Ep.138/ LISSY SKINCARE
Lissy Skincare's Secrets to Building Loyalty Through TikTok and Personalized Support With Founder & CEO Lissy Kotter
Mariah Parsons, Host of Retention Chronicles and Head of Marketing at Malomo is joined by Alyssa (Lissy) Kotter, the Founder and CEO of Lissy Skincare, a brand specializing in acne and fungal acne-safe skincare products. Lissy shares her background as an esthetician and her struggles with acne, which led her to create a line of products that cleared her skin. The brand's flagship product, the Mandelic serum, launched in 2022 and has been highly effective. Lissy discusses the challenges of developing fungal acne-safe products, the importance of customer experience, and the role of TikTok in driving sales and customer retention. She also hints at an upcoming moisturizer launch and plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions.
Episode Timestamps
1:48 Lissy's Background and Skincare Brand
21:55 Lissy's Journey to Founding Lissy Skincare
22:11 Product Development and Launch
22:27 Customer Experience and Retention Strategies
22:46 TikTok Strategy and Paid Advertising
40:08 Future Plans and Final Thoughts
EP. 138
LISSY KOTTER
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
retention chronicles, e-commerce enlightenment, Malomo, branded order tracking, female founders, acne safe, fungal acne, esthetician background, skincare line, product development, TikTok shop, customer experience, email flows, subscription-based, moisturizer launch, Black Friday prep for ecommerce brands
SPEAKERS
Lissy Kotter, Mariah Parsons
Mariah Parsons 00:05
Greetings and welcome to retention. Chronicles, the podcast with learnings from expert e commerce brands and partners. I'm your host. Mariah Parsons, if you're here, you're either on a quest for E commerce enlightenment or you accidentally click the wrong link. Either way, I am thrilled you stumbled into our corner of the internet, and I hope you'll stick around. We've got pearls of wisdom for everyone, whether you're running a multi million dollar business or simply just starting out on your entrepreneurial journey. Before we unleash the brilliance of today's guests, let's give a shout out to our podcast sponsor, Malomo. Malomo is so much more than just another Shopify app, their post purchase wizards, making beautiful and branded order tracking smoother than a jazz solo. So our amazing founders, like our guests, can keep their customers happy and up to date while they track their orders. So hit that subscribe button like it'll increase your LTV overnight and go listen to our other episodes at Go malomo.com that's G O M, a, l o m,o.com Get ready for insights, chuckles and perhaps a profound realization or two with This newest episode of retention Chronicles.
01:21
Hello everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. I'm stoked for our episode here today. Lissy and I were connected through a Slack channel, and we're going to give a shout out to Mackenzie Bauer. She has founded female founders only, and I've been in the slack group. I think she started it like two months ago, maybe, and it has been a great, great community ever since. So I hope anyone who's listening, any female founders out there will go and check it out. But today, we are sitting down with Lissy. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm so excited to have you please say hi to our audience and tell them about yourself.
Lissy Kotter 01:54
Hi, I'm so excited to be on here. So thank you for having me. Yes, I'm Lissy, the founder of LIS skincare. We are a acne and fungal acne safe skincare line that's great for obviously acne prone skin. Not only is it acne safe, but it's great at treating acne. It's also pregnancy and breastfeeding safe. So that's we were kind of a baby brand, and we are slowly growing, but that's kind of the general overview of, listen skincare. Love it. We'll
02:25
get into it. We'll have plenty of time for that, even though these episodes always fly by. So just like, for a more like, educational standpoint, and I know your background is as an esthetician, so can you, is there, like, an easy way to differentiate for like consumers, or for our audience of like, acne. Like, I'm gonna put the words typical acne. I don't know if that's correct, so like, correct me if it's wrong, typical acne, and then, like, fungal acne. Like, how do you obviously, like, I know they're different, but how would you kind of like, describe them to the typical person who does not have a background in this, yeah,
Lissy Kotter 03:01
so, you know, your typical acne, it's going to come to a head, usually pop, go away. And that's kind of with, like all types of acne, even cystic or hormonal, they eventually pop and leave your skin. And you know, maybe you have more coming up at the same time, and you're not fully cleared up, but that individual acne is going to heal. Fungal acne is really not even acne. It's just called fungal acne, but it's actually a fungal issue on your skin. So it's an overgrowth of yeast on your skin, which is super common. So many people have it. Everyone has yeast on their skin. Sometimes you just don't have enough bacteria to fight it off, or or you are triggering, you have ingredients in your skincare products that are triggering your fungal acne, or you're eating too much sugar. Or there's a lot of different ways that you can get fungal acne, but it also looks very different. So it's going to be flesh colored, and just like bumps more, just like texture on your skin that don't really pop you can't usually squeeze much out of them. They don't go away, and they don't react to your typical acne products. So before, so I had fungal acne, and do for ever, and I would, you know, try your typical salicylic, benzoyl peroxide, tretinoin, all of those things to try and clear it up, because I didn't even realize that it was that it was fungal acne, and it just would not react the same way to your typical acne. So that's kind of the main difference there.
