LHT: My champagne moment. My most leveraged task.

  1. Get an accountant who can formalize Knot Theory, so that I can
    1. Save on tax while growing
    2. Get more guidance while growing (prioritization, grant, etc)
    3. Take out more profit (to enjoy and/or to invest into something else)
    4. Sell the business in the future
  2. Inventory – Have a great handle on our inventory replenishment system
    1. So that we don’t run out of inventory – it’s a waste of time to address OOS, and it’s loss of profit, and it’s bad customer experience
    2. So that we don’t over order or under order – it’s best to order consistent the right amount without rushing our manufacturer; better for our relationship with manufacturer
  3. Sales – Bring our sales up to ensure we have good business while we do this overhaul the next 3 to 6 months
  4. Have product release road map planned out for the year
    1. So we are not caught off guard by holidays
    2. So we block out time needed for creating promotional material, promotional campaigns – everything is well thought-out so we get the most out of each release
    3. So we plan ahead and block out time needed for product innovation
  5. Delegate and systemize big and small launches – this is the trickiest piece involving many talents and many steps
    1. Create new listings on all markets
    2. Create graphics for new listings
    3. Take product photos for new listings
    4. Take lifestyle photos
    5. Write description, blog, PR articles, SEO articles, landing pages
    6. Create landing pages
    7. Create ad graphics
    8. Work with marketing team
  6. Delegate and systemize social media, marketing (email, text, ads, influencer, etc), and SEO as much as possible
    1. So someone is doing it consistently
    2. So we are growing continuously in a somewhat automated fashion – influencer seeding, collaborations, ads
  7. Have Team lead on both Vancouver Team and VA Team, with 1 person cross-trained.
    1. So training and hiring can happen without my supervision
    2. So we have a back-up person
  8. Delegate and systemize optimization
    1. improve conversion rate via split testing
    2. track metrics – e.g. measure our conversion, growth, reach, effectiveness of a campaign or any initiative
    3. remove inefficiencies, improve upon the metrics we’ve tracked
  9. Innovation
    1. Product innovation
    2. Marketing innovation
    3. Growth innovation – any creative proposals to accelerate our growth

All of the above paves way for us to scale 10x.

  1. Accountant – contacted!
  2. Inventory – will order enough for 3 to 6 months, to buy us some time
  3. Sales – Bring our sales up for the next 3 to 6 months
    1. Launch CF4 and CF6 pre-engraved on Amazon (make sure we have enough inventory)
      1. Joy to create 3D rendered images
      2. VAs to create Amazon listings
    2. Launch dual layer pre-engraved on Amazon too
      1. Alyssa to engrave these rings
      2. I will take photos
      3. Joy to create 3D rendered images
      4. VAs to create Amazon listings
    3. Add dual layer custom engraved listings on Etsy
      1. Alyssa to engrave rings
      2. I will take photos
      3. I will create a role model listing for VA to replicate
      4. VAs to create replicated listings
    4. Add dual layer custom engraved listings on Shopify
    5. Add dual layer pre-engraved listings on Etsy
    6. Add dual layer pre-engraved listings on Shopify
    7. Simple launch
      1. Newsletter (be sure to add more Etsy emails)
      2. Post on social

Detailed action items:

  1. Accountant – Will need to prepare for 2020 tax return or pay an instalment
  2. Inventory – Have a great handle on our inventory replenishment system – how?
    1. Know our sales velocity so we can predict demand – how?
      1. Amazon – Sellerboard can generate a report, VA can process this every 3 months, or Ty (or another software developer) can write something for this, or we can buy some inventory management software
      2. Etsy, Shopify, and Amazon FBM – can query DS to get the data (using API to query), or for now, take an inventory snapshot (a column containing current inventory count), so after a month or 2 or 3, we know our sales velocity for it
    2. Know our current inventory – so we know how much more to order
      1. Schedule inventory count
      2. deduct from inventory after each sale or have the App do it?
    3. Prevent OOS orders
      1. Better Etsy listings
    4. Schedule inventory replenishment order so we are on top of re-ordering (after/during busy seasons + every 3 months)
    5. Right now we don’t have an easy way to track sales velocity on a SKU, so we will just order a lot (estimated to last us 6 months) to buy us some time.
    6. We need to redo our moulds too, and sizes will be corrected in the new mould, so we don’t want to overstock on this one.
    7. These are the apps to consider, for inventory syncing, re-order management:
      1. https://craftybase.com/ (best, possibly)
      2. https://www.zoho.com/ca/inventory/features/ (best, possibly)
      3. https://www.sellbrite.com/inventory-management-software/
      4. https://www.ecomdash.com/overview/