253: The Ultimate Guide to Dominating Affiliate Sales

Sandy : 0:00

If you don't have your number in your mind, then it's not worth your time, and we know what our time is worth, and so we choose where we put our energy, and that's helped us with a lot of our success.

Camille: 0:21

So you wanna make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 0:42

This is your host, Camille Walker, and here we celebrate mothers building businesses and making change in the world. And today we are going to talk about many women that work on one team, that are family and affiliate marketing experts. They are the co -owners of Sassy Saves, which is a very wonderful way of sharing and saving money online. Now these ladies are mothers of many children. I'm going to let you share their story and their details. But we met as creators at an event where we were with Getaway Today, which used Camille for savings. But we are in the same field in that regard of sharing ways to save money, and that is such a hot topic right now. How do you become successful with affiliate marketing? It's gone from couponing now to online digital savings. It's all marionetted into one and it's a beautiful way to make money online. So I am so thrilled to have Sandy Walton and Kathy Parsons, who are sisters and co-owners on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.

Kathy: 1:50

Thank you, yeah, thank you, thank you so much yeah.

Camille: 1:54

So where did this idea come from? I know just from reading your bios that you are hard workers, you are innovators, hard workers, you are innovators, but who? I want to know first? Who had the idea and how did she make everyone else like jump on board? Because working as a family together, that's a big sell.

Kathy: 2:16

Right, yeah, so one of our sisters there's seven of us in my family she is just an entrepreneur and through our life she's just been doing a lot of things, and a lot of times she comes to us and we kind of make fun of her because we jump on board with things but then maybe they wouldn't pan out.

Kathy: 2:40

And so when she was the one that had the idea to start this, she said she was scrolling and found some information about it, and so she just kind of jumped on board and started doing it. And then she, she reached out to us and said, hey, I'm doing this thing and it's working, I'm making money, you guys should do it too. But we all just kind of blew it off and said, yeah, right, you're making money. But but then she showed us receipts and so, um, so it was actually me and my brother and my mom that started initially doing the same thing that she was doing, and then just slowly it just continued to grow to where almost all you know of our family does this so yeah, I see, okay.

Camille: 3:32

So when you're saying, does this? And the business is now five years old, did this happen in the middle of the pandemic? Did it happen before? I can't believe we're at five years. That's mind blowing. But what was the timeline in terms of the pandemic?

Kathy: 3:47

Yeah, so, um, so she started the fall of 2019. And so, um, my mom and my brother and I, we started new. Yeah, it was new year's Eve of 2019, which was crazy, I don't know why. That was the day we just decided, okay, we're doing this. And then, and then, yeah, COVID came that next year in March-ish, and by then, you know, we kind of established, actually, sorry, let me back up, covid came. Sandy, help me remember when did COVID come? I just want to make sure I'm making help me remember.

Sandy : 4:25

When did COVID come? I just want to make sure I'm making so. We were actually. We were all together by 2020. By the end of 2019 is when I came on and he brought on another sister and we were all together and so all of 2020 we were all working together. Then by the end of 2020 we had kind of split in a ways that there was a group doing it together and then there was us. So we just kind of divided it in two.

Kathy: 4:52

Yeah, yeah, we kind of paired off in people that worked better together and that was, yeah, that was a struggle to get to that point. But now, being five years out, you know we see that that was for the best. But yeah, during COVID, I mean, we just saw our business take off. We had no idea and it's because everybody went online and so we just we were able to get in at the right time and, you know, didn't even know that at the time.

Camille: 5:29

But yeah, because, yeah, everyone's kind of going into this lockdown of like what's happening? Oh no, our shelves empty. Like, what do we need? So people were I mean, there was there was a bit of panic, but then there was also a kind of morphed into boredom of like what could I buy online? Because you almost got trained to think I need more, in case you know, or I need, or this is fun, let's just go look for deals online. So I'm curious how that started with sharing the deals. Was it Facebook that you were focused on, or what was the development of sharing and building the business?

Sandy : 6:08

It was primarily Facebook. Yeah, just, we went wide. My brother just thought that that was the best suggestion for all of us to do, just because Facebook algorithms are so tricky and even if you had a million group, just because Facebook algorithms are so tricky, and even if you had a million group, they would only let 10,000 see. So why have one when you could have this many and each of them have 10,000? So we just started there, we just kind of went wide and we started just getting new people wherever we could in our different groups and on our pages. So, yeah, so that's where we initially like started, and then we moved over to Instagram and we've dabbled in a lot of things.

Camille: 6:56

That's awesome. So you have these Facebook groups. You're starting to hunt for these deals. How do you set up the infrastructure of where you're not stepping on each other's toes? But? Or is it like, oh, someone found this great deal and now everyone shares? Or, like, how did you navigate the organization of it? Cause there, I mean gosh, it's endless. Like, there's so much you can find online and what do we share? And how do we know if it's a really good deal or not? Like, how do you navigate that?