04:30
Okay, super helpful. Thank you for that. And as I alluded to, your background is as an aesthetician. So can you give us kind of the like lead up to when you, I guess we'll call it, veered off, but when you decided to found Lissy skincare, what were the moments like leading up to this? Because obviously, you shared you've struggled with this in the past of just trying to have healthy or a great ingredient, great ingredient, skincare that you could, you know, be confident with and that would actually help your skin. So what were like the I guess, the steps leading up to it, or where's your background, tell us a little bit more about it.
Lissy Kotter 05:06
I mean, it kind of starts way back from when I was like, I, you know, middle school, I probably started struggling with acne, and struggled all through high school. I attempted to go to college for a semester, and I loved it. Nothing against that, but I realized that I wanted to go to aesthetician school. Pretty much I learned what an esthetician was. Someone had suggested aesthetician school to me, and I'm like, that sounds really fun, really great. And I'm finally going to be able to clear up my acne, and I can help other people clear up their acne. So I left college, I went to esthetician school, and my skin was an absolute mess. In esthetician school, it was all over the place. I was always the example of, like, every type of acne, and it was just that it wasn't getting any better. And then obviously, we're trying so many different skincare products out. We're doing chemical peels, micro needling, so much is happening to your skin, and my skin was just not improving. And I remember I was like, about to graduate, and one of my teachers was like, We need to get your acne under control. You're not going to get a job. Like, that's how bad it was. Um, and so I graduated. My skin still wasn't great, but I found a skincare line that I did like, and it was improving my skin, but not to the point where I ever was confident in my skin, like I still consistently had acne and fungal acne. That was always such a big struggle for me, the bumps, they're all over my forehead. Just crazy texture that makeup wasn't makeup is not hiding your texture. I feel like it would just like even make it worse. So it was still just a roller coaster. And I'm trying to think so I think I was doing by the time Lissy skincare actually launched. Sorry For me graduating at stitch school, and by the time LIS skincare actually launched, there was four years in between. So I was doing my best to keep my own skin clear while also helping other people, like my clients. I was a solo aesthetician, so I was just working for myself. And honestly, it was, it was tough mentally and like, kind of embarrassing being like, Yeah, I'm gonna totally help you clear up your acne. Can't fix mine, though, you know. So that was kind of just like a constant battle in my head and just not feeling confident as an aesthetician. And I started looking more into like, fungal acne triggers, and realized, like, every single product that I'm using has at least one fungal acne triggering ingredient in it, and it was so hard to find products that had none in them. And I feel like just nobody talks about fungal acne. And I was just, I'm like the skincare line, I love it. They're so great. I love working with them. But like, Does nobody care about us fungal acne? Girlies, you know, no one cares. No one's thinking about us. Just kidding. But I was like, I just need to pretty much create an entire skincare routine with zero fungal acne triggering ingredients, or I have these bumps all over my forehead, and it's humiliating. And even the line that I was using, they had a serum that they said was anti fungal because I had some anti fungal ingredients in it, but also had a ton of fungal acne triggering ingredients in it as well. I'm just like, nobody gets it. Like, unless you have fungal acne, you don't get that. You can't have both in an ingredient. Like, yeah. So maybe three years into being an esthetician, I realized, like, I actually really want to maybe create my own skincare line, and in the past, I had done other businesses. So I had a clothing line for estheticians that was really, really successful in the esthetician community, and I hosted retreats for estheticians, and that was also really successful. So I had done other businesses leading up, and then some, one day it dawned on me, I want to make my own skincare line, but that seemed literally crazy. I couldn't even say it out loud. I'm like, Yeah, everyone's going to be like, good luck, you know. Anyway, so I slowly started, like, kind of secretly working on it and just trying to find, like, a product that I actually loved that would clear up my acne like that was my goal. So after like, years of research and product ingredient research and testing out different formulas, I landed on our Mandelic serum. And then we finally launched that Mandelic serum in 2022, and that serum literally cleared up my acne. It cleared up my fungal acne in a matter of days, like completely gone crazy, yes, and kept all of my regular acne, because I also had regular acne, cleared that up and kept it gone, which was what was so big. Because, you know, you find products that work for a minute, but then your skin just