Episode 11 Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It’s me, Lisa, and we are here today with my friend, Jamie from Color Street. Hi, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us. Hi. I just wanted to jump right in and I’m gonna get you to tell the listeners a little bit about Jamie, who are you and what do you do for fun and all that jazz?

Okay, hi, I’m Jamie. I am with Color Street. I am a married, stay-at-home mom. My amazing husband has given me the opportunity to be able to do that. I have two beautiful girls. One is almost six. She’ll be six next month. And the other one is four. We got lucky and they were 16 months apart. So I kind of liked them with that short age gap because, you know, they can share clothes and all that other fun stuff. I found direct sales about 10 years ago. I want to say, uh, I started with perfectly posh actually. Okay. Yeah. It was really fun, but it was just one of those, it was my first one. So I couldn’t really, I was young, so I couldn’t really get myself like into it too much. But I’ve been with Color Street for five years in August of this year. So we’re about four and a half years now. And I just love the company so much. And going back to your previous question about what I like to do for fun. We like to travel. My kids love to be outside. So, you know, they’re always on bikes and I’m always outside with them. We’re colouring with chalk and playing with our dogs and all that fun stuff.

Awesome. It’s fun to be like home with the kids. And that’s what I loved when I, one of the main reasons actually why I got into direct sales is because my youngest, he just had some health issues and I was doing daycare to sort of offset some income. And I couldn’t just put him back into that environment where he got sick from. So I picked up direct sales and you can, it’s amazing at what you can do with a business if you put your mind to it, eh?

Right, right, for sure. So I always like to ask people, what made you choose Color Street? Well, honestly, I fell in love with the product first. I went to a friend’s party and her stylist was awesome. She was fun. She was energetic. She really got you to fall in love with the product before you even were able to try it. It was amazing. And then I got that first sample. I tried them on my nails and I just fell in love and I said this is what I want to do. It was actually perfect timing because I was pregnant with my youngest and I knew that I wasn’t going to go back to work after I gave birth after my maternity leave and everything was up. So I was like, this is perfect. I can just jump in. My husband was a hundred percent behind it. And he bought me my starter kit and everything. And it’s just history from there. I actually joined four days after my second, after my youngest daughter was born.

So, awesome. So when you’re looking at Color Street, like the passion behind the product that’s the driving force for sure. Do you go out and say, every person needs to have these on their nails or? I mean, absolutely. I want everybody to have them on their nails. But yes, definitely passion for the product is a hundred percent part of being passionate about actually doing this. When I first started, there’s still a fairly new company. I think we’re on year seven this year in June, but when I started, they were only about two years old. So they were just strictly nail strips and that’s the product I fell in love with. They have recently expanded in the last year or so to some amazing makeup products, amazing. So, you know, I, the original passion of nails is always gonna be there, but with coming out with all these new amazing makeup products and hand and nail care items, you know, I just have to have it all. I am, I am, I, you know, I wouldn’t say I’m my best customer, but I’m probably my second best customer. You know, I always try and at least get one of a new product so I can test it. I can go live in my group. I can show, you know, benefits and, you know, tips and tricks and all that fun stuff. So yeah, passion for the product is definitely, definitely 100% why I’ve stayed with Color Street for so long.

Yeah, I totally agree. So this question might be interesting to people or this comment, not necessarily this question, but I find that, you know, we would have never have met if it weren’t for direct sales. Because I met you through I think she’s your upline, contacted me to host a training for her team on the Boards app. And then we got on a call for her leadership team and that’s how we connected. And it was kind of cool because then we just stayed connected in Facebook. So I like to always tell people like, it’s amazing how far your reach can go with direct sales because if it weren’t for this business, I don’t think I would know anywhere near like three quarters of the people that I know. It’s, I just love, I just love how it brings people together. It truly does. Yeah, for sure. So I really appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Yes, and Boards has actually become a huge resource for my business. So thanks for that awesome training. And the funny thing is Molly actually sent me, I think it was a page that you created that she sent me. She goes, look at what she created. I love it, I love it. Molly is awesome. Yes, it’s an awesome resource. I like doing parties with it and you know, it’s just somewhere organized in my world of chaos with two kids, you know. It keeps everything organized for me. Pictures and verbiage and all that fun stuff. That’s definitely a great place to organize your business for sure. For sure.

