Intro (00:01):
Pixie Dust & Profits is a podcast for small business owners who love Disney and want to sprinkle some of that magic onto their own businesses. Join your host, Nicole Boucher, and Yasmine Spencer. As they explore the mouse’s $12.6 billion operation and break down exactly how you can apply, why these big scale concepts to your own business.

Yasmine (00:26):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Pixie Dust & Profits. I’m Yasmine.

Nicole (00:30):
And I’m Nicole.

Yasmine (00:31):
And today we actually have a really, really special guest in the studio. So Misty Henry from the Maker’s Resource Shop is joining us today. Misty, why don’t you introduce yourself to our audience and say, hello?

Misty (00:46):
Sure. Hey everyone. So as ya said, my shop is the Maker’s Resource Shop, and I basically help people build their passions by following the regulations that they don’t even know about make sure that they get to where they need to it be. So they reduce their risk in their business and don’t have to worry about the things they don’t know coming back and nipping them in the, but

Nicole (01:09):
Who would you say are the people who tend to find you or follow you? Like what do they sell

Misty (01:15):
Right now? It’s actually mostly teethers and pacifier leashes and that sort of thing, but really it’s oh man, I have people that make children’s clothing, people that make children’s accessories, necklaces, hair accessories. I have people that make hats and bags. And while most of the regulations focus on children’s products, there are a few for adult items too. I do have a couple people that poke in and say, Hey, what do I need about this? And I love when I’m able to say, actually, all you need to do is make sure you have a little bit of labeling and you’re good. And then the people that come in saying, I’m making a children’s item, I get to say, oh, well you have some labeling. What else do you make? Let’s see what else you have to do for that because the government does have a little bit extra to keep our kids safer. But yeah, so most of it is children’s products and just a little dabble here and there of adult items.

Nicole (02:17):
So that’s super helpful, especially if we have any Disney, small shops listening and you make products for chill, you need to go check out Misty and the maker’s resource shop, cuz you don’t know what you don’t know

Yasmine (02:27):
Exactly. And you know, the reason why I love Misty’s businesses, Nicole, I kind of feel like it’s similar to ours in the sense that we kind of deal with like the less sexy side of operations and business, but things that are so important that you can’t really grow without. And like one of the things that I love about Misty’s business is just by helping her customers follow regulations and make things safer that improves their sales because their customers feel peace of mind when they purchase those products. So

Misty (02:59):
Absolutely as I actually have a number of people in the last me personally in the last three years, I have noticed an uptick in consumers paying more attention to compliance. They’re not quite sure what that word means, but they search it. And I have a lot of makers who are telling me, man Misty. My, my search keywords right now are like spot on with safety and compliance and P S I a. And those are what my customers are specifically searching for. So absolutely it is definitely increasing their sales.

Nicole (03:33):
Okay. So if you have a business, especially business that creates products, Misty just gave you the tip to go make some content or put something in your product description that talks about your compliance. And if you don’t have anything to say about that, you might want to go check out our job

Yasmine (03:50):
And we’ll include the show notes.

Nicole (03:52):
Yeah, absolutely.

Yasmine (03:53):
So Misty, we’re gonna have you talk to our audience a little bit about like, more about what they can do to become compliant and to make sure that they’re you know, checking off all the boxes. But before we do one of the reasons why we’re really lucky and excited to have a Misty on the show today is she is a member of our profitable and productive party membership. But not only that Misty joined us for pixie dust and profits live back in October where we spent, you know, a couple glorious days under the hot Florida sun, just going, like, I wanna say wild at Disney, but we were preta. Like let’s be real. And she was also with us just a couple weeks ago, back in Florida for our Pixie Dust & Profits intensive and Misty. One of the things that I would just love to hear your TA is how has getting more focus helped you grow your business?