kind of reverts back. So. So that was huge for me. And we launched just that one product, and it it was completely acne safe, completely fungal acne safe. And even pregnancy safe, which I was pregnant and just had my baby during the time of like launching the product. So it was important that I could obviously test out the products and use the products, and then slowly, so we're two years old now, slowly added three more products. So we have a Hydrating Serum, a vitamin C serum, and a cleanser. And those are all also praying safe acne, safe and fungal acne safe. So it kind of takes time to find the right products and make them work while talking to chemists, being like, I know you don't care about fungal acne, and you probably never thought about it, but I do, and you need to find ingredients to swap out. So these are all fungal acne safe. So we've just been in the process of that, and even have another product coming out next month. So, oh, okay, a
10:58
little teaser. Yeah, very fun. Well, by the time this episode comes out, that product will probably happen out. So, okay, very exciting, um, but okay, so many questions in there. Thank you for going into the background of it. I feel like, um, there's so many different ways I want to take this, but my the first time that was long winded, no, I love it. I love it. The thing I always say on this podcast is, like, tangents are my favorite thing, and like going down rabbit holes and all that fun stuff like, that's what this long form, like interview style, is meant to be. It's less like sound Clippy, it's more just like, you know, long form, getting to know people. So if it's, if it's the if it's the vibe of the podcast, for sure, but I wanted to first ask so when you're trying to find, and I'm going to make the assumption that, you know, there's not a lot of a ton of like products, right? Because you couldn't find them for yourself that are totally fungal safe, or, like, totally anti and it sounds like anti fungal is like, kind of one of those ways to get around. Like you were saying it's like anti fungal, but it still has triggering ingredients. So I mean that they like fungal safe to Yes, totally, totally encompass that it's not going to be triggering. So when you're going to these chemists being like, I want to swap out these ingredients, and I want to do this product research, or this product development, is it you kind of leading the forefront on that of being like, I think this ingredient could be swapped here, because, you know this ingredient, I don't know which specific ones are like, good to use and not or like, how are you even approaching Product Development for something that's new to market, and is like, very inherently, chemistry, yeah.
Lissy Kotter 12:45
So I am not going to pretend like I know anything about chemistry, because I don't, and I could never do the chemist jobs with the labs that I work with, so I'm not going to even pretend. But pretty much the process is more like, this is okay. So spoiler, the product that we're coming out next month is a moisturizer. So I would say I like this type of moisturizer, and maybe give them some samples. Like, I really like this thickness. I like this product that has, you know, these specific ingredients that target, you know, anti aging or whatever. Just maybe give them a few examples and say, I want it to feel like this, but I want it to be this thick and and do this, and I want it to be fungal acne safe. And they go, you know, like, Okay, I don't. They don't really know what exactly what ingredients are fungal acne triggering or not. And neither do I off the top of my head. There is, like, a certain type of group that, like is typically fungal acne, triggering greening, like oils and fatty acids or something like that. But really, what I rely on, and what now my chemists rely on, is there's different websites where you can plug in, like, any skincare ingredient, and it will tell you if it's fungal acne safe or not. So I there's no way I would know every ingredient off the top of my head. And so I check every ingredient that is put into a product that we do, and I also give them, like, multiple different websites to check while they're creating the products as well. Okay,
14:17
cool. That's what I anticipated. Not that you, yeah, you're like, doing your due diligence and doing research. Of once the chemists are kind of like, okay, this different combination of chemicals will get you to XYZ, you know, product, which is just funny, because so my background is in neuroscience, and this is a tangent. So, like, I was sitting in those chemistry classes being like, Okay, what does X and Y, like, all that stuff do, which I is just funny to me, being in business now, so, quite a tangent, but I definitely relate to, like, the experimentation of just being in a lab and I wasn't even making new things, right? It was just like, yeah, lately, educational. Um. Yeah, but So following up on that when you're kind of like, I guess when you're thinking about launching, there's something else that you said around like, when you're as an esthetician, and you're in between, I guess, launching and being a solo esthetician, you're having that moment of like, I'm going to be the expert, but I also am struggling to solve my own acne on my own, and that's