that, this other thing that you would rather be doing isn't really as important as what you are actually wanting to. it's nothing but beneficial. So at least give yourself, like in, in 2019, I told myself I would take a year of not allowing myself to give excuses to myself for stuff.
So that didn't just, it wasn't not having any excuses cuz I had them, plenty, but it's not accepting my own. if. I didn't wanna read that day, then I would say, I don't wanna read today. It wouldn't be like, oh, I, it's been a rough day and I can't do this and that. I would trying to be honest with myself and say,I'm not reading today.
I don't wanna read today. That's what it is. [00:49:00] And at least getting yourself in that more realistic mindset, because if you can be honest with yourself, then you can that kind of helps structure your life. In a different way that helps every, all the other pieces start to come together. I think that's really the key to it, is being honest with yourself. That's key to everything.
I've enjoyed this conversation so much and I feel like we could have gone a million different directions and down a million different rabbit holes. So maybe we'll have to do this again at some point. But, before we hop off, is there any, places that you maybe wanna send people to or any recommendations of maybe if somebody's looking.
Take the next steps with getting some kind of consulting how they would go about that with you guys. If anybody's looking specifically for like website work or anything, just find me at TikTok at Florida Marketing Collective, flora Marketing collective@gmail.com. or just find that TikTok handle and shoot a pm.
You'll be talking directly to me if you. other, those are, yeah, those are gonna be the two best ways to contact us. [00:50:00] Awesome.again, I had such a great time talking to you. Thank you so much for all the analogy you shared for me and for everybody else on here, if you don't follow already, go check them out.
and again, it was a pleasure. So thank you so much. And that is Meet the Makers.
For get it. it.