Overtone 如何将现有解决方案带入一个未知的市场（尚未）

Felix： Shopify Masters 由 Shopify 提供支持，这是最简单的在线销售、面对面销售以及介于两者之间的任何地方的销售方式。 要获得 30 天的延长试用期，请访问 shopify.com/masters。

Maegan：就我们如何通过影响者进行交流而言，我们真正要做的是，我会尽早给他们发电子邮件，然后说，“嘿，我们有这个产品。我们喜欢你的头发。我们很乐意给你一些。我们很乐意让您尝试一下。这是它的使用方法。这就是它的本质。

菲利克斯：嘿。 我叫菲利克斯。 我是 Shopify Masters 的主持人。 每周我们都会从像您这样的电子商务专家和企业家那里学习成功的关键。 嘿，我的名字是菲利克斯。 我是 Shopify Masters 的主持人。 每周我们都会从像您这样的电子商务专家和企业家那里学习成功的关键。 在本集中，您将学习如何审查您的供应商，如何确定员工在 30 天内是否合适，以及如何在目标客户根本不了解您的解决方案时克服教育差距。 今天我加入了 Liora 和 Maegan overtone.co。 这就是 OVERTONE dot CO。 oVertone 护发素让您的梦幻色头发在第 60 天看起来像在第一天一样明亮。 它始于 2014 年，在托斯卡纳和丹佛设有两个总部。 欢迎 Liora 和 Maegan。

梅根：嘿。

莉奥拉：谢谢。 谢谢你有我们。 菲利克斯：是的，很高兴你们俩都上场。 告诉我们更多关于您从商店销售的产品的这些护发素。 梅根：是的。 我们的颜色沉积调节剂系列是我们目前的主要产品。 我们在两种不同的护发素类型中提供 22 种不同的颜色。 基本上，这个想法是如果你有幻想的头发颜色，任何粉红色、蓝色、绿色，类似的东西，它往往会很快消失。 我们制造的护发素正好满足了市场的需求，因此您的头发不会褪色。 基本上，您要做的就是停止使用常规的白色护发素。 相反，请使用我们的一种与您的头发颜色相匹配的护发素，它可以代替您从下水道中冲洗掉的色素。

Liora： Maegan 和我都吃过你的蛋糕，也吃过。 我们对染发时需要改变的生活方式并不满意。

Maegan：我们不会因为你不能洗头而去洗冷水澡或跳过健身房。

莉奥拉：不，是的。

Maegan：诸如此类的事情。

Felix：我猜当时没有替代方案吗？ 没有其他产品可以满足你们两个需要的确切需求吗？

莉奥拉：没有。 有一种非常流行的本土 DIY 方法，您可以将染料与护发素混合。 有时，造型师会为那些拥有梦幻色彩头发或高保养需求的客户制作。 在我们使用的颜色中，没有什么是真正直接面向消费者的。 出于这个原因，它绝对是一种高等教育产品。 我们所关注的很多事情都是尽可能提供最好的客户服务，并真正教育幻想头发颜色的世界，他们不必洗冷水澡，他们可以锻炼，而且他们的头发没有淡出。 他们不必根据褪色好不好来选择染料品牌。 是的。 真的不多。

梅根：是的。 根据个人经验，我们还发现，标准的 DIY 染料和护发素混合物确实会与您使用的护发素中的润肤剂混为一谈。 基本上 ...

莉奥拉：只是有点继续干燥。

Maegan：是的，只是继续让你的头发变干。 从化学上讲，它会抵消护发素中的好东西。 然后，你的头发，如果你有幻想色的头发，可能已经漂白了很多，那么你的头发实际上并没有定期进行调理。 我们想要的东西不仅是你不必让你的头发褪色，你不必洗冷水澡，而且你可以让你的头发健康并长出来，让它变得正常。 我们不想头上有粉红色的稻草。

Felix：你们都来自美发和美容行业吗？ 有什么背景。

梅根：没有。

莉奥拉：否定的。 实际上，我们俩都没有。

Liora：我，在我们创办公司之前，我是一名自由摄影师。 我在美容方面做过几次。 我在当地与当地新兴的时尚和美容人士一起工作。 浓厚的兴趣，但在生产和零售层面没有专业知识。

Maegan：在此之前，我有化学背景。 我在医疗保健和商业领域工作。 我的头发很奇怪，希望它持续更长时间。 它来自个人需要，而不是任何事情。

Liora： Maegan 真的是个行家。 当我们第一次创办公司时，我认为她还想参加一个会议。 就在她把头发染成蓝色之后。 其中，像铜或橙色一样，您可以拥有可接受的健康状况是 IT 职位。

Maegan：不是蓝色的。

莉奥拉：不是蓝色的。

Maegan：我带了假发。

菲利克斯：很好。 至少，这似乎是一个非常令人生畏的产品，对吧？ 你必须了解这个新行业，了解如何制造这样的产品。 在我到达那里之前，您是否有其他在 oVertone 之前创业或推出产品的经历？

Liora：我的意思是，对于自由摄影来说，这是一种不同的商业基础。 我在高中时做过很多小企业的工作，担任助理之类的工作。 我认为 Maegan 经常这么说。 如果我们知道这将是一个多大的挑战，我们就会早点停下来。

Maegan：我可能还没有开始。 我们都有经营小型企业和他人企业的经验。 我们俩也都有过创办自己的半成功公司的经验，这些公司并没有真正走多远，也不是真正可以货币化的大努力。 我们不是没有经验的。 我们绝对没有为即将发生的事情做好准备，这是肯定的。

Liora：这对我们俩来说绝对是一个惊喜。 我认为，我们真的很从容。 这有点像我们俩都像人一样，当工作来临时，我们已经做好了准备。 我们只是有点像，“好吧。这就是我们接下来六个月需要做的事情。太棒了。让我们放心去做吧。” 当潮水真的转过来的时候，我们没有淹死，但我们确实跌倒了一点。