a very vulnerable place to be, to be like I am trying to wade through these waters like on my own journey, but then I'm also trying to help you on yours, and I'm going To make the assumption that that translates very well in being the founder of LIS skincare, because you are quite literally like the consumer, like you were the first person to try it. You said it cleared up your acne within a couple of days. And so do you feel like that? My question here is a lot of brand founders, I think, try and play the like, should I be the face of the brand? Should I not be the face of the brand? Pros and cons to each side of the coin? And so it's something that is like so inherent to, I guess, like confidence and vulnerability and emotional, the emotional aspect of who you are as a person, just because acne is one of those things that it's like, so, so, so. And for some reason, like in society, we make it so important, or it just like, feels like it is one of those barriers that, like, maybe, if we evolved a time, like, wouldn't be something that was but we like have a whole beauty industry around having makeup to cover up acne and imperfections. So long winded way of asking you, like, what is your I guess, how are you looking at, how far to like, really? Have the brand be your like, the brand, personality of the business, be like your personal brand and trying to, like, see, you know, like, I'm exactly the person that is on the other side of this website shopping with me. Because I feel like that's one of the things when I was, of course, stocking your website for this, is like, I'm seeing come through a lot on my end. So I'd love to get your take on that, yeah,
Lissy Kotter 17:20
so I know I'm like, I want to start a business, but I want it to feel like a very professional business. So when I started the brand, obviously I wanted it to feel like a professional brand and not just like a personal side project. Almost, you know what I'm saying, and that was really important for me. But I'm actually really glad that I kind of kept myself as the face of the business. And I think that, especially with acne, having a personal like story behind it is incredibly helpful, because it's vulnerable. Acne is so Yes, everyone is so beautiful with acne, yes, it doesn't take away your self worth or anything like that. But if you have acne and you struggle with it, you know how mentally debilitating it can be and how like personal it is. So I have found that people have connected with the brand and wanted to try the product more, even just from a business standpoint, when I am talking about my experience with it and showing my before and afters, and talking about how I'm an aesthetician, and I was not able to clear up my skin and tell these products, and I think that's only helped the business. And like on Tik Tok or our a lot of our business comes from Tik Tok, and I try to share my story on there as well, but I also share customer reviews and customer comments that we get on there all the time, so people can see that it's not just me having these these results. It's like our customers are obsessed with our products. So I do try and share that a lot too, but it is mostly I'm the face of the brand, and I think it just, I think that it works for us. Um, I we are trying to start to trying to start to branch out a little bit more and find our customers that are loving our products to make more videos for us. So it doesn't look like it's just me having these results, you know. But I think that it's the best thing that we could have done for our business. Instead of just even, like, you know, you could do tons of educational posts around it. You could talk about ingredients or why it works, but selling the product works so much better when you have somebody talking to you about the product and sharing their experience and being really passionate about the products.
19:49
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I, I want to state too, like I as a consumer, so taken out of the E commerce world, like I much prefer a brand with the founder, just because one I like find it. Is very, like, I'm very intrigued by someone's journey and, like, why they started something. And I'm there's, there's just a curiosity there. But then I'm also very, I don't want to say susceptible, but like, I'm very attached to a brand, if I like, feel like I know the person behind it, right? And so if I can see them sharing about this story or this struggle that they've had, and this is where the product came from. I'm like, I just know as a consumer, it's going to be a thought out, or better thought out product, because they're facing that struggle, rather than like someone who maybe has never struggled with this acne, fungal acne, before. Because it's just, it's not a problem you face like you if you were in the middle of something, like, if it's if it, like, encapsulates multiple hours, or, like, all hours of your day, you're going to be you just know, like, certain pitfalls or certain things that are really important, versus trade offs for other things. So yeah,
Lissy Kotter 20:56
just more passionate about it, and you care about it more, and that resonates with your your customers and yeah, especially with acne, if you can relate to their struggle, they're going to appreciate that.