Sandy : 7:24

Honestly, honestly, and one of the best things is that I mean, granted, we've been going through a flux of prices, right, um, but having done it so many years, you tend to now trend and know really what is a good price, what isn't a good price. And, essentially, when we decided to form together, the biggest thing that we were looking for, like our biggest goal, was structure, and we wanted we wanted to shoot from the moon in what we felt like was our way. We really liked the influencer side of things. We really kind of wanted to try to connect with our people and, and so, when we started into it, our goal was to have like real great structure where we had employees and we had them, you know, we gave them great training on what they needed to do, so that they were also representatives of us. Because, again, we really wanted to be our best selves.

Sandy : 8:16

When you knew Sassy Stays, you knew you were going to get a good deal. So we're trying to like operate with integrity, and we always wanted to make people come and feel like they were in a safe shopping space. So we've always like been much more business-sided as far as the way we set things up and then as far as, like, in regards to shopping and knowing what to do, it's really been a lot of hands-on learning, like I said, just following those trends and knowing and recognizing prices and really doing your research. You can't say this is the best price if you don't know it's the best price and um, and there's always that element of like, hurry quick because it can sell out. We do tell people like, okay, you might want to hurry because that coupon can go at any time the discount can disappear or it can sell out, and so we do try to, you know, stay on top of those kinds of things all the time and just share them with our customer base.

Camille: 9:12

So I will say being I'm curious because you've done both like the influencer side and the saving side, and I have friends in this space who it has. After years, years of doing it, they have burnt out from it, having done it for 10 plus years. And I would think, because there is such a sense of urgency and there is, I feel, like people that are coupon saving shoppers or savvy shoppers, they will call you out Like people are kind of intense. They will call you out like people are kind of intense. So how do you go here? How do you keep yourself from like losing it or keeping that like okay, but everything's okay? How do you keep that zen about you?

Kathy: 9:56

we all suffer from burnout. You're like we take turns we do.

Sandy : 10:01

We really do, in fact. I think it's kind of funny because whenever Kathy's having a moment, she called me and or my sister Sherry, and she was like I give up today, we're done. And they're like no, we can do this. And we bolster each other up. And then it's my turn and I'm like okay, I quit, I don't want to do it anymore, you can't make me. And they're like it's okay, we've got this and we have to push each other on for sure.

Kathy: 10:26

It's definitely brunette is real I think um a way that we help our customers to feel comfortable with the things that we're posting is we just really stay aware of our comments and the deals, and so we'll go in there and comment if you know we post something and maybe you know it's not a great deal. Or if somebody says something, then we'll go in and react to them and let them know hey, thanks for letting us know, we'll find a better deal. Or, you know, if coupon codes don't work anymore and people are saying you know this doesn't work anymore, then you know we'll say things like okay, we'll watch for another deal and then we'll tag you, you know, if another deal comes available on this item. So we've really tried to do that.

Kathy: 11:17

It's hard, but we do the best that we can in just trying to be interactive with the customers and not just you know by herself like we really care about them getting a good deal and we even do. You know, at Christmas time we've done posts that say you know, what are you looking for? And our mom is really good at that. She'll go in to everybody's comment and she'll go look for it and find the best deal and then she'll send them the link, you know, to that product, wow. So yeah, we really try to take care of our customers that way. That's cool.

Camille: 11:54

Yeah, I would. I'm curious with your experience of doing affiliate versus sponsored content, versus like an affiliate for a company specific. I had someone reach out to me yesterday who said so. I built a rapport of my code being a certain thing and then they reached out to me and said oh, by the way, your code was linked, we're changing it. Now it's this, and there was no like question of my opinion about it or that I could do anything about it. Has that happened to you and how did you handle that?

Sandy : 12:28

Honestly, we're really picky like excruciatingly picky about brands that we work with. I get offers daily and a lot of them I think it really comes down to, you know, is it worth our time? Right, and we evaluate that and then also, is it a right fit? Because we know it's not just about us. Honestly, we know our customer base. We know who we're targeting, like who, what they're looking for.

Sandy : 12:59

Having done this for five years, we know the people that have stuck around with us and who are. You know we get new shoppers all the time, right, but we know what they're looking for, based off of our sales trends and things like that. So I'm not gonna promote an item that won't help them. So we try to be very picky about what we do. And then, as far as in general, about, like um, it just being, you know, specific to Sassy Saves.

Sandy : 13:25

While our company is Sassy Saves, I feel like we are known by many names and it's also because of how many groups we have and all the different platforms we're on. We're just savers. You know we want to help everybody save that buck, get it at the best deal, and so I mean, it's really just, we pick the ones that we work with. And then the ones we work with, they know what they're getting, and so we feel confident in the ones that we choose for that reason but you really it's also, honestly you got to know your value. If you don't have your number in your mind, then it's not worth your time, and we know what our time is worth, and so we choose where we put our energy, and that's helped us with a lot of our success.

Camille: 14:11

Yeah, yeah, that's really smart, I think. I mean where you came in at such a poignant time of COVID, which is incredible because for a lot of us, that was a time where a lot of it's so interesting. So I've been interviewing people for four and a half years and so many people took major pivots during that time, during COVID, and this was a great business to start during that time. If someone were to start a Facebook group now of any kind, not just a money savings one would you have tips for starting those groups. Like what? What would you suggest and would you say make it private, make it public. What is the best way to grow on on Facebook right now?