梅根：是的。 老实说，我认为在此过程中帮助我们的大部分是很多直觉，以及在紧急情况下投入汗水和胃酸的意愿，就像每周工作 100 小时一样。

莉奥拉：血。

菲利克斯：你们俩遇到的这些大惊喜中有哪些比预期的要困难得多？ 或者，也许你根本没有预料到，他们只是落在了你的腿上？ 这些大惊喜有哪些？

Liora：我们绝对没想到给瓶子贴标签会这么难。 我们制造和填充我们所有的产品，但它在行业中的运作方式是你应该制造你的产品，填充你的容器，然后给它们贴标签。 我们真的需要在标签部分的填充物上走来走去，比如收藏或它的那一部分。 我们没有意识到这就是问题所在，但是当我们试图给瓶子贴上标签并发送给我们时，我们一直遇到这些大障碍。 就像，“哦，我的上帝。为什么我们不能完成这件事？”

Maegan：我们有很多质量很差的标签。 第一次，很长一段时间，甚至可能是前六个月，我们都是手工给每一瓶贴上标签，因为我们有一个可以信赖的标签供应商，他们只能给我们寄来像我们一样的标签不得不撕下自己。

莉奥拉：是的，那是血液进来的地方。你给那么多瓶子贴上了标签，我想我的老茧刚刚开始从你的拇指上消失，因为你推了它[串音 00:07:58]。 是的，如果您第一次购买了 oVertone ...

梅根：六个月。

莉奥拉： ……六个月，你肯定得到了一个手工标记的瓶子。

菲利克斯：也许上面还有一些血迹。

Maegan：那种东西 [听不清 00:08:12] 我认为这是人们在幕后没有意识到的那种东西，即使我们已经到了被认为在毛利率方面相当成功的地步销售，我们自己仍然在做这么多，我们只是在推动这么多。 这个过程仍然如此手动和定制，我们仍在做很多事情，我们自己的工作也是如此。

菲利克斯：今天，当你在寻找提供这些标签的供应商时，只是你们学到的一个教训，你可以与处于你所处阶段的其他人分享，你如何确定什么样的供应商可以为您的产品提供良好的标签吗？

Maegan：随着时间的推移，我们发现我们必须真正停止寻找供应商并开始寻找合作伙伴。 我们这样做的方式是对我们打算使用的任何人进行非常认真的审查过程。 尤其是任何将成为我们整个供应链流程中潜在库存的人。 例如，对于标签，我们花了很多时间讨论、征求建议、进行大量搜索。 当我们开始着手处理时，我们联系了几家公司，我们的第一个危险信号是，如果您没有在 24 小时内（至少 48 小时内）回复我们，您将被淘汰。

莉奥拉：是的。 我们必须追赶你才能给你钱，这对我们来说是一个很大的危险信号，这将花费我们很多时间。

Maegan：我们有太多次供应商只是没有响应。 他们很难沟通。 这是最简单的危险信号。 然后我认为我们尝试与任何供应商合作伙伴做的另一件主要事情是真正打电话给他们的其他客户，并感受与我们同行的人，也是电子商务的人，如果相关的话，做类似的人瓶子类型，瓶子形状，多重倾斜，类似的东西，并从他们那里获得关于这种关系如何为他们工作的反馈。 这可能是最能说明问题的。 我们有很多供应商，我们一直非常热衷于，然后我们和他们的客户谈过，他们就像，“嗯，他们很好，但是......”

莉奥拉：是的。 然后，一旦您选择了该合作伙伴，就建立了关系。 通过我们目前的瓶子和标签供应商，我们实际上在他们的团队中交换了销售合作伙伴。 我们与高层管理人员进行了交谈。 当我们发现不符合我们的 QC 标准的问题时，我们确实确保他们知道，而不是以预期的方式。 我们希望他们将我们的标准作为他们的标准，因为他们代表着我们。 当事情看起来并不像我们需要的那样完美，或者有轻微的失误或发生了什么事时，我们确保他们知道，以便我们将来可以纠正它。 结果，我们与他们进行了真正响应式的沟通。 当我们需要知道什么信息时，他们知道我们需要知道哪些信息。 我们知道如何向他们解释我们需要完成的流程。

梅根：是的。 因为我们必须经历如此多的寻找标签，并且将其作为我们供应链中如此艰难的一部分，所以我们现在与标签供应商建立了非常好的关系。 我认为它只需要经历那个。 在某种程度上，它肯定是在海平面上，但在任何公司的执行团队层面，大多数情况下，他们都在乎。 他们想要成功。 他们希望与您建立伙伴关系，即使您是一条小鱼，并且您觉得自己在这里没有真正的可玩性并且无法拉动任何弦，因为您还不够大，对他们不重要。 高管层的人，尤其是初创公司，如果他们是您的合适合作伙伴，他们会看到增长潜力，并且他们真的想要一种有效的关系，如果您尝试与他们合作，他们会与您合作.

菲利克斯：是的。 我绝对看到寻找合作伙伴而不仅仅是供应商的价值。 我猜，这是否需要从一开始就设定这种期望？ 您如何确定您正在寻找合作伙伴？

Liora：我认为对于我们年轻的千禧一代女性企业家来说，最大的困难之一是，我的意思是，我们俩都在 30 岁以下。我们开始的时候是几岁？ 24、25？

梅根：是的。

Liora：我们最大的困难是 Maegan，我并不一定缺乏信心，但要接近一家我们认为更成熟、业务更大的公司，这对我们来说是真正的信心拉动。 我们不一定觉得我们可以拿到这么多钱。 我认为很多挣扎基本上是走进去然后说，“听着。我正在做事。我正试图作为一个合作伙伴与你合作。我想以那种方式与你交谈，而不是感觉在他们的怜悯之下。” 这实际上只是一个自信的游戏，说“我的业务与我旁边的人的业务一样重要。我的产品同样重要，因为它对我来说同样重要。”

