Hey guys, how you doing check this out guys? It's Andy Elliott look. I'm here today. I got Bubba my Facebook remarking guy Bubba's an animal he does the I call him the dream maker man because I just some of our guys right now He is helping them acquire more customers than they've ever had in their life and by the way This is a live Q&A. Okay, so number one I'm gonna answer a lot of the questions that you guys have and I want you guys to be doing this right now I want you to number one. I've taken some notes here I'm gonna give you guys a couple of things to think about what is Facebook remarketing. Well What is Facebook remarketing and is it for me those two things are real important, okay? So I want to ask you know a question. Do you have enough customers?  Do you like warm leads or do you like cold leads? That's a pretty easy answer, right? Would you like hot in-market buyers coming straight to your cell phone right now? Okay, do you wish right that you had someone to help you hold your hand? Learning and teach so you could learn how to remark it and market the right way I wish I did when I was younger so with that being said I want you guys to think about some things that right now that maybe some questions that you don't understand about Facebook remarketing So that we can teach you we have we have released the Facebook remarketing course It's a seven-section course that Bubba has built Okay, and basically what it is is that it teaches you how to acquire more customers That's the bottom line and it's not a wishing well of customers like hoping that these are good leads These are hot in-market buyers who are ready to buy cars today. So what that means is? As you go to the dealership and you get a lead, right? You get that lead sometimes it doesn't have a name sometimes it doesn't have a phone number Sometimes it just has an email Sometimes it was a lead that was generated from a third party of a third party of a third party given away a t-shirt And that's how you got that lead. I don't like those leads or Yeah, whatever it is and give away a gift card and that's how you got the lead, right? But bottom line is what I want you to know, okay? so Car sales nation if you're if you're not familiar with car sales nation that is our Facebook group It's real simple right now go to Facebook type in Andy Elliott car sales nation guys join the group It's free. It literally costs nothing every single day. We're rocking and rolling. Okay, let's see who we got here, man As I'm I have bad reading here KNOCA man, I don't even know how to say that But I'm telling you right now What's up? I'm glad to see y'all try to say your name, but I would best it up We're down here in Oklahoma where we ride horses, you know I'm saying so we're not the best at pronouncing it Pronouncing stuff right I got Sean with this over here. He's on the computer. He's helping us out I got Matt Dieter over here. He's helping us out on YouTube guys. Listen reach out say what's up and then by by the way, I want to tell you this if you want to know what Facebook remarketing is Facebook remarketing is this it is a way for you to base it basically add a Image or a video okay of a of a I would say I don't know an enticement Right, I would call it an advertisement, but it's it doesn't always have to be an advertisement It could be a message it could be a video of me saying hey guys listen, my name's Andy Elliott I work down at the local Chevy house. Listen right now I've got zero percent no payments for six months If this sounds like something that you would like get your car paid off today that you're driving Traded in or just buy a new vehicle. It doesn't matter, but not have any payments for six months You want to click on the link below and I'll send you all our whole inventory so you can check it out And see if you see something you like and then below that little video. It says learn more right it says view the full inventory Right. It says see all the specials That little button right there. That's the call to action and that video It's it's not a video that you put out on Facebook and you boost it It's a video that we actually go to the back side of the Facebook ads account, right Bubba and we Target people who are in the market for a vehicle right now This specific ad would be for somebody who has been searching for Chevrolet ads who's been looking for like, you know Maybe in a DA Kelly boo boo. What's my trade worth?  So what do we want to know we want to know that Facebook will give us the customers as long as we pay them And we don't have to pay him very much for hot market leads cheap right now, right? It's really cheap right now. It won't stay cheap because Google was cheap at some point, right? Now's the time to get in and I want to share this with you Okay, I see victory stories every single day every single day. Listen, I have a guy named Pinky Okay, that I literally just talked to 15 minutes ago and he told me he delivered eight cars in two days I'm just gonna say this. I don't people that sell eight cars a month What's the difference between you and him? He knows something that you don't know that's it There's no difference between you and him as in a person. Hey David. What's up brother? Good seeing you, dude Hey, listen the difference between you and him you and pinky nothing, okay?  He's branding himself, man. He's a smart freaking dude But listen, here's what I'll tell you you could do the same thing as him You can do the same thing as everyone else in the world. Look, I was talking to Cody Carter I did an interview with him and he was saying how he saw the 1100 cars last year He's gonna suit he's gonna do 1,300 this year Listen, that's a hat trick a day guys. That's three to four cars a day every single day all year long I'm gonna tell you this you go to work and you trade your time for money when you're at work And you trade your time for that money Could you physically be making three times more the money four times more the money five times more the money in the same amount Of time not working more and have customers all through the day selling them the answer is yes The question is how do you get those customers?  Hey, why can't I get the good leads? Hey, when's the next internet leads coming through? Hey, why haven't we had any leads today? Hey, how come all our leads suck?  If you want to sell 15 to 20 cars a month, okay, and that's as big as you want to go It's not for you because you can take you can sell 15 or 20 cars a month in the car business Taking fresh apps and working your life away 60 to 70 hours a week or You could dig your own road Okay, have your own success and guess what? Go and build your own lead funnels right build your own system. Okay, your own system Never worry about where your next customer is going to come from. What if every day you walked into work you had 20 leads 50 leads Sitting there waiting for you in your own system just waiting there for you No one else could take that lead No one else could beat you to it the internet guy next to you couldn't shoot him an email and say hey, that's my guy No, these are your people You've built your own funnel your own system and everything and they're just waiting on you and guess what what happens?  All right, so check this out Okay, what did I got here somebody said How many times is the lead sold that goes to a dealership? Okay, how so look so what is the question dealership lead? If the dealership gets a lead is that lead strictly for that dealership or does that go to other dealerships? So dealership takes $40 for a lead that leads goes to that store. How many other stores if they're using They're not exclusive leads. Yeah. No, they're from their bodies No, exactly. Look if your dealership and by the way 90% of your leads that your dealerships are getting unless they're a website lead That's that is physically from your store They are leads then from a third-party marketing company, right? That your dealership is paid for that are dropping them off to the four local dealerships as well as yours and The first person to get a hold of them gets them. Okay, and by the way These people are being blown up by many different people when you create your own lead through Facebook remark It's personal. It was your ad that they came in on and by the way your video and your pixel Which we teach you how to build the pixels. Guess what? They've already seen you. They've already seen you They already have familiar I call familiarity they already know who you are. So these people will reach out to you and dude. It's like magic Okay, think about it Facebook video be what 30 45 seconds. Yes, the best 45 seconds max and listen the Facebook Marketing course that we shoot we give examples that the Facebook remarketing course that you guys will see on the link below And they'll see in the in the fate where they're watching this Facebook live You're watching this later. You're watching this YouTube live. You're watching this six months down the road Okay, and you and you're just getting on board the links below. You can check it out When somebody enters a Facebook lead, right? Okay, but they talked to him about We give examples of how it goes The videos is that the highest converting we have or is it just the picture? It's the videos, right?  It could lead to a landing page that they enter their information on which we have all that in the course Okay, that isn't cost you extra money. It's all in the course Okay, or they have a call to action, which is DM you right messages or lead forms Yeah, direct messages, right and so you constantly have leads funneling through through lead forms or direct message And we have the course split away and broken into two different generation and messenger campaign That's how we structure it So basically your lead generation is going to bring you leads and those leads gonna come as a form where you have first name last name And email so that way you get on it and contact your customers And then the other way is a direct message for some people they don't want to give their information like that on a lead form I'm like that personally. I like direct messages so I can just get on your inbox They have one more information about this car and you take it from there Yeah, and bottom line let's just listen to what Bubba said We've got this set up where the people who want to leave their name their phone number and email can and the ones who don't They can just direct message. Yeah, Sean, you got something? The question we have is add budget. How much should I be spending per day per month? And how do I know if it's working? Okay, so here's a great great question. Whoever that was Let's give them let's give them let's give them a free overcoming objections book because that right there listen Let me tell you this. That's a great question. Let me tell you this Here's how I start. It's not about how much money you spend.  