Sandy : 14:54

Don't go private, don't do it yeah.

Sandy : 14:57

Don't go back. I'll shoot you in your foot, and especially if you do any kind of affiliate. You cannot have private and be an affiliate. Those of us that were kind of during a weird period where Facebook was working through all of their admin assist, they allowed those of us that we kind of almost got shoved into going private in a lot of our groups, and it's because the admin assistant exists and so it's understand. Honestly, do your research on facebook. Understand what you're doing, how groups operate, and then take a course on facebook marketing. That would be my biggest suggestion. Keep your group public, learn how facebook works.

Camille: 15:44

Do you have a course that you would suggest that people take? Was there one you took? Oh, no, we just did it hard, we take it out of the house, so you don't have one that you'd say, oh, this is a good one.

Sandy : 15:54

No, but there are a lot out there. So I know I wish I knew one and you know, maybe it's something we should be doing. I was just thinking that another.

Camille: 16:06

You don't need another thing to do.

Sandy : 16:08

We have so many, so many things that like all the directions we could be taking it Right. But yeah, I think that there are a lot of courses out there and I mean I think there's even a lot on like TikTok and stuff. But I do think that just understanding how, like, facebook ads work or how you know groups operate or pages operate, and then you guys just got to find your niche, you got to find what you are and what you want and then be consistent. If you are not consistent, if you don't treat it like a job, it won't be a job, it won't be a moneymaker.

Camille: 16:47

What does that look like in terms like that's fantastic advice, and I would add to that make sure, if you do buy a Facebook course, to buy one that is current, because, right, anything with social media is ever changing. Um, but I would love to know what that looks like for you with the consistency, because we had a chat that where you have a team of people where you literally have someone assigned to an hour, day and night, like we're talking shifts through the night. How did you manage that, going from a small team and then hiring employees to finding the right people in the time zones, and what did that look like?

Sandy : 17:24

We are lucky. My sister had a friend in the philippines that was awesome, so she kind of covered some of those red eye hours that suck let's. Yeah, yeah, um. But we then we have worked them ourselves. Everything that we've done, we did it ourselves and we used to work, um, each of us individually worked, I don't know k, we would just say like five or six hours a day minimum.

Kathy: 17:49

It was a lot. I mean, when I started Clear Back, I didn't stop working, you know. I mean, I know that's not realistic, but yeah, it was a lot. And so I feel like over time we've just said, ok, like we need help here, we need help here, and just slowly, you know, would get an hour here covered, an hour here covered. But we, you know it used to be where we were covering so much of it, but then, but then it was mostly fill it, see, any, fill a need. And, um, wait, fill a need, cne, whatever. He said it. Right, he said it got okay, it didn't sound right, let's take a note anyway. Um, yeah and so, um, so, yeah, that's that's kind of how we got to this point of of.

Kathy: 18:41

You know, we're at a point where we're working less doing different things, because the things we used to do we realized that somebody else could do it and that we could pay somebody, that it was worth their time. Like, my best friend from high school works for us and it's great for her. She lives in Idaho and we have a lot of family members that work for us Idaho, and we have a lot of family members that work for us. We have uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews and cousins and in-laws. You know, sandy's in-laws work for us and it's just a great, a great way to help them and help us too, and it's just a lot of trial and error and help us too, and it's just a lot of trial and error. Um, but yeah, it's, it's been just a lot of um figuring things out.

Sandy : 19:35

I think as far as skill goes, you have to master the skill yourself before you can teach it right. We had to master the skill. And then it was still a lot of fine-tuning even when we brought on help and we had them, because while we could do our work and we could bring in this much if we brought in somebody else who wasn't bringing in that or more than we were losing money. So it was really understanding not just our value, like our time was worth this much. We needed to make sure that we could have somebody come on. They maybe didn't bring in as much, but we could top it even more with something else we were doing right. So it's kind of understanding just how a business structure works. So when we were hiring out these hours which we do, like you said, we actually post from about 3 am in the morning until 10, 11 o'clock at night every day, because we know that we have customer bases all the way from Hawaii to New York. We even have some in other countries. So when we're looking at trying to make sure that we're posting what's currently happening and we're keeping up with, you know, all the deals and everything that's coming in. We had to cross all the time zones and so, um, that wasn't.

Sandy : 20:47

It was just getting to a point where we were just we were getting unburned out, like you talked about, and and so we had to evaluate and we slowly pulled ourselves back and put ourselves on other things. Like I am the CFO, I do all the payroll, the scheduling, the onboarding. I manage a lot of the employees that's my primary focus a lot of times and then we have those of us that are online content and just different things. So we are more now managing and we have the workers that are in there, but we've taught them, we've trained them, them and we've got them to be representatives of us, because they are now reaching what we were doing and then we're bringing in additional. So it's this business structure mindset. I don't know if that's helpful at all.

Camille: 21:34

No, that's amazing, yeah, no, I think that's really cool, and I think another thing that's important to talk about is where, kathy, you're a mom of seven and where, sandy, you have four kids, and then your sister, how many kids does she have? Four, four, yeah, and then so you have lots of kids. How did you create boundaries around, like because you're working from your phone a lot of the time, I would imagine? How do you create that boundary of oh, I need to put the phone down, this isn't a fire that needs to go right now, or maybe it does feel like that. Sometimes we were like, no, this is a killer deal, like, this is a huge margin. So that would be hard to like navigate. That, because it is timely, but your kids too, I mean, of course. So how?

Kathy: 22:28

do you navigate those boundaries for yourself, your family and your kids? I think it's definitely been a challenge. I'm I've been a single mom supporting my family financially for the last five years and initially, yeah, I did, you know, just kind of have to decide. I know I'm building something. I know this isn't going to be forever. I'm going to do the best that I can. But I know I have to put a lot of hours into this and I know that. You know my kids suffered and but I was still there with them.

Kathy: 23:05

You know I mean I've I've played games with my daughter while picking up my phone, posting a deal, moving the game piece, and you know, sitting in the carpool lane I'm on my phone working, but also I've, you know we try, we've looked into those things and a lot of times we've just gotten up really early and taken those shifts, like we've taken the four o'clock shift before, and so you know if we can get those hours out of the way while our kids are asleep or at nighttime. You know it's just we've just tried to find the balance and but we always talk about keeping that in check too. You know, if there's a point where we're like we're just working too much, this, this isn't okay. Then you know, we, we, we fix it and it's just a matter of keeping that in check, like we have to be, and we cover for each other too If there's birthday parties or you know, we have our scheduled hours. But then you know, I just took off to Disneyland with my older kids two weeks ago and my sister stepped in and and they covered for me.

Kathy: 24:22

So, yeah, we did Street and promo, but I still, I mean, I still woke up, I still did a 7 o'clock shift there, and so you know, I was able to do an hour before. And then, as I'm standing in lines, you know I'm still helping and working, but then balancing. But it's, it's definitely been a challenge because, yeah, like you say it, it is hard because you don't want your kids to like back and say mom was just always on her phone you know, and so we all just really try to to keep that in mind, that we don't want our kids to say that so communicate a lot with each other.

Sandy : 25:08

Um, like almost like mental health check-ins, like, hey, how are we doing? Like what's going on? Um, our schedule isn't set, it's, it's weekly. We are always adapting and always changing and um, it's really just to keep making sure that we can also operate as wives and mothers Well, that's why I'm a small mother but we're making sure that we're still able to meet our needs, like emotionally as well as physically. It's our priorities. Like I tell them I need my hour to work out, I have to have this hour. That's super important to me and my anxiety and things like that I deal with. And so we try to support each other where we can.

Sandy : 25:52

But then there are also times where we just know, and our families know, like work kind of comes first, like anybody with their job right, you have to take a work trip. Work comes first. You have work hours, work job right, you have to take a work trip. Work comes first, you have work hours. Work comes first. Well, for us come september, october, november, december.

Sandy : 26:10

Those are especially when we're talking like cyber monday, black friday, you know, the christmas sale. Our families understand that that is a huge part of our business and give us a lot of grace, but they also keep us in check, like kathy was talking about. They'll call us out like hey, I saw you on a phone call for three hours yesterday. Maybe you should get off your phone. We recognize and we understand and then we communicate that we talk weekly or every few days just to keep checking in and make sure that we're all doing well and that we're all maintaining, because if we're not, then everything suffers and so we we bolster each other out but we also help each other balance, because they get the balance and we have like I talk with my husband and he knows that I get the evenings to him.

Sandy : 27:02

My sisters know that, that I set that boundary and so they cover the like. Kathy even said she's like I knew you couldn't talk. Last night. I called Sherry, I'm like great. So we set those boundaries and we work within them.

Camille: 27:15

Yeah, that's really impressive and I think what's important too that you put, that you made note of, is that that communication with your family and your kids, that they know that I'm not just scrolling for fun, like this is work and this is how we have food and a home and this is how things work. So one thing that I always bring front of mind is that kids have always seen their parents working hard, and especially their mothers inside and outside of the home, and these devices in our hands now can be misleading sometimes where it may seem like we're just, you know, shooting the breeze, but especially with the job you're doing, you are working a lot and they and I think that they understand that with how much you guys are talking about it and supporting each other and checking in. Do you have a formal check-in once a week as a family, or is it just you're always talking, so that's unnecessary all of our kids are in school.

Sandy : 28:14

So, um, we used to do like formal check-ins every monday and then, uh, you know, and then just intermittent whenever you know we needed to talk one-on-one with each other. We just reach out. Um, I think that that's like we've done away with less just formal ones and more as needed, when we need to all get together, like Like, maybe it's, maybe it's sometime within a week, but we are probably talking at least a week. But no, we will just all of a sudden just get on like hey, let's check in who's doing what today and making sure that we're getting all of our like our priorities checked off, so that we're making sure that nothing's getting missed.

Camille: 28:55

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Camille: 29:47

Camillewalkerco is the website, but go ahead and grab that link below and I would love to help you take back your time right now. Take back your time right now. That's awesome In terms of affiliate sales for people. I mean, it's a big. I see people sharing a lot. You know where they'll say I went from making nothing to now I'm a multimillionaire doing affiliate sales. You know, you see those all the time I do on reels and things like that. If you were to give someone advice who's interested in doing more affiliate type of work, what would be advice that you'd give to them right now?

Kathy: 30:25

I think, I think the number one thing is consistency, and I think that applies to almost every single business. I mean, there hasn't for five years, there hasn't been one day that we went without a deal being posted. You know at least one deal, but, um, consistency for sure is the number one thing. Um, as far as affiliate marketing, just, you know, find out what interests you. We've always been super savvy. Our mom was like coupon savvy and and so it just really fit for us, just finding a good deal. So, because with affiliate marketing you can market, the sky's the limit. Um, and so you know, find, find something that resonates with you and so that you have a passion behind it, and and then you can share that passion. Um, yeah, consistency, education, and yeah, just finding something that that you, that you're passionate about.

Sandy : 31:32

I think there's also a lot of scam artists out there that are trying to trick people, and it is hard because, you know, I think it's part of our affiliate role that you're actually not supposed to talk about what you make or like what your promotion sells, things like that you can get in trouble for it.

Sandy : 31:55

And so, you know, I just people just don't understand the hours that go behind the paycheck and there's a real sense of just falsehood behind a lot of, a lot of the misleading. And, yeah, I just think you've got to be wary about who you, who you can and can't trust, which I know now. I'm like we should do a course because we are trustworthy and help educate people. It's not to say it can't be done, but I do think that while, yes, it's taken us five years to have a million dollar company, we weren't that for many years and I do think that there is a momentum point where you start to build momentum and then things start to progress a lot quicker.

Sandy : 32:43

But we went through the trenches. I mean, we had a month where we were like wow, we each made $300 and we felt like winners. We're like sweet. And then the month when we finally each hit a thousand dollars. That was incredible too and we just celebrated each milestone and we just kept at it. And again, that consistency, that persistence and then, honestly, just knowing what you want out of it and what you're willing to do for it. There is a level of investment, whether it be your time, your money. You just got treated like any other job. What do you want from it? So we figured out what we wanted and we worked hard for it.

Camille: 33:22

I love that. I do have a question about. You mentioned Facebook ads briefly. Is that something that, as you grew, you have used Facebook ads to promote your, your affiliate sales?

Sandy : 33:41

promote your, your affiliate sales. Um, we promoted like, we promoted items, we promoted groups, we promoted pages. We tried, we dabbled in all the different ways, but I can I can 100 say that across there are so many ways out there to do it. But, um, meta advertising, t TikTok advertising, google ads, whatnot? There is a reason why they are. There are a lot of people that are using them and it's for a good reason. But there's a learning curve and there's a lot of information out there.

Sandy : 34:08

So I myself am still constantly learning about the best way to learn and use meta ads, the best way to learn to just use our money in the best way to learn and use meta ads, the best way to learn, to you know, to just use our money in the best way for us. So is it important 100%, do your research, learn about it and apply it. But again, with ads comes the level of investment. You have to be willing to take that risk, like my brother always tells us. You have to be willing to take that risk, like my brother always tells us. You have to risk it for the biscuit, yeah, and so we we sometimes are a little bit more reserved in our risking and we wait for like the right time of season. We'll risk more during the Christmas time and everything but, um.

Sandy : 34:51

Yes, advertising is 100 key to any success on um in an internet world, right? How often are you gonna get? It's so hard to just naturally become viral, right?

Kathy: 35:05

the thing that I always say, the thing that I've always said, is, at the end of the day, facebook is a business. We look at it is just, oh, a fun place for everybody to meet. Yeah, no, it's not. It's not, it's a business. Instagram is a business, tiktok is a business, and so if you're not paying the business, you know. Then, yeah, they say it's a free platform. It is not a free platform, so you got to give them the money to be seen.

Camille: 35:32

That's so true, that is so true.

Sandy : 35:35

But last caveat is that and I know that's because I've put ads so much is it's not just necessarily throwing more ads at them or more money at them. You need to know what you're doing. You need to know what is good and what is bad. And so, like I said, I don't think I could teach a course on it, that's for sure. Don't think I could teach a course on it, that's for sure. But I do think that there are some great courses out there that you can take to learn more about using those ads and knowing what you're looking for in your analytics and you know on your ROIs and all that.

Camille: 36:07

So, yeah, Well, this is all such helpful advice. I feel like this is one of those fields that there's always more to learn. I feel like this is one of those fields that there's always more to learn and especially where you have made it such an awesome team and infrastructure, I would say, for some of my friends that have burnt out, that was the piece that was missing. You know that they didn't have people that they could lean on and check in on, especially with the mental health, and hey, are you getting that time you need? And what about that trip you have coming up? And then the family really was sacrificing a lot of that special time because they didn't have that infrastructure that you do, which is awesome. I'm just so happy for you all that you can work together as a family and as a team. That is so impressive. It really is.

Camille: 36:54

So, with wrapping up, I'm going. You guys, this is dangerous. I I was looking at your instagram stories a couple days ago and you're sharing, like you know, easter basket fillers and all of these really fun things. I wanted to buy everything I saw, basically. So follow them only if you're ready.

Kathy: 37:13

No, I'm just kidding, it's good, because you'll save money, but you'll want to spend money.

Camille: 37:17

One thing I noticed that you did on stories. Is that you did a strikethrough of the brand name. Is that because of that's Amazon's rule, or is it because you couldn't use their photo unless you like modified it? Or what was the reasoning for that?

Sandy : 37:33

Copyright.

Camille: 37:34

Okay.

Sandy : 37:35

So if somebody else's photo and if it's on amazon, amazon's generally fine with it. That's not the issue, it's um. It's. If somebody else actually steals the image and then they try to sell it secondhand like they bought it. And now they're trying to sell it, resell it and they use the the original owner's image, does that make?

Camille: 37:55

sense. Yes, because I've done blogging for years and that's a thing.

Sandy : 37:59

Yeah, so we just try to be very careful with our imaging Just most of the time. You know when you're, when you're, when we're putting something up, we can feel pretty confident that this is obviously an original seller and we're promoting this, exactly who we're promoting it for. Like when we did with, when we worked with Under Armour, we could use their images. When we work with Amazon, in certain aspects they give us images that we can use, but when you're going to put a picture of something up, we just try to edit it ourselves a little bit and make it our own. You see that happening a lot with a lot of social media influencers. They just they'll tweak the image, they'll use Canva or whatever to make it their own influencers.

Kathy: 38:37

They just they'll tweak the image. They'll use.

Sandy : 38:38

Canva or whatever, to make it their own. Um, that may not even guarantee you that you're safe, but one safe bet is always just cross out the brand. It's not because we're trying to be sneaky, it's just no, I know.

Camille: 38:47

And I know enough about it that I'm like oh, that's so that there isn't an issue with legal copyright issues and I know that because from the early years of blogging in 2011, when I started, I had a partner who would use images she found online because it was the wild west, like no one cared. And then, literally a decade later, I got sued for image usage because it was someone's image. And there are bots now that can go and scrape websites for images that were used without permission. So I know about that. So I'm like, oh, that's interesting that even on stories you would strike out the brand name, which is, which was a good little tip I thought to share.

Sandy : 39:28

Yeah, that is very handy.

Kathy: 39:30

Yeah, we just right, we just like to cover all our bases because, like we've said, we've been through the school of hard knocks and you know we've been flagged for so many things. And so it gets to a point where you're like, hey, we have to reassess and we have to, you know, assess why we got flagged, and sometimes you don't even know. So you take all the parameters, you take out all the prices because you know maybe it's the dollar sign or, and so we've just tried lots of different things, but mostly we're just trying to cover our bases to not get flagged, not to get shut down, not get our groups taken away, not get copyright issues, because then it just makes a lot of problems.

Camille: 40:15

So, yeah, and gray hair, and gray hair, because then it just makes a lot of problems. So, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Okay, well, before we wrap up, I would love to hear, if someone, what is a lesson that you've learned, maybe from doing it the wrong way. It sounds like we might've just tapped into that a little bit, but do you have another like story or advice that you would give of like, oh, we learned the hard way, that way?

Sandy : 40:41

Where do we? Which one do we pick? We have so many things that we honestly okay and here's my my two cents on this is that you're going to do it the hard way. Okay, I know they say work hard, work smarter, not harder. And we say we work harder, not smarter until we learn. We just constantly do something and we do it a long time.

Sandy : 41:08

In fact, this is probably my funniest one is that my mom was given like great deals every day. Somebody was sending her great deals and she's like, wow, this is awesome and and it was, it was a, an amazon seller and they were just like great, this woman's willing to promote these deals and it. You know, we weren't really selling them, but my mom was promoting them and I don't know, it was a whole thing. We learned afterwards that there are other people out there that were actually getting paid from Amazon sellers for a long time to promote these deals and my mom was just doing it for free. And we laugh about afterwards.

Sandy : 41:48

We're like that's how we work. Sometimes we work for free before we learn. Hey, maybe we should charge a buck and it's okay to have those moments. You can't let them knock you down. You just got to learn from it. And then, because I feel like there's so many things that we have done, like going private right, we were private in all of our groups and all of a sudden, you know, we were talking with our other siblings and they're like why don't you have a public group? Well, we finally got a public group and we worked with public groups. We had two deals go viral and we're like why didn't we do this sooner? You know, it's those kinds of moments where like hey, well, now we know we'll just keep trying and see if we can do it again.

Camille: 42:35

So yeah that's good advice, that is good advice. And then figuring out how much to charge, and all of that it's. That's a big, that's a big honestly, that's the hardest thing.

Sandy : 42:45

Yeah, for everybody to figure out their numbers, their value, that, I would say, in and of itself, is one of the hardest things to figure out. Um, I think, oh, yeah, go ahead.

Kathy: 42:57

Yeah, I don't know um, I was just gonna add, touching on the family side of it, um, that I mean we don't want to make it look like it's been all sunshine and rainbows, because it hasn't. And, like I said, you know, we broke off and we we worked with who we could work with, and I think you have to go into it with that open mind of there's a lot of different personalities here. At one point, all seven of us siblings were doing this job. We weren't doing it all together, we were doing it, you know, in different groups.

Kathy: 43:33

And you have to, at the end of the day, decide is my relationship with my sibling or my family member more important to me than money? And what does that look like? And then you have to figure out what that looks like, and it's really hard to take the emotion out of it, because being siblings it's all about emotion, you know. And so, um, I mean, that's literally been five years in the making and we still struggle there. Um, because we have, you know, we have other family members doing the same thing and they might be more successful, and and it's hard, you know, to to see that.

Kathy: 44:17

But at the end of the day, you just got to decide. Well, I, you know I still love them, I want to have a relationship with them. I'm not going to make this personal and I'm not going to be jealous or you know, I'm going to be okay with what I'm doing. And, and you know, set boundaries Actually that's the biggest thing is has been boundaries for us. Setting boundaries of you know, we can go on a big family vacation. We don't talk business. You know we talk business with who we're working with, but we don't talk about it with who we're not working with.

Sandy : 44:49

So, yeah, it's been a journey for us, that's for sure.

Camille: 44:54

Yeah, oh for sure that there's no way you could do something like this and not have it be a bit messy, you know where. You just have to figure it out as you go.

Camille: 45:02

Well this has been so awesome. So there are two questions that I ask all of my guests and you'll each have a chance to share, but I love to ask what are you reading, watching or listening to? That's the first, and watching or listening to that's the first, and you can share one of each or just one of the three. And then the second is a motherhood moment that you would like to share and whoever's ready.

Kathy: 45:26

Kathy, if you want to or Sandy, are you ready? Sandy, you go. Oh wow, okay Reading watching or listening to right now.

Sandy : 45:38

You have some good podcasts that you're listening to. Yeah, I listen.

Kathy: 45:42

No, I listen to a lot of podcasts. As far as right now I'm actually I'm reading the New Testament. I don't know I just, for some reason, easter's coming and I just started reading the New Testament. Um, other things I read. I read a lot of. So on my Facebook I have, I've I'm just following a lot of inspirational quotes or like groups, and so I actually will scroll on my Facebook and read a lot of just motivating, uplifting, inspirational quotes and I usually screenshot on, sometimes I share and pass them on, but I would say I read those a lot. Just they really helped me. And then a mom moment Sandy, maybe go on what you're I'm going to think about my mom. Sandy reads a lot of fiction what you're.

Sandy : 46:37

I'm going to think about my mom. Sandy reads a lot of fiction.

Camille: 46:40

Yeah, wait, wait, wait to call me out. You know it's funny. A lot of women I interview they'll listen to self-help books and business books or whatever, but they're like I escape in my reading. So it's fiction, like that's. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, yep.

Sandy : 46:51

So I'm. It was funny too. Um, in the car, my, I guess this could be even part of my mom moment I was waiting for my son at pickup and so on the way to pickup I was listening to a book and it was on my screen in my car and then while I was sitting there I had my Kindle out so I was reading a book and he gets in. He's like wait, were you reading a book and then listening to a book? And I was like wait, were you reading a book and then listening to a book? And I was like well, that was. And he just looked at me like, and so he didn't really respond. And then my other son got in the car. He's like Zach, guess what mom was doing? She was listening to a book and then reading a book. Like that was unfathomable.

Sandy : 47:31

But yes, those are my escape moments. I live in my car a lot because I have four kids. Those are my escape moments. I live in my car a lot because I have four kids. I'm constantly running, you know, little munchkins around. But, um, currently I am not very good at titles, but I do read a lot of like romanticy and then I also love like British romance. I love them. I mean Regency yeah.

Sandy : 47:54

Regency. I love them so much, I mean, and they're always just so easy and they're little fluff reads and I just love them yeah, I love them.

Camille: 48:03

Awesome now when you were reading and listening, is it this?

Sandy : 48:06

it's the same book, right that you're, they're different one book I was listening to, and then when I'm like when my kids are about to get in the car, I'll get my kindle up while I'm sitting and I can read a different book on my Kindle.

Sandy : 48:18

Oh, and that was really good the secret life of Addie LaRue. It's been really. I'm really enjoying it. That one's really. Oh, it's so fascinating. That was a good. Oh my gosh, I can have a whole podcast on all the books that I've read. Last year I read like 115 books, so I do love to read that's awesome, that's awesome.

Camille: 48:40

All right, kathy, did you think of your motherhood moment?

Kathy: 48:43

Yeah, maybe. Well, I mean, is there more to it?

Camille: 48:49

Just, it could be like no, no, no, it could be like a heartfelt moment, a funny moment, a teaching moment, a silly, it doesn't.

Kathy: 48:57

It's whatever you want to share, okay, I think I'm going to go to this Disneyland trip that I just went on because my little kids stayed at home, my mom and dad watched them and I've never done that before A vacation without, like, bathroom breaks. And you know, I just have always taken my little kids and I still have three at home. But the four older ones planned an adult Disney trip which I wasn't going to go on, and my daughter said to me Mom, I was thinking, and this was right before the trip happened, so I hadn't even planned it or anything, like they had gone their flights anyway. She's like, mom, I was thinking about it and it's just not going to be the same at Disneyland without you. And so you know, that kind of hit me right here and I'm like, okay, this is an opportunity for me to spend time with my older kids, when I I'm constantly spending time with my younger kids. You know, cause I have a, I have a married son and one grandson and then I have two out of the house and then my 17 year old. That will be anyway.

Kathy: 50:01

So my mom moment, I would say, is just being able to spend those four days at Disneyland with them and just making it about them. And just, we were goofy and funny and just, and it wasn't about riding every ride, it was just making memories and so, yeah, I'm glad I was able to do that and and that I that I just did it. It's not like me. I, you know, I thought about all the things at home and that were going to go wrong, which they didn't, and my little kids were fine. I have. I have a five-year-old and then I have a 20, well, she's almost six and 26. So 20 years between them. So wow.

Camille: 50:43

So, yeah, this was a huge deal to go and be with your adult kids and that's a totally different kind of trip. That's it was?

Kathy: 50:50

yeah, it was, and I I didn't really know. But now I'm like, wow, I'm so glad I did that. So glad Me too. That's awesome.

Sandy : 50:58

I did have an. I feel like this would be a good thing to share, at least if you're on this platform. My mom moment that I mean, if I could, you know, kind of piggyback off of that. But here's the thing my daughter just recently competed in a optimism competition where you had to write um, you had to write a story, a short story based off of your life, and it was. And then you had to like, read it and at the very end they announced no particular order, those that were runner-up, and then the top three. And my daughter was the first name called as runner-up and I knew in her mind it just meant that she was the worst, which was absolutely not true. She could have been fourth place, she didn't know.

Sandy : 51:40

But she got in the car afterwards and she just broke down Like I am a failure, mom, I'm a failure. And I said why do you say you're a failure? And she was telling me how she's like how can you ever really feel like you've made it in life if you don't have one thing that you are incredible at, that you have just mastered, and that you're the best? And she rattled off all these kids in her school that she knows like the fastest runner, the best dancer, the most popular and like all these different, like things that she had determined are what really help you make it as a person, and so it was really hard to hear that as a mom, because I view her as just nothing more than incredible. She works so hard at so many things and I know I'm so proud of her. So we got to where we were going. As you know, I parked the car and this is what I told her.

Sandy : 52:28

And I said Courtney, I said, am I a failure? And she's like no. And I said, let me tell you something. I barely graduated. I wasn't a good student. I am a cosmetologist, but I'm not the top of my field by a long shot. I got my associate's degree and that was a real struggle for me. I barely struggled to get through that. I have yet to have a career that I wanted in my life. Granted, I've done this other thing and it's gone moderately successful. But I'm even the top in that film I can like.

Sandy : 53:00

And I just rattled off all the ways that you could probably view me and think I'm a failure. I was like corny, but you know what I am. I am a wife, I am a mother, I am a friend, I am a boss, I'm a peer, I am like all these things and while I'm still struggling to be the best in all those ways, I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm working hard and at the end of the day, I feel good about that. And that's what you have to do. You have to choose what you love and work hard at the things you love, and if they don't bring you joy, then those are the things you let go and it was such a great emotional moment for both of us for her to see she doesn't see me as a failure and I don't see her as a failure, and it was a real breakthrough for honestly for us.

Sandy : 53:44

So it was a really great mom moment recently that we had and I'm not gonna let her watch this podcast because, then she'll know she'll totally kill me for talking about it, but I think it's just something that, honestly, a lot of us will do to ourselves. We, as women, will beat ourselves up, so we are black and blue.

Sandy : 54:00

But at the end of the day we have to remember look at what we've accomplished. How often do we stop and look back and say, wow, how did I get here? Look what I overcame. And so that's what I was teaching her. I'm like look at what you've overcome and how much you've already grown. You have so much more yet to come.

Camille: 54:19

Oh, I love both of those. You're both such amazing moms. This has been so, so wonderful, such a wonderful interview. Thank you for sharing your hearts, thank you for sharing your story and your journey and that you're still in the middle of it and figuring things out, and I would love for our audience to know where they can find you online and find your great deals and how to connect with you.

Sandy : 54:43

On Instagram we're at Sassy Saves and on Facebook. I can send you to a million groups, but I will tell you you probably this is the silliest one, but you can find us. We're Good Golly. Is it Good Golly, black Friday? Or is it good going? I can't remember. It's good golly. We change the name sometimes, we tweak them. Anyways, we're good golly, and then there's 108,000 members in that one. So you'll know or.

Kathy: 55:12

Yeah, or there's freaking, freaking, insane deals yeah, okay, cool. Well, yeah, we'll put those in the show notes.

Camille: 55:20

I'm sure there's someone listening. That's like I want freaking, insane, good, golly Great deal Like the.

Sandy : 55:26

Yes, we will help you save.

Camille: 55:30

We promise yeah, to a dangerous degree. Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it so much and thank you to everyone who's listening and sharing the show. Anytime you leave a rating review, you share. It helps this little corner of mothers building amazing businesses grow. So thank you so much for your support and thank you for being here. Hey, ceos, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast and remember you are the boss.