费利克斯：有道理。 现在，今天，我想你是在暗示你自己不再这样做了。 您是否将这个贴标签和装瓶的过程外包出去了？

Liora：我们试图外包我们的很多流程。 我们学到的是我们将外包标签。 我们不能外包生产或灌装。 我们的特定产品适合两个市场，因此不一定有很多结构支持它。 我们会和护发素的人谈论颜色，他们会不知所措。 我们会与有色人种谈论护发素，他们会因为无法将其融入现有系统而不知所措。 我们最终做的是创建自己的系统和方法，并雇佣员工以尽可能快地扩展。 那时我们落后了。 我们就像，“我们需要尽快做到这一点。” 创建易于进入的系统，我们可以培训人们，让他们在一个舒适的环境中，让他们有信心自己做出决定，然后去做。 直到今天，我们仍然生产和填充我们的每一件产品。 我们只是不再手动标记它们，我们不再自己实现它们。

梅根：是的。 Liora 和我已经有一段时间没有自己做过了。 我们肯定很久没有在我的厨房里做过了。

Felix：这肯定是一个复杂得多的系统，而不是仅仅将整个过程外包，甚至可能有错误的成分，直接去找制造商，直接去找执行任务的人，却看不到他们的库存。 您必须查看您的一些库存。 你必须把它发送给另一个，我猜，一个处理其余部分的外包合作伙伴。 带我们完成这个系统的创建过程。 听起来很复杂。 我认为，尤其是与其他系统相比，您的系统可能是独一无二的，因为有很多过程是在内部完成的，但也有很多是外包完成的。 告诉我们有关设置它的过程。

Liora：我认为从外面看似乎很复杂。 我认为创建可持续系统的唯一方法，我认为 Maegan 会同意，就是尽可能地简化它。 如果您可以为您的产品贴上私人标签并直接在您存储的地方没有库存，就像欺负您一样。 恭喜。 我羡慕你的狗屎。

Maegan：如果你没有必要，我们特别不赞成制造你自己的产品。 如果你能找到一个很好的合作伙伴来为你做这件事，那就太好了。 我们试图外包我们的，但它不会发生。

莉奥拉：这不会发生。 我们已经建立了一个绝对令人难以置信的团队。 我们喜欢和他们一起工作。 我们能够看到我们的产品的真正好处之一是我们可以对每批产品进行真正的质量控制。 对我们产品的密切关注确实使我们的标准保持在高水平，这正是我们喜欢它们的地方。 就开发流程而言，我的意思是，我们从字面上看是从每次销售只生产一瓶，到大规模生产。 我们基本上采取了我们已经在做的步骤，尝试通过使用我们可用的工具来尽可能多地自动化它们，而不是太担心“在专业实验室他们会使用 x”。 我们将其简化并说：“好的，我们需要的最终结果是什么？整个行业中存在的类似项目的现有工具是什么？我们如何利用这些项目为我们谋取利益？” 到目前为止，它运行得非常好。

Felix：现在，一旦你创建了这个系统，然后将其中的一部分外包出去，我们还有多少空闲时间？ 你有多少时间被释放，你把时间花在了哪些事情上。

Maegan：这是一个有趣的问题，主要是因为我认为......

莉奥拉：搞笑。

Maegan： ……我们刚刚开始第一次问自己，我们想用我们的额外时间做什么。 我们现在有 16 名员工。 在大多数情况下，一开始，老实说，我们没有太多空闲时间。 我们并没有真正腾出任何东西，而是将我们正在处理的事情转移到其他迫切需要完成的事情上。 在我们业务的前 18 个月，甚至可能是两年，我们一直处于缺货状态。 那是我们最大的困难。 作为一个初创公司，我们需要确保我们的客户服务非常好，但我们还需要确保我们的制造达到标准，以便我们可以储存所有东西。 我们有一个维护产品。 我们必须随时为需要的人准备好东西。 真的，当我们建立了可以雇用员工并让他们进入现有系统以与我们现有的制造合作的系统时，老实说，总会有其他的东西。 这里总是有问题的员工，或者缺少客户服务，需要这个东西。 或者我们与我们的履行提供商发生了火灾。 我们现在才两年半，在大多数情况下，我们真的能够走出去，在业务上工作，制定战略，从比以前更高的层次看到动态的部分。 真的，我不知道当时有没有这么多东西被打开了，因为它只是被其他东西取代了，下一个最大的火来了。

莉奥拉：就像，让我给你举个例子。 Maegan 和我过去常常，嗯，在最初的六个月里，Maegan 是在她家外面做我们所有的制作和履行。 我正在做其他所有事情，这意味着我们实际上没有时间考虑我们要去哪里。 我们每天都被如此锁定。 到 2015 年 1 月左右时，我们可能每隔一个月进行一次生产运行，我们会聘请兼职人员和临时工，一次可能只有一两个。 他们会在生产过程中帮助我们。 虽然 Maegan 和我会进行灌装、装瓶和包装以运送到我们的履行公司，但在任何休息时间，我都会回复客户服务电子邮件，而 Maegan 将与供应商打交道。 在这期间的任何时候，我们都在致力于我们的营销和社交媒体。 我们试图自拍。 我们确保我们的头发看起来很好，所以如果我们有任何广告，我们就有一些东西可以表明我们正在改进系统。 真的，我想说我们仍然，仍然有一些时刻我们会被吸回到日常生活中。 可能只是在过去的两个月里才有机会退后一步，喘口气，然后一切顺利。 从字面上看，既然我们可以看到它，我们可以在哪里改进。 这是非常宝贵的。

梅根：是的。 从来没有真正有过在某个地方缺乏对某些东西的非常明显的需求。 Felix：在短短两年半的时间里，16 名员工是一大堆新员工。 你侦察了很多。 你们对引进新员工的入职流程有什么了解。 我认为这是雇用某人最令人生畏的部分，因为很多时候，特别是当你只是一个在公司工作的人时，你正在雇用你的第一个员工，可能是兼职或临时员工，你开始思考， “伙计，我是想把时间花在教这个人上，还是应该把时间花在做那件事上，然后继续做下一件事情？” 它确实需要投入时间。 告诉我们新员工加入贵公司的流程。

