Holy Moly It’s Already May! This last month has been crazy so I apologize that my newsletter is a bit behind this month. But there’s so much to be thankful for and great news to share! Since finishing 75Hard and the last newsletter we have:

1. Closed on our new home!

2. Competed in the CrossFit quarterfinals

3. Celebrated the Kentucky Derby Festival and 150th Kentucky Derby

4. Moved in to our new home

5. Finished the turnover of our condo and it is now ready to be listed for rent!

You might be wondering, “How is life after 75Hard????” Well, adjusting to “normal” has been more difficult than I thought. Going from 75Hard to “normal” was actually harder than going from “normal” to 75Hard. I think it’s been more difficult because I reached an extreme level of nutrition, fitness, and discipline and going back to a more balanced routine has left me feeling almost lost. Now that we are settled in our new home and it’s been a few weeks I have found myself feeling a bit normalized, relaxed, and adapting to our new environment.

We closed on our new home on April 17 and moved on April 27. By Sunday evening April 28 there wasn’t a box left to unpack and all furniture was ordered and delivered by May 3. It’s definitely a super power of mine to get stuff done immediately. Kara and I feel so grateful and at peace in our new home. If you didn’t know it’s a newly built home and we are the first occupants. It is quite the upgrade from our condo and we love it so much. Within the next month we will start to turn our garage into a legit home gym - now accepting walk-ins and class members. Emmy is also living large with a deck, backyard, and new patrol spot!

Since we left the Condo I spent almost every day last week patching, painting, and cleaning it. With another deep clean from a professional, the Condo is officially ready to rent. We will be listing for $1600 (a little under my expectation but still a decent Cash Flow). Hopefully by next newsletter I will report that it’s rented, if not, I will probably stop typing newsletters and spend time finding a tenant!

CrossFit Quarterfinals

Kara and I qualified for the CrossFit quarterfinals. There were 165,000 men and 136,000 women that competed in the open worldwide. From the CrossFit Open the top 25% qualify for the Quaterfinals. So based on the percentages 41,000 men and 34,000 women advanced to the quarterfinals. The region that we competed in is called North America East so we realistically only compete against others is our region. After the Quaterfinals the Top 40 men and 40 women in each region advance to the semifinals and that’s to earn a spot to go to the CrossFit games. We did not advance past the Quaterfinals LOL. But here’s a look at our final placement.

I notice two things. 1) Kara is a badass and 2) if you look at the wholistic picture we did pretty good and it’s something to be proud of! Although oddly stressful, It’s a fun time to compete with friends throughout this entire process. We work out 5 or 6 days each week and this is one of the few times we get to compete against others outside of our gym. Shout out to all our CrossFit Covalence family who participated and did even better than us!

Upcoming in May

May is one of Kara and I’s favorite time of the year. Kentucky is so vibrant and energetic as the weather starts to turn, the greenery pops out of nowhere and we celebrate the annual Kentucky Derby Festival. This year was the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby and we enjoyed the festivities with friends at the race track and our new home! We just joined a Swim and Tennis club so we have a spot to tan all summer. And lastly we’re really excited to meet our friends Maddie and Blake in Las Vegas and take a trip to the Grand Canyon at the end of the month.

Trusted Home Goods Update

I need to use this newsletter time to level set on where things are at with Trusted Home Goods in 2024. So I will be writing this from the perspective of a mid-year review

What’s Good

• We did all of 2023’s revenue in Q1 of 2024

• Walmart sales are doing well representing 30% of revenue and sales year to date

• My buddy has helped me get a much better handle on actual inventory quantities by connecting to suppliers websites so I stop selling items that are actually out of stock

• I’ve created and acted on weekly systems and process centered around areas of the business that need improvement like blogs, collection page optimization, emailing my audience, making reels, and adding new products

• I’m profitable on the year through the end of April

• My SEO is getting better and better - I am putting a lot of work into this because it doesn’t cost anything

What’s Not Good

• I got suspended from selling on eBay - not sure why, they won’t tell me

• The business as a whole is still not profitable and has debt to pay down

• I’m having trouble getting new products on the site quickly. I see other businesses and websites pop up often with what seems like very similar or the same products. It has been taking me forever to onboard and list new products from brands that I have been approved to sell for over a year. And hiring oversea’s contract workers winds up as me fixing their mistakes and errors on my site - it’s not reliable and I don’t trust the quality. So I don’t understand how other people are doing it so fast. I’m desperate here!!