All right. So I want you to tell the listeners, what are you most proud of in your business? Um, well, I would probably say I am most proud of coming out of my shell, um, in this business. Uh, you know, growing up in, you know, middle school, high school, I was very shy. Um, you know, even if I knew an answer, I wouldn’t voluntarily raise my hand usually to answer the question. Um, it just kind of, I didn’t like being put on the spot, even though I knew I was right. Um, but you know. It’s mostly like the public speaking, you know, I put air quotes with public speaking because you know, you’re not really out in the public when you’re doing lives and stuff in your group. Um, but I honestly don’t think I did a live video in my VIP group until after the first year of being a stylist with color street, um, I was scared to death. And I was like, you know, I don’t need to do that to, you know, be successful or grow my business and, uh, you know, I’ve got to say. It is an amazing tool going live. Like I said, every time there’s a new product, I try to grab one. Um, I go live so I can showcase it. I can, you know, talk about benefits and tips and tricks and I can apply it. They can see me wearing it and, you know, see how much I love it and see my passion for it. Um, and you know, after that first live that I did, um, you know, it still makes me nervous, you know, you’re on camera and you don’t want to look, you don’t want to look silly. But, that’s part of the fun too. Your customers want to see you as you, they want to see you. So being silly and messing up your words or having kids in the background that are screaming, mama, mama, you know, it’s just, that’s just your extra charm that they are looking for to connect with you. And that has…actually pushed me forward to try, I try, I don’t always, but I try to do one live every week. You know, sometimes it’s only twice a month. Sometimes, honestly, it’s, I don’t get, I don’t go live at all in a month. Or I’ll be doing a special, something like in December I did 24 days of giveaways and I have a little advent calendar. You know, they just had to answer a question in an interactive post. And then I spun the wheel at the end of the night and I showed them the advent calendar and I pulled their prize out. And I did that, you know, so I went live almost every day in the month of December. And was that prizes, were they Color Street prizes or were they just random prizes that you were giving them? You know, this year was my second year. And I did do…a lot of Color Street prizes this year. The first year I tried not to, cause I was like, you know, I was afraid of people getting sick of it, or you know what I mean? And I didn’t wanna just like shove it in the face all the time. So the first year I didn’t, I put a few, I sprinkled a few in there, but this year I did almost all of them as Color Street prizes because we had so many amazing things we’ve got. We had new like four nail accent packs and we have like mini mascaras and stuff like that. Just like little prizes that I’ve earned or bought myself that I thought were really cool and that I thought that they would enjoy. But yeah, so going live and stepping out of my shell and showing them who I am has definitely helped with interaction and everything. And…I love the live interaction. I love when my VIPs join and they’re talking and you know, they’re asking questions which helps fill those like awkward voids in, in subject. So yeah, totally.

Now question for you about where you do most of your business. Is it in your like a closed VIP group or do you have a page or do you do things on Instagram? Like where? Where’s most of your business done? Most of my business is in my closed VIP group. Um, I do dabble in Instagram. Um, but honestly, I usually only use Instagram when I need to share a story with a clickable link. Um, like if, you know, my shopping link or, you know, some kind of form that I made. And I want people to be, to be able to click it. Cause Facebook doesn’t give you that option, unfortunately. Um, so, you know, I use Instagram to post. Reels sometimes and then stories with the clickable links. I do utilize my personal page quite often now just to kind of step out of that normal customer base, trying to widen my customer base. My team always says, you don’t know who’s watching. So, you know, even if you feel like you’re annoying people, if they don’t want to see it, then they won’t, they’ll just keep scrolling. You know, something might eventually catch their eye. So you want to be consistent. I love that.