Liora： Maegan 和我是相当不错的代表。 放开我们的乐高积木去研究其他东西对我们来说并不总是那么大的挑战。 我们很早就幸运地找到了一些了不起的人，他们真的只是靠运气和直觉认为你会很棒。 情况并非总是如此。 有时你的员工认为他们是很棒的人，你爱他们，但这并不合适。 他们会在其他地方表现得更好。

Maegan：我也认为，随着时间的推移，你会发现在你的组织中什么是有效的。 我不知道这真的是一个适合所有人的东西。 我认为你不可避免地会有一个猜测和检查系统，你搞砸了，也许如果你以同样的方式搞砸了几次，你会开始看到，“哦，这是一个严重的问题。” 我们发现，就个人而言，我们不仅一直在努力工作。 我们公司有一种非常重要的文化，人们要么适合，要么不适合。 我们发现这是一个人成功的一个重要因素，即使他们的工作很出色，即使他们非常适合其他人，如果你不适合我们的文化，那真的行不通。 可以这么说，我们都必须朝着同一个方向划船。 从逻辑上讲，我们发现了一些其他的小事，就像我们注意到我们的员工，至少，在我们的业务中，如果他们收到主动加薪，他们往往会发疯。 我们必须改变与人一起加薪的方式，为某人提供升职机会，并给他们 72 小时的时间考虑并说是或否，而不是仅仅说：“嘿，你做得很好。我们想要给你升职，这是你的加薪。” 我们发现那行不通。 其中一些是小东西。 我认为随着时间的推移会看到你环境中的人的行为方式。

莉奥拉：是的。 我认为 Maegan 和我一起所做的真的，我们有，我们来自非常不同的地方，我们以一种互补的方式看待事物非常非常不同。 我们共同创造的文化，起初我很难坐在那里说，“哦，这对每个人来说都不是完美的环境。” 这对我的自尊心有点打击。 老实说，这绝对是我的短视。 我要创造这个东西，我们要去做，它会很棒。

Maegan：将成为每个人的必杀技。

莉奥拉：会很完美的。 这就像现实一样，这不是世界的运作方式。 有不同类型的人以不同的方式表现出色。 我们早期希望做的一件事是创建一个横向的员工结构，因为我们认为如果我们在某个地方工作，我们会更喜欢这种结构。 我们学到的是，我们的特定组织和其中的人，我们早期加入的人，或者关于 Maegan 和我的方式，或者我们所有人，我们整个团队作为一个集体所做的事情是我们做的很多在传统结构中做得更好，我们往往会做得更多，这样我们会取得更好的成功。

Maegan：我们讨厌并且完全试图抵抗。

莉奥拉：我们真的很抗拒。

Maegan：就像五颜六色的头发千禧一代一样，我们就像，“我们不会有任何结构。我们在这个地方不需要结构。” 事实证明我们是超级传统的。

Liora：是的，我们非常传统。 每次都会让我们的一位导师发笑。 我想当我告诉他我们正在这样做时，他坐下来对我笑了整整 30 分钟。 他就像，“你太传统了。” 我就像，“闭嘴。” 是的。

Felix：让我们谈谈这个，横向工作结构。 一开始是什么吸引你？ 为什么没有成功？

Liora：我认为 Maegan 和我只是习惯于自己在公司里做所有事情，我们认为我们可以让每个人都了解所有事情，而且实际上我们非常透明。 我们每周都会与在场的所有员工谈论奋斗和成功。 我们不会隐藏任何东西，但我们会构建信息的输出方式。 我认为当我们不这样做时，当我们试图建立一个横向的员工结构时，即使是在小公司规模，当我们可能只有四五个人时，我们注意到反应并不好，它没有不要以我们希望和期待的方式建立那种团队道德。

Maegan：我认为，当事情更加横向时，人们很难在工作职责范围内保持稳定。 我认为对于一些可以工作的公司。 对我们来说，因为我们有这样特定的细分部门，所以确实没有。 随着规模的扩大，我们看到的越来越多。 我的意思是，它更多的是来自我们的愿望。 作为员工，我们想要什么？ 这就是我们尝试这样做的原因。 我们认为这对我们来说非常有效。 然后，这只是一个支点。 我认为无论如何，企业所有权都是关于转向的。

Liora：我认为我们学到的，也是我们想要的不是别人想要的。 不是每个人，我知道我已经说过了。 这次我的意思实际上是不同的。 Maegan 和我都是企业家。 我们以特定的方式思考。 我们以特定的方式工作。 我们受到特定事物的激励。 显然，不是每个人都是企业家。 有些人想成为企业家，但不是。 有些人希望尽可能快地朝相反的方向跑。 有这样的人想为企业家工作，但不是他们自己。 创建一个适合企业家的结构，我不知道它是否一定对为企业家工作的人来说是个好兆头。 拥有一家公司 [串音 00:26:12] 什么都做不了。

Maegan：我们试图雇用我们在早期看到自己的人。 在大多数情况下，这不起作用。 雇用更具创业精神或想成为企业家的人。 我认为，我们无法理解这样一个事实：很多人，真的，非常高兴成为员工，因为我们从来都不快乐成为员工。 我认为，在一定程度上，要让你的员工快乐并保持团队合作，你必须能够同情每个人，并知道什么对他们有意义。 最终，随着时间的推移，真正了解每个人的大脑是如何运转的，以及在每个位置你需要什么样的大脑。

Liora：我们实际上刚刚得到了一些很好的招聘建议，那就是真正列出我们公司的价值观以及我们在内部真正认为重要的东西。 与其特别关注技能，不如关注那些价值观。 这个人会在这里工作吗？ 他们会被我们所激励的事物所激励吗？ 对于我们公司来说，那种遵循内省女权主义的路线，与你的团队保持直接和清晰，能够接受和给予严厉的爱，练习良好的喧嚣而不是坏的喧嚣，如果你发现一些事情或者不打败自己失败，把你的健康放在第一位，只是，还有什么？