21:09
Yes, yeah, for sure. And I so like I, I loved it when I saw like your before and after pictures on the website. I really think it lends itself to seeing like the product before and after, obviously, and that's like where you show those results. Because the interesting thing about e commerce, or about like new brands, is you're trying to generate trust with the buyer, while you're also trying to generate those like the the sales themselves. And so it's one of those things where it's like, Okay, once you get to the one of the, like, staple brands, or one of the house brands, you already have that, like, consumer trust just because of market share. Mm, hmm. And you're probably going to get the sales just because people trust you, like, right? They've heard your name, yeah, um, and like, heard good things about you. But it's this interesting spot that when you're a younger brand, you can, you kind of have to let like, you have to make sure that you're showing both sides of that um. And I'm happy you brought up that tick tock is where a lot of your sales comes from, because I feel like, just the routine economy, which I don't know if you're familiar with recharge, but we had their SVP of marketing on Jen Gray, and she was kind of talking about how, because they're a subscription platform, like they are, all of their technique technologies, all about subscriptions. They were saying, like, the routine economy, or, like, people really want to, like, see what other people are doing to get like, said desired results, whether it's in like makeup or get ready with me videos, or like skincare. Like, there's this whole market right now on social media that I think Tiktok really sparked, because you weren't really seeing it on Instagram before, and the pandemic as well, just like people having so much time. But I feel like your product obviously is very well situated to really appeal to people on video like video content and UGC and reviews and all that fun stuff. So I'm not surprised to hear that you get a lot of your sales from Tiktok, but it's something that we don't talk about a ton on this podcast. So I'd love to kind of hear like, how you're, I guess, approaching your Tiktok strategy. What are, if any like, I'm, I'm not sure, because I don't sell through Tiktok shop like, what are the pros and cons? Um, because typically it's Shopify brands, right? There's sell that we're talking to, and it's they're selling a lot through their sites and through social. But because you mentioned it, I'd love to kind of get your take on, you know, acquiring customers through Tiktok.
Lissy Kotter 23:53
Yeah, so we, I Tiktok has been like, such a blessing in our business. I really don't have I only mostly have positive things to say about it. So probably about six months into our business, we someone told us to get on Tiktok shop, and we did. And just like we had viral video after viral video after viral video. Awesome. Congrats. People were Thank you, especially, we got in at such a good time on Tiktok shop where it wasn't over saturated, and the algorithm was pushing Tiktok shop videos a ton. So we don't have videos go as viral and as often, but in the beginning, it really like gave us a boost. And so people were finding us through there and there, there's, like, you know, a really small fee with Tiktok shop, obviously, but it was, it's, it's not any more, like, I think it's less than it would be on Amazon or something like that. So it's really competitive. Um, and. And again, like the algorithm will just boost those those posts. So we were just cranking out as much video as we could on there, and that's still what we're doing. Tiktok shop is getting more and more saturated. So I would say that's kind of a con. Is people are annoyed at Tiktok shop, you know what I'm saying, so they scroll past it faster and stuff like that. But, I mean, I even got a comment, I think, like two days ago, someone saying, like, I've been eyeing this on Tiktok shop for a year, and I finally just bought it. So it's still like, Tiktok still pushing Tiktok shop videos, and people I know are seeing are our videos all the time, so that's been super helpful. And then all obviously just the video aspect and being able to talk face to face, I think that's the best way to sell something, is through video. I always said, like on Instagram stories, like getting on Instagram stories and talking about your story, and showing your skin and your before and afters, and letting people kind of see your passion with your business is like the best way to sell something. And so obviously that's all that Tiktok is. So I'm able to get on there, and pretty much all my videos are talking videos. I rarely do, like a cutesy skincare routine with music behind it. I usually go on there and I'm I tell my story. I show my current skin. I show my skin before, and you can just kind of see how much I love the the brand and how well has worked for me. And then I also go on and share customer comments in a video, like you can reply to a comment in make a new video. I make those all the time with with comments talking about how much the product changed their life and stuff like that. So I think through Tiktok, people have really been able to see the results, see the passion behind us, see so many other customer results just because of the comments that are coming in constantly. So Tiktok has been seriously amazing for our business.
27:00
Oh, I love hearing that, especially just like small business, and I know a lot of people discover small businesses on Tiktok, which I'm a there's obviously going to be pros and cons to everything we do in life, but very much, I love consuming Tiktok as a consumer and as a marketer, and just seeing how creative people can get on that app, because I feel like it's throwing some chaos in marketing, and I'm all here for it like, but the more serious question of Tiktok shop that was bouncing around in my mind is so from a like, Is it? Are you making or like, organic content, but then do you have to, like, additionally boost your videos like they'll have on Instagram? Or is it just like the algorithm will let it play out?