Misty (04:44):
Oh my gosh. So actually before this, I was looking at my financials as I do. And I was blown away. I have literally doubled my profit every year since I’ve known you all. Oh my gosh. And it, yeah, it starts with it’s honestly, it started with that, that squirrel syndrome download that you guys have. And I fo I, I read that, took it to heart, working with you all, you all helped explain more in depth, what that really looks like. And then the next step was okay. Start asking why, why, why? And I do that now. So I see this beautiful, shiny thing that doesn’t pertain to anything that I’m working on right in this moment. And so I put it on that parking lot that you gave us, and I love that parking lot cause it’s laminated. So I can either dry a erase on it or wet erase on it or sticky note on it.

Misty (05:44):
And I write down the idea, if it’s something that is like a FOMO purchase, I will write it down and set it to the side with the date that it’s ending. And before I hit that buy button, I ask, why do I need this? Why do I need to start it right now? Why is this going to benefit me? How is this gonna benefit my, my clients and my customers and the people that I help? Is this actually something I need right now? Or am I just in the FOMO? Because the marketing is really good and I have been able to save honestly, oh, I hate to say this number, but honestly I’ve probably saved myself over $10,000. Wow. Minimum

Nicole (06:30):
With one exercise. That’s amazing

Misty (06:32):
With one exercise, well, two exercises and scroll syndrome and your focus information. So yeah, it’s, it has been absolutely amazing. My, my expenses have gone down at the same time as my income has. The, the profit portion has definitely doubled. Like I said, every year, since I’ve, I’ve met you guys, which was in what, 2000, I was 19 when we were with Christina,

Nicole (07:01):
Like yep. Yep. We met in person. I spoke at Christina scalier had an in-person event and it was, it was in Florida, but not Disney related. I was

Misty (07:12):
So sad.

Nicole (07:13):
I was there on a family vacation and she had asked, Hey, can you stop by after your family vacation and teach your genius of getting focused to everyone and did and met Misty. And it really went from there. And I just wanna say like, those are amazing exercises. Do you feel like this is top of mind because every month we ask everyone to complete an accountability report, we just kind of did that in the last week or so. And Misty’s always Misty, I think has the goal of filling out the accountability report before I ask for the update. So I

Misty (07:48):
Do

Nicole (07:50):
So, so that accountability, like, is that another piece of, you know, you said I went back and looked at my numbers and I think there’s a lot of people out there who either are afraid of their numbers or don’t even track them to begin with. And so being part of the party, it’s just part of the monthly ecosystem of go back, look at things like, how has that been helpful?

Misty (08:09):
Oh my gosh. To be very blunt, I don’t want to disappoint you guys. I honestly feel like if I disappoint you guys, then I’m probably gonna end up disappointing myself and my customers. And it’s not so much that I fear the rejection. Well, I kind of do, but I, it, it’s more of I’ve said that I’m gonna do something now I have to keep that promise. And because I said it out loud to someone else that I really care about, I, and I now have to have to have to do it. It’s like top priority. And if I get that squirrel brain and start looking at something else and move on because I have that tendency to go, oh, I like that. Let me do it right now. I have to do it right now. You know, it doesn’t allow me to come back to that project that I was supposed to be working on that will move my business forward and having those accountabilities every single month where you ask all these questions that I wouldn’t even have thought to ask myself that are extremely helpful.

Misty (09:11):
And I don’t have the answer every month for all of the questions. Sometimes it’s just, everything’s stable. We’re good. We’re just surviving. It definitely has made life more breathable. It has given me a lot more peace and just really, it has helped me stay on track. Like right now you guys are I’m working on revamping my website to make it more clear for people who have never met or spoken with me before. Because I actually created the website when like people would, I created the website when people would talk to me first and I’d find out about them and they, I go to this, you need this piece right here. That’s, I’ve grown past that. Now I’ve getting people that are coming in, who have never talked to me before going straight to my website from other people, telling them to go to the website. So you guys are helping me with that. And if I veer off from that, because something else super shiny in and in my brain wants to do this other thing, I won’t come back and finish that, which means I won’t be able to help the people that I really wanna help.

