In this episode your host Emmanuel Eleyae talks more with Grace Eleyae - founder and CEO of graceeleyae.com. She talks about the issues she faced with manufacturing and how important it is to negotiate with manufacturers. Emmanuel and Grace also discuss some of the things they tried that worked, and some that didn’t work. You’ll also hear about how they created systems for handling different aspects of the business and how they were able to grow so quickly. They also have some valuable insights on inventory management and how expensive it is to grow a business. Timestamps: Lessons Learned in Manufacturing (0:49) Grace talks about trying to find a manufacturer and the difficulties that came with that. (4:55) Emmanuel and Grace talk about how it’s important to negotiate with manufacturers to get the lowest price possible. (9:09) Emmanuel talks about working at Amazon and seeing the rise of e-commerce businesses and how some of them were thriving on Amazon but it wouldn’t work for GE because there was no demand for the product yet. What Worked and What Didn’t (14:13) Emmanuel talks about the issues they encountered when they used WooCommerce and why he recommends Shopify instead of WooCommerce. (18:46) Emmanuel and Grace talk more about using influencers to grow their business, what they learned in the process, and how they made a system for it. (23:26) Emmanuel talks about how having influencers talk about your product is a great way to figure out what kind of messaging works best for your product and help with marketing. (25:08) Emmanuel and Grace discuss things they tried in the early stages of the business that did not work: demand-based advertising, pricing was too low, and inefficient shipping methods. Creating Systems for Manufacturing & Inventory Management (27:51) Emmanuel and Grace talk about the issues they faced when it came to inventory - they were out of stock for the most popular items and overstocked on slow-moving products and they had to figure out how to balance this when ordering new stock, as well as discounting slow-moving items & doing pre-sales. (32:09) Grace and Emmanuel talk about some of the problems they faced with their manufacturer - products were not coming in fast enough and some of them were defective, which caused customer service issues. How They Were Able to Quickly Grow Grace Eleyae (35:33) Emmanuel talks about cash flow problems and how it is really expensive to grow inventory-based businesses because you need to buy the product from the manufacturer before you can sell it to the customer, and how they were able to grow GE. (40:00) Emmanuel talks about how when they started doing ads for GE, they performed really well because they already had lots of creative and copy from all the different influencers they had worked with. (42:00) Grace and Emmanuel debate the importance of aesthetically pleasing branding. (46:14) Emmanuel and Grace discuss their biggest takeaways from their growth journey. Resources: Grace’s Website: graceeleyae.com Grace’s Instagram: @graceeleyae  Grace’s TikTok: @itsgraceeleyae   Ecommerce Email Bundle Create Cashflow and Predictable Profits Course Growth Optimization Audit Package   Predictable Profits Membership