Lissy Kotter 27:50
Yeah, so it's just the algorithm. We have never done any paid marketing on Tiktok. So it's just the Tiktok shop. And I was going to say, while I was talking about it, that Tiktok, in the beginning, gave crazy discounts to people, and it wouldn't come out of our pocket. It come out of Tiktok pocket. So that was like a huge incentive to have on Tiktok shop. And they don't do them as much anymore. They do a little bit, but like, people were able to get our product for a lot cheaper, and I would still get paid the full the full price of it anyway. So I was just gonna throw that in there, because they still do that, just not as much. But that helped a ton in the beginning too. But up until six months ago, we had never done any paid advertising anywhere, ever, and literally just grew and grew and grew and grew without it, just because of Tiktok shop and and getting so many eyes on our product. And then about six months ago, we decided, okay, you know, we have the budget, let's and we want to diversify. We don't want to just be seen on Tiktok. Obviously. You know, if Tiktok goes away or something that's scary, and that's always in the talks. So we started doing paid advertising on Instagram and Facebook, and that's been good. And then literally, this week, we are starting to do paid ads on Tiktok for like, two most viewed videos that have generated the most amount of sales. So I don't even think they're live yet, but we're going to start that this week and see how they do. But up until this point, and not that we need to, we just now have the budget, thankfully, to just throw money at advertising and see what works and see what helps. So we'll see how that works on Tiktok. I'm hoping it goes really good, though?
29:40
Yeah, I hope it does, too. I'll be looking out for him, for sure. I feel like that's one of those things where, and I Well, one of those things where it's obviously, like a major success to get into the Tiktok shop when you could, and got that piece of advice to, you know, capitalize on, like, the discounts. That's crazy, but also such a great marketing play, or business play for them, for Tiktok to do, to, like, get a bunch of people in their shop, yeah, to then make them like, stickier and more of a marketplace and like, potential competitor with these other places, these other marketplaces. So kudos to them for, like, having that incentive to bring businesses into, like, setting up their Tiktok shop. And it also, I think, gives a lot of hope to our listeners, because they're mostly like, SMBs, right? Like they're scrappy. They're trying to, they're trying to, just, like, figure out so many different things at once, and don't necessarily have huge budgets to, you know, compete with enterprise products or solutions or brands on the meta universe or in the meta universe. So I love hearing like the the the notion or the strategy or the play that you could just that you guys were successful in building out organic strategy, intentional strategy, in content, and we're able to see, like, okay, XYZ does really well. Let's then, like, put some ad dollars behind it to then grow. And I know we're talking mostly on the acquisition side of things, of like, how do you get eyeballs on your product? Like, that is the currency that everyone cares about. And so I want to transition more into the retention play. So once you know you've you've acquired a new customer. How, especially with a skew count, like a couple of really good quality products, how are you retaining them? Because I know the like routine of having these different cleansers and moisturizers that you'll be rolling out soon, and serums will those are, obviously it makes sense to, like, try and cross sell and upsell those products and have, like, a whole routine that isn't going to trigger your acne to have a flare up. So I'd love to kind of get your breakdown of, how are you thinking about the customer experience in retaining those, you know, the customers that have already shopped with you once or twice. Yeah.
