The Walmart.com Partnership Fancy: You now have a partnership with Walmart.com. Congratulations on that. How did that come about? Tami: Well, it's a very long-winded, loaded response, so I have these bullet points of what I did and what I suggest for the essence of time's sake. The first thing is whether you want to brand partner with Walmart or whatever retailer, have an abundance mindset and an attitude of gratitude. A positive mindset gives you that clarity and vision that you need to curate whatever you want to curate and be able to receive additional resources and information to pivot the brand if need be. Do you know what I'm saying? The second thing I would say to do is to research where you want to show up in the industry, what it is that you're offering, and who you are offering it to. One thing about retail, specifically with Walmart.com, you must have a tangible item or a product that is not customizable. The reason why they want it to be non-customizable is in case you get an influx of orders. They're not going to be waiting on you to sit there and customize any products. One thing about Walmart, and I say it all the time, you can get 50 orders a day. They want each order out that same day. They don't play when it comes to that. I love that about that partnership, and it definitely holds me accountable as well to make sure everybody's getting their products in time. Once you figure out what tangible product you want to do, make sure you register your products. If you want to get on the shelf, if you want to sell online, whatever your goal is to do- you want to make sure you register your product and brand and have your brand legally set up. The structure needs to be set up legally, and it needs to be at least a corporation or LLC. It cannot be a sole proprietorship or anything like that. You want to make sure you have that set up correctly as well with the state and city, your local ordinances. Once you do that, insure your products. Not sure if I mentioned that just yet, but just insure your products and make sure whatever policy you have on your brand, that your products are underneath that policy as well. There's a website you'll actually go to and register for your UPC codes and your barcodes. So you would go to gs1.org. Having more than one product is actually even better because retailers want more stuff that they'll be able to offer to their customers as well. Once you do all of that and you have all your legal documents in place, you upload them. You complete the application process, of course, and you upload it to the dashboard so they can review and see what it is that you're offering. They will do research, like a background on your company, to make sure everything is legally set up properly. Actually, my approval didn't take very long at all.
Once you are approved, you can upload all your products and stuff like that. It’s very exciting. I love it.
Tami on Business Growth Fancy: So what else is new with I’Mat Dream Brand? Tami: I love that question. We've been meeting our marks in terms of engagement and our online presence, and that was one of our goals for this year. It’s been great to see those numbers increase on our social media platforms. We decided to leverage our press to extend our reach kind of. Being here on your platform also helps us to extend our reach because beauty is everywhere. As I said, our goal and our mission are to let people know that it is okay to have certain struggles that we struggle with. Sometimes when we lean into them, it just comes out more beautiful on the other side. We put our focus on humanizing our brand. We've been doing research and development on different innovative ways that we could implement to further the business’s growth and its messaging, increasing our marketing efforts and things of that nature. Of course, again, to reach wider audiences. That is something that we've been strategically doing and just really looking for different ways to grow the business and looking at competition and things that are out there. We’re also taking feedback and just kind of testing. Being out there in the field, putting our ears to the ground, and just figuring out what's going on, what the people need, what they want, what is it that they're missing, and how can we solve those problems? That's pretty much what we've been focused on. Fancy: What tips can you share for businesses that are considering scaling their business? Tami: I would say for businesses who are considering scaling and for individuals who are looking to go into business and entrepreneurship, just have a clear vision about what it is that you want your brand to look like. What's the messaging? Just have a clear vision. We will be rolling out different training programs, e-courses, and ebooks. We're actually developing a mentorship program right now. Everything that we're doing, of course, is just to pay it forward. That's always been my bottom line- to pay it forward. That's why we do what we do. We are trying to find other ways to do that and get that reach out there, so we can have that increased brand awareness as well.
