Welcome And Quick Requests

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Well, hello friends, it's Emily.

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It's episode 350, and I'm so thankful that you are here today because we're talking about what the heck to do when your products and services aren't selling like they used to. I've been hearing a lot of small business owners say this. They're very frustrated. They are upset because they're trying to build their business, but they're not getting the revenue that they had just a few years ago. Today we're going to talk about this and what you're going to do about it. The good news is there is so much hope for you, my friend. And I'm so glad you're listening today. If you are new, welcome. I'm so glad that you found this podcast. I have no doubt it's going to help you along your business journey, whether you're in the idea stage, starting or going, this is for you. And whether you're starting a podcast or you're building a podcast right now, this is for you. I'm here to help you live out your dreams. And I'm so excited. So, first of all, I want to remind you to hit subscribe to this podcast because then you will get updated when new episodes drop, new topics that are going to help you along this journey to build your business confidently and strategically. So make sure you hit subscribe. If you're an Apple Podcast or whatever it is, there's like a little checkbox or a follow up there at the top. Make sure you click that. Also, too, I've got some free goodies for you. Go to Kimberleybrock.com or you can just scroll down in the show notes right now. You can see the options for the free tools for you about a free training on starting your podcast or whether you should start one or not, and how to start your business, how to get it growing, all that good stuff. So make sure you grab those. And if you've been a longtime listener, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you so much, all my loyal listeners. And I really love the messages and the kind words that you send me about this podcast and how it's made a difference for you and your business or your podcast, which reminds me too. If you've been listening a while and you have found value in this podcast, would you be so kind to rate it? You can just hit the five-star rating if you're listening right now. Just hit the five-star rating in Apple Podcasts. And if you have 30 seconds to write a written review, that would mean the world to me. Okay. So that's it. On to the episode.

Why Sales Feel Harder Now

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Hi, friends. I'm so happy you're here today because many of you have told me that the products and services that you've been selling maybe for the past few years are suddenly not selling as well. Now I know some of you listening may be saying, my sales are up like never before and everything is going amazing. If so, that is awesome. And I'm so excited for you. Keep doing what you're doing. But this episode is important for everyone, everyone listening, because there will be a time, if it's not today, where you will notice sales slumping and you will have to figure out what the heck to do. How do you deal with this? What do you do? Do you panic? Do you cry? Do you give up? Do you decide, you know, if the the products that were selling a few years ago are not selling now? Do you decide, oh, I'm gonna just have my prices and like go put everything on sale? Like, what are the things that you do when you start getting really nervous because you see the sales going down? We're gonna talk about that today. Today you're gonna finally know, okay? You're here to learn this so that when this happens to you, there's no more panic, there's no more doubting yourself, there's no more freaking out and crying, and then like trying to go into a whole different business. Today, we're gonna talk about what you should do. So, first of all, I want to acknowledge that our buying habits have all changed in the past five years. Since COVID came around, so many more people are buying online. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, that I was reading stats on this that people who didn't really shop online before the pandemic now are obviously shopping online. It's been crazy. Says 92% of consumers who tried online shopping in 2019, 2020 became immediate converts and they all started buying online. I remember when I started my first online boutique in 2003, when Amazon was known for books, people were scared to buy online. So I had a hybrid business where we were doing shows around town, like we would do big markets and events and even host home shows, displaying our merchandise, and we would direct people to our website because I just knew I was like, this is gonna be so much easier. Just everybody get online. This is so much easier for you to buy, right? You can buy in person and it's fun for the experience for these events, but I didn't want to lose those customers in between the times that I had events. I wanted them to know that they could always keep buying. And I saw the value in that. And that's that's how my business became successful. It was like that hybrid model, which was awesome, right? And then eventually I wasn't doing shows anymore. It was just strictly online. And once we all started realizing how amazing this is and how convenient it is, it started slowly catching on. And now it's like everybody's shopping online and on