Okay, so that question that that guy just asked Bubba would probably recommend to him. Hey, I want you to set up spending two dollars to five dollars a day Whatever a very small amount and set it up for three Or four days to run and in that day two days three days four days Bubba can see your entire everything he can tell if you're if your ad is Converting or not converting and if it's not converting we tweak it Okay, that's the beautiful part of this. You have this man right here. It's not a course Bubba for a living what he does is he trains dealerships how to run their own in-house Facebook remarketing companies So they don't have to go listen right now guys if you look up dealers united in Florida, right? Just look up dealers united. Okay dealers united charges This is the charge not the ad spend no The charge what they cost to run the dealerships ads campaign is from a thousand to three thousand a month thousand to three thousand a month in Their pocket and then plus what you want to spend as a dealership on Facebook So dealerships are spending six to seven thousand dollars a month if you're a salesman an internet manager manager anybody You can buy a course for two hundred and ninety nine dollars That will show you exactly what dealers united is doing and you can set up your own Facebook remarketing spin Here's what I'll tell you a salesman right now could invest two dollars a day Run it four days out of the week and could probably sell three or four cars off of it If he's running the right ad in the right campaign Here's the beautiful thing is if you run the ad for three days and it's not converting you send Bubba a text message And you like hey Bubba and see what you're doing what I've been doing with a lot of guys As soon as they don't with the course I log in and I do a review with them give them insights I would change this maybe I would do this and then we're running for 72 hours You could Facebook allows you to run what they call a AB test when you're starting out when you don't have a lot of experience You could build an ad Let's say you do a graphic image adding you do a video ad but they both talking about the same thing Right, then you run them for 72 hours, and you'll see which one is converting more than you should be other one off So you gotta stay your split testing split testing Guys listen to all those tools in there Listen, if I if I'm on the other end right now, and I'm like I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Yes Will this course course teach somebody who doesn't know anything about what's going on? Exactly what to do. Yes or no. Yes, it will okay if when they finish the course They are confused and don't understand They have you to coach and mentor them through the entire steps either Either way anybody who buy this course you could always talk to me get with me whenever you're done because two things gonna happen Some guys I see that they computer savvy and once they done the course I log in and I see they build a Completely different way, but I love right. Yeah, keep me updated on your strategy because I want to know how well it does Yeah, and if you don't have ideas then I can share with you some as that I do I've been emailing people Samples as that I've done campaign that I know didn't work They're very to get you started and then you could put on top later. You could add your own ideas As you know, okay, I've got something I want to add This is a question a lot of you are thinking right now. Hey does this work for new car cells? Or does this work just for you? Dude if you sell new cars, you will kill it with this Why because if you I'll tell you work at a Honda storm, and I'm just using this as an example But other can go in on the targeting back in where the audiences are built where the targeting is done And we can target Honda buyers people that are searching for things with Honda's That away when we send your ads out your ads are it isn't like a Facebook post that you're boosting And we're trying to show it to 2,000 people and see if somebody's interested. That's the difference We are only showing it to people who are interested in Honda's and That's why the conversion rate is so high out of 10 leads Three are selling if you'll dial in the quality Okay Most Facebook remarketing companies want to get you quantity of leads But you're cyphering through a sack of crap am I right that's true this right here The course teaches you to dial in and become deadly at physically targeting people The key audience of hot in-market buyers that you are looking for look If I was to ask you right now Can you tell me what your customers what you what you want them to look like and you would describe them to me? Well, Andy, I want them to be you know 30 to 50 years old Okay, I want them to want to have interest in a Honda. Okay, right? I'm okay with them being male or female That doesn't matter. I want them to already own a Honda or not on one.  We take the ad We blow it out and also people are getting a lead Let's say you get in early you said you could get 10 leads and you sell three That's what we see him right now. And that's that's a great number ten out of three is a great. Yeah But those seven leads a lot of the guys they just trash right they get the email phone number They call call send email and then they don't get no answer or maybe the guy say, okay I'm not ready to buy and then they trash it and I was talking to him yesterday And I said that's a great mistake because now you're getting data That's what you get it those email you could keep them in a folder Google AdWords and keep them in a folder because you know that guy is interested by SUV and you could use those email Whenever you're building your ad to target those people after a while and you get a lot of leads. Yeah, so my SUV people So what so what Bubba's saying is that you can actually create look-alike audience look-alike audiences with these emails And listen, what does this mean? This means this a guy that was interested in a Honda that had all the buying signs of getting a Honda that you called And he said man, dude, I'm six months out, bro I'm just still looking right so you take that lead and you want to just trash it because that guy's not buying today Listen, you need to understand there's people that are just like him that will buy today So as we collect those data as in those emails, which by the way when they when they email you and when they set up You have that information After three or four months of doing Facebook or marketing you have enough data Thousands of emails where you can go back through and now you can tell Facebook. Hey, I Want to find people that look like these people and This is this is next level if you don't know this little magic trick. What about all the people that did buy? Oh, yeah, you could keep me now. Yeah, well, no, you can keep retargeting But also you can take those people that did buy and push those into your Facebook And say hey Facebook. Can you find me more of these people? I see where you're going with that and guess what happens? Now you can go find those exact people Facebook does what's called a look-alike audiences, but I'm gonna tell you something, okay?   We're at the end of the course. Will you actually be able to talk to the person who built the course? And talk to you never again in your whole life ever Because people don't care about you they care about your money They want you to have a value and a service, but the the line draws there which it makes sense You know why because it takes him a lot of time doing this But at the end of the day we care about you getting what you're after Okay, so I want to say this if you're on the other end right now and you're like man You know what I don't know much about what's going on But I know this the course will teach it to me and then when I'm done Bubba's gonna make sure that I understand it all and he's gonna help me the whole way through and I've got his own personal cell phone What? How much is it again? 299 bucks and you can finance it and start training with it on it right now for $49. That's freaking nuts So I would say this I see people that take their money and they put it in a drain And it just goes down and nothing comes back for it This is an investment and you are the investment you have to become great at marketing I think you already know that okay, but you have to become great at marketing You have to become great at branding and you have to stay innovative constantly I don't need to tell you that it's a new internet age, but right now in 2020. That's the time We're shooting this video things are moving really fast Yeah, and couple things I could emphasize on that right because you were saying now We are in the internet time like nobody has a choice anymore No, this thing is divided in two groups, right?  Me talk about yesterday.  I say can I get some slim fit and dude?   They listen to you. So either way guys know everything man might get on the other side and use it to make some money Yeah, yeah. No. Hey, why not use it to our advantage? Yes, right? What about the course teach me how to write a description? Absolutely. We have that in there. Absolutely One of the biggest things that we teach you in the course is ad copy ad copies crucial We cover it in an entire section ad copy that converts Okay, so I want to tell you guys this any questions you have like like pop it out now bring it to me But like we covered in the course. We built this course guys. Listen, just an office is any time We spent eight months building this course making sure that we can cover Dot cross every dot every I cross every T and cover everything as far as to make sure that when someone takes the course They don't have any questions when it's done and if you do if you do Then I'm here you have here and by the way when you're done if you do understand it and you're killing it Guess what you can still reach out and say hey Bubba man. I'm selling a ton of cars I'm converting but look will you take a look at my ads and check it out? Yes, if you don't understand something and you're like I just don't get it I'm gonna tell you this we're not quitters. Okay, we don't give up on people That's why Bubba's in the game to help you make sure that you can build it. Okay You're thinking man There's there's two reasons why people don't buy something One they don't believe in it. Okay, and if you don't believe in Facebook by now, I'm sorry I don't know what to tell you. Okay, this is all Facebook We're teaching you how to use it and how to how to leverage it and build a pipeline. Okay One they don't believe in it. Okay, which if you don't believe in Facebook, I'm just telling you guys sorry It's the biggest platform in the world. Okay, that's not me. That's those are facts And then secondly, it's because you don't believe that it'll work for you Now that I have added Bubba into the system But do you charge your coaching fee when they buy the course afterwards or do you do this for at no charge? We just want to make sure that you're gonna be successful That's easy, that's easy. I'm gonna let him answer this. Yeah, Facebook Marketplace is real simple Okay, Facebook Marketplace is where you're going to post right like you can post the doghouse on Facebook Marketplace Right, you can post a car you can post a boat you post anything you click vehicles you