Nicole (10:26):
The people that are coming in that don’t know much about you. I, and this is a classic case where the products came before the business almost. Absolutely. I think many of us stumble into that. I know I did. I’ve had my business for, I dunno, six or seven years now and my first jobs were Hey, yeah, I’ll write that for you. Or yeah, I can figure that out. And to the point where it is today, like I have the skills that I have today, even in the corporate world, but I didn’t know that there was like a need or a want or an industry for it here. And so you kind of have been flow. And so for you, it was maybe someone discovered that you knew about product safety and then another person discovered from the word of mouth. And so it was just about here. Here’s how I can help you. And now it’s turned into, you’re known for that. Your business name is known for that and you need to be able to help everyone. And so the nice thing with this is, yes, we have the accountability report it’s in the party, but we also have a coaching call with ya and a coaching call with me and working sessions where you can just like stop for an hour and work and so on

Misty (11:27):
Your

Nicole (11:27):
Business. Right. And so if Misty said in her February report or her March report, I am going to do this. We use that as the guiding document of like, okay, so, so you said you were going to be working on this. How is that going? What roadblocks are you facing? And then we talk through that and try to come up with like how we can move past that. And so if she said it at the beginning of the month, we’re keeping her accountable throughout the entire month. So like she said, she can come to that meeting knowing like, Hey, I saw this really cool thing and I’m really considering it. And I did my why’s or my house or what’s, and it still seems like it’s a good idea, but I know that I’m supposed to be working on this. Like, what do you think? And so we can talk about, well, if you go toward that, what’s gonna suffer. What’s gonna pull back. And what, where, where is the biggest struggle in your business right now? And like you said, you have people coming in who don’t know who you are and they need that instant. I understand who you are and what you have and how I can work with you in 23 seconds before I scroll past. So I think that that’s a great point of everything that we have.

Yasmine (12:30):
Awesome. So we talked a little bit about the party and how that really changed Misty’s business. And every time I just hear the, you know, leaps that she’s made over the past couple years, my heart just, I don’t know, it gets fuzzy and warm and it just makes me so happy, cuz this is what we wanna see. We wanna see progress. We wanna see growth in everyone who joins us.

Nicole (12:51):
And I’ll just add that. That’s because we’re have a uniquely you business. You know who many people are, you knew who your people were. You made your products. Now, you know who the people who are coming are, and you’re adjusting for them. This isn’t anything. We are not sitting here saying, Misty, you need to do this. We talk to Misty and we know her business and we understand her audience and we get a feel for what struggles are happening. And we kind of guide to the decision making and the accountability. And so I think that’s the other important point. It’s not about follow this and your growth like this growth is because Misty had this growth potential, and we are just helping her on that path. And being a sounding board, being a sounding board is very important. You don’t always have that when you’re an entrepreneur who’s working alone at home. May do you have your spouse or a best friend? And you try to talk to them about, I’m thinking about doing this. And they just don’t understand because they’re not in that world. And so this is what that is.

Misty (13:44):
That is very true. My husband’s always, yeah. And I do it to him too. You know, he’s got his thing. I got my thing. This is, this is literally my passion. So I get, I get off on tangents sometimes and he is, he just nods and he supports me as best as he knows how. And it’s, it’s wonderful, but yes, like having you two ya and Nicole like it, there, there are really are no words. You guys really are my favorite God parent. It’s like, this is, this is the thing that I needed. I’ve been through other coaches. It’s been the same, follow this, do this, make sure you’re, you’ve got this, you know, type of a checklist. Whereas you guys have given me the tools to make things clearer in the way that I work in the way that seems like I can use it for almost any business that I ever wanted to create.