Maegan：清晰，诚实。

莉奥拉：是的，[听不清 00:27:38]。

Maegan：基本上，它的要点主要是我们关注平等，我们努力工作并且我们非常诚实。 每个人都必须给予和接受。 菲利克斯：嗯-嗯（肯定）。 听起来你们俩都随着时间的推移而建立的一项重要技能是，你们能够快速招聘，而且如果不合适的话，似乎也会迅速解雇或放手。 根据您的经验，您如何确定某人是否适合公司并尽快匹配您写下的那些价值观？

Liora：老实说，说实话，这对我们来说仍然是一项正在进行的工作。

Maegan：我们试图在前 30 天内让人们起床或下班。

莉奥拉：我们愿意。 这一直是过去六个月的重点。 我们不想留住某人，因为我们知道从长远来看，如果关系不好，对任何人都没有好处。 这对他们没有好处，对我们也没有好处。 作为第一次雇主，哦，天哪，这太具有挑战性了。 这他妈的是最糟糕的。 我不希望我的第一次经历向任何人开枪。 我不希望任何人都有第一次被我解雇的经历。

Maegan：不，这对所有参与其中的人来说都很糟糕。

莉奥拉：只是，不好。

菲利克斯：人们会感到惊讶吗，尽管当它发生时？ 或者你是否试图让它不一定是相互的，我猜，但他们看到了它的到来？ 总是这样，还是出人意料？

Liora：我们开始实施一种试用结构，这样它就不会再出人意料了。 这是我们最不想要的，就就业而言，这并不令人意外。 Maegan 和我开始更多地倾听的是我们的直觉。 我们鼓励我们的经理也以这种方式思考。 就像您知道它是否不起作用一样。 当你可以大声说出来的时候，可能已经太晚了。 开始倾听你的直觉。 早点大声说出来，看看它是否可以修复。

梅根：是的。 我认为，老实说，我们扩大规模的最大障碍是保持一支优秀的团队并在合适的地方拥有合适的人。 这是我们的一个非常重要的焦点，尤其是现在，但一直都是。 就像 Liora 说的那样，即使我们的员工可能正在满足他们所有的 KPI 或者他们正在正确地完成他们的工作，但我们或他们的直接主管都会有一种感觉，那就是不合适，尽快正如我们想象的那样，如果它可以缓解您的紧张情绪并使部门感觉更顺畅，那么我们就知道了。 这是我们的第一直觉。 很多时候，我们以此为基础做出决定。 然后，一旦您让自己看到这一点，您通常会经常突然看到该人不适合的所有其他地方以及该工作不一定适合他们的所有其他地方。

菲利克斯：你是否也在公司将人员从一个角色转移到另一个角色？

Liora：我们以前尝试过这种转变。 我认为我们学到的重要的东西，我们真正坚持不懈的，是不要把某人钉在圆孔上。 如果他们不工作，你必须为他们创造一个角色，我知道你在谈论在现有角色之间转换，但如果你必须为某人创造一个角色，他们是不对的。

Maegan：我们称之为楔形。 我们试过几次。 它不起作用。

莉奥拉：这是一个楔子。 如果您必须将某人插入其中，那么它不适合任何时期。 你应该从容应对。 他们应该修复它，您应该与他们一起修复它，或者是时候断绝关系了。

Maegan: For the most part, I would say that when someone doesn't work within the company, it is almost 100% of the time a culture and values problem more than it is a skills problem. We have started really realizing that we can't shift someone into another position and make that work. We also think that over time when we've tried to move someone in a different position, it's been really hairy. People feel like they've been demoted even if they haven't. It creates a lot of resentment. Then it [crosstalk 00:31:35] everyone from communicating openly and honestly which is we have to do that or else we're screwed. If people are lying to each other than I think that's one of the number one things that will sink the ship. Liora: Yeah, no lying, no being catty about other employees. Call out not tear down.

Maegan: Aside from promotions which is a different kind of movement, if someone is not working out, we figure out why and up until now it's always just been that they're not a good fit for the company more so than they're not a good fit for that particular role.

Felix: Now do you have a traditional interview process, too? What's that process? How can you try and pull out these details about their values, about I guess their cultural fit just from meeting them for the first time even before they step, I guess, into their role at the company?

Liora: Tricky question asking. Each of our departments has a unique interview process. For our production, there's definitely physical qualifications that you have to pass. Meet the team, see how they interact in space, see how they respond to colorful hair. I think the important thing to recognize is you are never going to have that surefire thing. One of my favorite good hire stories is our executive VP Lisa [Net 00:32:43]. She was our second hire ever. We needed somebody to take over emails because I was dying. We were dying. I was like, "I need someone to answer emails." When I was working as a freelance photographer, Lisa [Net 00:32:54] had been the maid of honor or bridesmaid at a wedding I was photographing. I saw her walk into an extraordinarily tense situation that was giving everyone the chills and just diffuse it like it was no problem at all. She just walked in and just made it better in under three seconds.

Maegan: I pretty much hired her based on that.

Liora: Yeah. That was why we hired her. When we had the interview with her, I basically texted her and I was like, "Hey, listen. I know you're employed, but I also know you're looking to shift. Can you meet for drinks tonight?" She said, "Yeah, absolutely. I'll meet you there." We met up for drinks. She was, when we thought about our ideal client services person and the trait that they would embody, she was there for it. She was upbeat. She was happy about it. She was excited by the product. She wanted to talk to people all day. 她喜欢帮助别人。 She gains satisfaction out of making sure that somebody has something correctly. She gains satisfaction out of making sure people are happy and also out of making sure that the company benefits because of it. Then, at the end of the day, especially when you have more than one employee, your loyalty is exclusively to the company. It can't be to an employee who might not be working out the right way. You can work with them. You can try and make it better, but at the end of the day, you have to preserve the company. If they're not working out, if they're going to drag down your ship, you've got everybody else to think about, and also you have your clients to think about. Is this person hurting or helping my clients?

