Six months into building my brand, Black Friday hit. Here’s how I completely winged it.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out better than I was hoping for.
When I was a kid, learning about the concept of a Black Friday sale meant that I was quickly connecting the dots between lower prices and more presents under the tree. I had to learn more. What exactly is on sale? How big is the discount? Does this mean a second Furby is on the table?
I still remember walking into a Best Buy with my Dad on a quest to investigate the Game Boy Color. I asked, “Why do they call it Black Friday?”
He explained the business terms “in the red,” meaning you are losing money, and “in the black,” meaning you are making money.
“They call it Black Friday because a lot of businesses move from being ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black’ because of the amount of items they can sell on this one day,” he said.
I was taken aback. I thought the whole point of a business was to make money. Why would anyone choose to run a business that loses money 364 days of the year? Eight-year-old me thought that sounded like the stupidest thing ever.
Little did that eight-year-old know that one day, after decades of education, work experience, research, product development, and a lifetime of savings, she too would achieve that level of stupidity.
I launched my minimalist skincare brand, GRAES, in May of this year. The company is still small (like, we-just-closed-on-our-4th-retail-location-small!), and I’m learning something new every day. Not to sound smug, but it is genuinely the best job I’ve ever had and the most fun I’ve ever had at work. Still, like with any other job, it comes with its challenges.
If you’re a solopreneur, then you are probably familiar with the overwhelming feeling of trying to hold every department, every KPI, and every action item in your brain at once. Trying to focus on one thing at a time can feel like trying to harvest honey with the entire hive buzzing around you. Every little thing is a distraction, but also important, but you can’t think about it right now, but it still needs to get done, so don’t forget it! Sometimes you just lose track of time and then wait, what? How is it November?
This is how I wound up flying through my first Black Friday by the seat of my pants.
It all started around mid-November, when I realized that I was in a position to change something that had always bothered me about Black Friday.
When you’re a customer, it’s stressful to have such a short window where everything is on sale; you feel time pressure to take advantage of all of the deals that are happening. When you consider the fact that all of this spending is concentrated during one pay period, and that most people don’t even know what their holiday bonus is going to be yet (if they are even getting one), it makes for a kind of icky experience. I’m not sure how else to put it. Yes, I’m always happy to get a good deal on something that I was planning to buy anyway, but I’m less happy when I look at my credit card statement.
When I realized I was in a position to change this, I drafted up my usual monthly newsletter to include our Black Friday discount code, which would remain active through the end of BFCM weekend. I felt great about being able to reduce some of the stress around the sale season for my customers by giving them early access to the discount. The Power! The Impact! The Influence! Take that, rampant consumerism!
Shortly after hitting send, I realized that I had not indicated in the email’s subject line or the text preview that a discount code was inside. Oops.
No biggie; I drafted a reminder email to be sent after a few days that would emphasize the discount code.
Those two emails were quite successful. So successful, in fact, that I assumed that sales volume on the actual Black Friday weekend would be pretty underwhelming. So many of my customers had taken advantage of the sale already; how many more could there possibly be? Still, I soldiered on, making an Instagram announcement for anyone following the brand’s page who wasn’t already on our email list. This announcement was shared on our Stories throughout the weekend to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible. I also sent two more emails that were short and sweet, specifically calling out the Black Friday sale.
To my surprise, even more people purchased over the sale weekend, including some first-time customers. Like a real business would have! When you’re as new at this as I am, every ka-ching phone notification is a delightful surprise. They like me, they really like me!
We closed out November as our highest-earning month to date. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into Black Friday weekend, but I was thrilled to see those results at the end of the month!
Of course, my next assumption was that sales would drop after BFCM weekend was over. That the average consumer would have packed all of their spending into the sale season, and would now be tightening their belt while they caught up on the resulting credit card statement. When you are a brand new business, and no one really knows you exist yet, it’s not uncommon to go days and days without sales. When the Tuesday after Cyber Monday rolled around, I was bracing myself for just such a lull. Now that the craziness was over, I allowed myself to sleep in, made myself a hearty breakfast instead of a rushed smoothie, and slowly made my way over to my desk to catch up on emails.
After closing out the last of my unread messages, I took a sip of coffee and grabbed my to-do list to get started on the next thing. Then, I heard my phone buzz on the kitchen counter, along with a notification chime.
Ka-ching.
Maybe this wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.
Becky Freeman is the founder of GRAES. Follow her journey building a beauty brand from scratch on her Substack publication, What I Did This Week.
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