Everything You Need To Grow A DTC Fashion Brand (With Alex Greifeld & Nasrin Jafari) transcript

all right I am not kidding you when I tell you this is one of my favorite episodes of this show that I have ever recorded I absolutely loved this conversation between me Alex grield and nazin Jafar you've heard nazin a couple times on the show before talking about her apparel fashion business uh mixed by nazarin Alex grield is somebody whose content I followed for a long time and here's what I love so much about the conversation you're about to hear I've had a lot of these conversations now right and you can just tell when somebody has thought about the question before you've asked it I don't mean that they have anticipated the question that you're asking what I mean is you ask them a question and their answer to the question reflects that they have already thought about this same question at some point in the past in their work and they have clear perspective that is rooted in some kind of mix of data and experience and and all those things and so then when they speak to it you can feel it you can tell they have real expertise this is the thing I'm talking about all the time when I talk about the idea of uh of not testing everything of having fundamentals that you can rely on Alex reflects that so well in this conversation that you will love it including if you are not an apparel or fashion brand operator you should still listen to this episode because even though we talk specifically about Alex and her interest in fashion and and apparel and how she sort of wiched into that we talk about nasan's fashion apparel business the things she talks about here are so much more broadly applicable and the thought patterns are so much more broadly applicable that they will be useful to you to your business to your your clients whoever you are Etc so um strap in for a great episode before anything else please do go listen to or go uh DTC fashion decoded.com subscribe to Alex's newsletter it is awesome we talk about it later but I want to get out in front of that right now uh no more delays get ready for my episode with Alex grield and Nazar and Jafari talking about how to build a successful profitable fashion business all the elements of that and specifically how Nazar not to do that in her business you are going to love this conversation all right nazarin hello uh I'll start with you because you're like a you're a multiple time veteran of this podcast and so it's good to see you how you doing I'm good how are you good uh we're gonna get to Alex in just a second uh but uh just give people the very quick uh overview for those who don't know look there's two episodes Linked In the show notes you can get some context for Nazar and her business there including an opening the books episode where we like we like opened the books we looked closely at nazar's business a little over a year ago um now but um nazin and I have worked together since then and talked about a bunch of different stuff and so Naz just give people an overview of what mixed by nazarin is um and then uh and then Alex we'll kick it to you in a second but nazarin tell the people hey everyone my name is nazarin I'm the founder and designer of mixed we are a fashion brand that designs everyday statement wear that inspires people to live in full color this is a bootstrap brand so started it with no previous experience in e-commerce um I used to be a teacher uh built the brand to first little over 100k met Andrew we scaled things together now we're going for around 3 to 5 million this year so dealing with lots of uniquely fashioned apparel issues in the three to five million range and that's what I'm really excited to talk to Alex about today in fact working with you aarin has made me think a couple of things uh have has helped me develop a couple of opinions about e-commerce right now some of those are fashion specific but one of them is that I I think the3 to4 million range is maybe the very hardest stage of e-commerce I think they're all hard in their own ways but there is this there's this challenge where the business is getting bigger you don't really have the margin if you're growing with any speed to like go add a whole bunch of help um and so like you know Opex costs Loom really large so you can't just go add all that help and at the same time it's getting bigger than what you can do for yourself and it is a really tough stage of business it's really really tough so I whether you're an apparel or fashion brand or not I think there will be things that are relatable to you in this episode um okay Alex let's Let's uh get me out of the way and talk to you a little bit and I tell people a little bit about where what your background is and and all of that and maybe maybe you can speak to a little of like you've been I mean you've been creating dtoc strategy growth uh content for a while in in a few different channels and worked with a lot of different brands including we've I I don't even know if you know this but we've overlapped on some Brands here and there um but uh but you have more recently also niched a little bit more into this apparel and fashion space so I'd love to hear a little bit about your total background but then also um what Drew you to going towards apparel and fashion specifically so um I've been in in Apparel in fashion a long long time I actually studied uh Design and Merchandising in undergrad and I worked for three years as an actual fashion designer like I was I was designing mom jeans and it was um it was a much different time it was I think I was designer from like 2005 to 2008 so department stores were still kind of big Ecom was just a you know a twinkle in everyone's eye uh it was a completely different landscape and I did that for about three four years and I realized I just cannot do this for the rest of my life like this is not the career of the life that I want to have so I pivoted into a digital marketing and e-commerce mostly working with fashion Footwear apparel brands in my full you know as in my life as a full-time employee uh I went a solo in 2022 I've been Consulting for a little bit more than two years at this point um working with a more broad range of Industries and categories but fashion and that whole Space is you know I just I'm just drawn to it I I do like I appreciate beautiful things that's the most shallow reason why I'm drawn to it but I also appreciate as kind of like a portal into human psychology um and the industry just really is different like the the Dynamics of growing a fashion business especially on meta and in some of these digital channels like it really is different than trying to scale a supplement brand or like um cookware brand or anything else you can think of that's like really feature benefits Focus yeah and that's definitely been one of the things that has been you know I've actually been kind of kicking around the idea of like whether or not um you can bring a more feature benefit Focus to Fashion advertising at least in some categories in nazrin's case you know nasrin has jumpsuits specifically as has been like the core item and there's an element of that that almost feels a little bit more like that uh look I'm I'm not the jumpsuit customer but just from like observing um observing some of those things and but it is it is I mean to that point it is a big question I'm also going to just quickly say that um that I I would say the the draw to beauty is not shallow at all I think I think it's it's a very fundamental human thing and I think it's one of the things I really like about working on have liked about working on mixed by Azar is like these product releases are you know you're trying to run a business and make money of course and all those things but it is not lost on me that there is this element of expression and all of that and when I get around Real Fashion people that's one of the things I really like about it actually is like people care about creating adding value to the world via Beauty and I certainly know that's true Nazar and of you that you know as you create these things it matters you know it matters to people and and to people's everyday experience in these real ways so um so you know uh don't talk about yourself like that Alex it's it's a good it's a good reason to to like to like it you know um okay I let's let's actually use this feature benefit thing as a jumping off point so if it's not feature benefit um as the driver of D of of uh you know advertising growth and those kinds of things what is the driver of growth for a fashion business in e-commerce so I like to call it see it Like It by it um silby it doesn't sound great as an acronym but it's especially if you're looking at um at female consumers or anyone who's into fashion you're always kind of like passively consuming content or looking looking at different brands even if you're not highly motivated or in Market to buy something so the path to purchase or the the customer journey is literally you know they see something and if they like it enough they buy it and it's almost like this virtual changing room kind of mentality where you you feel pretty confident that you can return it so it's like you know you'll buy it you try it on if it doesn't work oh you return it so the friction is lower like you'll see clickthrough rates for fashion at ads are a lot higher than they are for other categories because it's not like something you're ingesting or putting on your face where if it