Maegan: We really work on a cultural understanding of the fact that our clients are a big deal for us. They pay everyone's bills. You have to love them. You have to be super happy about them. Everyone has to prioritize them. In terms of like, we talk about gut feelings a lot. We've already talked about that several times. Honestly, I think we sort of go through a traditional interview process, but a lot of it is gut instinct. We see do they get along with everyone on their team? It's not in a high school can you guys be friendly sort of way, but in the sense do you kind of click with everyone? That just goes back to that same cultural fit of are you going to row in the same direction at the same pace as everybody? That's the most important thing. We can train people. One of our vice presidents right now started as Liora's assistant. She came in with significantly fewer skills than she has now. She came from [crosstalk 00:35:27], with absolutely no business experience and she has killed it. It's because she is driven and she's an excellent cultural fit. She's a kick ass human being. Sometimes you can tell. Then, also, if they don't fit in within the first 30 days, get them out soon.

Felix: Now, on the quantitative side, I think I heard someone mentioning KPIs. How's that set up for the different roles?

Maegan: It depends. For example, our color experts in the client services department have a certain number of emails that they're expected to get out per day. For the most part, we have had our managers in each department set what makes sense for them. For example, in manufacturing, we have how many units are getting out this week. To a certain extent, that can be a team effort. Then, for marketing, it can be based on videos, it can be based on sales or promotions, that sort of thing. We push all of our department managers to set weekly goals. Basically the meetings that Liora and I are really in with the team now are Monday morning one on one meetings that we have with each manager and then all of our executive team as well. Then we all, every one at a manager or executive level on Fridays comes together and talks about the goals that they had set on Monday, how they did. Then they also set goals for their team. We feed that down the pipeline on our traditional management structure. That is what works the best for us. 是的。 That's how we structure KPIs.

Liora: Yeah. Managers review goals with us. We help them set either more quantifiable or realistic ones or adjust it based on priorities that we're seeing for the company. Really, Maegan and I know that when we were doing each of those jobs, it was a very different company. We rely on them to be honest with us about their needs.

菲利克斯：很好。 Now I want to talk a bit about the marketing side. When you mentioned earlier, I think one of you mentioned how it's a high education product because nothing like this exists yet. Maybe people don't even know a solution is available out there. Talk to us about how you overcome this education gap in the market.

Maegan: Yeah.

Liora: Repeating.

Maegan: Repeating. 是的。 When we started out, Liora was really handing client services and I was handling marketing. Those were our babies growing up. We split production as much as possible and gave that up first. On the marketing side, Instagram has been really crucial for us. It's our biggest platform. We use Instagram primarily as a way to communicate through influencers, out to their audiences and have them explain what it is. Then just repetition. Starting from the ground up we spent a lot of time getting influencers on our team. I think because our product is different and new and exciting for people we got a lot of in with some pretty big influencers which was awesome for us.

Liora: A big great relationships. They're so fun and sweet.

Maegan: We love everyone that we've worked with that the influencers we work with are so excellent. A lot of them have been models for us. Basically, we push heavily through word of mouth. Something like 93% of our sales come from direct traffic. Someone who is either clicking a link to come directly to our page from either our Instagram or someone who is typing us into our browser and heard about us from a friend or somebody. Very little comes from search engines. Very little comes from, we do almost no paid advertising. We find that influencers and word of mouth through just people who use our product, our regular clients, really helps spread the message. It's a lot easier to understand if your friend tells you, "Hey, I use this thing. It's a conditioner, it keeps my hair bright," as opposed to trying to learn from ground zero, I guess. We do also have our website set up in such a way that education is first. We offer free color advice through our client services team and really every single aspect of our company is surrounding that initial market gap of getting people to understand that our product isn't dye and what it can do for you and why you need it.

Felix: You work with these influencers. I think, for a lot of companies, a lot of products, lot of brands, it's probably a lot easier because all you ever do is just put your product in the face of your target customers and people get it right away. Not only do you have to do that, but you also have to explain about the problem, about why there's a solution, why your product is the right solution. Tell us about how you I guess, work with influencers to I guess do all of that.

Maegan: For the most part, if you have colorful hair, you know there's a problem.

Liora: It's not a mystery.

Maegan: We don't have to teach you that there's a problem. We have a number of people who use our products instead of dye to color their hair from the beginning, which is something we didn't initially intend. That's a slightly different market that we speak to a little bit differently. For the most part, for our core client audience, the type of people, who they go to a salon, they have their hair colored blue for example, and they want to keep it that way and not have it fade out to an ugly muddy mess. Liora: Purple [inaudible 00:41:02].

Maegan: That's true. Purple is our best seller.

Liora: Maybe [crosstalk 00:41:05] a purple for like a solid year.

Maegan: These people, if you've ever had any fantasy color in your hair, you know that there's a problem. In terms of how we communicate through influencers, really what we would do is I would email them early on and say, "Hey, we have this product. We love our hair. We'd love to give you some. We'd love to have you try it. Here's how to use it. Here's what it is." We just had a lot of people really gravitate to our product because there was such a need in the market. We used that to find people who were really interested and people want an easy way to maintain their hair color. People who have this lifestyle and have this aesthetic. They don't necessarily want to be spending every fifth day of their life in a freezing cold shower because they have to keep their hair looking nice. I think everyone was really open to a solution. We had a really great response from our influencers. Then we just kind of said like, "Hey, I'm going to educate you on how this works. I'm going to tell you how to use it and then go tell the world whatever you want to tell them." We really didn't push astringent. We didn't give people words to say. We didn't say, "We want you to point out this, that and the other." It also helps to educate us on people's response to it and what they thought it was and how they used it. It gave us an example of how people used it in ways that we didn't expect initially, like to change their color slightly. Basically we would say, "Go talk to your audience. Tell them whatever you want to say. If you love it, great." That's a lot of how we spread the word.

