I joined Sushant Misra of TrepTalks to tell my story of Private Label and its sister companies.
It has been a great journey full of ups and downs, lockdowns and tariffs. But with a great team, I have managed to grow the brand into something much bigger over the years.
And maybe you can also copy my methods to make more than $650K a month.
Recognizing a Good Opportunity
I started Private Label Extensions, getting to know the possibilities of the hair market.
It was less busy with a huge potential back there.
There is still potential, as any market experiences some level of growth. But you shouldn’t enter any market because people seem to get rich through it.
Every business owner starts with a different amount of capital and evolves with different monthly expenses; nevertheless, the amount of risk a person can tolerate varies.
Will you make peace with the amount of money you lost? So don’t jump on opportunities because of your fear of missing out!
Don’t Stick with One Model
Private Label was once based on affiliate marketing, where people sell for us, and then we grew to sell to customers directly.
And then we opened our first showroom because people wanted to feel the hair. We didn’t cage ourselves to one model; instead, we grew when it seemed reasonable.
Some people stick to the norm in the market, even if the model is bad, like cutting corners with the products to try to save some costs and increase profits.
Like cheap lace, filler hair, and more scams.
Then it grew to helping small businesses with wholesale, dropshipping, and branding services, as we hold more than 1 million dollars in inventory for our partners.
So, don’t be shortsighted or inpatient; your business's final character is not born yet, but you have to push until you see it.
How to Fund Your Business?
In the first year we got Private Label going, we made $250K in the first year with just the capital of $28K.
With no venture capital at all or funding from any place.
It was savings and borrowings while keeping my original day job going. These businesses were only for the real estate side of the business, like the warehouse and the stores. And we made it to the Inc. 500 list as the #278 fastest-growing company.
The physical existence helped to compete with Asian suppliers by offering a 1-hour delivery instead of days of shipping.
This enabled us to be agile with the needs of our growing audience and double our numbers.
Managing with Less Negativity
The technology wasn’t as it is today, so we had many fraudulent orders and chargebacks sometimes because people didn’t know how to care for the products properly.
Frontals and clip-ins weren’t always a thing. So, investing in educating your customers about how to get the best out of the products is essential.
You can record your training materials to save time when you have a new employee coming in, so your staff will always be up-to-date and ready to communicate better with your customers, so no one loses out.
Along with enabling different options
The Secret Marketing Formula
Traffic is everything. Without traffic, your business is dead.
I even went out of my way at some point and hired Neil Patel’s team, though they’re expensive.
But they did the job effectively. You have to get enough people to raise your chances of a sale.
Then, even with the same traffic, you can double your sales if you optimize your conversion. Your product pages, descriptions, photos, and videos are things that can work in your favor or against you.
And at the end, you need to maintain your margins so you have enough money to reinvest in your marketing and growth!
Meta Ads were once a success, but with privacy concerns, their effectiveness decreased.
So you always need to pivot into other ways, like live shopping, SEO, email marketing, and optimizing for AI chats.
But if I were to do it from the beginning, I would ditch the paid ads and focus on the SEO and getting my first review, because no one wants to be the first reviewer.
Check How to Think Like an Entrepreneur - Featured on Medium
AI for Your Business
AI sometimes eats itself with repetitive answers across users.
So you always need a personalized touch from a human mind.
It can raise your staff efficiency massively, but it shouldn’t replace them to save money and produce a crappy output.
You should even invest in your staff to operate AI with the recent developments.
Employee retention is far more important than layoffs to save money unless it was a temporary project. And you can always hire from overseas to cut down the cost.
The Logistics of Running a Business
I run a hub-and-spoke model when I have a main warehouse, but each showroom has a mini warehouse that serves the area, with the potential to start a warehouse on the West Coast to save time and costs.
And I depend on third-party services like Uber to serve reachable areas without worrying about an in-house logistics arm.
I won’t believe I made all of that if someone told me back when I shut down my first brand.
But everything begins with a curious mind, consistent routine, and a healthy body and lifestyle that enable you to push forward.