doesn't work it could really mess you up uh so that's that's kind of like what the the consumer mentality is in a lot of situations sometimes people are driven in Market by specific scenarios like they have to dress for an event or their body changed or they're moving or the seasons are changing those are things you can leverage as a brand to the extent that like you fit into those different moments um but when you're comparing fashion like fashion use case marketing to to use case marketing for something like a supplement um there are just so many use cases that you can't make ads for all of them like it's not scalable so it's more like presenting the product and and answering questions about that the person might have about it yeah so um so when you think about that uh and you take that a step further back this sounds fundamentally to me like a challenge mostly of merchandising and um and design like it becomes like you have to you have to take the problem down to product not just in a way of like making sure there's like efficacy like a supplement or something like that like you talked about her skincare or whatever but just like there becomes this like this challenge of that and I know like know Naz I don't know if you want to chime in and think about like sort of how this has worked out in mix but like um you know we've definitely seen this like product release moments are really big at the actual moment of drop but then also beyond that then those new products become the fuel to grow in the ad account moving forward Etc and so um I don't know uh maybe Alex you want to speak to um sort of how how a brand a fashion brand ought to be thinking about developing those products in the first place and maybe we could think about that specifically for mixed a little bit uh about as well so um how should Brands be thinking about sort of what to make so there are two models there's like a true fast fashion everything store which if you you think about like a Zara or a teu or you know a company like that they just try to hit as many Trends as possible and they don't buy super deep into any one style and you need a lot of scale like you need a lot of capital investment to make that work so it's not realistic for you know a bootstrap brand to approach things that way um the other way to think about it is you are providing curation like you're providing perspective and curation for people for like a sub segment of the population who has certain tastes or interests and so every brand um like you need you need core product you need things that are um you know typically it's product that's on the more Timeless side versus the more trans trendy side it's something that people are going to pull out of their closet and wear like again and again and it's something that has multiple seasons of staying power um so like for for every Footwear client I've worked with they have one or two um lasts which is like the body of the shoe that they just run season after season after season and people love them um f for fashion brands like for one for one brand I worked with it was a certain style of top or like a certain fabric um it's something that like people will just buy like they'll buy season after season buy it multiples and for whatever reason like people just like it um so there's a bit of an X Factor there and that's like those products are going to drive higher conversion rates um you're going to be able to do more of your ad creative iteration around those products because you can there's more of a reward like more of an investment and payoff makes sense there um core product is really like it creates some consistency within your business when you're bootst every ad that I have made for nazarin Jafari has been edited uh and produced in some way by my team that was hired through behindth scenes Studio it's behindth scenes.

Studio that is my team of creatives in the Philippines subsidiary of more Staffing my longtime sponsor on this show that I've used to staff up my creative team including all the ads that have worked for this brand uh they are awesome Behind the-scenes studio is a contract-based uh way for you to scale up or down your video and uh graphic design production with Incredible resources in the Philippines uh I have on my team a graphic designer who is a designer at a like major magazine in the Philippines like a really deep resume deep experience really high quality work that um that's getting produced like you you get incredible Talent all the same ways that I always talk about with more Staffing which is that you are not looking for the cheapest Talent possible what you are looking for is access to excellent Talent at above Market rates in the Philippines but those rates are below Market in the US so if you are an agency side person uh if you are an operator trying to scale up an internal team go check out behindth scenes.

Studio to get access to incredible graphic designers video and video editors in the Philippines they are awesome you will love it uh go check that out right now okay so this is this is like directly overlays on stuff we've been talking about for mixed right now I don't know if you want to speak to how that has sort of played out in your product development strategy and and the issues you're facing there but um yeah yeah definitely so I think exactly what you're talking about Alex it's you know we come up with a drop and then what we try to look for is like what are the winners that float to the top in a in a certain collection um and are those winners like do they have lasting power to be part of our like core collection so I think right now I would say we have like maybe three to five core pieces some which are printed and some which are solid in denim which I think makes sense um given to you know weekly wear everyday kind of wear um our fall drop so a lot of like the conversation that we've had around this around finding core and having more moments to drop product has caused me to design actually differently and more thought ful so for fall we have a lot more solid um like core Styles we have we're coming out with our like our classic jumpsuit silhouette in black um and I think like hopefully like we'll see if that has power to be like if that's something people really like and it can become part of our core and then we use the other like the seasonal drops to have like to supplement the core um and so what I think about is like in every drop there's a seasonal window maybe anywhere between like three and six months depending on like the Garment um and where someone lives and I think about like how can we sell through the seasonal stuff in that seasonal window and then kind of keep the core in place and keep buying into it season after season I think one thing I'm not sure about yet because it's so early is like how much lasting power does a core item have like our denim jumpsuit is that going to be core for two years or three years or more or the Ruby jumpsuit which is more highly printed how Timeless is that um and so it gives gives me a little bit of nerves as a designer because I'm I'm kind of thinking like I need to come out with new new product that can live in our core so we can kind of even at the volatility of of how drop based fashion is um yeah yeah I think the jumpsuit how many different bodies of jumpsuit do you have like is it all is it mostly the same like essential fit or are there different styles I there's different styles there are some that are more everyday and then a couple that are more occasional but I think what I found with this brand is that the everyday just works better it suits more people it's more fit friendly um I would say that there are about six different Silhouettes some are like you know tapered legs some are wide legs some are high neckline some are you know V neckline and what's like the one style fabric color combo that's consistently your top seller and about what percent of revenues is coming from that style yeah that's a great question so I would say like our Ruby jumpsuit is probably our it's definitely our best seller in terms of printed jumpsuit it is a tapered leg it's like a kind of utilitarian style jumpsuit um percentage of Revenue I'd want to look into it but I would say maybe 10 I know we we pulled these numbers ear like some months ago but it it's a significant I'm trying to see how fast I can get it in shop because I knew that was but yeah keep going yeah yeah yeah just up and I would say um also like our denim jumpsuit in the Y it's a wide leg it's a little bit more elevated every day it's the denim so you have that solid more you know it's not as loud as the Ruby um and I would say our denim with the tapered leg is also starting to kind of rise to the top as well the denim bat neck as well yeah 10 is about right 10 10 is about right 10% and then the next few which are variations like denim pink NaNa which is a just uh same exact silhouette right as Ruby but just like a different design probably the second most popular design there is another 8% or something like that so like you put those kind of few together uh Ruby denim pink Nana and then the next one or two from there um it yeah it ends up being probably 25% of sales or something like that over the last year some somewhere in there yeah and what I will say is for the printed jumpsuits even I found that like the pattern is it's a black background and the actual print has maybe like three to four colors but it's not super multicolor which again