Liora: I think something else that Maegan did amazingly well while she was writing these emails was she went straight into personalization. She looked at their Instagram profile very thoroughly. She saw what they did. She saw what they liked. She made specific references to that in her email. She didn't say, "We'd love to send you some products." She would say, "We really want to send you Pastel Pink Daily because we think that that would [crosstalk 00:43:08] in your hair." She really made sure that those influencers knew that they were cared about deeply and that we had taken the time to invest in that relationship. I think that was so key in making sure that we got a positive response. There was no blast emailing. It's always direct. It's always personal. We want to be sure that, and to an extent, our influencers are also our clients. We want to make sure that they know that we care about them, and that we care about their decisions and we care about their aesthetic. Of course, we're going to send them something personalized.

Maegan: Yeah. It's the same thing as with our vendors. Everything we do is all about partnerships. We want relationships with people. Lots of people say that it's a big thing in business, but I think it just takes a lot of time and effort and a lot of people kind of want to skip that step. I think that that's a big part of why we were successful.

菲利克斯：很好。 What has worked best in terms of I guess on Instagram when you are trying to educate your target customer about your products. Is it images? Is it video? Is it explaining the captions? What's worked best for explaining how your product works?

Liora: I think anybody on the internet knows that nobody reads the captions.

Maegan: No one reads the captions ever.

Liora: Nobody reads the captions. Maegan: Don't put anything you need, if you need to communicate it put it in the photo. Make a text photo if you have to. Don't put it in the captions.

Liora: Then repeat it in the caption. Know that most anybody is not going to do their own reading on an image based platform, especially. A lot of what Maegan and I found really useful early on and still now, and we've refined them so much, and they're so much more beautiful than they were originally, was that we showed our product on three different types of hair. We showed it on a platinum blonde, on a medium blonde and on a brown so that we have this library of photos to give examples to how people envision what it will look like on themselves. We also really, early on, we adopted a hashtag. We encouraged our clients to hashtag themselves. We started featuring them. Look, real life story. This person uses our stuff. They're not an influence. They're not anybody. They're our clients and they're important to us. We want to showcase how awesome they are. We want to make sure that you can envision if you have this color hair, you can get to here. Here's what they used, here's how they did it.

Maegan: Yep. To this day, 90% of what we have on our company's Instagram feed is a combination of those strand tests and reposts of clients who use our stuff. We love to show, especially people who like maybe they started with medium blonde and they put our teal on their hair and ended up with green, interesting color wheel stories or sometimes people who are just maintaining and have in their caption that says like, "Hey, I haven't dyed my hair three months. This feels great. My hair is super healthy now." We just really try to help tell other people's stories. That's the way we promote.

Liora: We want to celebrate the community's. We want to show of our client's creativity with our product, because honestly, they are the people who are going to do it the best. 我们很兴奋。 We're going to bring some people into a space soon where we can film them coloring their own hair with our product and really continue to build up that library of resources.

Maegan: Yeah. Early on [crosstalk 00:46:08] when we didn't have as many of those, we only showed ourselves a lot more. We took a lot of selfies and kind of put that on the Instagram to get it up and going. Then we just gave away product. Given that we're in the beauty industry, our profit margins are healthy enough that we can afford to do that as opposed to marketing. It's much cheaper option for us. When we needed people's experiences, people's audiences, whatever, we just threw free product at them.

Liora: Mm-hmm (affirmative). We were generous with it. Maegan: Yeah. [inaudible 00:46:37] many people loved.

Liora: Yeah.

菲利克斯：是的。 Even though the products are like you're saying high margins, so you can't afford to give them away, it still takes obviously a lot of time to reach out to these people to personalize the message, to start working with them. I'm assuming that you're still probably pretty selective, though, right, with identifying which influencers you want to work with. What's the process for that? How do you pick and choose which ones you should spend your time on to write these personal emails to them?

Maegan: I haven't been doing it myself in some time. We have a director of marketing who does it now. 她太不可思议了。 A lot of what we look for in an influencer that will be successful for us is someone who also fits our culture in the same way that we would want an employee who fits our culture, someone who has kind of an aesthetic that we think would be really useful to our Instagram feed. We work very hard on keeping a diverse Instagram feed and showing our product on all types of hair, because it works on all hair types. We also focus on people's engagement, which I think is a lot more important than necessarily how many followers they have. Someone with a really strong level of engagement, good interaction with their followers and someone who has followers who kind of have this aspirational tone. We want people with followers who look to them for suggestions. We don't want somebody who's like just pimping out everything that comes their way, because it's free or whatever. They have a feel on their Instagram of whatever's the flavor of the day. We want people with some authenticity and also followers that pay attention to them and are listening to them for advice.

Liora: We did a couple of photo shoots with four of our influencers. We did, it was just so great. We did them about a year apart. You know somebody's a good fit in that way when you can just show up, meet them in person for the first time and you're like, "Hey, we're going to spend the next eight hours taking a picture of your face. How do you feel about that?" They're like, "I feel really good about it. Let's hang out." You order pizza and eat on set and you form real friendships with them. It's just so rewarding, honestly, to know that one, you created a product that you sent to them and it made their lives better, just like as a person because they don't have to live their lives around their hair, but also that you can then meet up and continue to collaborate across multiple threads. 那真是太好了。

菲利克斯：很好。 One thing that was mentioned in the pre-interview questions that I definitely want to touch on was that you guys want to focus on, or you focused on pivoting quickly and not committing to a mistake just because time had been put into it. Talk to us a little bit more about this. 你那是什么意思？ Do you have any examples you can give?

Liora: Let's see. Not committing to a mistake. There are a lot of examples.

Maegan: Can you find that on Pinterest? On our Pinterest thing that you sent me?

Liora: I did. The first time I saw it it was on Pinterest. It resonated so deeply because Maegan and I are fast decision makers. We look at a situation and we have a backup feeling we're not happy with the way it's going. We're like, "You know what? We're going to change direction." We actually just had a major session like that this week where we've done a lot of reading and we've done a lot of looking at the market and what we've been doing, what's been working, what's not been working. We sat down and went, "Why hadn't this been working?" We had like four product ideas circulating for this year. We decided to literally backtrack on all of them, declutter, refine the vision and give it down to our team. Luckily our team is really used to us pivoting hard on a direction and saying, "Nope. We're making this change. This is what's happening. Here's a new direction. Here is why." They're really good at taking it on.