go to post it It's kind of like Craigslist and then you actually list something for sale in Facebook Marketplace you build an ad you write a description it costs no money There is nobody that this ad is being served to this ad is just being put out on the hosting for format for Facebook and People can search for stuff and they can find your ad You aren't finding anybody they have to find you okay now you can have the choice to boost that ad and When you boost that ad I won't explain this to you when you boost that ad you can spend money But you are not targeting anybody who wants to buy anything for the month You're just targeting a number. Yeah, like like wishing that somebody in there might be looking yes I call I call Facebook Marketplace a very important key tool for you to be doing that's free I believe you should be using it. Yes, absolutely. You should be using it, but let me ask you a question So because I think you have to have as many poles in the water as you can okay You put a poll in the water and you got a little if going into Facebook Marketplace is like this It's like putting a little tiny worm about this big like a little wax worm on the end of your hook and Putting it out there and in Facebook remarketing is physically taking and chumming the water With it, which if you know anything about fishing like what are you talking about dude? It's where I throw tons of bait in the water in such a big area that if there's any fish in the area They automatically come in and attract to it. Okay Facebook remarketing is where you build an ad and then you say this ad is only going to be shown on the back ends of the ads manager account to these kind of people which is People who want to buy a Honda and by the way people who want to look for a truck people who want a four-wheel drive People that have searched new vehicle websites people who already strong signal of what they want and Facebook get the data They know you go target those people. Yes. That's the difference We're gonna take your z71 truck ad and instead of you know Posting it. We're gonna send it out physically to the truck buyers and see what they have to say I'm gonna answer this one. It sounds like a lot of work You know, it sounds like a lot of work to me is sitting on the point in the sun and the rain Hoping in the waiting for someone to show up. So well, but hold on. You know, hold on when you say it takes a lot of work Look, let me ask you this. Does this take a lot of work watches? Hey guys, my name's Andy Elliott. Listen I'm glad that you guys got a chance to see this lifted truck behind me Look, I have over a hundred of these in stock if you're looking to keep low payments with no cash down You want no payments for six months? Whatever. I got you. Okay. Listen, I'm the number one truck place in the country Click the link below check out my entire inventory. I think you'll see something that you love. Whoa now that little Underneath that video. It says check out the whole inventory click here And when you click there, guess what's sitting behind that a lead form page and it says unlock the entire inventory now Right name email phone number or direct message behind it and now How long did that take guys that took me 30 seconds now I? Go to my Facebook page. I upload the video and you know what I do I've type in on the back end of the art of it because I've learned it from the course People who want to buy trucks people who are looking for financing people that don't want to put money down Maybe I had the subprime place that I work in and I look and I just go through and I set that the audience now I Click go and I say I don't want to spend more than three dollars a day on it And I walk away How much time did that take? And I wanted to add this on it right something I can add on that It's not it's not really hard work to be honest because think about it whenever you set the platform One time you build all your audience that's the deal. It's a one every day.  Yeah ask him What if he never had to worry about where his next customer was gonna come from? Answer that Sounds like a lot of time Listen You either you you get out of something what you put into it, okay? And the reason why so many success of so many salespeople aren't successful is because they can't stay Consistent, yes, right. Okay. I'm gonna tell you this. All right when I made 700 grand a year selling cars Do you think there was some consistency in there? Absolutely. There was guys that worked around me That could have easily modeled what I did but the problem is they didn't want to get better They didn't want to learn listen To that guy that just asked it sounds like it takes a lot of time guys I'm gonna tell you right now. There's one thing in life. You're never going to get more of you're gonna get more money Okay, but you're never gonna get more time When you set up and use your time the right way You will have more time than you ever imagined in your life And I'm gonna tell you this would you love to come in on your scheduled day and already have 20 leads Waiting for you in the morning and then physically work your day And then go home on time and already have sold two or three cars every day Gosh man, I mean it sounds to me like the other person that's Doesn't have time All he's doing is giving up time because he's not acquiring any skill guys skill acquisition is what changes your life Okay, I love closing negotiations overcoming objections war tracks. I love it all but I'm gonna tell you something right think about this If you're great at all those things But you don't have enough customers You're just a skilled assassin sitting here. I mean that's it.  I don't want to be busy I want to be productive if you want to be productive Facebook remarketing is for you Listen It's another pole in the water, but it's one of the most effective poles in the world the president Campaign was one because of Facebook. That's how big Facebook is The president's campaign was one. I don't care if you like the president or not, but that's how they want it Okay, that's how effective Facebook is what is so I think it's in favor one-on-one says what I've been He says I got a question does this train work when you're selling really old cars that don't look very nice Holy crap. Yes. Okay. Let me ask you this question great question by the way Give that guy an overcoming objections book. Okay, that guy. Yeah, send us a text message 918 210 254 I'm gonna send you one. Listen So yes, okay, I'm gonna ask a question to everybody. All right, and this is a great question for that guy How many people are in the market right now for a five or $10,000 car a lot a lot? Okay, how many people are in the market for a 30 to $40,000 car? So so maybe not too much so so which is why we use Facebook remarketing to target those people So if you have less expensive cars at your store. Oh my gosh, man This is like a kid in a candy store. You could I mean so that guy How much money is he talking about $10,000 $5,000? Yeah, how much money you talking about 5,000 10,000 15,000 Well, I can share this though when I do my ads I have okay any of you guys want to use this You can go ahead and use it. I always work with tears I have tier one tier two tier three right tier one would be all exotics Right nice lifted jeeps and stuff like that tier two will be normal sit down Whoo, that's what you call budget car Yeah, and then you could go and you could go to your cashcars tier three Yes, so listen that person right there if I if we go into the back-end audience and target cashcars $1,500 or less we start targeting keywords like that first-time car All those things. Yeah, dude. You're filtering and only to those people and now I have a video that says hey guys It's Andy listen if you're looking for a car under $1,500 listen that right there is like a unicorn Well, guess what you just ran into unicorn central. It's all I sell $1,500 cars listen do me a favor click on the little unicorn link below and check out all my $1,500 cars and stop Thanks for watching this video below. It says see all the inventory now.   His question is can you guys help me targeting Hispanic audience what? See mucho Yeah, hey, hey, listen, I'm gonna tell you right now. I think it's right. You're out in Spanish All you have to do listen all you have to do is create an ad that says mucho carros Poco poquito de nero, right? Yeah, just kidding. That's not Spanish.  I'm married to a Mexican Okay, my wife's Mexican and I'm gonna tell you this her little brother came from Mexico by the way great time to tell this story Yeah, Alex is with us. Listen Alex came here from Mexico doesn't even know how to speak English Which just is a cherry on top of it and is learning how to speak English He starts doing Facebook remarketing that he learned from bubba And Alex sells 10 to 15 cars a month in addition to the cars he sells that is dealership Okay, these questions are by Facebook Okay, so here we got one Robert Robert Klein. I've been posting the videos. Yes, you can do it Spanish vehicles What is it? I've been posting my vehicle Highlighting my videos.  Yeah, ask me if he's setting up targeted audience. It's Carlos Gerardo. What's up Carlos? He says I run my Facebook ads and I get the messages. I just think I'm doing it wrong I get people to message me, but my page doesn't grow and most people that contact me cannot buy How do I fix asking this is he wanting his page to grow a Carlos? You want your page to grow or you want to dial in on more quality leads? Which one is it? If it's more quality leads, I want to ask one question. Have you taken the Facebook remarketing course yet? Just yes or no Just answer that for me because if he hasn't the answer is if Carlos just told me Has he taken the course? Ask him if he's taken Carlos if you take in the Facebook remarketing course Take it Listen to me. Look at yourself as an investment. Go spend the two hundred ninety nine dollars right now Go through the seven-section course When it's done Call Bubba Bubba will help you jump in on your ads and never again will you ever have a problem and then I'll do something for him too Because the first thing he's talking about something completely different. There is this type of ads that will drive your page to grow That's what we call brand awareness. That's something completely different. I'll show you how to do that That's it. I want to tell you this he said both so we said he wants more quality leads and he wants to grow his page Which shows me He is a business in a box That dude wants to be his own business and I don't know if he has his own store Or if he's wanting to be his own business inside of a business So guess what both of them are important. How about we do this? How about we quit wasting any more time?  Everybody has my cell phone<PHONE_NUMBER><PHONE_NUMBER> you can text me Say Andy, I just took the course. I'm ready for Bubba's number boom I shoot it over to you Bubba's ready man the way Bubba works. He's quick.  