it makes sense it's just like this really interesting um IP I feel like I'm learning as I'm doing more drops and Gathering more and if you're if you're watching listening to this and you want to see those products I will put a link to um to the collection you'll see what those top products are uh because the collection is sorted by that so yeah yeah so I think there are a few things you can think about the prints are tricky because a print can have a decent amount of staying power like I've audited Brands where they're selling they have the same prints that are bestseller and it's been a best seller for like three to five years and they're they're multi-million dollar like that they've passed on past the $230 million a year stage of growth just like on the back of Prince but there is more it's like there's more inherent fashion risk to it if you're trying to build a core platform off of like especially like specifically a single print um the denim is interesting I think at this point it's it's kind of a matter of um like you know that this certain silhouette of a a jumpsuit is has the potential to be your core like it's driving a ton of your sales so figuring out what is it about this jumpsuit like why do your customers love it so much versus everything else on the market and then thinking a bit about how you can kind of lad it versus every other jumpsuit and then also just talk to talk to it as like a solution you know it's easy to get dressed in the jumpsuit because it's like you just kind of put it on so that's where you can start doing some kind of like product storytelling that veers more into the um like more into the features benefits like narrative ugc kind of World um that can make where you're producing a single ad and it might have more staying power than just like a try on video or static of an individual style actually have two questions in response to that like regarding ads so um I've read You See It Like It by it email um and I think we definitely have ads like that where it's essentially just like somebody wearing the product and they're maybe like you know doing something cute or they styled really cute but the point is like you see it and you like it and then we have something that I really developed with Andrew which is like what we call our explainer videos which is where I'm speaking to camera I'm speaking as the designer and talking about here's the construction and here's the fit and here's the fabric um do you think that those are two different styles of ads that speak to like two different kind of kinds of customers um so that's my first question the logic of the explainer here is like you know if it's a top you don't it's it should be fairly clear but like with the jumpsuit there's like all of these things that it seems like customers really care about and have questions about right like you know and Naz has has developed the jumpsuit where it's like buttons on the outside but actually it's not buttons it's a zipper and so you show like okay there's zipper whatever you know when the buttons kind of pull back or whatever and there's these fit questions like she squats in it and there's references to tall sizes and short sizes is my wife always references her very long torso and shorter legs and so she can't wear a jumpsuit for that reason you know it's very specific fit concerns that customers have and so she like is trying to speak to these elements and it seems to me that that just like watching the customer behave with the relation to the jumpsuit there's this like there's this there's this element of fit that like almost is more like a feature and benefit in a lot of other products because it's so it's so specific to this product this jumpsuit thing in a way that is is different maybe if you had a pair of jeans or something like you would obviously show how they fit but you wouldn't need to explain a lot maybe something about the fabric or something about the material but like but that would take you less than 30 seconds right so um so anyway yeah so those two different those two different styles right more traditional just like show it on a person and let it be cute fun content around the city in New York you know or whatever and just like show it see it like a buy it and then also like the explainer content uh are like these two different ways we've attacked it and have seen you know interesting levels of success varying with both but yeah I don't know Alex reflect on that however you want yeah I think they they speak to people who are in two different buyer Journeys like the more straightforward triy on video Statics that's going to appeal to someone who's um who's kind of like lower friction who who sees the ad and just kind of really likes it and they're like yeah I'm GNA give this a shot like and it's probably going to be someone who either has few qualms about returning something or like they generally they're an easy body type to fit um the other video is going to appeal to people like primarily who are looking for jumpsuits but who have more objections like it's going to be more of an objection meter um and it's also going to appeal to people who maybe aren't looking for jumpsuits at the moment but like they've always historically had issues like fit issues uh with and and so they'll see speaking to it specifically and they'll be like um like okay I'm interested in this now um but what I'll say is like in terms of reaching different demographics with ads I think uh mixing up your style like almost like the art direction or the pacing of the ad is like that's more important than what you're saying necessarily because it's I always say there's like um there's a late Gen X Boomer they like traditional infomercials they they won't they'll listen to you talk for three minutes about the jumpsuit and like do a QVC kind of thing 's Millennials and young Gen X and that's like the the classic ugc like getting in and under a minute kind of thing and then there's um the younger Generations where it should look like a Tik Tok and it should be like under 30 seconds if you can uh and the pacing like just quick cut like every second um so like that that kind of like stylistic variation that will get you into that will get you aged diversity in terms of like who's viewing the ads if that's something you want this may nicely explain the increase in age that we've seen I'm sure your mind went there too but we've definitely seen some of our ads like we've seen customers get older and it might be those explainer it's because those explainer ads performed well and that's a that's a super interesting way to to think about that go go ahead asz yeah no I mean I think that there are some people who think about reaching new audiences as like a from like a buying approach and I think there's like what Alex is saying the approach of like from the creat actually diversity approach which is what I think we've realized um over the last couple months like Andrew said our our customer went older I think that has to do with the explainer videos the explainer videos also I think unlocked a totally new segment because we had our kind of see it like it buy it style of certain products that kind of died out it fatigued and so I was like ah did the product like lose its legs you know and then we came out with this kind of more explainer video that just unlocked a new segment which has now like also then fatigued so I'm thinking like is there a new style or how do I recreate it but I think another big issue is that I'm in the majority of the ads and I am you know I look one way I have one body type I have my certain style and I think that um one thing we I've talked about with Andrew is like I need to create some more room in my p&l where I can spend money to do um just more content production that I where I can do you know work with influencers and creators to make content so that we can see it on different bodies different styles we've done very little like very little um of that and we've put those pieces of AD like creative in the ad account it hasn't done much so I think I've always been a little bit discouraged because you know but I think the next big thing to test is like a large volume of diverse creative and see like how how that affects um who we're able to reach yeah I agree with that I mean I think in terms of how you're talking about about the product there's something behind the idea that like this is the jumpsuit that looks good on everyone and like you can feature it on tall women and short women and women with different body types um and then there's if you know you're bringing in an older um audience like just getting some creators who are you know in over 45 like that people like to buy from people who look like them even though that's I don't you know you can agree with or disagree with it from a philosophical stand is how it works out um the the influencer thing I mean if if you have more time than money you can just go out and Target like true micro influencers who are um creating in the fashion space and they will they'll probably do it in exchange for product like yeah and sometimes they'll even let you use the ads like without a licensing fee initially just um like that can be a way to get some of that content for a low cost I'm convinced that um people also love and are attracted to nazarin and her story and that especially at her stage of business that many of the the micro influencer types would would do that specifically for her like that they