Steve Larosiliere: Season Recap
Today we have a recap episode of the podcast. We’re going to talk about some of the awesome guests we’ve had, and dive into some current trends happening in the wood business.
First off I want to give a shout-out to my partner Ethan at the Building a Furniture Brand Podcast, he has been absolutely crushing it. It’s been amazing watching him grow that podcast. You can check it out on Woodpreneurlife.com or any other podcast platform.
Looking back at the podcast, it has been about four months since we’ve taken a break, so this is a good time to check-in and recap. I feel grateful that the podcast continues to grow and I love the community that’s been building around it, it is absolutely amazing.
I wanted to talk about a couple of things today. First off, I’d love some feedback. What do you all think about the advice that I give? I’m getting good feedback, but I’d love to hear more about that. The other thing that I want to talk about is: who else do you want to see on the podcast moving forward? I feel like that’s an even more important question.
Who do you want to see? Who are the Woodpreneurs out there that inspire you and motivate you when you look at them on social media and you see what they’re doing?
Looking Back at Everything we’ve Accomplished
I ended up moving back to Chicago. My house is semi-finished but we got the flooring and I’ll post that to Instagram when the house is completely done. We also ended up making some butcher block countertops for our island. My time in Michigan was amazing. I feel like I further connected to the wood and sawmill industry and got an even better sense of what you all need.
When I look back at the past couple of months, there have been a few people that I want to highlight.
Ryan Cochrane: We talked about building community.
Mat Makin Things: He approaches it from pure organic content, a sort of generalist’s perspective.
If you listen to Pete Parisi’s episode, I walk everybody through what it takes to start a business from scratch.
Matt Ruben: He quit his job. He was also a client, I worked with him, built his website, coached him, and now he’s full-time in his business.
Kyle Kidwell: An amazing furniture maker. If you want to talk about what it takes to build a furniture line, that’s a good one to listen to.
Matt Morgan: Another incredible episode worth giving a listen to.
Christian and Lauren: They started a business with just an iDRY and then expanded into the urban lumber and slub industry.
Danny Torres: Another incredible woodworker with an amazing business.
There are so many amazing people on the podcast, and the downloads just keep going up.
I also want to talk about some trends that I’m seeing. One is, I’m seeing more and more stories out there, I’m seeing more people talk to the camera. This is great, because what it does is it allows you to connect more with your audience.
I’m also seeing a lot more videos. Video is great because that’s what the social media platforms want, they want more video, no more stills. You kind of need to see the behind-the-scenes of how things are being done.
The day and age of just having finished product shots are done. You just need to show more videos. The brands that are winning more are the ones that connect more to their audience. So they’re telling more of the story of the product and highlighting the customer. I’ve talked before about making your customer the hero. This is what I mean.
Another underutilized resource is tapping into urban lumber. In many ways, if you’re buying lumber that isn’t mass-produced, you have a story to tell.
Decentralizing your Online Presence
Last week, Instagram and Facebook went down for half the day. How many of you out there got scared for your business and your livelihood? How many of you wondered what if this goes on for a day or a week, or a month?
It would likely never happen, but how many of those thoughts ran through your head? I recently did a training on how to decentralize and diversify your lead generation strategy and I’m going to give some tips here as well. One is making sure that you have a website and making sure that it’s optimized for mobile. Then make sure that you have a blog on there where you can tell some stories so that you end up in the search engines. People can’t find you if you don’t have a website.
The next thing is all of those DMs, texts, and emails that you’ve received. You need to put them all into a database and a mailing list. The next thing you need to know is what products you have in your pipeline and how many potential customers are out there, because if you don’t have the proper information, you’re going to always be at the whim of some social media platform.
The last thing is, how are you cultivating brand new customers? Do you have your dream 100? Do you have your list of ideal target audience members? Most importantly, are you routinely following up with that?
The last thing is the fourth quarter. Get your database ready, document your process, and literally put out offers every week. Tell people that you’re selling stuff, tell people that you have inventory. You need to be putting yourself out there even more because there’s a lot of noise right now and your tables, your charcuterie boards, your built-ins etc., are a really great gift idea.
Get in Touch, Ask Questions
Long story short, join the Facebook group because we’re going to be doing more stuff there. We’re also planning something special, so if you’re in the Dallas, Texas area you should check that out.
If you are struggling with figuring out the direction of your business, getting your website built, and your customer lists together. Or if you’re too busy and you are overwhelmed and you need things to make sense and figure out how to automate your business, any of that – literally give me a call or just send me an email.
You can email me at steve@acresoftimber.com or go to www.acresoftimber.com to get in touch with me, and I’m going to help you. It’s my mission and my job to be able to make sure that you grow a successful, thriving wood business. So if you’re struggling in any way, shape, or form, let me know and I can point you in the right direction.
We have courses for all business levels, we have stuff that’s super expensive that will make you a lot of money, and if you don’t have a lot of money to work with, we have entry-level courses that I can point you to as well.
Either way, you can’t be stuck right now. You have this dream of building this big successful business, doing what you love, being able to be at home and see your family, and know that when you wake up you’re not working for anybody else.
You’re working for yourself, you’re using your hands, and you’re building products that are in people’s houses. As for the marketing and business side, I can help you with that.
So reach out. Thank you so much for listening, and I’m excited about your support and to see how much you all grow for the remainder of 2021. All right. Take care.