All right, cool I'm gonna log into your screen from my screen. He does his little Bubba magic You know I'm saying and guess what happens leads start raining in we help you scale as you go Right now Everyone needs more customers Everyone needs more quality customers, which is why guys I take a lot of pride in automotive sales I don't want to sell you something that doesn't work Okay, but if you pay for it, you'll pay attention if you really want your life to go to the next level It's time to go to deeper waters and play with bigger fish This guy has been doing Facebook remarketing for the last five years He worked for a company for two or three years straight where the only thing that he did was teach Dealers how to run their Facebook campaigns. He never worked with individual sales people I was the one that took him and said can we do what you're doing to these dealers? And can we teach that to salespeople? Because those that's my breed you guys are my tribe. I I wanted to teach the dealers, but I want to teach you So guess what this is called the unfair advantage with selling cars. Do we have any more questions right now that we don't have answers? So we're all looking back on so he's highlighting the vehicles the videos that he's taking Should my what should my add to be highlighted? He answered the question. He's not targeting anybody right? That's it That's it. That's your problem. Listen, you're not okay right now. Okay. Think about this I have a YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is car sales training. I have 300 something videos on YouTube right now Every single one of them starts with car sales training if you're watching this right now Either you are a customer that's just like getting really prepared for your next car purchase, right?  Was I talked about that look? I am only targeting this video to car sales automotive industry This isn't going to the cooking channel Okay, the cooking channel doesn't even know what's going on Could you imagine if I put this video on the cooking channel right now? I'd be like why don't we have a business? Why am I not making any money? Why am I not helping anybody look? My point of be saying this to you is that look you want to build the audiences and the targets So you're asking me what do you need to highlight the answer is you may already be doing it right? Dude, you may be this freaking clothes to break and wide open you may be this close Get in the course Take the course if he hasn't bought the course by the course right now. Listen, you you want to take all the guesswork out of it You want to know why you're not let's fix it. That's what I will do with you. I will fix your problem Number one I will walk you through a seven-section course where Bubba teaches Everything under the Sun so that you are prepared and you have your arsenal ready to become the best Facebook remarketing guy in The world in the automotive industry and then go and by the way if you sell boats or Harleys or anything this works too for those It's the same thing It's just instead of a car.  It's the same thing But here's my point though when that's done you're only sending that ad though now And he may be highlighting everything right and by the way Bubba will help you with all that to make sure it's done Right and when you guys go and put your new ad out and you set up your back end audiences Now you're not sending your car your great ad that you work all this time on building Guess what you you talk about wasting time. How about this? How about the time we waste like trying to do it on our own? How about you raise your hand and say hey man listen all right cool. I got you Teach me. I'm ready So a question that would be good answer to Carlos was asking he said he's invested a lot into training He said he wants to know if the remarketing course is a lifelong subscription or if there's a time limit or what? What it looks like as far as life long price listen The only way that this would ever end is If Bubba got hit by a car or something and he died because I wouldn't be able to tell you how to do it as good as he Would I hope not hey Bubba? How long can they text you? How long can they call? How long were you helping guys? This is one of the most kind This is one of the most kind guys. I've ever met in my life Yeah, 2 a.m. Bro. I need help on this listen guys We're eight up with you being successful eight up with it every time I get to this guy, right? He is so unselfish Unselfish with this time and making sure you make it all I would say is If you're a skeptic in any way, and you don't think that this is work for you don't do it Okay, and then I want to give my background too. I think that will help a lot And it was my GM he hired me and I sold cars for him and then later on when I went to Digital I took the courses, you know when went to school for it and started working for a company That was specializing the car business. So I'm not this lead generation guy who's been doing like housing and stuff I've been studying Automotive and I sold and the thing I said was if I knew what I know now when I was a salesman God sometimes I have the temptation of going back and selling cars and just doing this for myself But then I wouldn't be able to do none of this. Yeah Guys listen and exactly what he said when mother sold cars He was one of my best sales guys that I hired him Okay And then Bubba got out of the automotive industry and went to work for a company That was one of the most competitive Facebook remarketing companies in the country and he worked for them for what two years Two and a half years building all their ads campaigns for their dealerships And then Bubba decided this isn't what I want to do anymore And I want to have something that has a little more purpose in it Okay, and then obviously, you know me right like I'm like well, dude I've got like, you know 30,000 sales people here that would if they knew what you knew These guys could double or triple their income and I'm like, but honestly these guys aren't very internet smart And I don't mean like all of you because some of you guys are extremely smart and by the way if you're 18 to 25 You probably grew up on an iPhone or something.  I'm 40. So I'm what I call pre internet Okay, I didn't grow up on Computer I didn't know how to use one my kids are better on my iPhone than me Okay, but the deal is I have to learn it because we don't have a choice. Okay, so I asked Bubba I said I teach everything else under the Sun. This is something I can't teach you've been doing this for too long You're an expert at it Can you teach this to everyone else and now we've created a course that answers every question that teaches you everything But afterwards I feel like the biggest problem in life is there's courses out there But they don't hold any accountability when the course is done and over with you got an email support Yeah, yeah, you get an email support and guess what you're lucky if they ever get back with you Yeah, and then maybe one or two guys you can talk to him on the telephone. He'll log into your account. What? What and you don't have to pay extra for that that by the way, that's normally an upsell Okay, Sean asked me a question. How much are we gonna charge for Bubba helping him after the course? I said we're gonna do it for free. He said that's not fair. You can't do that I said, you're right. You can't but we do things that other people don't do That's why we get results that no one else is getting Okay, hey, let me just answer this and I'm gonna say something real quick And I want everybody think about this We were pulling websites right the other day and seeing where people pull right and I looked up Joe Verdi's website And Joe's Verdi website was like seven million Right was like seven million right now is where it's rated We pulled up the Elliot group now calm website the Elliot group now comms website And we're rated 1.2 million right now in the world in the world. I'm gonna tell you this We are moving fast guys our tribe our crew were freaking growing man. And by the way, no one is alone You can text me on my phone right now<PHONE_NUMBER>. I will physically pick up the telephone and talk to you Holy cow. What the heck? Why are these guys giving their time away to people? Because the people realize they actually really care It's not about the money.  That's the payment for us. Okay You Orange puck up in Canada baby, you know where you're at Yes, but that's in the course Orange pup have you taken the course let us know But you cover that in the course good you can't pull our secrets out online, okay? Let's give them an objection book for free. That was good. Nice try buddy. I like her's heads out. What else we got? I'm in a rule. I'm in a rule area. I don't think this will work for me Go ahead, bubba.   How many are in our town in the surrounding town? Yes, by the way When you said you're in a rule area We can take about 60 miles out from there and that would be your most impactive audience Am I right?  They'll probably drive 15 minutes 20 minutes to get to you So you're gonna get and let's ask this guy a question real quick watch Let's think outside the box for one second the guy that just asked. I'm in a rule area. Okay What is the closest area to him? What's the closest area to you buddy and just tell me real quick What's the closest area to you and besides you telling me? What's the closest area to you? Okay, what's the closest area? How far is it from you because I'm gonna tell you this right Paul's Valley, Oklahoma Is a place that's right down the road from us. We're Norman. They're 30 minutes away. There is only 6,000 people in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma Paul's Valley, Oklahoma They sell most of their inventory out of Oklahoma City Which is 35 to 45 minutes away and I'm gonna tell you something 34 beautiful Cool watch us so check this out So what we would do is we would put a little circle around the community that's around you Why because those people won't be driving 72 miles if they can find a good deal right there locally So so that's your niche we're gonna own now watch those it's second inch. We're about to come up with that's the first niche We're gonna own your people right because you got to take care of your people. Okay? Also We are going and we're gonna go it's like geo fencing. We're going to draw a fence Around that community that has 10,000 people that's 72 miles away.  