would that they would if she said hey small business like started it myself mix like just if they kind of got a sense of the brand a lot of those people I think would root for her in a way where they'd be like sure thanks for sending me a jumpsuit I understand you're not a you're not you know a a billion dollar fashion company sending me this product you know that can totally afford the $500 Creator fee or whatever you know um so yeah I am doing all of the meta ads tracking for nazm jafari's business with the pixel that is installed from Billy that's b. a for 100% serers side tracking to get more and better data quality passed from uh naz's website and from multiple of my other clients websites uh to uh back to Facebook ads dashboard uh you can see very clearly that when you upgrade your pixel tracking uh your event match quality scores all go up in Facebook guys that is the clearest indication the most objective indication that this works uh that uh you by having a better quality pixel install you pass better information back to the Facebook ad dashboard that does two things for you one thing it does is it uh gets makes your information more accurate in the dashboard which is useful in and of itself but secondly it should also be giving meta better information uh with which it can optimize your spend so it's uh 100% server side tracking which means using conversions API integration for you to be tracking all of your Facebook ads actually Billy is beyond just a regular metap pixel it actually is a One-Stop shop replacement for Google tag manager so you can also use it with like the Click of a button to have your Google ads conversion tracking setup including enhanced conversions G4 with no developers uh ga4 is been a nightmare for me to install with clients in the past but uh literally one click with with uh with Billy and it works perfectly also all the other channels that you might be advertising on Tik Tok Snapchat Twitter all those different things uh go to b. b. to get set up with Billy today for 100% server side tracking and it will only cost you $1 for the first month to test it and so it is uh incredibly affordable both in that first month and Beyond b. a to get set up with Billy today when we talk about volume of creative what number are we are we should should I be thinking about um and should I be thinking about like I want to create X number of pieces a month um or you know yeah give me some direction of volume so I the way I think about it is um with each new collection you want to do one shoot where you're just shooting everything and the product is really the only variable like the model is the same the settings the same the pose is generally the same and then you use that to try to figure out um which of your Styles have the potential to be your best sellers um then you you really focus on Creative iteration within your core like you're going to be gifting your core the most you're going to be um commissioning you you know different creator videos around your core and then when you get a read on Styles um that seem to be selling better like that's where you start to iterate more and and it's a little challenging because the timing with all of those different elements is kind of tough to figure out um you can use your judgment like you can use data on past selling and just like general rules of thumb on what type of product performs well in meta ads to say like okay I think you know these five styles are probably going to perform the best for me so I'm going to shoot um I'm going to shoot them from more angles I'm going to do videos and photos I'm going to like a couple I'm going to shoot them in a couple of different settings and like go into the collection launch from that perspective um in terms of like how many assets if you have a true bestseller especially at the scale that you're at like you could sell out a style with one or two ads of the best seller if they're um yeah that doesn't mean that's all you should shoot but it's like as a rule of thumb like to be testing five to 10 new assets a week like at a minimum just because you always you're always looking for the next thing you're always worried if something is going to lose momentum um if you're running cost caps and like if you're running cost caps there's a way that you can um plan creative needs based on like how much revenue you want to generate during a specific period of time um so so it really depends how you're running the account but in at least from what I've seen in the past your bestselling styles are typically just going to perform the best and so yeah you that's where you invest the most of your time resources yeah that makes a lot of sense this is definitely another thing that we had come to more recently right where it's like you know we did the summer drop put in a bunch of time to create content across almost every piece that was in there right and then like a bunch of them just died on the vine right away and they died on the vine barely spent in the case in in this case because of manual bids right and that was precisely be the products that also like in every other possible way didn't perform right they didn't perform great over email or whatever right as as well and so like instead the the mentality shifts to like invest more deeply just like you would on the product ordering side invest more deeply in the stuff that's more core and that you think has sort of bigger potential uh to to drive larger value do that on the asset creation side as well on the on the on the ad production side um getting a little more focused and thinking about that with a little more strategy and and some hypotheses around what those are going to be um as opposed to sort of uh just gas you know because it does take time and money and and stuff that is hard to come up with when like I said you're at this really hard stage of business that you're at right now yeah and go ahead go just I want to ask a really specific like account structure question so before when I was running before I met Andrew I was just doing ASD it was maybe one or two campaigns five ads or so in each um and now the Str the campaign like The Meta structure is really different we do bid caps and there's a lot of content currently in the account like I would say maybe over a hundred pieces active a majority of those only get a dollar or two of spend um I don't I have I don't know no point of view on this but do you think that you know it is helpful harmful doesn't make a difference to have a ton of pieces of creative like active versus like your you know honing in on your top like five to maybe 10 ads I don't think there's any harm in it how many unique styles do you have live on the site 66 66 66 unque products I would there it's hard to like it if it was um if the business was a little bit different I would say do one campaign for product category but I feel like because it's mostly jumpsuits then maybe it's you're doing one campaign per body like one for the WID leg jumpsuit one for the tapered leg jumpsuit um and then as the the assortment expands you can consolidate that into category but um yeah what one campaign for Style and then um I would have to see the specific types of assets that you're running but my I would say don't put more than like six to eight ads in a single ad set um yeah we're we're we're actually totally of the same mind there Alex the C of structured basically the exact way you just said you just set it up right so like the three campaigns right now are jumpsuits rompers and dresses um because there is some other stuff besides that got a mix of lowest cost and highest value bidding um highest value is one challenge in this category because you can't run highest value to um shops and shops has been some part of part of the sale on on met shops um and then we could and we separate adet by um by product a little bit more so or or basically by aov is is really what it is and so and margin so um so those those are set that way um and then uh yeah no more than six ads per ad so I think we do five to seven as opposed to six to eight but same same basically so I think we're in the same mind there across the board and there is this element of this where um especially if you're running lowest cost and you have P products at different prices you have to separate products at the aov level otherwise right uh $50 conversion on a $100 aov is really different than $50 conversion on a $200 aov so um and you're optimizing for the lowest cost conversion so um so that's the that's the the basic the basic structure there and and I agree with your take too that like you may have some some times or some ads where like uh the entire account is spent on a few ads for for a little while you may have times when it's a little bit broader of a mix and we've certainly had both you know where at times an ad takes off and kind of eats up the whole account and other times it's more of a spread across a bunch of different ads and a bunch of different products and uh and all those things um anything more that either of you wanted to say on the sort of AD buying side I think that's definitely something that a lot of my listeners and and folks are going to care about um yeah but um but I also don't want to get um go down the road if you don't have anything more to say about it cool yeah I think the media buying structure is is fairly straightforward here and in my view fits with a lot of the other things that I say I know um Alex you have some