Maegan: Yeah. If I could narrow down, like if I had to pick one reason why we've been able to get to where we are, it's that we can pivot hard. We're really good at learning all the time, taking in new info. As soon as that new info brings a different decision or different path to light, we're like, "Yep, okay. That's the next thing. Move over that way."

Liora: For example, we purchased a custom, made for us, filling machine that was supposed to massively simplify our production process and ease up the workload on our production people. We spent an appropriate amount of money for what it was supposed to do on it, but a large amount for us in terms of what we had spent on machinery in the past.

Maegan: Yeah. It was six figures.

Liora: Yeah. The machine did not work. We spent time and money upgrading the electrical in our warehouse. We created a whole space for it. We designed a process around this machine. We tried endlessly with frustration and tears to get this thing to work. It is just like a giant metal monster right now and does not work. We sat down and our team is like, "This is not working." We're like, "Okay, we hear you. It's not working. We're going to pivot hard. We're going to instead increase production people. We're going to do semi-automated instead of fully automated. We're going to build up that way. Done. We're going to get rid of this thing."

Maegan: Yep. Just get rid of it. 承担损失。 We actually specifically had a contract that we could get refunded for it if it did not work.

菲利克斯：很好。

Maegan: The company went out of business.

Felix: Not nice.

Liora: There was that.

Maegan: The point is, we're selling it. We're taking a loss. We're moving on to something else. The fact that it cost us a nice healthy chunk of money is not going to prevent us from moving to something that makes more sense.

Liora: Spending time being upset that we made the wrong decision cost us money.

Felix: I love that. I love that kind of attitude to be able to cut your losses and move on and not be so absorbed in doing things in a certain way just because you made that decision at the beginning. I think the difficult part that a lot of people have is how do they know that they're at a point where they should be making a pivot, versus maybe holding on a little bit longer and waiting for it to potentially, I guess, resolve itself or end up in a much more favorable spot by just staying the course. 你如何做出这个决定？

Maegan: I think we're just coming right back around to the thing we've been saying a bunch already which just it's a lot of gut instinct, really. We can feel if something's wrong.

Liora: For example, with the labels. We knew that pushing through with the labels was important for our business, that adjusting our entire manufacturing process wasn't going to work. We couldn't outsource it. We couldn't then shift our product to a filler to have them fill and then label it, just like the time was too much. We needed it done this way. That was a struggle that we put a lot of time into creating. We put the first six months of our company into getting out labels right. Something that didn't work for the long term was when we first started filling we were using 100 milliliter plastic syringes to fill every bottle, fill bottles that are 236 milliliters. We know that now. That in the short term was sustainable, in the long term not sustainable. We weren't going to invent a way to make a syringe work for us. We were going to completely pivot, try a different system that we didn't think was going to work, reach out to a new partner and say like, "Hey can you make this thing for us?" Like that's still how we fill right now. That really worked. If you feel like, I think the gut feeling kind of lends down to it. Do you feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel? Can you adjust other processes around this? Yes/no. If you can't, even if you're really attached the idea, it's not worth chasing because it's going to be at the expense of your company. Like we said before, nothing comes before the company.

Maegan: Right. Really the lifestyle of what that looks like is like we will start feeling weird about something. We'll say like, "Wow, this is giving me a lot of headaches, more than it should. A lot of anxiety, whatever."

Liora: Like, "I can't eat for a week. I can't sleep."

Maegan: Yeah. There's some sort of negative energy around it, then we would be like, "Okay. Why is this happening? Oh, it's because we're looking at this and there's going to be a dead end in six months and we can tell that this system is not going to work. We're going to out grow it or we've already outgrown it and it's causing a bottleneck and we can't get around it. What do we need to do instead?" Then we will go forward with some sort of learning push where we will try and figure out as much as possible, learn everything around that subject, figure out what we could possibly do and then come together and do some brainstorming, figure out the next way to go, decide on an effort and push that way.

Liora: The important thing is to recognize that you're never going to hit on the right decision. There is no right decision [crosstalk 00:55:13]. You're going to make the decision that's right for you at the time, whether or not you have to change it down the road. Okay, you've failed? 没问题。 Next idea. Go forth and fuck up.

Maegan: Practically no decision that we've ever made has been the right decision for more than six to twelve months. It's the right decision right now, but inevitably, you'll have to change it. It's just being comfortable looking at stuff that was right before, or maybe was never right and just saying like, "Nope, it's got to be different."

Felix: Awesome, awesome advice. Again, overtone.co is the store. What do you guys want to see the brand, the business be this time next year? What are the goals or the focuses this coming year?

Liora: We tripled last year. Maybe some pressure?

Maegan: No, quadrupedal.

Liora: Excellent. 击掌。

菲利克斯：太棒了。 Thanks so much for your time Liora and Maegan. Where else can listeners check out if they want to follow along with what you guys are up to?

Maegan: Our Instagram handle is @overtonecolor, OVERTONECOLOR. That's also our handle on pretty much everything else you can find us on, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as well.

Liora: If you want to see pictures of Maegan's face, you can see it at @maeganscarlett. If you want to see pictures of my face you can see it @k_liora.

菲利克斯：太棒了。 We'll link all that in the show notes. 再次非常感谢。

Liora: Thanks for having us. Maegan: Thanks for having us.

Felix：这是下一集 Shopify Masters 的预告片。

Speaker 4: He actually said that they had fulfillment, sent us some tracking numbers. We passed them on to our customers. They said they were going to go active in like two days or something. Then we found out that those tracking numbers were not real.

Felix: Thanks for listening to Shopify Masters, the eCommerce marking podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs. 要立即开始您的商店，请访问 shopify.com/masters 申请延长 30 天免费试用期。