It's over. Yes, it will work for you in rule, right? I love this car guys. I love you guys so much. So you're telling me I buy them this course I go all in I generate leads and I sell them for 40 bucks a pop Hey, hold on by the way. Listen, this happens. It's happening right now Bubba has trained guys and what they do for a living now is they started out selling cars And listen what they do now is they generate leads and when the leads come in they answer these leads And they take the hot ones and they sell them the big dealerships for 75 bucks a piece And then they take the bad leads right and they sell them to the buy here pay here's in the subprime places for $75 a lead and On top of that the people that can't buy anything they sell those to the credit repair people What? listen Create your own business Okay, I'm just saying this are you an entrepreneur if you are we're teaching you right now So that whatever that guy's saying right there It's already been done and by the way there's dealerships right now They're waiting for good leads waiting for bad leads and there's credit repair companies right now That would pay big money for somebody's chance to go build their credit right with that being said That absolutely I mean you could do that if that's what you wanted and you wanted a way out that would be your way out I love staying in the game, but you want to go to the different side dude. Absolutely. It's all about education It's all about educating yourself on what's possible. Listen, you just don't know what you don't know Okay, we're gonna teach this to you now. What else we got we got any last questions We have three like three or four What are you going to be doing for us today? Is there a promotion at the end of this coming the promotion is real simple Okay Bubba right here. He charges dealerships when he trains so a dealership says hey Bubba Listen, I want you to come in here and train my internet director so he can do the facebook remarketing for the entire store right How much will you charge me? Bubba says i'll charge you 2,500 bucks Bubba goes out to the dealership spends the day with the internet manager teaches him to build ads campaign ads Pixels videos they go through the whole thing They set it up and then Bubba leaves and he will Mentor and coach that store for probably another two weeks to make sure they're on their day He gets paid 2,500 bucks The promotion is this This is a course that you could spend six to seven hundred dollars on easily with no direction or guidance when it's done You could spend a thousand dollars on Matter of fact when we originally first started we were charging dealers two thousand dollars Just to have Bubba come in and teach their internet manager how to do this And I took it away from the dealerships and I've only given it to the salespeople And we just reinvented and created the whole course So it was very simple to follow for people who are smart on the internet and for people who don't understand Anything that want this but they just don't know where to start or how to do it That's why we built a seven section course to do it So the promotion would be at the end right now by the course is two hundred ninety nine bucks You can finance it Who lets you finance something and by the way, I don't charge you interest I don't do alone with you when you go to my website. It's a two hundred ninety nine dollar course It says make one payment of two ninety nine, but put it on a credit card guys pay it off You want to do two payments of one forty nine? You want to do three payments of ninety nine?  I trust you as a human being To go through and invest in yourself And guess what once you see yourself as an investment your whole life's going to change You buy the course you start training on it immediately I'm guessing in a week from now you're ready to start building your ads doing your stuff Right find a spot where you can really sit down and learn And then Bubba takes over from there and that doesn't cost you anything That's magical quick short answer for uh in fainberg. He said He partially owns a dealer With cars that are less than three thousand dollars They do their own financing. He wants to know what will be the best course to start with on The elli groups website So what I would recommend right now if you're not the best salesman in the world and I mean that's like a look Okay, if you can get a lead, but you don't know how to answer a phone call you need phone training, right? Okay, and I'm not talking about being okay. I'm talking about being like one of the best sales people in the country We have a course out it's zero to a hundred k fast car sales training if Gosh, I'd recommend this if everybody in your dealership would love to become one of the best sales people in the country Take the zero to a hundred thousand fast car sales training Just so you can understand how to become the best in the world at selling cars And I mean it's exactly how I made 700 grand a year selling cars now That I would say start there but listen That can be done in addition to The facebook remarketing. Okay, let's just close this right here. Okay. That can be done in addition to the facebook remarketing Okay, the facebook remarketing if that dealership right now is like hey listen right now We're selling almost every lead that and I appreciate you brother If you're saying right now you're selling every customer that's coming into you Every customer and you're doing a great job. Dude. You just need more customers Okay, get the facebook remarketing right now Blow the freaking customers up and then you guys will scale and double your business right now really fast Okay, but if you would also like to increase the skill set of your team And build more customers. Here's what I'd recommend if you have five guys that you have Get all five of the guys at zero to a hundred thousand fast car sales training course Pick one of them to do your facebook remarketing The whole team doesn't need to be doing facebook remarketing as a dealer Choose one man the person you trust the most and let them handle your facebook remarketing for your company Okay, I hope that helps and we would love to help you by the way We're here to help you and bubba will help you build the customers like you've never seen for your store He'll walk you through the whole thing. Okay, um, so there's no worries there But the zero to a hundred thousand fast car sales training course you want to become the best salesman in the world We'll drop a link below on that too so you can see it. Okay, that's where you're gonna kill it. Um What do I do with the leads after I get the leads from the remarketing campaign? What do I do? How How do you house them? Well number one you can house them. Well, first of all to be saved on your facebook Yes, am I right? I gotta download you're gonna download the brcsv file When you hit download when you go to your business page right any business page if you're building ads Go to publishing and tools. You're gonna see forms and library Lead forms and then you're gonna see download and then always download the brcsv and it's going to be on your computer And this is in the course so don't trip out if you don't already talking about we walk you through this down the Dill and go ahead and those all that information will be stored there on the housing on your facebook platform on your ads manager account Or if you want you could get a little CRM system There's a lot of them there are cheap for salesman. Uh, check out leads bridge, right? Not a way you could just have it going from Facebook to your phone as a yeah and listen like I'm gonna tell you that there's a there's a great crm company It's it's it's called pipeline Pipeline's good. They're $20 a month. Yeah, okay for $20 a month You can set a crm to the back side of your ads manager account Which bubble can help you do and guess what it's real simple As these filter in and come through they store and house on your crm and not just on your facebook So whenever you're buying the crm what you need to know is direct integration If you're gonna pick up the phone and call somebody at the company talk to them Or if you're gonna google direct integration, that's your deal. It's really cheap $20 a month something. Yeah When you buy the course though, listen, listen, he'll help you. I'll help you set it up Yeah, yeah, I don't want you guys to listen one of the reasons why people don't do something in life Is because they don't think that it'll work for them because it seems too confusing. Yeah guys This isn't confusing Listen, I don't know how to roof a house. Okay, but if I got on the roof with somebody who was a roofer They could probably show me and I bet I'd pick it up You will pick up as you're going through the course all this and understand it And for anything that you don't understand when it's done We will teach it to you.  You want to cover hey? Guys listen listen, hey, and obviously we've been here for a while But look I wanted to make sure that we had any answers that you know Or to any of the questions that you guys have had that we could take some time to answer them. Listen Bubba has been doing this for a very long time and he's extremely good I probably don't even give him near enough credit to how good he is He doesn't share a lot of the success stories that come out all the time But there's guys that are selling one to two cars a day right now That are in addition to The cars that they would have sold before So a 10 car hand now turns into a 25 car hand and a 20 car hand After before they met Bubba now turns into a 40 car hand Listen if you want to become great And you don't want good you want greatness in your life You have to build your own pipeline It's the only way to go okay So with that being said any other questions you have right reach out and shoot me a text message<PHONE_NUMBER> every day in our conference room We have Sean Pauller every day in our conference room. We have Bubba Okay, and I'm always here all night. We yeah, we we are here all night long I mean Sean's answering and calling texts of people at 2 a.m. In the morning Why because we're crazy about you guys becoming the best and killing it We're ate up with it man.  Yeah, I want to elevate your life I love you guys. You guys are amazing. So anything you need. I got you. Let's end it anybody else got anything We good actually one thing real quick. Let me just ask this when we're going I'm in 10 car a month salesman. I'm new how much time do I need to launch this Every day like what's my time commitment? Last question just came in. Yeah, so I don't know anything I've been on 10 cars a month for about six months now What does my time look like every day to do this to get this off the ground another 20 minutes maybe 15 minutes a day Yeah 15 minutes every day Hey, listen as the day starts You're walking into the store First thing that I do is that I probably go walk my inventory. That's what I would do You know I'm saying because as a great salesman The guy that knows his inventory the best makes the most money. I'd probably do my inventory walk Then I would go back to my desk. I would log into my facebook account I would check out what ads are converting. Let's reach you guys Get my leads and if for some reason right if I need to make a change I would make a change then But remember once you set it up it just runs Guess what you don't do anything again You just take your leads you start calling and setting appointments and making a bunch of money. That's it Okay, so with that being said we appreciate you guys. Yes. Stay healthy. We're gonna start crushing it We got some awesome things coming out this right here though. Click the link below get the facebook remarketing course change your life Love is here to help you. He's ate up with you guys going to the next level. Okay, he'll help you the whole way through He's he's like a lamb, but he's a lion with facebook remarketing. It's it's like anything. I've ever seen He's so smart here guys because he's been in it for so long He's very good at hacking problems very fast So the problem you're having that you're getting like all like frustrated with You don't have to just call him. Hey, dude. Well, what's up? He's like, oh fix. You're like Dude, and then hey, maybe I can give away something and anybody could could be good at this. I'm not computer savvy I'm not when I type. I don't even type faster. Yeah other types like this You know, so anybody could do it and if you want to get good at it. This is how I did it for for years, right? I stay on the whiteboard And I'm writing ad copies, you know, and I'm using facebook because you have done all excited I'm using what facebook is giving me as far as feedback and I'm shutting off Turning on ad what's working.  Yeah, let's see guys If you want to become great you got to put the work in yes, listen nobody Nobody not not me Not anyone else in this room not anybody on the other side. Okay Is going to get anywhere in life without putting the work in. Yeah, it's just not going to happen You guys have a blessed day. We'll talk to you soon.  Adios amigos