Misty (14:45):
And I do think about it in terms of like, my husband wants to start his own thing wi instead of, of working for someone else. And I like, my brain just starts going and clicking and going, oh yeah, Jasmine and Nicole shared this with me. I think this would help him here. And so like, I’ve got all these ideas for him for when he’s ready and you know, it’s, it’s fantastic to have you guys as that sounding board. Cause like I said earlier, I will jump to something else pretty darn quickly. And now I have like a full parking lot of things that I know I can get back to later.

Nicole (15:19):
That’s amazing. That’s awesome. My husband also wanders into my office sometimes and he is like, do you have a tool for this? And he, he is gonna be at the more opposite career path than I am so

Yasmine (15:31):
Awesome. So Misty, we talked a little bit about how we know each other and how we work together. Let’s dig into a little bit about your business. So Disney, you know, we can say it’s for children, but as Disney adults here, we know it’s for us too. Okay. Don’t come at us. But they create pros for children and they’ve basically spawned this like Disney, small shop industry. There are so many craters and makers who are also making Disney themed items or Disney inspired items. And a lot of them are targeted at children. Like I know that there’s this one dress maker that I have literally bought. I don’t wanna say how many dresses, but like be 30 for my daughter. And one of the things that I noticed on her, like labels and stuff is like for the sleepwear, there’s very specific standards that she sticks to.

Yasmine (16:22):
If it’s like loose it’s non-flammable, if it’s fitted it’s cotton and there’s little things like that, that as a mother buying for my daughter, like that’s super important to me cuz I wanna make sure anything that I have aware is safe and comfortable and I’m sure a lot of your clients are coming to you trying to figure out like where to start. So can you maybe dig a little bit more into the process of, you know, if someone is creating, let’s say clothing for children or because yeah, we buy a lot of like Disney clothes for our kids. What are the steps that they need to take Misty?

Nicole (16:56):
What’s the first step. Yeah. First

Yasmine (16:58):
Step. Yeah.

Misty (16:59):
So before I jump into that part, I do wanna say that what I have available also helps consumers know what the heck to even look for. Very cool. So you’re not a seller and you’re just a consumer of amazing Disney E products and doesn’t have to be Disney license necessarily just Disney in general. I can help you find just what you need to know to make sure you’re looking at the right things. And honestly, it’s just tags to, to make sure things are going well. But so as a seller of products, you wanna make sure at the bare minimum that if it’s for children, you know, about anything regarding lead content and you have your proper labeling and the labeling is super important because it’s actually that point of contact between you and the actual consumer, the one that’s actually using the product. So I know there’s a lot of aunties out there.

Misty (17:56):
There’s a lot of grandparents out there, a lot of adopted grandparents and aunties who love to purchase for children and give us gifts. And so we can, can’t face everything off of the shopper necessarily. We have to focus on who that actual user is and that tag helps make that connection, not just with the branding, cuz that is very important, but also with the information that you’re giving them. So on that label, you should be seeing your name. You should be seeing the fiber content either on a permanent tag or a, a removable tag. You should be seeing things like where it’s made from so that consumers can make the right decision on their own morals. So, you know, we still have people who they don’t care where they, where things are made. We have people who still care you much about where things are made and wanna make sure that they’re in that sphere of what they’re comfortable with.

Misty (18:58):
The fiber contents are important for sensitivities and allergens or even just moral moral thoughts, you know? And then we have what it’s called a date of manufacturer in a batch code and I’ve been doing this enough. I’ve been doing this for since 2010 that I know what the weird numbers and codes are on. Like a lot of products. I can usually pick out where the date is, what the code actually for sometimes like what the letters and numbers mean. And it’s, it’s very geeky that I can do this, but you’ll start to see that too. You’ll go, okay. I know what to do. If there’s an issue I can contact this person that’s labeled right there on the tag. I can let them know that I have this. I can send them a photo or I can read off that number for them.