Online Discovery And New Buyer Behavior

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Amazon and all the things, right? Amazon Prime has changed all of our lives. But even more specifically, in the last, I would say, year, year and a half, we've seen some major shifts. So, like before when I had my online boutiques, it was Google search results. People were just searching on Google, okay, for things. Now it's social media discovery. Instagram, TikTok. Sometimes you can search for a product on there. The ads mostly are popping up. I don't really search for products on there, but they will come up on Instagram. And I'm like, oh, wait, I do like that. It's like they're in our heads, they know exactly what we want, right? But for example, TikTok shop, which by the way, my young adult kids love TikTok shop, very popular with the with the young adults, but their sales grew more than 500% in 2024. And then I don't have the full data for 2025, but it said it doubled again in the first half of 2025. Okay. TikTok shop is huge. And they think these live online selling platforms and ways of doing it, and also just people creating content because they love the products, is selling the products, right? But people are sensitive to price and they will quickly compare prices. Now it's easy, right? We can use tools to do that. People are using Chat GBT and Claude to shop for things now. Recommendations. I know a lot of times for service businesses and things like that, Claude and Chat GBT become very popular search engines for people, right? Also, if your site is slow or not moving fast, people will jump off your site and not buy from you. And they're very sensitive to that. Wouldn't you agree? Like if I'm trying to check out and it's taking forever, I'm like, forget it. I'll find it somewhere else. Don't you think? Right. People really need to trust you. And it's got to feel like a real site. I think nobody is trusting anything anymore. So you've got to be giving off clues that this is real, that you've had real customers, that you're a real person and it's not AI, right? So it's things have been changing. The online business world, especially of coaching, like mine and people who made courses has drastically changed. Y'all, here's the deal. Everyone's asking for people that are coaches. Maybe you've been a service provider online, and you offer something that you had a course for in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. The courses were selling. They were going through the roof. And since the onslaught of AI and Chat GBT, course sales have gone down. And there's all kinds of data on that that people don't just want the information. They actually want coaching, one-on-one coaching, one-on-one service providing help. They want group coaching. They want a personal touch. They don't just want the information. I'm sure that there are some people whose courses are still selling really well. For me, even, right? I'm being real with y'all. Like just selling my courses has gone down in the past few years. And I've been adapting my business as well. I've had group programs, which did very well. And now I'm kind of doing a hybrid of one-on-one coaching with the course so that they can be working on their own time and then have me helping them periodically. So I do a hybrid model that's working. And so we have to kind of look at where is the industry, what is happening for the niche that you are in. Okay. So I want you to think about your business right now. And have you seen, even in the past year, that something is selling less, a product or a service? And the question is, what are you doing about it when that happens? Like, how do you approach that situation? If this is not happening to you now, I'm happy for you, but no, it will come because the market is changing so fast. So we want to go from panicking and freaking out and thinking we don't know how to run a business and thinking we stink and trying to close our business. We want to think smarter than that. We want to think like a very intelligent, strategic business owner and try to figure out what do we do when this happens? Because it's going to happen, right? Okay. So here's what the real question is. Now, I'm going to make one assumption when I'm talking you through this. And that is that the way that you are showing up, or let me say this, that you are still showing up in a way that reaches your customers. We're going to assume that that marketing that you're doing is still there. Whatever marketing you do, you have a podcast, you have a YouTube channel, you're networking locally, you're doing events, you're doing shows, you're doing ads, whatever you're doing, right? You you're still doing that, but the product is not selling as much. So this is what

The Two Questions That Matter

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I want you to do. So y'all ready? Here, here's what you're going to do. You're going to ask this question Is it that nobody wants this product result anymore? They don't want the result of what I sell. Or is it they don't want to receive it in the way that I've been selling it? So is it that nobody wants this? Or is it that nobody wants it this way anymore? You are going to have to ask yourself that. Is it really that nobody wants this? Or is it that nobody wants it in this way? So this is what you're gonna have to do. And let's talk through this. So this is what you do. The first question is it that nobody wants this? Meaning, is there actually demand for the result that you offer people? Is there actually demand for what you are offering for the result? Okay, so let's say like for me, is there still demand for people starting a business or starting a podcast? Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's still there. People are starting businesses and starting podcasts, right? If you're selling a product, you have to ask yourself if it's t-shirts or whatever, right? Or jewelry, is there still a demand for jewelry and t-shirts? Okay, and the obvious question is gonna be yes, but you need to make sure. I mean, it's like blockbuster video back in the day, right? We used to rent VHS tapes to watch on the weekend or DVDs, right? If there is not demand for that, right, then you have to think about how would they want to receive it? And you have to ask yourself, like with Blockbuster, what are they actually selling? Well, they're selling movie night. They're selling movie night. And so if you're Blockbuster, you'd have to go, okay, maybe they don't want to receive it as a VHS tape or a DVD, but they still want movie night. What's the new way? And that's why Netflix and all that came about. And you either have to get in that industry in that new way, or you do have to phase out your business. You have to make a choice, right? So, first of all, you need to know is there demand? For most of the stuff that y'all are selling, the actual transformation, what they really want, the clothes, the jewelry, help starting something, help designing their yard, help doing this, help with, you know, some kind of service. If people still want that, there is still demand. Then the question really becomes how do they want to receive it? They still need the help with whatever it is. How do they want to receive it? Maybe you've had a physical store this whole time and you realize, you know what, people really just want to buy online. Then you move online, right? But you're still selling the gifts that they need, the home decor that they need, or whatever it is that you offer in your store, right? So this is this is a big question for you today. And I hope you're getting this. That you offer a transformation with your business, whatever you sell, and you are choosing to offer it in a certain mode, in a certain modality, in a certain vehicle, a certain way, right? But now you have to ask yourself if it's not selling, assuming your marketing is still there and you still have presence and you're still known, how do they actually want to receive it? That is the question of the day for anyone who is selling anything. And even if your sales haven't like plummeted, but you can kind of feel that it's stagnant, you have to ask yourself, what's going on in the market that may be changing the way that people want to receive this because they still want the result, right? I mean, with our movie example, people want movie night. We went to a movie the other night for the first time in years. We went and saw the Michael Jackson one. I absolutely loved it and it was so much fun. My daughter was like, we have to go and we have to go to the theater because the music's so good and it's fun. And it was a blast. And we loved it. People still want movie night. But I'll be honest, the majority of our movie nights are on our couch or at home, right? But if you are selling movies or rights to movies, you have to ask yourself, how do people want to receive