We know kusia niye kwa kinii kwa kinii I know most of you going to these jobs, especially for people who are inside cattle and you're moving from one company to a company you want to change sponsor and you are given an opportunity to ask the ask a question how much do you expect as your salary? Yes and most of you you've made mistakes and made mistakes at the end of the talk when you get to realize that you made that mistake it's too late that that sponsor already has you and you have to finish up either his contract or you have to terminate and exit the country or you have to pay him in what you called you to compensate what kind of expenses that he spent on you which is not the case so let us try to wipe up this let us try to clear this right from here and it's from only mixed question let's go telling them from on how you to go about this remember in kata we have two types of promotions professions we have what you call the skilled professions and the unskilled profession okay now let me talk about the unskilled profession that you have your salary is ranging from one thousand to a salary that is going to be ranging to around one two thousand five hundred or to around four thousand or to around three thousand five hundred let's give up that range because when you earn the salary of five thousand and above here in kata you are entitled to what you call you can't sponsor family from that sort of salary you can't sponsor but we are looking at a salary that you are not yet able to sponsor family or you are not able to bring your wife or your kids to come here you are still on that level that is giving you a low salary but how do you definitely discuss about that salary when you go to that interview remember something that you cannot forget is what you call the basic salary the basic salary is one thousand five hundred is one thousand three hundred that is four eight hours which includes food allowance and if you are given one thousand five hundred then that means that salary you are given is going to include what you call the house but remember when we are talking with most of the golf countries for unskilled jopa they normally give what you call accommodation so meaning that your salary range is going to be starting from one thousand three hundred which includes the salary for eight hours it also going to include the extra token added money which is the food allowance which is of three hundred so that's where you should begin discussing from this is a scenario that you go to an interviewer in expecti ask you how much do you expect yes tell him rightly that i expect this amount of money excluding my food allowance and excluding my housing or excluding my transportation it is something very short but you say i want a basic salary of three thousand okay then the basic salary of three thousand then but you've not talked about even what you call the hour thing hours okay let us see a situation whereby you tell this employer or this sponsor that i need a total package of five thousand for eight hours how does it sound i think it sounds a little bit very good and sounds professional and sounds very good simple for the for the sponsor or the employer to understand and for you to make sure that you don't fall into what you call the truck or what is will be after you end up creating what you did what you want to yes he will say i'll give you the basic salary of three thousand but i'm not giving you housing because remember that basic salary is also inclusive as per the labor law one thousand is includes 1500 includes also what you call the housing allowance if you are going to get 1800 three hundred for food allowance then 500 for housing but again something also you need to understand is the working hours how much how many hours are you working yes i want a full package of four thousand i'm working eight hours or i'm working nine hours i'm working 10 hours or 12 hours depending on what you are and this should exclude the housing allowance and should exclude the transportation allowance meaning that this employer needs to add you on top of that for what you call transportation and also food allowance in new if you decide to get to discuss in what you call your operator or to discuss in what you call your employment offer that is given to you but be straight for we end up getting small bonuses at the end of ourselves because the basic salary is low why not give an opportunity in a newly crew that you talk about a full package that i'm working for nine hours for you and i need a package of 3500 which excludes transportation and accommodation that means you leave the transportation and accommodation to your sponsor or to your employer to source to take care of that so for yourself you'll have that block figure you'll have that block figure of 3500 to take care of your big business and to take care of your phone so meaning that to become the winner there in one world there you take it all but you discuss i want a full package of 3500 without measuring excluding he'll give you the 3500 you sign up the contract then you ask for housing allowance he said no we did not mention that you said you want a full package of 3500 meaning that the 3500 is going to take care of your transportation and he's going to take care of your accommodation all he needs you to come is to come and do the work he needs you to come and do the work that is the difference between the two the basic salary and the full package so base straight forward to him tell him exactly what you want is going to better you and it's going to make you more a little bit in one way or the other thank you so much for coming but next and remember heroes give you all the updates and give you all the interesting things to do when you're coming for these jobs in the guard i know it's not very easy in any way or here that we find we will walk through a lot of difficulties we went to find a lot of situations we find two new things but it's better to live and understand get to share this information then it's going to help you out thank you so much see again in the next video remember it's next from the malko makes endless inspiration and makes creation tv and my tiktok account makes creation tv you can also see a lot of things that we can find about remember and what definitely need to do or what you need to go through when you find a problem thank you so much see you again


Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a collaborative effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Hawaii District Office, the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific. All stories to showcase local entrepreneurs and small business. Aloha. Welcome to Adventures in Small Business. I'm Terri Funakoshi, Director at the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership. We're the only SBA women's business center here in the state of Hawaii, and we're located at the YWCA O'ahu. Today, our episode is how to be an artist in business and finding your niche, how to stand out and stay financially solvent. The market is full of talented artists starting their own business, so it's crucial that aspiring art business owners find a way to stand out and again stay financially solvent. Today, I'm speaking with Laurie Sumie, Hawaii Equal Artist and Filmmaker. Her company is Laurie Sumie Studio. Laurie is a Hawaii-born artist and filmmaker who investigates environmental tensions between humans and nature. Her background is interactive media, animation, journalism, and design uniquely informs her videos, drawing, and installations. So that's a lot of things, so I'm so happy to introduce Laurie today. Welcome, Laurie. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have Laurie here today. Not only because she's an awesome artist, but I have to just pull this out. So this month, October, is Women in Small Business Month, and we just got a proclamation from the governor. So Laurie is actually one of our women small business champions, and she's going to tell us more about it, but Laurie, why don't you start by telling us some of your background? So I'm born and raised from Hawaii. I grew up in Mililani. I went to Mililani High School, and I went to school in the mainland at Bradley University for four years. I double majored in art and communications, and that's kind of what got me interested in graphic design. And so I worked in graphic design and web design in San Francisco for many years, and then I went back to school and studied filmmaking and digital art in New York. And then when I moved back to Hawaii, I accidentally started a business doing creative stuff. So yeah. Wow. That's a lot of education. Yes, yes. So again, what motivated you to actually get into the art business? I actually didn't, you know, everyone says it's really hard to do and that people can't make a living doing this. It was really a passion that I had for native Hawaiian species, so I am really interested in learning more about our native plants and animals and the stories about them. And when I was living in New York, I had decided to do this calendar for my friends and family, and I just said, well, I want to learn more about plants and animals in Hawaii. I made this calendar for fun just to give us Christmas gifts, and that kind of took off and people wanted to buy my calendars, so I started making calendars, and then people would see the calendars, they said, oh my gosh, your birds look good on cards or other things, like tote bags. So I said, okay, I'll try to make a card or tote bag, and then I had a friend introduce my work to somebody, my first client was the Bishop Museum shop, and that's how my business got started. It was sort of word of mouth, I guess, and people were saying, I want to see your art on other things. So you kind of did it on the side? Yeah, yeah, I was freelancing and I was doing some other freelance work. You still had a full-time job? No, I've been freelancing, well, before this I was freelancing as a designer for maybe like the