thoughts about uh maybe not launching with u manual bids in fashion and uh well I'm likely to disagree with you uh that's okay I you're very smart and I would love to hear why you think that a little bit uh and what what the what the thinking is there I think to if you're starting from zero um you want to reduce as many variables as possible so that you're not spending six months and half a million dollars like trying to hone in on your strategy and the biggest variable for fashion is product so I recommend that I mean actually the the structure that I recommend for a lot of Brands is R just run daa against your existing site traffic and see which products perform best and then use that like like you can run Dava get a read on like what your top 10 products and then maybe test cost caps based on that right or or I say like okay use that data and then create uh like three or four different ads per product and just put them all in a CBO and see what Rises to the top um and if you do run that initial site traffic uh campaign and your Raz and CPA are way off base from where you want them to be then that's where you have to go back and uh look at things that are outside your ad account because a lot of what I encounter when I talk to fashion brands is they're like they're setting a a blended row ads Target across acquisition and retention and it's something like a four or 5x and then like right like we have to go to 4X on our meta ads so they you know they have it just puts you down this rabbit hole that prevents you from ever scaling so that's why I recommend the cold traffic thing because I think yeah um if you have things outside your meta account that are going to prevent you from winning that's a good way to uh get line of sight into that before you start spending tons and tons of money on that yeah so let me let me say uh a couple things there that I think maybe will will help so the first is daa if you don't know what that means is dynamic ads for broad audiences the idea is that you would take your products separate them in your product catalog and and really in this case doesn't even have to be for broad audiences right uh Alex is saying partly just run against any existing traffic you have as well and the point is what dynamic yeah right DPA ads what that will partly do is um is because your ads are Dynamic and because there is this element in fashion where you know the product that the product itself is is the thing that's selling you know see it like it buy it like Alex was saying earlier it allows Those ads to um it allows certain products to arise to the top basically it will sort of self- Select by just seeing which products running your product images basically to do that and I think that's um I think that that makes tons of sense and I actually don't disagree with anything you said there I think I think you're right in from an early stage and also just like from an early stage there's just there's just a lot of things to sort out and so uh having one less thing to kind of worry about early on like that um makes sense there's sort of a an element to the media buying that gets challenging over time if you are learning bid caps at the same time is also just trying to learn how to how to run your ads so I think that start from zero advice is is super good advice and then use use the dynamic ads to sort of bring your win to the top I actually don't want to go down this Rabbit Hole any further and I'll tell you why because you have an awesome newsletter about this so we're going to use this for a promotional moment for your newsletter um I'm I um what you should do is you should go read and I'm gonna link to the specific um to the specific newsletter where you break down exactly how to set up a fashion ad account for people so if you're interested in this conversation you got a little lost you're like or you just want to see more about Alex has to say whether you're you know more experienced or not um go to the link in the show notes and I will I will will link it it'll say something about Dynamic ads newsletter uh media buying newsletter from Alex um as part of your very awesome DTC fashion decoded newsletter where you are writing about fashion every week and this will be a good entry point um into it um for people like it's it is I read it every week uh it is extremely helpful and extremely good and uh exactly the kind of thing that I would expect from your thoughtfulness so um so yeah so go if you want more on that go to the link in the show notes and go do that and then subscribe and pay the money that she deserves for writing her newsletter by being a subscriber if you don't want to if you don't want to pay for a membership right away I do send two free issues a month so yeah yeah yeah but don't do that that specific um email that you're talking about Andrew um to so many people yeah yeah yeah it's really good thank you yeah yeah um okay let's talk about product launch strategy and Cycles a little bit I I um because we've been talking about this product issue it's so Central to Fashion um I have a question you know so and we can we can build this off of the way Naas has done this so far which has been like one major drop at each season basically right um so let's let's talk about the frequency of product drop first um that's the way that na has done it so far is that a good idea or a bad idea first of all one major drop for each season secondly um if she should be launching more products more often how often Etc uh Alex how do you think about that issue product drops and then I and then actually from there I want to go to another step which is the actual mechanics the tactics of the product drop but let's we'll we'll get there in a second but first let's let's do the question about um sort of how often should should Naas be trying to drop product so product product drops have two roles um first it's just putting more shots on goal like the more product you release the more if you're being thoughtful about your produ product development it's like more opportunities to find best sellers and then it's just like an opportunity to talk about something like it's you know it's giving your audience a reason to listen to you um in the sea of noise out there so those are the benefits I think um the drawbacks are the more product drops you run it just adds more complexity to the business in terms of inventory planning and you know you don't want to be stuck with too much inventory what I would focus on in this stage is um figuring out if there's a way that you can put one of your two two or three bestsellers into a replenishment position where you're able to this works better if you have at least a Year's worth of sales data but you're able to say you know um on average I'm selling X units a week of this and it peaks in these seasons and it kind of Fades out in these Seasons so I'm going to go into the next year um trying to put myself in a position where I always have this in stock so that I'm never seeing the decline in performance that comes from stockouts and so that will lay a really nice Foundation of consistency um to the business you can you can do that to the extent that your core product is like a true uh Timeless product like if you're looking at um a multicategory business like the gap or something denim is on repl M for them and then like tops Mo t-shirts are on replenishment but then a lot of the woven tops are just like seasonal drops and they sell you know they go through a markdown cycle and then they exit the business so um being able like replenishment just helps create stability um if you're thinking about adding additional drops you have to think about how that's going to impact your workflow and like everything else on your plate resource wise I think like at this stage that's the first decision instead of trying to do more drops I would just I would try to improve your hit rate on the products that you're sending out in those four drops to start did you have any I I thought you might have followup thoughts or questions now yeah sorry I didn't know if you were G to say something okay yeah that's really interesting that's actually a little bit different than what me and Andrew have been talking about because um I think what me and Andrew have been talking about is like let's let's in between the seasonal drops let's have another drop where we take our bestselling Silhouettes and we put a new print on them and have more shots on goal essentially I think in that regard it's simple in that we don't have to do any new uh sample development because it's really just a new print so I think the lift there is easier there is still the lift of like going to Market and adding know putting everything onto Shopify and creating new ads and copy and there so but I think you know what you're saying is that there is that trade-off especially at this in this stage of business where it's like mainly me doing all these things it's like where is that time best spent is it in being thoughtful about the products that we drop four times a year or is it about you know hustling a little bit more doing more drops more shots on goal um so that's I'm actually really that's I'm really intrigued by your thoughts but but at the same time I I think that I think the logic of what Alex is saying actually fits the thing we're trying to do here which is like increase the hit rate like that's that's really the goal is like to to try to do that and I think we were just thinking about it