Lissy Kotter 32:10
So, oh, man, there's, like, a few different ways. And I will say a huge downfall of Tiktok shop is that we don't have those customers emails. Can you even believe that? We can't believe that? Wow, so many customers that we don't have emails to but I will say so many people find us on Tiktok, but then just go to our website and order. So it's kind of even like, I would say 5050, of people that like, let's say 100% of people find us on Tiktok. 50% will order on the website. 50% will order on Tiktok. So it's not like every single person, but there is a lot of customers out there that we don't have email access to, so that is really hard. So obviously continuing to post on Tiktok, especially for those people that aren't getting emails from us, or don't follow us on Instagram or anything like that, and just trying to just be in their ear all the time, and we mainly talk about, like our hero product, which is our Mandela serum on on Tiktok. But we have found that people love that product so much and see such amazing results with it, that they eventually turn around and get our other products as well. Um, we also obviously have like, an email flow if they if they haven't purchased, you know, puts them into a flow with like, education or, you know, reminding them what's in their cart. If they do purchase, they have, they're in a series that talks about how to use the product. It gives, sends them an email after a couple months, saying, like, it's time to reorder stuff like that. We also are subscription based. Well, they can choose to subscribe to our products for all of them, and that's been really, really helpful too, I think, to retain those customers. And one thing about skincare, it's really great, because they run out and they have to buy more, you know what I'm saying? So it kind of does its job almost on its own too, especially if they like the product and it cleared up their acne, they're going to come back, because if you find something that clears up your acne, you're not going to let it go. You know what I'm saying? So that's actually something that's really nice with our brand, is it's not a one time buy. People usually come back and buy again, and then they'll buy the other products and try those out, and then they're loving all the products, and they eventually subscribe. So that's, you know, that's obviously, maybe niche to our line. Um, but we do, we do have, you know, obviously, just like the email flows and types flows and and social media as well?
34:40
Yeah, no, that's a great point that you know, if you have a product that gets results, and it's something that is so, like, inherently close to a problem that you're trying to solve, like, you're going to come back as long as you don't, you know, like, have any, any further issues with it? Um. So I love that that's kind of part of your approach of knowing, like, okay, maybe you can't guarantee anything, right, but you can have a little bit more confidence. Let's call it of you know, we'll have X amount of people return if it's solving this problem for them. And then you have, you know, you're more we'll call them like table stakes, or your more expected retention plays like email and social and customer experience and everything like that. And this is one of the things that I have seen with my area of expertise being in order tracking and branded order tracking specifically, is people really, really, will listen if you are in tune with your customers. And so for you to know, like, Okay, this product, I have confidence in that it'll solve your solve your current acne struggles. So if you can say that to someone, the product can speak for itself and its retention, and as long as you don't mess up the customer experience, and it's not a bad one, then they'll come back. Like, the only reason I've seen that people, if they love a product, won't go back and shop with them is if they have a terrible customer experience, yes. And so I'd love to chat about like that. Like, what do you all how are you thinking about the customer experience and layering the intentionality of like, okay, this product is meant for you. And like, the product creation is super intentional. How are you then mirroring that in the customer experience?
36:33
That's a big question. I
Mariah Parsons 36:34
know it's a big question.
Lissy Kotter 36:35
I'm like, this is probably something I should work on. I make the customer experience better, that can
Mariah Parsons 36:43
be your answer, right? Like, we are all about learning here,
Lissy Kotter 36:45
I know I'm like, we have really great customer service and my team,
36:52
what that's the biggest thing about the customer experience is the support without
Lissy Kotter 36:57
a doubt. Yeah, so I love my team, and they're really great about making sure we help the customer, getting them what, what they need. You know, if, if there's a little spill in in the product, when they get it, we send them a new one right away. And we just try to make everything really easy and make them happy. I think that's the biggest thing, is just making our customers happy. Other than that. I'm like, you're like, maybe that's no happier. I should probably work on that. No, I love that.
37:28
We can take it. We can take it. It's okay, because I'm so impressed with how you know everything about, like, every single facet of your business. And obviously you should, because you're the founder, but it's just impressive to me knowing that your background isn't in business, and I very much relate to that. So yeah,
Lissy Kotter 37:45
I'm like, even you sent over the questions that you were possibly going to ask me. And I'm like, I feel like I don't know anything about business.
Mariah Parsons 37:56
So funny and so relatable. Yeah. I'm
Lissy Kotter 37:59
like, I did not go to school for business. I'm an assistant. I am flying by the seat of my pants, and that's how I feel about everything. Like even yesterday, I was having a meeting with my virtual assistant, and I'm like, Okay, so the we're trying to get, like, collabs and all that done, we have no idea what we're doing, and it's not working, so we're gonna have to try something new. Like, everything is just trial and error, and nobody's telling me what to do, or how to do it, or even what, like, even, you know, simple business acronyms or something. I'm like, let me Google that real quick, because I have no idea. Yeah, no,
38:31
we can relate on this. I definitely remember my first ever, like it was during onboarding, and in my first, you know, week or so, and I was literally looking up things like ROI and like MRR and like all those things. So it's relatable, and look where we are now, right? Like, couple years later,
Lissy Kotter 38:51
without doing it still, I know more still. I'm like, oh, I should, you know, I should think about the customer experience and walk through the whole website, make sure, you know, like, it's as easy as possible, and I should do all of these things. And I feel like I'm still just, like, in the even, just where we've grown so much and we've been super successful, which I'm so grateful for. But I feel like I'm still in the phase of like, okay, how do we still keep this alive? Like, I feel like I'm still just trying to, like, keep it alive right now.