Examples That Clarify The Shift

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this and figure out what industry you're gonna be in? Are you gonna be in the movie theater business, the home media business? Like maybe you do the, what is it, the drive-up theaters out in the park? I've heard there may be like a comeback with those, right? A resurgence of people wanting to go have movie night outside under the stars, right? So do you do you see what I'm saying? So whatever you're selling, if you're selling t-shirts, I guarantee people still want t-shirts. They want cute t-shirts. But how do they want to receive them? Do they want to go to a store and buy them? Do they want to buy them online? Are they finding more that they see the t-shirts, you know, by an ad? Like they're not really looking for them, but they get ads on their Instagram, or maybe someone's showing them off on TikTok shop, or maybe there's some kind of influencer or creator that is showing them the t-shirts. And now you would see that they still want the t-shirts. They just didn't want to come to your local store or whatever it is. And I'm not knocking local stores because I love local stores. I love to go, but I have seen what has happened. There's been a massive shift for little small businesses that have stores. It's hard for a lot of them to stay in business right now and retail. It just really is. Now I've seen a lot of new coffee shops come up because I think people are wanting to be around other people. They want community. That's a whole other thing that I didn't mention is that people are wanting offline experiences. They're calling it like the analog life. Like they want to not be online and they want to be talking to people and with people and back the way it was just like 20 years ago, 25 years ago, right? And so that's what I want you to think about. I want you to be smart about this, about not emotionally reacting when things start going south, when your sales start slumping. It's to get more creative and positive and ask yourself, okay, if there's still demand for the transformation that I offer, how are people wanting

How To Research And Adapt

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to receive it? So then the next question is how do you find out how people want to receive it? You can research online, you can ask AI, you can talk to actual customers and clients and people you know. That's probably the best way is to talk to your clients that you've already had or people that you know that would be in the market for this kind of thing and ask them how they want to receive it. What's the way that they would buy it? How would they go looking for it? What would they do? Right? Is that making sense? So again, if your sales are slumping or this happens, we don't want to panic. We want to be smart. We want to think about how people want to receive it. We want to do our research and we want to move forward and adapt. And that's what we call pivoting. Sometimes if you hear business owners say they pivot a little bit, I don't even know that that's a pivot. A pivot kind of seems more that you go into a different direction with your business, like a total selling something totally different, going from a service to a product, et cetera. But it's more of offering it in a way that people are excited to receive it. And that's the way they want to receive it. In fact, I'm doing that with my business now. As I told you, I have coaching and um, you know, do-it-yourself like course that they can watch on their ush and say, do it yourself. But it's more, so I offer coaching and I have it where they can be learning on their own time with the recorded trainings that I have. So then when we get on our coaching calls, it's like bam, bam, we get to it. Right. And so that is working, but I also have another way, and I don't want to say it yet. I've kind of been teasing this up, but I'm I'm waiting to make sure this comes to fruition. Another way that I think that y'all would love to receive help for building your business and your podcast and getting the support and gaining the confidence and strategy to actually build your dream. And so I'm exploring that right now, which I'm super excited because I've just seen this new opportunity. Right. So we always have to be doing that. You always have to be doing that and you have to be looking ahead, like where are things going? And again, you can research trends and all that online as well. So I hope this helps you because I don't want anyone panicking. I don't want anyone doubting themselves. I don't want you feeling like there's no hope because there is. It's just that you got to make sure there's still demand for what you offer and then offer it in a way that people want to receive it. So that is it. Y'all have a great day.

Where To Connect And Get Help

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And remember, you can always reach out to me. You can follow me on Instagram. I'm at Start with Kimberly Brock, and you can DM me there. You can contact me through my website at Kimberleybrock.com. I would love to help you with the business of your podcast, whatever you may be working on, and see how we can get you moving forward confidently with your data. So that's it.

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Y'all have a great day. Until next time. Bye. Now, this episode may be over, but our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimberlybrock.com, and yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this alone. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.