slightly differently mechanically but I I think what you're saying is really right too Naas which is like the work involved with the drop and some of those things like I think Alex with your perspective here suggests you actually can maintain that into one moment a little more so that it doesn't just eat up your whole life all the time um and at the same time still go with that same goal so what were you gonna say Alex um I mean I think PR like run running a a proven style in prints is less risky than releasing new styles for sure if you sell out of something like right now how long does it take to get back into stock it so depends if we have the fabric in stock it'll take three to four weeks if we don't have the fabric in stock it will take six to eight weeks and so part of the strategy has has been you know make making sure on our best sellers we have the fabric in stock so that at the very least if we stock out we can we're a little bit faster to replenish um but still even you know we had our birthday sale like our annual sale a couple weeks ago and all like sold it a lot which was great we had our first like six figure plus day which was awesome but you know post that it's just we we're stocked out on our best sellers and things have been super slow yeah I mean those capsule drops are most powerful when you can um when you can buy into them in a way that they'll mostly sell out within a short period of time but like again I think what's challenging when the business is at this size is um if you do plan to sell out it might be a small enough quantity that you're wondering like well does is this worth the effort like the position you don't want to be in is you're at the end of the year and you have all of these jumpsuits that you couldn't sell and then you have to figure out what you're you're going to do with them yeah exactly which I think is like part of the reason why um we run into a lot of stockout issues is because I'm just personally really afraid of um just buying too much and being stuck with dead assets so um I historically just bought less and moved things to pre-order uh which not ideal but yeah the businesses I mean and and unfortunately like what I've seen is pre-order or selling out of at least 50% of your sizes will start to degrade your ad performance so yeah we were just talking about that maybe maybe we can talk about that a little bit there is this um there is this there is this uh question we've been wrestling with which is like it's such a tradeoff in fashion in some ways right because by definition you have to order a lot of SKS because there are so many sizes of every product right so even even for a for a product catalog that isn't that big for naar mentioned products earlier it's not 66 cues right it's like you know 66 times seven or eight or whatever it is right and so ordering is a huge pain and what you said is exactly right Alex which is like the thing you really don't want is to be stuck with product uh that you can't move that's actually like the death nail for for fashion brands like you just have your p&l looks fine but you are out of cash because because you just have these unmovable pieces of clothing that you cannot turn back into Dollars um and uh and and maybe your p&l doesn't look fine too if you're a lot stuff but um but the that's such a challenge and so so one potential solution to that is is pre-orders right because pre-orders uh you know allow you to realize the cash UPF front um and then and then the customer gets their their product later and at times that looks really good there's another challenge with that though which is that if you send out a bunch of pre-ordered uh product uh all at once because you get your shipment in and you've got six or eight weeks of orders what you are now setting yourself up up selling yourself up for is a roughly 15 to 45 day period where all of those pre-order Returns come back at the same time and if you have not planned cash very carefully you just watch your cash drain because returns are part of fashion um and so it's it's a it's a hard freaking cash management business it is really really hard there are all these elements I mean there's there's all these predicting those return rates sounds easy but it's actually not it's it's way harder because different returns uh anyway the historical Daya doesn't it's really really really hard um so anyway you just mentioned it pre-orders hurt ad performance I'm just curious if you have any more thoughts about that in this sort of conversation on ordering strategy and drop strategy maybe that's the whole thought pre-orders heard adver performance but any any other any other thoughts about the issue of pre-orders specifically I mean people only pre-order something if they really want it and if they can't find Alternatives anywhere else so it works really well like there there are Brands who you know they get featured in like a shopping newsletter and people get obsessed with like one style they're selling and it and it sells out and then like they can go on pre-order because it's like they can kind of continue to tap into that demand um it does introduce the cash flow issues that you mentioned like it there are brand there are also brands that build their entire strategy around preorder where it's like we're we're releasing this addition of two different pieces and the only way you can add it is to pre-order it so it's something that you have to integrate into your business model very carefully um it's not it's not like a magic wand that you can wave across inventory issues it's um it's kind of like a niche use case the average like a see it like it buy it person is not going to pre-order that's such a good that's a good distinction go ahead we've had it's interesting like in certain times of the where pre-orders just really rip like particularly q1 both of last year and this year like just pre-orders didn't change conversion right people would just pre-order pre-order pre-order um and my thought is that like we kind of tapped out of that kind of warm audience or Super Fan like person who is willing to then pre-order and then as you move to just like colder audiences that are not willing to wait I I wouldn't waigh 6 to eight weeks I often don't pre-order anything so um you know I yeah I that's kind of I wonder if there's like a warm audience and then a colder audience who then doesn't pre-order it could be something that you offer your email list like you know a drop is coming um and and you let them get first dibs on the inventory through pre-order yeah yeah I go ahead no please it's it's funny the three-person podcast is uh all remote is always a funny thing because for sitting together it's like sort of easy but there's you got to you got to constantly call out who's turn to this to talk doing it this way um nazarine please say more you you're you're I love the questions that you're asking so whatever you're gonna say keep talking no well I was gonna talk about returns because you brought it up and I think returns are so unique to Fashion in in terms of like the percentage of returns and one thing that I nightmare they're a nightmare I mean I learned about Ecom through e-commerce Twitter which is primarily not fashion brand so I wasn't thinking in like with enough of it's also your early in fashion your returns are like five 10% Like because people you know just that's how it is when it's not at scale so I would love to talk about like returns at scale and then how do we think about our like what do our cogs need to be if we understand that in fashion return rate is whatever percentage um I'm happy to share mine I'd love to know what your industry benchmarks yeah let's just dive into returns so in in categories that are hard to fit like Footwear you're looking at an average return rate of like 27 to 30% and there's not much you can do about that I think if your return rates you should always analyze return rates from from a like dividing your return dollars by today's sales like I got this return on uh today and I'm dividing it as a percent of today's sales and then you should also look at uh returns as a percent of the St the style selling because you want to understand if you have styles that are just like there's a quality issue or there's you know a mismatch between how you're representing it and how how people are receiving it so if your return rate on individual Styles is higher than like 30% that's that's where I'd start that that's kind of a problem like any higher than 30% and there's something going on whether it's an issue with the product or like you're marketing it to the wrong people or or something but you do um basically like the more tailored or the the harder to fit the Garment the higher the rate will be um and there isn't there just isn't a ton that you can do about it because people are just they almost expect they're just more willing to return it yeah yeah and I I bet in jumpsuits I mean I I I thought this from the beginning right that jumpsuits are are are one of those fit specific products like people just that has to fit just right and I think what you're saying about the customer consideration Alex is actually something we haven't talked about very much but that like they're actually going into the purchase with the mentality of like I don't really care if I like this that much because I'll just return it and so like essentially there's a selection bias to who buys it especially in a category where you know like shoes