So, I know you guys have been thinking, “What is going”. Well to put it short, we went through a lot of changes these past few months. We have had to pivot and change direction a few times. But it was all worth it. There was a lot of re-working our marketing plan, re-budgeting our time, and fine-tuning the overall vibe and theme of the company. The first change is: we will now and forever refer to LUX LyfeStylez as a company and not a business. I feel the term "company" conveys longevity more than a business does so to put good energy out into the world we will refer to it as a company moving forward.
Okay, now for the real first new change. LoL. The website has a new look.
Our previous website gave more of a retail vibe and that is not what we were going for. We wanted a more relaxed, inviting feel. We want you to hang out on our site and check out all the different pages and sections. We changed the coloring to a more relaxing color and did our best to add informative yet entertaining content. We wanted our site to be more informative and helpful, not just to sell our products. So, we added new sections like “Spotlight Ingredient” which is to give our customers and passersby a little inside knowledge on the types of ingredients that are used in their products. It gives info such as how the ingredient is sourced, where it is usually found, and some of the benefits that it has.
Another section is “New Drops”. Which, as you can tell is where we will showcase all our newest products that have dropped recently. You will get to see what it is with a brief description about said product.
And the last change to the website is the Members Area. Now LUX FAM members can watch my twicth streams live, I have a separate area for coupons. So they are easier to find. Of course we still have our helpful video section where I will incorporate some of my own informative videos. You will also be able to shop any FAM only products (along with Merch) with ease.
So by now if you have checked out the new website you will have noticed that I missed a section.
Well I was just getting to that.
So you will have noticed a new section called “Consultations”. Now I know it is a little bit preemptive, (Well a lot preemptive LoL) But since around mid last year I have been studying to be a skincare consultant. I almost done getting my certificate for that and then I will be officially enrolling in school to become a licensed Esthetician. My consultant certificate will allow me to analyze and determine a client’s skin type and recommend products to their benefit, and my Esthetician course will allow me to give facials and perform massages and other day spa amenities. These are services that I do want to offer my LUX FAM members only as an exclusive benefit.
All of these changes will help bring the company closer to its long term goals. One of which is to offer the most benefit to our clients and customers.
Just a side note: Once the FAM has enough members we will be able to start hosting events.
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The next big change we did was a Different direction for the products. We started off wanting to retail other businesses products then slowly take our time to make and add our own brand. This would allow us to have a wider range of products than the ones we could make ourselves. Unfortunately, retailing turned out to be way more costly than we originally had planned for in the small quantities that we wanted to buy.
In the end we ended up having to either purchase more products than we wanted to or had room for; or pay way too much for the small quantity we need. Either way, it ended up being costly on you, our customer’s end. This goes against our entire reasoning for starting the business. So, the end decision became, drop retailing and focus solely on making my own branded products. And guess what?
By far the best decision I ever made! I love making things! Putting my focus 100% on formulating and sewing has been the most fun I’ve had in a long-time doing work. Just making something as small as scrunchies or a 3-ingredient product brings so much joy and feeling of accomplishment. I have always enjoyed making things and DIY-ing, now I am able to do it for a living. So, to make these new products I had to learn how to formulate and quickly. Luckily for me, I had already done the research of a few accredited programs that would teach me how to formulate organic & natural products that would be able to pass stability testing and any certifying bodies. I started with a natural skincare diploma course which covers everything from face oils and lotions to shampoos and bath soaks. It has taught me how to make a wide variety of products while also inspiring me to make new and more creative products.
Learning how to formulate has shown me just how similar and unoriginal a lot of the products are on the market, in terms of the ingredients used. Everybody uses shea butter and cocoa butter and jojoba oil and castor oil. Silly me, before learning to formulate I thought these were high end ingredients. Turns out they are average and low cost. Seeing how Redefining is a big part of our brand, I wanted to change how people look at the ingredients in their products. The course I took exposed me to a wide range of ingredients that I had never heard of let alone seen in any skincare product that I have bought. And most of these ingredients aren’t pricey to obtain. With all of this new knowledge, I decided to use mostly niche ingredients as a selling point to create lavish and luxurious products. Our goal is to not be like everyone else. We want to stand out amongst the many brands in this vastly huge industry we call the Beauty industry.