So when we do the pre-interview, so I send out, um, like a little questionnaire to you guys, um, before you come on, just to get to know you a little bit better and, you know, I asked you in, in that pre-interview question, like, what is your, your superpower in your business? And you mentioned that you were awesome at customer care. And I think customer care is like huge in this business because you wanna keep them coming back. You wanna build that know, like, and trust factor. So can you give our listeners a little bit of a deep dive into what your customer care looks like and how you treat your customers? Absolutely. So I used to offer gifts and prizes for like everything. Um, and you know, obviously that’s not ideal for everyone or really in the long term, I mean, that, you know, costs a lot of extra money. Um, so I have like slowly tapered off from offering prizes and, um, stuff like that. Um, and I’ve been sending personal messages. Um, I’ve been getting to know my customers, getting to know them as a person, um, you know, making connections with them like that and getting to know their needs for my business. You know, I realized that once I started making those connections, people didn’t care if I wasn’t offering prizes. If they wanted to order something, they would just order it, you know? And then part of that customer service would be follow-up. So, you know, after I see…Um, so that somebody placed an order, I would, you know, post to my VIP group with the order with the thank you. And then I send them a message. You know, with a thank you and you know, I hope you really love this and, you know, I think this colour would look awesome on you. And then, you know, I always make sure that I’m following tracking numbers. And when they get their order, I follow up again and say, you know, Hey, I always try to add like a personal message in there too. It’s not just like right to business. It’s like, Oh, you know Sally’s dog was sick last time we spoke. So, you know, let me follow up with her and, you know, ask how her dog is doing and, you know, keep that personal connection going. So, um, you know, they don’t just feel like I’m, I’m just messaging them, you know, for the sale, cause I, you know, while that’s what the business is, it’s not always what I’m looking for. You know what I mean? I, you know, I like to make those personal connections and make friends and you know, you start to care about these people and, you know, knowing their personal lives and stuff like that. So, you know, I just feel like that’s a big, huge part of the customer, customer care side of it. Um, you know, getting to know your customers and not just them, not just being a sale for you, cause that’s not, that’s not, that’s not what they want. That’s not like the personality that I want to set forth for them. You know. I don’t want them to say, oh, I’m just a sale for them. So they’re not going to talk to me unless I buy something or they want me to buy something, you know? I like to check in with VIPs that I talk to quite often. I’ll check in with them and ask them how their kids are doing or how their animals are doing and how their husband’s doing, stuff like that. Asking how their vacation went, yeah. Yeah, and that’s definitely goes a lot to building the trust factor because you’re…they’re believing in you that you actually want to provide them with a service and you’re not looking at them as a dollar sign. So I love everything that you said. So question about your customer care, like do you use any kind of system or tool to track that? Is it like written or is it in your head? Because I knew that I know that I did for many, many years, everything was just in my head and finally had to get it out. And is it automated at all? Or is it all like one on one? So, Color Street offers, in our back office, in our virtual office, they actually send us reminders to check in with this person, check in with that person, after a certain amount of time after they place their order. And you can actually send them a message directly from there. But it usually goes to like an email. Or if they put a real phone number, you can send them a text message. But I don’t like to do that unless I ask the person if it’s okay if I send them a text message. Cause I feel like that’s a little too, that’s a little too pushy. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I mean, since I started with Color Street, I have. Honestly, just made notes in my phone. Um, I have a few different notes, you know, where I keep, um, party links and I keep, um, like order followups and then I’ll put the date. So I usually like to check in the day after tracking shows that they receive their order. So I’ll put that date next to their name. Um, and then like, if I have packages, I need to send out, I’ll write the person’s name and then, you know, what I should be sending them. Um, and I also use, um, another program called you and me who just to keep my inventory, uh, organized and people can claim from that. So I leave those claims up in there until I mail them out and make sure that they receive them. But yeah, I don’t do anything automated or anything. I just keep notes in my phone, honestly, and it’s worked for me for almost five years now. So I think that that’s the best for me because honestly, if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget about it. It’ll just leave me a brain. It’ll be like, bye, poof.

Well, and you have to create, I’m a big believer in, you have to create a system that works for you, because what works for me, what works for your upline, isn’t gonna work for you. It’s gonna be something that you can pick up and run with. And if you’re having the great success that you are with your systems of writing it down, then don’t change it. Like don’t fix what’s not broken. So I’m a big believer in that. Even though I am, you ask anybody and you probably know yourself, like give me all the tech tools that I can and I will use them, but I still…I’m a big believer that there has to be a personal connection. Your business cannot be totally automated, that’s for sure. Exactly, it’s just not personal. So with our virtual office, with Color Street’s virtual office, we have like a bulk emailing system. And I feel like people know that that’s a bulk email. Even though our system, puts everybody’s name in their individual, they still say, hello, Donna, for everybody. I feel like they know that it’s not, that’s not a personal message just for them. That’s not a personal email just for them. They know that it’s gonna be a bulk message. And if I do have their real email addresses, sometimes I’ll send separate emails to people. I do have some customer phone numbers that say, you know, hey, this is the best way to get ahold of me. You know, feel free to message me when there’s new launches or specials or, you know, stuff like that.