last 10 years. Okay, good. And you know, I have awesome questions to ask you about your business, but I'm so excited, I have to just say that Laurie is coming out with 2019 calendar, and she's actually dedicating it to MCBL to help women entrepreneurs, because it's the metamorphosis. So I think we have a picture of the front cover that we can show you. But tell us about the new calendar. So this year's calendar, the theme is metamorphosis. The idea is to really look at the ecosystems of Hawaii, because in the past I kind of picked very birds or trees or flowers, and I wanted something that I could do all the different animals and also maybe do some Hawaiian insects. And so I was thinking how cool that when I looked at the pictures of all these animals and plants, that they changed so much over the course of their lifetime. So for example, the image that you just showed is a rare koei green sphinx moth that only lives in koei. It's super critically endangered, it's only been viewed 18 times, and I want more people to know these amazing things exist in Hawaii. And so I just love the idea that there's these animals that change over time, like a butterfly or a parrotfish that changes color because it changes gender in its lifetime. So I thought these are such interesting stories about plants and animals and things that are here that I want people to know about. That's great. So when is the calendar coming up? It's almost done. It's just about done. It's going to press this week, and I will be able to ship hopefully mid-October. Great, because we're going to help you with that. Thank you so much for dedicating it to the Patsy Teeming Center and helping us. So I'm going to get back to asking you, the whole artist niche, can you tell us about why that's so important to stand out as an artist? I feel like art is really expressing something really specific about yourself and the way you see the world and the things that you care about. And so the more you can express how specific and how unique you are and the work that you do represents how you see that, I think it will resonate with more people in terms of work that doesn't look like everybody else's work. And so because I'm just focused on native wine species and those stories, and I'm a storyteller, so I'm going to find a really pretty thing and paint it or draw it. It's like I want to know all I can about it. I talk to scientists. I go to the Bishop Museum a lot and work with the curators there, so I can really understand the story of these animals and plants and scientists know they're super fascinating everywhere else in the world because they have such unique qualities that are unique because of Hawaii. And so that's something that I'm fascinated by and I want to put that in the work and also be able to talk to it when I share my work with people. So having this niche in the eco world, you actually get to work with companies and museums like I said. So how has that helped you in the business side? I feel like because I'm an artist conservationist in a way, I am basically telling that same story and message about what we have in Hawaii that is so beautiful and rare and that needs protecting and needs people to care about it and I want Kiki to care about it. I want people to, we're visiting to care about this because we have, wherever we live in the world, things that we care about that are rare and unique to where we come from and that makes that place unique and special. So I want people to make those connections of finding those things that are special to a place and then making it part of their lives. So that's why I make things like t-shirts and pillows and things that you can have in your home and that you can interact with nature every day. So I know you have an upcoming project. I think we have an image of your logo that you created. Can you tell us about that? So I'm working on an art exhibition for the Lancaster Museum of Art about the Hawaiian Crow which is one of the rarest birds in the world. There are only about 150 in total in the world and so I'm working on that art piece that's going to be in January in California and because the people with the Alalala Project were so incredibly helpful, I offered to design their logo for them because they needed a new logo for their project and so they use it for their outreach for stickers when they go to students in schools to have a logo that really represents where the Alalala now is because it was previously extinct in the wild and so they recently, last fall, released 12 wild Alalala and I got to see them and it was amazing to just see these birds that haven't, you haven't heard them in the forest for, I don't know, 15 so years and then to be in a forest and hear the sound of the birds singing and calling, it was just chicken skin, you know, and so I wanted to give back and give something to them for helping me make my own work so they can do their work. So tell us, you know, that's very inspiring and I know you said earlier when we were talking that inspires your product. Yes. Can you show us some of the product that you've done? So these are some other calendars I've done. This is my 2014 bird calendar and from the bird calendar turned into like all sorts of other products so I ended up making some t-shirts, I made some cards and then now I'm making phone cases and all of the artwork that all of the lines that I carry are originated from the calendars so it sort of is like I'll create new work for the calendar and that ends up being on products later and it usually is somebody will say I wish you would make a XYZ tote bag t-shirt and then I'll go and make it and then people will buy it so. Yeah I noticed I was looking at this earlier so you even use equal packaging? Yes, yes because as you know for example I hope most people in Hawaii know that we have a plastic problem in our oceans so I wanted to make packaging that had no plastic in it and make it biodegradable so it doesn't create more trash in the landfill. This is 100% recycled, this is also you know cotton and yeah I just wanted packaging to also be telling the same message about protecting our environment and sustaining our planet by not contributing to the waste that we already are producing so in my little small way I want to continue those kind of values through the packaging and the the products that I make so they you know align with my values in terms of the stories I want to tell. It's really cute too, I love it, it's one of my favorite. Thank you. So okay I know there's so many things but I wanted to ask you about that documentary that you worked on it was so cute. Can you tell us about that? I think I have a picture of it. Well it's still in progress so we are we've been I actually moved home to work on the documentary that's actually what brought me back to Hawaii so I've been working on it for now for four years we're doing a crowdfunding campaign right now to raise money for it but we already have distribution on PBS for national because we have some funding and yeah we are telling the story of this native Hawaiian bird called the Polila that only lives in Hawaii on Mauna Kea it's the only place it's ever lived or in the world is on the big island in human in in in recent history and there's this amazing story of how the bird went to court to save itself so they actually the case is known as Polila v Hawaii and the bird went to court they brought a stuffed bird to court and the bird sued the state of Hawaii to save itself and that was almost 40 years ago and the case is still going and so yeah there's just been a lot of people trying to save this bird and a lot of amazing story with this court case that I want to share. And when is it going to be done? I'm hoping it'll be done next year if not at the very latest I hope 2020 because yeah this is like the fourth year I've been working in researching and raising money and just kind of it takes a long time to make a feature-length documentary but it's been really fun and amazing. So that's the bird on the cover right? This bird yes that's it. Oh he's going to be a popular. I hope so yeah there's a I mean how often do you have an animal suing and suing to save itself like that's pretty unique. So how can people help you know to help you with that documentary? Please contribute to our crowdfunding campaign which is going on I think for the rest of the month and we are trying to raise money and also just to show people that this is not just a Hawaii story like when we try to save things that make a place unique and special this is the story that resonates in the rest of the United States and the world because this case actually established habitat protection for all endangered species in the United States. So this is they teach this case in law school you know that that's how important this case is so so that's great so we've learned a lot about your business your niche you know that being eco-friendly so we're going to take a short break one minute but when we come back I'm going to ask you the hard question about how to sustain your business. Yes yes so we'll be right back in one minute thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness.  Aloha I'm Marsha Joyner inviting you come visit with us on cannabis chronicles a 10 thousand year artist where we explore and examine the plant that the muse has given us and stay with us as we explore all the facets of this planet on Wednesdays at noon. Please join us Aloha. Aloha and welcome back we're talking with Laura with Laurie okay now here's the hard question so you know you have your art people love it you're passionate about you know the birds and the eco and Hawaii now how do you sustain a business model where do you go what resources did you find? Well I read a lot of books because I'm kind of a nerd so I just googled and read lots of business books and then I read business books about artists and being creative entrepreneurs but when I needed more hands-on training I heard about the Patsy Mink Center and was able to get some mentorship and training through some class there and that has really helped me reframe and rethink how I do everything. Oh that's great so how did you find that resource? I think I just googled it I was like looking for small business help in Hawaii and then I that's how I came across it yeah that's the answer for everything right now yes yes totally that's great okay so I'm glad you found the resource and you had the help you needed so tell us more after you took the course you know what was your next step so my next step was to you know get someone to help me run the business and and basically because I'd been doing everything myself and and being able to organize and get help so I was able to hire an accountant and someone who's a business manager to manage the accounts for me so I can just focus on making the work but I did for two years before that I kind of had to test and figure out how to make a business doing this because I'd never done this kind of business so before I had my own company doing creative design so I you know billing hours and service-based business so I knew how to do like invoicing