• Moving in April put my THG priorities to the back burner

Future Plans For Implementation

• I will start implementing a new lead generation strategy targeting custom home builders and new cigar bar lounges and smoke shops

• Last year I tested a few products to sell on my site that I think are great opportunities to make or private label my own brands. They are Hammocks and Shower Seats for Elderly. I’m way behind on hammock season so that’s probably a lost cause at this point but I think shower seats showed enough value and sales for me to buy a small bulk batch and private label as the “TrustLine Shower Chair”

• Turn on google ads for Grills and Kitchen Appliances

• Find a mentor in e-commerce

• Create an affiliate and referral program

• Start working with micro influencers on social media to promote our products and grow the brand on social media

Digging Into My System

There is a fine line between working on the business and in the business. Working ON the business entails prioritizing focused work time on activities that will move the business forward in a strategic way to increase revenue, leads, customers, and growth. Working IN the business entails daily operational activities that keep the business running day to day. If you’re not careful you can get stuck working IN the business and not ON the business. It’s essential you set up time to work ON the business so to not stagnate in your growth and goals.

What helps me prioritize what’s important on a weekly and monthly basis is working backwards from my long term goal which is selling the business for $1 million. E-commerce brands can sell for 3-5x their annual profit so I would need to profit 200-300k per year. Based off my margins, I would need to generate $1.1- $1.5 in annual revenue to do so. So I break things down to a monthly revenue goal which would be $80-$90k of revenue per month. My trailing revenue average over the last 8 months is $24k per month. So what are the things I need to do on a weekly, monthly, quarterly basis that align with the overall revenue goal? Theoretically, If I focus on the revenue generating activities consistently I should be able to eventually hit my goals. However, easier said than done. Because of the business debt I am trying to be extremely lean so my biggest priorities in the first half of this year are leveraging free marketing like SEO, trying to be consistent posting reels on social media, adding brands and products that will help me find winners and differentiators.

Cutting to the chase of what moves my business forward on a weekly basis in Q1 and Q2 is as follows:

• Launch 1 new brand per week (best sellers only)

• Create a new product template for conversion rate optimization improvements

• Collection Page SEO- update 5 collections each week

• Generate and publish 1 blog using ChatGPT and keyword research

• Send 1 email to my audience

• Post 1 reel

• Optimize Google Ads

• Run my Smart SEO application for re-ranking on google

This is how it breaks out on a day-to-day basis:

• Monday: Optimize my google ads, create a template for new products pages, use template to go live with new products, use Chat GPT to generate a blog topic on a specific product, brand, or collection

• Tuesday: Use Chat GPT to generate product collection page content using keyword research. Optimize 5 collections pages with links, best sellers, and a human touch

• Wednesday: Create another post/reel and upkeep books in quickbooks and review the P&L

• Thursday-Saturday: Work on launching products for the brand of the week, work on a the outputs for a lead generation funnel, and any extra time can be used to generate more blog and collection page content

• Sunday: Schedule and create an email to my audience, create and post a reel, publish the blog from AI generation earlier in the week. (The Blog, email, and reel should all align to the same messaging and content)

Anyway, this is a brief look at the how I’m trying to work on the business in the first half of 2024. Not to mention the daily tasks that keep the business running like fulfilling orders, answering emails, providing customer service, and many other things. I hope this provides some high level insight into the strategy I am implementing at the moment. Since I have a process and framework already built out, I use Sunday night to plug in the specific blog ideas, collection page prioritization, reel ideas, and brands/products that are on deck to be published. This way I hit the ground running Monday and start the week off strong.

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading and staying engaged! I hope to continue to bring good news, positive vibes, and 100% transparency in all that I do. I hope you learn something from the experiences I am going through and if you feel like you can help I would love to hear from you! Or better yet if I can help you - how can I be of service?!

I love you all and speak soon!

George