or something like that like you said where if the fit is really really hard to get right you know and I think I think jumpsuits is the same I remember hearing about a um a swimsuit brand online where it was like 50% um and I don't think there was anything wrong with the product actually it's because like talk about something that has to fit just right you know it's like if if it if there was anything wrong you know it was like it was it was GNA get returned you know it's like that gets into yeah I am it's like H I never thought about that but it makes a lot of sense yeah yeah go ahead nazin um I was looking at like our return rates Yesterday by product and I think what you were mentioning about like how how are you measuring Returns versus your daily sales versus like per product versus maybe on a year time scale it's complicated but um we've had some Styles where the returns you have just been above 30% and there was there was a clear fit issue we could see it in the customer service inbox waistband was too tight or the fabric is not stretchy enough like that you know and that is actually probably a conversation I should have with the factory how can like is there anything you know anyway anyway you can help me with this um but for the most part the jumpsuits land anywhere between like 20 and 30% return rate and then there are others and like we talked about gemss are harder to fit dresses are closer to like 12 to 18% which is better um and then tops which we had phased at but now are going to bring back in um historically have been I would say like in the 10 to 16% rate return rate um so right now the brand is about like 25% return um and it just you know it makes it tough when you're when we're our cogs are 30% then you also have that 25% return and like how then do you you know so everything is it's so thin so I would be how do we think about um our marketing spend in terms of net revenue versus gross revenue and then also what do you think like your Cog should be just in terms of fabric cut and so like landed um in relation to your MSR P Price given the return cogs shouldn't be higher than 25% because especially if you're going to sell into wholesale they whatever price you sell it to the wholesaler at they want to Market they want to triple it basically or they so you're not going to have enough margin to yeah it needs to be like below 25% okay so that's like one really clear thing to fix when you say when you say below 25% I'm actually curious about this how low can I mean outside forget Basics and stuff like that for a second like when you get into actual like sort of fashion fashion in some way right more the kind of stuff Naz selling what what numbers do you see across the board Alex like how low can these numbers get to um well if you're if you're buying a a credit card holder from Louis Vuitton their cost of goods is probably less than 5% theice like yeah that's the more Brand Power you have the more you can push that percentage down the average I that's really about pushing the price up though right that's not about as much as anything else right that's like yeah yeah if you're selling it's not that Louis Vuitton just negotiated at a great rate with their manufacturer right it's like I'm sure they did that too but like yeah it's like it's about the price yeah yeah yeah I mean like Zara because their model is quick turn like quick inventory returns they take a l sure is a higher of MSRP and that's that's their competitive Advantage like they engineer their business that way um most things you find in an department store are going to be like 20 15 to 25% if you're if you're selling to like a Walmart or something it's going to be high cogs will be a higher percent of SRP because that's like a total volume game yeah but I don't that's um one category I don't have a ton of experience into yeah like that real M um yeah um that's that's really interesting the um I want to do I want we got we're running out of time a little bit and so I want to do two things left one of them is um a little bit on the mechanics of a product drop um so I'm just curious Alex high level specific like what are the what are the things that when you're when a fashion brand is launching new product and I bet this will apply Beyond fashion brands but when you're launching a new product um what what how do you do that great how do you do a great job with that what are the keys so it depends on what role the product is playing in your assortment if it's something that you're trying to turn into tomorrow's best seller you do more like traditional marketing and storytelling around it like you seed it in the leadup to the launch you try to get it you try to get the word out however you want to like you give it to influencers you run Billboards you you know do PR um if it's just a a seasonal drop where you're releasing a collection um you message it through your your own channels you message it through your paid channels um and I mean that's kind of it like it okay yeah there's no um it's more of like a just um a routine activity you're doing yeah yeah Nas's done some really cool stuff where she's invited people who like actually pay an entry fee and come to a big drop event at the studio in Brooklyn which I think is a really cool thing it's and unique I think just again there's people feel this real Affinity to the brand and want to come and it's a fun event I got to go to one of them like it's it's just really different and cool and fun and like yeah really it's it's a it's a great thing to go do on an evening in Brooklyn like it's like if if you're into fashion you're into this brand it's like really cool um and I think that does Drive some some cool local interest and some of those things and I wonder sort of how big those could get at some point I think there's some cool thing about also like this is launched in your studio and that's a that's a cool place to go and and there's you know all that stuff but um I also think it's it's Unique you're in Brooklyn like this is like part of the brand is New York in in a real way like that's all over the place you know and so um yeah um okay then let's go to another place because I I think um uh I want I want to hit one other thing which I again this this is broadly appealing to a lot of people but what about sale strategy um here's like a here's Like A Simple Start intro question that um that we can jump off from there um you know everybody debates all the time right like uh if you run sales you're going to devalue your brand if you run sales you're going to um you're going to uh create a bunch of sale addict customers and you're going to make it so that you can never sell anything full price again all that stuff um but let's just talk really specifically about one element I think everybody understands in fashion that you're it's totally fine to mark down slow moving products and try to turn it back into cash that that's I think really normal except for the extreme extreme super premium you know Louis Vuitton you mentioned earlier something like that where they're just never going to Discount anything um I don't think I don't really know but I don't think so um uh outside of that category right uh people understand there's some place for discounting at least your slow moving product what about your best sellers um is it a bad idea to ever Mark those down use that as a jumping off point Alex to say whatever you want about sales strategies from a barrel from there okay so um the way that honestly it depends on your business model because if you're running something closer to an outlet business model where promotions become kind of like a gamified marketing lover then that's that's a whole I won't talk about that now but that's kind of like the exception to everything I'm about to share um you you want to use promotions to incentivize people to do things you want them to do you don't want to kind of give them promotions to do things they would have done anyway so like what are your highest value actions it's getting a new customer to convert it's getting a firsttime customer to make a second purchase because that's like your biggest bottleneck to to loyalty that's where the biggest drop off happens so that's where you should be if you're running promotions that's where you should focus um whether you want to do so depends on you know your brand like how you're thinking about brand positioning um there's there's a lot of debating back and forth about like should I offer a first purchase some kind of first purchase offer um it can definitely help with first purchase conversion rate but it's something you have to test and if you feel like it dilutes your brand then just draw a line in the sand and don't do it but like you might have to do you might have to be more creative elsewhere to make that work um in terms of like end of season sales there are periods of the like the the Retail Landscape is just so promotional that if meta and Google are your big channels for growth there are going to be periods of a year where it's hard to break through unless you're on sale so that's one consideration again if you want to keep that full if you're drawing that line in the sand on full price you just have to plan into you have to go into that with your eyes open um and if you're selling I mean if you're selling in wholesale they're probably going to mark your stuff down so you'll probably have to mark yourself Mark your things down in DTC in response um it's possible to