Business Lessons from Women in business: Piep
One of my absolute favorite things about having an online business is meeting amazing women and getting to know their businesses. And so I am starting a weekly feature: Business Lessons from Women in business. Let me introduce you to Mackenna and her husband, Leland. They own Piep. They grow and sell the cutest plants around. I got to visit her in her shop and take some pictures.
I’ve asked Mackenna to share some of her best business tips and tricks and give a little background to her business.
Take it away Mackenna.
Business Lessons from Women in business: Piep
Piep’s story began with a friendship. Which is the best way for all stories to begin I think. An old friend texted Lee and asked if we knew where to find a Pilea Peperomioides, the quite aptly nicknamed Friendship Plant. Turns out, they were a bit tough to find. Which gave us a crazy idea: we love plants, we always have about a dozen or more random leaves propagating in miscellaneous containers, and we’re pretty hard working—that’s all you need to start a plant business, right?!
Best Three Business Tips:
1) Find your team!
There’s always so much to do, and you’ll burn out if you don’t reach out and create a team. We work with interns from local colleges, photographers that are looking to crate a portfolio, family members with experience in different businesses, friends, random people we meet at coffee shops. It’s amazing how many wonderful people there are out there just waiting to be your friend and a part of your team!
2) Don’t pay for social media marketing up front!
Social media is really still the wild west of marketing, and a lot of influencers ask for huge fees for posts they way traditional print or TV ad campaigns would, but they can almost never get you any solid documentation on ROI. It may feel cool initially to say so and so posted about you, but when you’ve paid $1K or $5K or more for that post, it feels pretty crappy when you only get 8 new followers and no trackable sales! Unless they can provide you with really specific numbers on how posts they’ve done for other companies that are VERY similar to yours have increased sales and reach, don’t pay (and even then, you probably don’t need them anyway!). Use affiliate links, coupon codes, trade for product, things that are much more trackable for both of you and incentivize you both.
3) Be scrupulously honest!
That means not plagiarizing, not copying another company’s styling or design, and of course being honest about you, your product, and your goals. It can be so tempting to just copy exactly what’s working for other people but don’t do it! First of all, because it’s icky and immoral, and second, because it will eventually backfire! Of course you should learn from other people, dissect and analyze what’s working in your field, but then do the work and find a way to apply the principles behind what’s working for them, instead of just copying.
Currently, my favorite quote is:
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” – Cicero
Though I may add a guitar and a taco stand to that list…
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