So I always love to ask this question to all of the guests because I love the responses that I’m getting so far. So is there any quote or words of advice that you’ve been given during your direct sales time that have stuck with you and you think others need to hear? I actually have a couple. One, a recent quote from a leader, she went to a leadership conference for the company and they had a great quote that says, whatever you have done is nothing compared to what you can do. And I see that as only you can hold yourself back. I mean, there’s only so many times that you can blame others for not being successful. You have to have that drive. You have to have that passion. You have to put in the energy to be successful. And then another one, this is just something that, my team leaders always say, they say go for no. Don’t be afraid of people saying no to you. It’s not personal. If you have that fear of the no, you’re stopping yourself from growing in your business, even as a person too stepping out of that comfort zone again, you know, talking about that earlier. You know, send those messages to people that interact with your posts. And you know, if they don’t want to hear it, you know, they’ll say no, and then you say, you know, thank you and move on. It’s not, it’s really not personal. And I think a lot of people take the no as, as a personal, like assault on them. You know what I mean? I have some of my best customers say no to me. And it’s not anything personal. I don’t take it personal. I just say, okay, thanks. I’ll keep you in mind for something that I think, maybe the next launch, there’s gonna be an awesome colour that I think you’re really gonna like or a new product or something like that. And I think the biggest thing there is, when people are afraid of the no, I feel that they’re coming at it from a place of sales.

21:47
So they’re just looking out for what’s in it for them, the money they can make and so forth. But if you’re truly reaching out to your customers or somebody even who has commented on one of your posts and you truly believe that you have a service that can help them with one of the problems that they’re facing, then you’re doing the right things. So getting a know when you’re coming at it from that way, is it doesn’t sting as hard. Right. You know what I mean? Because you’re coming at it. It’s like, oh, you know, like you said, I think you this colour would look awesome on you, or it’s similar to colours that you’ve purchased in the past, just wanted to make sure that you Seen that this new colour is available now. Let me know if I can help you with anything. It’s you’re not saying like, you know, oh, you got to buy this colour. It’s brand new. It’s gonna sell out quickly, like those messages are like, okay, here’s something new, try it, buy it, I need some money and you’re done. And getting a no with that, it’s like, ouch, that hurt, but it’s because you weren’t being of service. So I’m a big performer, like, you know, come from a place of service and your business will grow for sure. Right, well, and going back, sorry. No, that’s okay. Going back to what we were talking about earlier about people, you don’t know who’s watching, like posting on your personal page. You don’t know who’s actually seen those and, you know, maybe thinking about it. Or, um, if you have, if you have, like Sally liked your post about, um, you know, becoming a stylist, maybe send her a message because what if she’s afraid to message you too, if you’re both afraid of messaging, then, you know, that’s a missed opportunity, possibly. So, you know, that kind of ties into the go for no, you know what I mean? It never hurts. And I have personally never had anybody like block me or be nasty or anything to me if I reached out because they liked to post. I’m not going to like cold message people. I think that’s, that’s an egg. Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, if they have interacted with a post or, you know, we’ve talked about it even before, um, you know, following up and, you know, Go for the no.

Don’t be afraid of the no. Because for every no, you’re getting closer to a yes. Love it. I was just gonna say, so I suggest people go back and listen to your quotes over and over again. Write them down because they were awesome. And I love that, go for the no, because that’s something you could even have on your wall somewhere, because no is the one word that stalls people. For sure. Right? And it’s just a word. And I mean, it’s a scary word. It is a scary word, when you think of it in terms of, if you went out and I said to Jamie, Jamie, you want a piece of gum? And you said, no, I don’t chew gum. Like I wouldn’t be like, oh my goodness. She like said no to my gum. Like, you know, I’m gonna die. Like I can’t handle this. She’s like, no, it’s just no. Like I don’t chew gum. And it’s like, so like if I offered, hey Jamie, you know, have you ever tried? 3 onion dip mix from Epicure. And you’re like, oh no, no, I don’t do onions or something like that. Like it’s not, you’re not saying no to me, right? It’s like, no, I don’t do onions, but there’s a possibility that there might be something else in the line that you could offer them, right? So definitely something to listen to over and over again, write it down, have it in front of you because that’s what’s gonna inspire you to do more for sure. Before we wrap it up,

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I know people are going to be wondering, where can we find Jamie? You said you hang out mostly on Facebook. So how could they find you? Well, my main profile is very private, so I’m not even sure if I’m searchable, but my VIP group is searchable and it’s Jamie’s Nail Beauties VIP. Okay, I will be sure to mark or tag that in the show notes so they could just click into it. So just make sure I have that link. But yeah, I appreciate you taking your time to talk to us. And if anyone wants to get in touch with you or if they have any questions, they could just contact me and I can connect you guys too. And again, thank you so much for joining us, Jamie. And I appreciate you being one of the guests. You’re welcome. And we’re gonna say goodbye now guys and see us on the next podcast. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye.