Where has the time gone?! The last month has felt like a year has gone by! Lots has happened and I’m excited to share it with you!

After my first post I heard from a lot of people with encouragement and that they’re impressed I am doing some hard things. It’s important for me to acknowledge that I am doing some hard things - but to me this feels pretty normal. I like to take risks, I like to take leaps of faith, I believe there is much more to life than the traditional “norms.” I want to go all in on the things that I believe in and what matters to me because that’s all we have. This life is my only chance to push the limits of what I’m capable of. So by doing hard things I’m conditioning and learning how to deal with hard. Because in the pursuit of large goals you will be met with resistance, obstacles, and unfortunately people who do not want you to succeed. It’s not that things get easier, it’s that I’m training to deal with hard better. Thank you for your acknowledgment and encouragement. I hope to be included in your corner and cheer you on as you also go for your dreams and a bigger life!

Wins and Celebrations

I think it’s important to share wins and celebrate them. If you have some wins from the last month I’d love to hear them and celebrate with you too.

• Trusted Home Goods is now selling products on Walmart.com and EBay.com (Shout out to Chris Daniele for the guidance)

• Trusted Home Goods has had 5 straight profitable months (its longest streak to date).

• Trusted Home Goods has had its highest revenue totals each of the last 5 months (each month breaking the previous months record)

• Trusted Home Goods January 2024 had it’s largest month of sales ever (by far): Gross Sales: $80,798.11 | Promo Codes Applied: $2,310.47 | Returns: $13,995.26 | Net Sales: $64,492.38

• I finished a book called “7 Rules to 7 Figures”by Peter Voogd and it’s helped me set up and clearly align on my goal setting and planning for the year for my business and establishing the principles of a meaningful life

• Kara got certified in dry needling which is a type of manual physical therapy treatment - this is huge! It allows her more tools to help her patients get better and helps with patient buy in

• I also want to shout out my wife for the amazing work she does with her patients and establishing incredible rapport with them. What’s unique about Kara is her ability to connect and make each patient feel like they are the most important. Kara has been working hard with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon to maintain a steady stream of referrals to her clinic working with kids 10-18 yrs!! GO KARA!!!

Trusted Home Goods Trajectory

Since we just celebrated a bunch of wins with Trusted Home Goods. I wanted to share some quick and simple metrics to show you the ebbs and flows of the business. It’s been so hard and by no means are we a $1million business today. The goal is to get there though!

So what does all this mean? It means I’m heading the right direction! Here’s a little bit about what’s been working and what hasn’t. Disclaimer: this is specific to my company being an e-commerce company. This doesn’t mean these methods don’t work well for others

What’s Working

• Organic Search and Google Free Product Listings

• Listing products on Marketplaces like Walmart and EBay

• Answering the store chat bot and store phone has generated a lot money and is so simple to do. This business is about trust. When I speak to a potential customer the liklihood of purchase increases significantly - however I have a full time job so if I miss a call I have texting set up to schedule a call back from me

• Blogs/Collection Page Optimization with Keywords. I have gotten ranked on the first page of google for cigar humidor cabinets and some other keywords. This is free to do

• CRO = Conversion Rate Optimization - This is tedious work but it’s the biggest ROI. Going through each product page to make sure the page looks trustable, relevant product info is visible, it has clear images, and the proper questions and pain points are being addressed. As you can see from 2021 to now I’ve put in a lot of work to get my conversion rate from .17% to over 1%. That’s over a 5x increase and creates efficiency across all metrics

• Testing and Expanding Brands in Different Product Categories

So the plan is the lean into these things more in 2024 and try to lean out in other areas like ad spending and misc. marketing costs (like testing new marketing strategies.)

What hasn’t been working or worth my time

• Surprisingly Social Media - this is something that I will hire for when we can afford. The power of social media is insane but I’m not an influencer and I don’t physically hold the products therefore showcasing them with cool reels is just time too time consuming

• Direct Mail - I tried a direct mailing campaign to homes in Louisville and Nashville who have the top 10% incomes and while this a really great campaign, it reached 100,000 mailboxes - but I didn’t not account for needing to have multiple touch points with them and it was just way to expensive to continue to do without brand recognition

• Testing and private labeling my own products - this is a goal of mine but so far I’ve had no luck with finding a killer product that I can priate label and create my own brand around. Hammocks and Shower Seats were doing really well for a while but Google ad spend was too competitive and the competition chewed me out. I may revisit these in the future though the data told me a story that theres room in the niche

• “Hiring a Guru” - Unless you really really know and trust the person you are working with I would hire a mentor before a social media guru who claims to do it the best. This burned me and I wasted a lot of my time. I could have paid the same amount for a mentor and got a way better ROI

Mistakes are costly and can easily wipe out your profits quickly. So my advice for anybody is be careful, invest in yourself, take the time to research the competition, and what works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for you. YouTube, podcasts, and working with other people is basically like a college education these days

75Hard Update

17 days into 75hard, I got the Flu or COVID (I’m not sure which one but regardless) I was out of commission. I was torn - do I restart or keep going and just add a day at the end? After all I was really sick and only missed 1 day. Not to mentioned it was also below zero that week in Kentucky. Yes Seriously.

I decided to restart, because I knew deep down that was against the rules of the program. I told myself I was going to do this and I am keeping that promise to do it the right way all the way through. However if I get sick or have a set back again I’m going to have a hard time restarting for a 3rd time. Kara so kindly pointed out that I’ve gone 75 days in a row numerous times in my life without being sick so I should be in the clear from here!

The first 17 days were actually pretty crazy. To put it into words, it was a bit chaotic. Sure the tasks are not overly difficult - but voluntarily adding those tasks into working my full time job, my side business, and maintaining harmony at home it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. Right when I got the hang of things is when I got sick. Mentally I had no problem with everything, but physically I was a little cautious and having trouble. But as of this post, I am back on day 18 of my second attempt and I am experiencing the complete opposite feeling. I am mentally struggling and I am physically feeling great.

Kara and I have a lot of great conversations (which I appreciate and love about our relationship). I told her I’ve been struggling with the time management of this program and being more efficient in my day. I feel like I am spending so much time focusing on the tasks of the program I am missing out on precious time I usually spend working on my side business. Trusted Home Goods is at a crucial period in the businesses life and I’m not giving it the time it needs. Also, I keep openly talking negative about the program that I felt so strongly I needed to do. Then I realized…these are the excuses I am telling myself when shit gets hard. Your mind will tell you anything to get you to believe and settle for something comfortable. I realized my mind was playing tricks on me to get me to stop and go back to my old routine but I won’t give in. The entire point of this program is to prioritize, make disciplined choices, find a way to get more efficient, and change your life. So here we are - second attempt, day 18, giving myself the reality check I needed. Wish me luck and let’s have a beer in Mid April!

What’s Ahead For Us in February?

We will be volunteering at The Ronald McDonald House of Charities in Louisville in a few weeks. The Ronald McDonald House of Charities provides home and support that allows families to stay together while they focus on the healing of their sick children. We are volunteering to help prepare dinner for the kids and families staying there while their kids receive treatment at the children’s hospital nearby. The volunteer opportunity is called “Meals From The Heart.” We are going with a few friends of ours who also expressed interest in service events and opportunities. If you don’t know about Ronald McDonald House of Charities here’s some information to check out for yourself. https://rmhc-kentuckiana.org

Pumped for the Super Bowl - Bummed it’s the Chiefs and 49ers. I still don’t know who I am going to bet on yet. Do I go with the data from the past 3 games or do I go off the entire season? The entire season suggests the 49ers have the edge. If you go off the last 3 games, the Chiefs have the edge. Do you go with the best quarterback and coach combination in the league(KC)? Or do you go with the better roster (SF)? Hard to bet against Patrick Mahomes so I will likely take the +2.5 and sit back with some celery sticks and a glass a sparkling water LOL

The 2024 CrossFit Open is just around the corner. This is the annual test of fitness where we compete in an online competition with all the CrossFitters around the Globe to find the Fittest on Earth. I’m so excited and proud to watch Kara compete this year. She has truly pushed the limits of her fitness and she’s gotten so much stronger. We are hoping that she can showcase all of her hard work and have incredible results on the leaderboard

We are currently going through the pre-approval process for a home so more to come on the home search front. And Lastly, It looks like Trusted Home Goods will be serving its 1000th customer this month - how exciting!

In Closing

You’ve probably heard this in some form or fashion before but comfort is the killer of progress. I encourage you to take some inventory of your routines and habits and ask yourself, where can I grow? Can I press a little harder in some areas of my life? Is it work, your health, your relationships, your faith? Let’s keep showing each other love and support and make the world a better place.

We Love You All!

The Barbetto’s