Misty (19:55):
And they can tell me exactly what I need to know about the components in it. They can tell me about the item itself. And if there’s a recall, which is really what these are supposed to be for, you can go to cpsc.gov/recalls and you can see all of the recalls that have ever been done and forced by the CPSC and Canada health. Canada is a collaborative on it. And they’ll give you a photo of the product. They’ll give a description of the product and then they’ll give you codes. They’ll give you the data manufacturer, give you maybe the model number, skew number, just random batch number. They’ll give you that information so that you can look at those tags and go, oh, okay. I know what to do. I know I need to contact this, this company. I know what my remedy is, whether it’s a refund or a fix or what have you, that tag is super important.

Misty (20:52):
And then in the case of sleepwear, it tells you, okay, is this a tight fitting item? If it is awesome, I don’t have to worry about much of anything else just to make sure that it’s actually tight fitting. And then if it’s loose fitting, they should have a statement that says, you know, this is been treated with a flame retardant or this is naturally flame resistance and they’ve had the testing done to make those statements. So you know that, okay, this really truly is the safest for my child. Now I want to also say that compliant with the product safety rules does not necessitate actual safety. So I do go further and give all of my customers, all of my clients, that information to help them improve the actual safety to help reduce that risk on their businesses and the risk on their consumers. Cause we don’t want those sweet little consumers to be harmed.

Nicole (21:51):
And this kind of goes into some of the things that we talk about often on the podcast like that post purchase sequence, like what happens after the product is in their hands. What do you do to give the best experience possible with your product in Misty’s cases? What do you do to make the safest experience possible in using your product? Very important work that I can’t say everyone who just starts an Etsy shop, especially when you start thinking about how people started making masks, you know, and selling them on Etsy. And you know, that isn’t something that crossed your mind. You’re just doing something that, you know, people need and people are willing to buy. I’m gonna put it up there. It’s, it’s not necessarily the first thing our brain go to unless you’re a lawyer or have worked in this world or unfortunately had to deal with a lawsuit or anything else in this realm. So if you have not thought about this in your business, do not, do not get upset, just go to the maker’s resource shop, get all the resources you need. I’m sure that Missy has a resource right on the homepage for, you know, to figure out more about what you know and what you need to know.

Yasmine (22:54):
And one other thing that I’ll add is that I know that a lot of retailers are also requiring those compliance certificates and to make sure that everything is up to par before they’ll list something. So if you are looking to scale and grow your business or get on the like Amazon, for example, if I recall correctly, Missy, that was like a huge thing for you where you had a surge of Amazon sellers, making sure that everything was super compliant.

Misty (23:19):
Yes. So there are some disagreements I should say between Amazon and CPSC right now. And it’s been going on for a few years and it’s under, because Amazon is a worldwide business. They have sellers and buyers worldwide. So it’s very important that they are paying attention to who is selling and what they’re selling. And so what happens is the CPSE will come to them and say, Hey, we need you to do a sweep of this product cuz we’re seeing that it’s being recalled more often. So we need to make sure that, you know, what products are actually safe right now. It’s sleepwear. Sleepwear is at the top of their list right now. So they’re going through all that sleepwear stuff. And P if we’re coming to me and saying, Hey, I got this listing deactivated on Amazon, they’re asking for this information. I don’t know what these letters mean.

Misty (24:13):
Can you help me? And I do. And I want to add that I do actually have a client who has a licensing deal with a special mouse and they do require, you know, full statements, full lab test reports for the very basics, as well as some of the above and beyond things that we don’t normally think about because we focus so much on federal requirements that, and, and what is absolutely necessary. It has been a growing process for me too, to learn all that they require. And then my client expanded into Canada and they don’t have the same exemptions for certain testing as us has. And so Disney requires them to go back and say, okay, we need this additional testing. And we need the lab reports from that testing. And we need this other statement to make sure that everything is going according to plan.

