There were many posts on social media from all the crafters and artisans complaining about low January sales. It's inevitable, the hype of November to December when there is all that holiday shopping and then January hits and it's like someone turns off the water and you get drip drip drip. But I think it's less of January's fault and more of what we are conditioned to expect in today's business. We are consistently targeted by all marketing firms and advertising agencies and apps to subscribe to services which promise that if you use them orders and sales will come flooding in with no effort. In fact that is also what we are promised from social media, that if you are creating content daily and posting reels or gaining 1.8 million followers that suddenly you will get this instant success with effortless sales. This may be true for a select few, but there definitely is more to the story that they are not sharing as so many of us are saying the same thing, "I'm busting my butt until I'm tired, and it's not happening." Even worse, reports are saying that it's getting lower. Lower engagement, losing followers, less sales etc.

It's reminding me very much of an old textbook example of the fruit tree. The fruit tree was a sales example, usually apples. The lowest fruit was at the bottom, easy to pick and required minimal to no effort to get. The medium apples required a ladder and were further up the tree and then you needed something special to get to the apples at the very top which was the hard level. You in this scenario are the farmer.

Social Media, SEO, and Internet Ads in this day and age is the low hanging fruit. We all get excited for these sales because they are easy. They roll in, they make our phones cha-ching and they are always unexpected because you may have never even spoken to this customer before and yet they bought something. These are always the sales we want more of so we can sit in our pjs at home and do the least effort possible. There are many new businesses and even existing businesses that in this example set up their shop and then wait for the sales to roll in. In the apple tree scenario they come and pick the fruit at the bottom and then simply wait for the next season. Next season rolls around and they are out happy to pick the low fruit but then two more farmers show up to also pick. Wait where did they come from? Suddenly there are less apples and yet they walk away and wait for next season. This season there are four farmers and the share is very small.

I don't know why we expect things to stay the same, but somehow we do. Starting businesses has become so easy, that even kids are starting internet brands. More and more people are rushing to start online brands and webpages and maybe you had a lot of easy apples before, but you can't count on that because everyone wants the easy sales, or maybe one year not as many apples grow, what would that mean?

As businesses we also must ride the economic times, which means in time periods where budgets are tightened and spending is pulled back, the first to go are those easy low hanging fruit sales. The objective actually is of course get as many of those low hanging easy sales as you can, but also to harvest the entire tree and then plant more trees. So what does that mean?

Let's say you are a candle business and your social media is bringing in those easy sales but you need more. Medium and hard sales might be going to a craft fair to gain customers, placing an ad in a local paper, going physically to retail stores to try to get wholesale bulk orders for your candles. All of these these things require considerably more effort to make a sale, but can also be a larger payoff. As effort gets harder, the players in the game are also fewer. I want to say it's not because we are lazy, but I kind of feel that is somewhat of the case. I mean who wants to knock on doors if you can sit in your living room waiting for a customer to come to you with no interaction needed? But guaranteed that the business owner that takes the time to pick all the fruit from the tree will pass up the one growth and sales wise from the person who expects it to just roll in from the low hanging fruit.

How do you plant a tree? At some point you will exhaust all your options, not because you didn't do it right, but because (in the candle scenario) a buyer may just not need any more candles. It's not because they didn't love yours or think your business was awesome, but they may unfollow because they just don't need you or your products any longer. They become an unfollow, an inactive customer, maybe a 1x buyer and now you are -1 and need two more customers to grow. Or maybe you've tapped out your current audience and overall you've sold as many candles as you've possibly could. Planting a tree would be to add a new product to your line. Maybe it's lotions and now you can sell your customers both candles and lotions. Maybe that opens the door for gift baskets or sets. Planting a tree could also mean that you are going after another audience. Maybe you targeted women in their 40's before but now you are going after women in their 30's or maybe you are targeting shop owners to retail your products for you.

Of course we all want the orchard with many many fruit trees to harvest, but each tree has to be cared for, requires maintenance, and definitely time to grow so it's important not to add too many trees at once or you start to spread yourself very thin both financially and time wise. Having many products in a line sounds very cool and looks cool, but you have to advertise, create awareness, packaging, all the same things you did on your first product. This takes energy, financial backing, and lots of time so don't dive in until you've got solid ground on your first product.

It does work and it does start to separate you from the rest of the pack. As others are scrambling for those social media sales rolling in on their own, their January's numbers fell flat. But for those who picked all the apples from the tree, January was a great month.