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The last and most important change was and is Consistency. This issue I struggle with the most. My goal to be more consistent is to keep the creative moment when I have it. I tend to lose my creative stride when I hit a small roadblock like, when I’m formulating and I run out of an ingredient or tool, instead of switching gears to another project, I give up entirely. This is where my one-track mind comes in.
I need to work on my consistency across the board. I need to post more on my socials, stream more, vend at markets more, craft more, formulate more, and continue furthering my education. In order to do this, I needed to establish good healthy habits. Keeping my desk organized helps me to want to do more work. Making my supplies easier to reach and access also helps me work on projects more. So, getting all my ingredients, supplies, inventory, and tools organized in easy to access areas was crucial to achieving my consistency goal. The key is definitely making sure there are no excuses.
So far it has been working great. I am not working on things that aren’t important and am now able to get more done. I have more content than I thought cued up, and ready to finalize editing or ready to post. I also eased the pressure on me. I don’t have to adhere to anyone’s standards but my own and I’d forgotten that while learning marketing skills. I created a marketing schedule that works for me. Though it may not be what is recommended, it is definitely a better plan for me. It is designed with giving me more time to work on things and not feel rushed.
Going to a local market is a big part of my consistency push. It’s close to my home and a great place to start building regular customers and growing my brand. Each time I’ve gone I get more people stopping by my booth. It also gives me a chance to perfect my booth setup. I found that towards the end of the day when it starts to get windy, it’s almost impossible to keep my booth together. These are things I have learned as I continuously go to the same market. I hate to imagine myself at a bigger market and these things happening. SMH I can feel the stress already LoLs.
While striving to be more consistent, it has helped me be more creative. I can see now why I felt so unmotivated (more on that later). I’ve got a renewed spark and it has me so excited for all my plans and goals to come to fruition.
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Now I know everyone is wondering, “What brought upon this big change? And What made you want to do it? Well, there are 3 reasons that sparked this Revamp/Relaunch:
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Wanting to quit my 9-5
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Unmotivated to work on business
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Knowing that I can sell at markets
These 3 reasons are what really got me up and moving to change things. I had been wondering for awhile what was the issue. I knew I had products that people would want. I knew that my marketing tactics were definitely contributing to the lack of growth, but I couldn’t believe it was affecting my company this much. I knew there had to be more deep-rooted things that could explain why I was stagnant after just launching my business. I looked back on that first year and saw just how much work I put into it. How much I enjoyed it and how much fun I was having. Lately it felt like being at my 9-5 job, when it was supposed to be the complete opposite.
My 9-5 is completely mentally draining and stressful. I work as a collections clerk collecting on past due balances, so the majority of my day is being negatively influenced by bad news for 8 hours a day, five days a week. There is always an issue, complaint, or problem as I deal with Business 2 Business billing. This has become so mentally stressful for me that it has affected my passion to build my company up. I’ve gotten to the point where I want to quit so I can focus more on my company and my happiness. I do have other side jobs, that once I’m not working a full-time job, I can do to supplement a part-time job income until my company can begin to pay me.
In order to “put a fire under my ass”, I had to first figure out the minimum amount of revenue I need the company to make at each market event in order to pay me a minimum wage paycheck. Once that was determined I needed to figure out how many days I could realistically be at markets while I am still working full-time. I didn’t want to overwork myself or I would be in the same predicament. Being realistic about what I can actualy do as opposed to what I would like to do was a hard pill to swallow. I had to consider things like delivery times, payday, and my daughter's prom & graduation. I would have liked to quit my job in 2 months but that wasn’t a realistic plan. So, after much thought, I gave myself at least a year to get the company revenue up, as long as I adhere to my retail plan.