and that kind of thing but the actual product-based business was totally new and it's a completely different way of working so that was just huge learning curve of figuring out how do you price things how do you sell retail how do you sell online how do you sell wholesale how do you make line sheets I mean line sheets and catalogs like figuring out how to do skew numbers like you know just things like that I never I have no background on retail like I never even worked you know a mall job where I sold anything so just the idea of skews I'm like what's a skew like how do I create skews and you know just all that really basic stuff that people who know how to do this they're like oh yeah like this is how you do it but I had to learn and I just looked for books and internet resources to kind of figure out how to do that and but it only gets you so far you know so that was that was good and bad and people I had a cousin's wife who had done some retail and she was very helpful in telling me when you're selling to bigger shops and stores that what their expectations are you know how long it takes to get paid dealing with capital which I'm like huh like capital and just terms for selling all that stuff I had to just she was really helpful in sharing how that works but that being said each place that I wholesale it like they do things a little differently so it's not there's like a standard system that everyone uses well sounds good sounds like you had a good support system I know for artists it's hard you have to brand yourself I mean can you give us some advice I know like social media and I feel like the most challenging for the selling is that anxiety of like oh my gosh I have to sell myself because as an artist you are your brand you know that is why my company's name is my name because as a professional artist when you sign something that is what you're selling is you you're selling part of your vision in you so it's not like I can hide behind a logo and say it's company that I also have so I feel like that authentic voice and being really consistent about how I'm messaging and expressing what I do and being not so shy about sharing my story which is funny because I my job used to be telling other people how to you know market their businesses and how to do social media but when I had to do it for myself I'm like oh I feel so self-conscious talking about myself or trying to promote my work in that way so I think it's getting over that hump of shyness I think putting myself out there and so on your website is it like your portfolio no I have a separate I have two separate websites I have my artist website for galleries and museums you know for curators who are interested in my work and then I have a separate site for selling that's just like to buy things and also for wholesale retail people because I also make you know just art that is installation so I have an installation at the Bishop Museum for example and that's not something you would buy in a store you know it's like a it's an artwork so I do both and I keep them separate just because the audience is totally different right so a curator at a museum or gallery is not necessarily soup someone who wants to buy a t-shirt right so that's a that's a good point because as an artist there's so many different ways to actually make revenue so again that you're saying you have two sites because you want to do wholesale retail commission work licensing so what's your advice on that how do you know if that's the route you should go as an artist I feel like you need to know who your audience is so if your goal is you know just to be a museum artist and you know to be in these collections like obviously you're not going to be selling at a gift shop but the reason I ended up thinking because before I was like oh I don't you know I'm not going to do stationery and stuff but then I was at the MoMA store in New York and I noticed okay well Picasso has a calendar selling at the MoMA and he's also in a museum so I can make a calendar of my art I don't have to be dead first so I'm just gonna you know make my calendar and put my art on products and not stress about it you know and and I know you also did a pop-up yeah and you did some trade shows I think we have a picture of your Christmas yeah so I did a Christmas pop-up in Jaikoo at Alamoana last Christmas and I was there for three different days and it was just a really great experience to engage with a different audience and to also be in a mall setting which I'd never done that before it's very different and everyone at the staff at Jaikoo they were so kind and really made me feel very welcome so it was a good experience and I would highly recommend other people to participate in things like artisan I think it's called like an art it's their artisan program where they invite local artists into their shop and I know you have so many more products coming out and I remember seeing your pillows and those are really cute yeah I think I need some for Christmas yeah so those kind of came about because I wanted something that people could have in their home that they could look at and use and yeah and they've been really popular so the one cool person who ended up buying it was Maisie Hirono she bought like I think four of them and every time somebody goes to her office in Washington DC she put them on the wall so everyone sends me pictures of my artwork in her office so it's really cool that's great you know Maisie Hirono is a big advocate for small business and she loves endangered Hawaiian birds apparently as well so there you go yeah so you know we have a few minutes left and I want to wrap up by saying you know what are some of the challenges that you can share with us you know having your business in Hawaii that you can share to any artists out there that's thinking of doing their business so I really tried to make everything in Hawaii at the beginning because I thought I want to support local other local businesses to make my products but I basically realized it's really hard to do at the right price point and I said okay I don't want to send products in China because I know what that production cycle is and yes it's the cheapest way but it's not the most ecologically sustainable so I I may hit a goal now to just make sure all my products are made in the United States that's my criteria and yeah it's really it's because of the cost of shipping everything into Hawaii and then the cost of labor's high it's so hard to make stuff here that being said I have made some of my products my stationary and paper products here but I think for the long haul just for cost I probably have to get everything made on the mainland because the cost is really important if you don't hit the right price points you won't sell anything even if you have a really great product so your advice is you know try to do as much local as possible but cost I feel like cost is the number one thing of whether people will buy what you make you know if you make something brilliant that people want it has to be priced right for the market and for your customer otherwise you won't sell anything and going from selling off my website to wholesale like that totally messed up my pricing because like I had to learn about key stoning and then I'm like okay I won't make any profit if I'm selling at this price point and then how can I make it for less but still you know have my eco credentials and run a business in Hawaii because you know you're competing with companies that are selling things in Alabama where they're it's much much cheaper to run a business so once I kind of learned those things I'm like okay well I still want to be based here I still want to make my work here so how can I make sure the economics of that works and and get the pricing to a point where I'm not breaking even but making a decent profit because there's definitely been other items I've sold where when I crunch the numbers I'm like I am making so little my margins are so low that it's not worth me making the product but it took me a while to figure out what that process was because you have a cool idea and you're like I'm gonna make this thing it'll be great and then you're like wait I'm not making that much on this so maybe I should try to make something that for them a time and effort I'll actually earn a profit so I'm smiling because my background's written I hear you but you know I have to commend you for such great product assortment because you know you have something for your personal you have you know for gifts yeah for the home and I we forgot to mention that we also do education yeah these are this using my artwork of birds I wanted kids to be able to learn the names of the birds so I made Go Bird for an event at the Bishop Museum and as just a test to see if people would like it and just you know because you have to say oh do you have a boy or whatever and the kids really got it and they were got they really got into it and it was a really cool project because I wanted to do something that was fun yeah they're so educational they're so cute yeah you know so we have so many different products that you did that's great and I know you have more so can you tell people where to go to find your product yes so my website is laurysoumiestudio.com and I sell at about 10 different stores also on the big island Kauai and Oahu so if you don't like buying on a website you can also buy some of my items at stores on my and there's a stock is site on the website if you prefer to shop in person but our newest item are the phone cases and I kind of wanted to do phone cases just because I haven't seen a lot of local art on cases and I like the idea of having it with you all the time and you know having your bird or your turtle your honu I know these are so cute yeah with you so thank you so much Laurie for joining us and I just want to remind everybody that Laurie is a small business champion and she's part of the shop small initiative to to really help small businesses here in Hawaii and if you go to the shop small website you'll find champions just like Laurie and we're going to be celebrating all month it's a year-round celebration so this month and next month yeah we have our one big event at Honolulu night market on November 24th so your calendar will be ready yes yes we'll be able to sell everything yeah and then it's thank you so much for having me it's been really great to share my story and to kind of explain like why I do so many different things but you know all of the things that I do whether it's documentary film or products is to kind of tell the story of Hawaiian animals and plants and to get them in everyone's everyday lives because some of these animals are so hard to see I like the idea that they're part of your life in a way that you don't got to go up a mountain and go look at the bird you know it's because it's hard it takes like five hours and then you got to wait to hope it shows up so this is a much easier way to see these things thank you for everything you are yeah and thank you everybody for tuning into adventures in a small business and we'll see you again next week