Misty (25:17):
And they check up on every time they add a new product and add a new print to their line. I have to go back and make sure all of the testing is correct. All of the paperwork is correct. They go, and that’s gonna be not just our lovely mouse, Disney, but is also many, many, many large retailers follow that same exact process Amazon’s going, having to follow that process actually Etsy too, is starting to have to look into that cause Amazon’s putting some pressure there on CPSC to make sure Etsy’s doing the same things since there a marketplace. And there was a lawsuit regarding an Amber TV necklace and a child unfortunate circumstance a few years ago. And it’s, it’s coming up again. It’s et sea’s changing their policies. Everyone’s getting that. Actually another email came out yesterday about their update and policy regarding Amber specifically, but a lot of makers are going through this and going, I just got kicked off of Etsy because they’re requiring, or they’re not allowing this. And so I said, you know, Hey, how about you guys go to Etsy, send them your, your lab reports and certificates and see what they can do. And Etsy actually contacted some of them back and said, you know what? We’ll look into it right now. We can’t do it, but we’ll look into it and see what we can do so we can make change in the hand, make community to make things safer for our consumers, safer for us and allow ourselves to be able to sell literally anywhere we want to grow into.

Nicole (27:02):
If you’re a Disney, small shop and you are looking at expansion into, I don’t know, places like target or licensing deals with the mouse himself, these are things you should be paying attention, attention to because they’re gonna go above and beyond the federal requirements because safety is so integral to their brand and, and they don’t want any risks whatsoever. So if that is a goal for you, whether that’s a goal for this year or for five years from now, look into these things, they’re important. And if you already have them done, it makes it that much easier for the yes to happen.

Misty (27:39):
Absolutely. I have a lot of people who have come to me going, oh my gosh, Misty, I’ve been doing this for so long. What do I do? Where do I start? How do I go back and fix everything? And I’m able, I love that. I’m able to reassure them that it’ll be okay. It, we can pick up where we left off because most of your products, they’re not that dangerous. They don’t have an inherent, immediate safety risk. So it’s literally the bureaucracy, but it’s good to make sure that we have that to make sure we’re covering all of those bases, doting, those eyes, crossing, those Ts, you know, so forth. And so I just, I that’s the first step I do is I make sure that they’re reassured the first step when they drop on that. Well website, the maker’s resource shop.com is I have a link for about, and it will, it jumps into what exactly is compliance.

Misty (28:33):
Like what the heck does it mean? And then I also have a button for I’m new here. What do I do? Where do I start? And so you can, it’s kind of a choose your own journey of sorts, where you can find out what safety compliance actually means, what it is, what it means to you. And then jump into if you’re a reader, I have digital books. If you’re someone that needs to watch the process up close, I have modules that are video based and then I have testing services as well because I have a collaboration with a an ISO accredited CPSC accepted lab here in the us and all that. All those letters mean that they are one of the top accepted labs. So wherever you go, whoever you’re doing a licensing deal with, if you get to that, that that stage, you’re ready for them. It’s so much easier to start from the beginning than trying to meet their needs after the fact.

Nicole (29:34):
Well, thank you so much Misty for joining us. This has been so enlightening, so much information that our audiences really need. So whether they aspire to have Disney, licensed gear or just, you know, sell a couple things on the side, there are resources. They need to check out if they don’t have a business and they’re a consumer, it’s still helpful to be an informed parent, especially when you’re buying things for your child. So take a look at Misty’s work. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate all of your time. We love having you in the party. We love seeing you grow and just really focusing in on what’s my next right step and stepping into that every single month. And we know 20, 22 is gonna be awesome for you. So maybe we’ll do this again next year and hear about another doubling. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. We’ll see you real soon.

Yasmine (30:24):
Bye.

Nicole (30:29):
All right. You’ve probably heard that you can create more impact by doing less, but how exactly do you do that? We’ll let you know. We have a masterclass coming up on March 24th, and we want you to us for it. We’ll help you stop spinning your wheels and find some focus so you can decide on your next right move.

Yasmine (30:50):
So if you wanna join us live, sign up at pixiedustandprofits.com/masterclass.

Nicole (30:56):
Can’t wait to see you there.