do it both ways what you don't want to do is you don't want to be in the position where you're doing the majority of your customer acquisition when you're on sale because if you do that for two or three years you just kind of like you kill your ability to sell at full price that's my big my my data dump my yeah yeah it's a great it's a great answer I think the clarity about sort of the purpose of the sale makes a ton of sense um I mean I so you know we've approached this and Nas's approached this so far it's just like a couple of big moments per year right bfcm obviously you're going to run a sale um she's got this brand birthday s it's this really big moment um you know at the brand birthday sale like she said first six figure day ever really crushed I mean beat our expectations by by quite a bit it's part of why some products sold out I think the way they did and you know was a real mix of new and returning customer Revenue but I think if you just look at sort of like what Revenue would have been driven in J in July otherwise like it's it's plainly incremental right like is very obviously massive incremental to what would have come through otherwise and so that's been the approach so far like just create a a few big moments a year and then try and then besides that have like a sort of collection on the side of slow moving stuff that's on sale that you're trying to get rid of um that sort of eliminate that that gets you out of the like every two weeks we're launching another 20% off we're launching whatever and and that's the like the the the death cycle of constant sales where you're only able to acquire custom customers um on sale now I've heard of Brands doing that where they know they have to stop doing that and yet once they've started they're like sure we can stop doing that but then my business dies because I run out of cash and so it becomes a really really difficult cycle to Break um you have to really get good in a lot of other areas and Claw your way out of it right but um and and I'm sympathetic to that I understand having a acquiring customers on sale is better than the business dying so like you know if that's the trade-off you should you should take the sale but um but you have to figure out a way out of it eventually grow as on paid is always going to be higher when you're on sale so that's why you cannot use roaz as your North Star metric for your digital advertising because that's I've seen that happen to at least like two or three brands where they just follow roaz into becoming a fully promotionally driven business so with our two sales per year one being birthday sale there's a lot messaging around like the origin story of the brand um which I think kind of makes the sale feel special like we'll have a lot of customers be like happy birthday happy birthday which is nice um and then bfcm which I think is like this wider cultural moment do you feel like that sounds like two sales that sound do you feel like there's room for more or is that purely just like a decision that I should make based on how I want to build the brand um I I think it's a decision on it's up to you like as you grow you'll start to like feel the seasonality in the category and it's it's something where if you the the thing that I always say about promotion is one of the things that gets you a higher valuation when you sell your business is it the the less promotion you do your acquirer will pay for like the privilege and benefit of unlocking promotions as a growth lever so like that's one way to think about it um I think there there really is no rule of thumb like if they're I think it's smart to run during Black Friday Cyber Monday because it's just so hard to to stick out during that period without it um yeah I I can't I can't give you a firm answer yeah no that that's it's a great answer yeah yeah yeah it's good um all right Alex um thank you so much for taking a little bit extra time going over today Naas in same for you it's just so clear how much you've thought about all of these questions before they've been asked to you and uh and so it really comes through really appreciate it um I mentioned the newsletter before um uh and okay Nas go ahead go ahead sorry I just want to ask one more question if it's okay I know go for it go for it sorry is that okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I love it don't miss the opportunity yeah I feel like this is Broad it flies to Fashion broadly so yeah um so I know a lot of people kind of roll their eyes and I also roll my eyes when people talk about brand um do you think that brand is Meaningful in fashion particularly if you want to build a you know like a plus business how much at this stage should brand be part of the discussion and what does it even mean does that mean you5 minutes do you yeah yeah yeah you should two minute answer do another one willing to come back I'll come back and do another episode for sure because this has been so fun if people if the listen find it valuable I will come back but my short I don't care I found it valuable I don't care if they find it valuable I'm bringing you yeah we we'll schedule it I'm gonna DM you the moment this is done and I'm gonna say here's my calendar find another one um okay so so my perspective on brand is that when you're okay there there's a lot of emotional baggage here but basically the more the harder you want to go into brand the harder it is to be bootstrapped because the essence of brand building is taking an L today to take a financial reward tomorrow which implies like breaking even or losing money today um especially if you're trying to position yourself as as a luxury brand so for a bootstrap brand I think you your brand is your consistency in what you deliver and it's kind of like your lens on um your lens on fashion like the the use cases you're trying to meet and like how you're trying to meet them so I based on what we've talked about so far your brand might be like um allowing women to present themselves in you know a fashion forward eye-catching way but like remove the the pain and like time suck out of it and then like you can take that and slowly start to build on that and it becomes like it it influences the products that you release it influences how you talk about things in your marketing um how it influences the visual presentation is something you'd have to think about you know in a little bit more depth but like that's how I I would think about it initially that's super helpful while you were talking I tweeted that was the single best answer I've ever heard to the question of how you handle brand versus performance I really mean that I think actually dropping it into the financial considerations and some of those things is so good so um so that will nicely segue back into exactly what I was just saying which is that you should be getting more of Alex's content because it's really good really thoughtful really well considered you should do that with her newsletter DTC fashion decoded did I say that right DC DC fashion deed.com yeah great link is in the show notes of course um go get that content Alex where else should people find you and follow up with you and all those things find me on Twitter at hey it's Alex p as in Peter um and also I'm posting more on LinkedIn uh my name is I'm there under Alex grield you'll see the spelling in the show notes um yeah and that's you know that's how how to find it it's great um I'll have to ask you afterwards as a followup have you figured out how to make content that resonates on LinkedIn you probably have I have uh I I I actually I have well I've been doing it for a week and it's been working so it's too soon to tell dang power but maybe all right great I I feel like I'm just speaking into the void and I just don't even want to figure it out so um yeah great okay awesome thank you so much nazarin thanks for taking the time as well and for giving people another very generous uh look into your business which I really appreciate I think you've been really really helpful to people in a lot of ways let's go sell some jumpsuits all right if you couldn't tell I was enthusiastic about this episode I really loved it I thought there were a bunch of things in this episode that were really really good uh and so definitely go follow up with Alex get more information from her thanks to nazarin as I said there for letting people into her business a little bit more don't forget to follow up with my sponsors that's behind the scenes. studio behind the scenes for Creative production for your business and uh and Billy b. both links for those are in the show notes as well as everything else we referenced in the show including my previous episodes with nazarin who now has come on three times in really truly open to the books to her business to uh let people into it which I really appreciate so much uh all kinds of great stuff coming down the pipe don't forget uh to subscribe wherever you're watching wherever you're listening and go follow up with everything I'm doing at AJF gr. comom including signing up for my newsletter there which I am trying as I've said a few times recently to create with more regularity but for now sign up for at uh get free e-commerce resources from me and uh those will help you operate your business better and at some point when my newsletter comes out regularly you will also get that adfg growth.com for all that email me at podcast ajg.com I'd love to hear from you and I will talk to you later [Music]