Now having a plan was all fine and good until I noticed that I was unmotivated to work on my plan. I would find myself overwhelmed with the amount of tasks that needed to be completed. Once that happened I would opt to not work t all rather than to be stressed out after coming home from a stressful job. Or I wouldn’t have enough time between all of house errands and my kids extracurricular activities, that I would also opt to not do anything and just relax and chill. Sometimes I would outright doubt my abilities that would also lead me to choosing anything over working on my company, until I actually attempted the task. This all boiled down to me overthinking things. I didn’t need to be the best, I didn’t need everything to be perfect. I just needed it to be acceptable. When I started using that phrasing, I found myself more proud of my work and getting more work done. Sometimes perception is all that is holding you back from yourself. This tactic has been extremely helpful in getting content created. This was the biggest thing I would put off only to crank out weeks worth of content in one 8hr sitting.
What I started doing was working on one piece of content until my ideas ran dry then switching gears to a different task altogether. They say mini breaks help or working in spurts. And they are right! Now this doesn’t work for me at my corporate job, but it works great for me with my company.
The last thing that really got me motivated to revamp my company was that I knew I could sell at markets. I had been previously focusing on the online selling as the main focus of the sales push. I realized during all of this revelation that online selling is not where my company will excel. It is in the markets!. Where people can come try out, feel and smell my products is what drives my sales. The only problem is I am a huge inrtovert and social interactions make me uncomfortable to the point I start to get anxiety. The idea of selling at markets has always scared me off by the sheer number of people that attend. I had to figure out a way to get around my introverted personality and quick. This was definitely holding me back in terms of what I could achieve. My work around was start small. Start by going to the smallest markets I can find regularly until I feel more comfortable and have less anxiety being in crowds. SO far it’ s been working. Each event I go to, I have less anxiety than the last time. I approach more people than I did the last time. Fixing my booth setup to allow more time for me to ring up a customer instead of rushing because there isn’t enough space for 2 people to stand at my booth or room for me to ring them up. I made more signs to eliminate me having to interact unnecessarily. Finding ways to lessen the amount of interactions has helped make me more confident in selling at these markets. Which is my goal after all.
After all of that I finally got through all of the new things and why I decided to Revamp/Relaunch the company. Now to tell you guys about what will stay the same. Our whole company vibe & tone will be the same. We are still all about fun with a little bit of bougieness to it. We will still focus on luxury experiences and ways to add luxury into your life everyday. You will start to see an uptick in this type of content coming in the next few months as we are still getting the sales model running. Our motto is to Redefine Luxury so it’s Affordable for EVERYONE. We will hold true to that.
At Last! The part you have been waiting patiently for. NEW PRODUCTS!!! I know, I know. WHat’s new that’s dropping. Well............bath bombs, perfume sticks, & hand soap. We have a new scent in our Honey line of soaps and in our Aloe line of soaps. We love the benefits of honey and aloe in soap and decided to make a whole line different scents with each type. Currently we only have one hand soap in our inventory, so I’m happy to add more. A good decorative hand soap always looks good in the guest bathroom. The other product is bath bombs. I have been working hard on a bath bomb formula that doesn’t stain the tub and allows for the fragrance and any actives to be dispersed throughout the bathwater instead of floating on top like oils tend to do. This has resulted in our line of softening bath bombs. These bath bombs are designed to not only soften the water but to soften your skin as well. There have been times when I noticed that after moisturizing my skin still feels kind of rough. This bath bomb line helps to eliminate that issue. Currently we have the one scent. But will be dropping various colors and scents soon. So look out for those. The most newest product that we are dropping is a perfume stick. Now this is similar to a roll-on perfume, in that it is a concentrated perfume that you can apply wherever and whenever you like. This is a new type of product that I am curious to see how much interest it will generate.
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