39:25
So I'll give you this caveat of, if you haven't run into like, major, major, major complaints about your customer experience, you're probably in the right ballpark of, like, it's been a great customer experience, or one that, like, at least, isn't frustrating enough, because people will complain, like, no doubt about it. Or maybe you're like, currently approaching that phase of your business where you can say, like, Okay, we have like, XYZ already accomplished. We have those wheels turning. So now it's fun to turn our attention to something like the customer experience when you have a bit more of the research. Can be like, Oh, I can dive into this a little bit better. So I say that to mean only that our listeners will relate to that and have been there before, if they're not currently there right now, or will be there in the future, if you know they haven't, if they're just starting out on their journey. So I will wrap us up with asking because, and it's very, I guess, temperate to the conversation that we're having, or the discussion is, where did you go to try and even learn all those things? Like, I know we just joked about looking at business like, business acronyms and, you know, all that fun stuff. But like, Are there any resources that have been really valuable to you. Has it just been like, found, finding groups, like female founders, only things like that, or like bringing in mentors, what, what has been helpful for you to, like, kind of start to understand how to have your own business? Yeah?
Lissy Kotter 40:56
Yeah. So, like I said, I had done like, the apparel business before, and that was not nearly as big as this, but those are that was like some baby steps that helped me learn how to, you know, make a Shopify website and ship products and do ecom from a very basic standpoint, um, so things like that. And then my my brother owns a successful business, and I have people in my life that own other businesses that are not like mine at all, but, but have been able to give me some tips here,
41:26
and they're in business, yeah, and
Lissy Kotter 41:31
so I think it's just been really slow, even like Google in the beginning, just like googling so many things like how to get A business license, you know, just like the super basic stuff. And then as I was able to grow more, I have been in masterminds. I've done, like, weekend masterminds here and there. And then this year, I'm actually in, like, a year long mastermind that's specific to the skincare world and business. So that's been really helpful, just to have people that have been there and know businessy things, because I do not know the business things, like I said. And for have just even have somebody be like, hey, we need to start planning out Black Friday, where I, you know, last year probably was, like, 24 hours before, what should we do for Black Friday? You know, so just kind of having somebody like hold my hand and help me plan and be a better business owner has been really helpful. So yeah, I have done just yeah, some some masterminds, and that's been really, really helpful.
42:34
Okay, awesome. I love that. And I know you already gave us a little bit of a teaser for when this episode comes out, the new product that you'll have. But I'd like to wrap up the show by asking, Are there any other things that you're really looking forward to? Like, maybe it is your Black Friday, Cyber Monday plans. You don't have to, like, spoil them, because this will be coming out right before then, in end of October. But like, anything else, any other product launches that you can just like, hint at, or something that you're excited about. You
Lissy Kotter 43:04
know this? So we're coming out with a moisturizer. It's coming out October 24 and this has been the biggest labor of love. It's literally been done for almost a year, and now it's just been in the testing phase, and all of this, I'm so excited to finally get it out, and I feel like I haven't been able to focus on new products other than this until now. So once this comes out and I'm I've kind of been switching labs and things have been changing a little bit like in the back end. Once everything kind of settles down with that, then I am very excited to start adding more products. So right now it's really just that moisturizer launch, which has been so exciting because someone with acne and fungal acne, moisturizer is the hardest product to find, and that's not like too thin or going to burn your skin or not going to be fun acne. So I'm really, really excited about that. And then, yeah, we, we obviously are going to have Black Friday coming up in Cyber Monday, we'll have some fun deals. So those are the biggest things happening. Yeah? Yay.
44:07
So exciting. Yeah, that's great. I'm very much looking forward to it. This episode will come out four days after your launch. So happy early launch, but really congrats on your launch. It's been great to have you here. LIS, this has been super fun. So thank you for making the time and taking me up on
Lissy Kotter 44:24
my offer. Of course, thanks for having me. It's been so fun. Good. Glad to hear it.
