How Female CEO Jaime Cross Built An 8-Figure Business in Her Kitchen
Jaime Cross, Founder of MIG Living and HER Effect
You might not believe it but female CEO, Jaime Cross built her 8-Figure skincare empire MIG Living in her Colorado kitchen! She now runs her company from her Tennessee farm and has been featured in Forbes, CBS, and Business Insider as examples for business as a force for good. She now focuses on her business The Her Effect and empowering other women to find freedom through entrepreneurship.
“Start being faithful with the little things.” - Jaime
Find Jaime, MIG, and The HER Effect
Episode Contents
- How She Started MIG & the Journey to Eight-Figure Sales
- Passion and Work Have to go Hand in Hand
- Self Funding Her Company and Being Able to Handle the Vision and Success of Her Company
- Transitioning to Digital Marketing & Organic Ambassadors
- Stay the Course and You Will Figure It Out
- Have Faith in the Little Things
How Female CEO Started MIG & the Journey to Eight-Figure Sales
Mimi:
Jaime, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Kyle because you were working or you were speaking at, it the Thrive Conference?
Jaime:
Yeah. Thrive Event. Thanks for having me.
Mimi:
Yeah, you're welcome. So you founded MIG 10 years ago. Where did you come up with the name?
Jaime:
That was part of what I saw in my dream actually. I had basically asked God for a billion dollar idea and had a vision and saw this whole business in a dream and MIG was one of the things that came up out of these botanical oils and I woke up and knew I was supposed to start a skincare company. So I did.
Mimi:
Does it represent anything?
Jaime:
Yeah, it's funny because I mean that was kind of part of all the years of branding is what does MIG really stand for? So it's mighty and good now, but we've gone through some different iterations of MIG, mighty, mighty and good, moxy inspires greatness, but it's mighty and good now, so.
Mimi:
Oh, that's great. So tell us a little bit about why you started it and what your mission is.
Jaime:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I really believe that entrepreneurs now, after having been an entrepreneur for 11 years, we have so much power to change the world and it's our income that can really create a lot of impact. I think we need more wealthy people on the earth and so entrepreneurship is really one great way to do that. But 11 years ago I had come out of corporate banking, took us five years to get pregnant with our first baby, so when we finally found out we were going to have a baby, I was like, well I want to be home with him. And so gave up a really great career in banking and finance and a couple years into that, my husband's teaching full time. He's a wrestling coach. We don't have a lot of money. I'm struggling in my soul because I just know that I'm supposed to be doing something, there's more than motherhood, as much as I love that part of it. But so there were just a lot of struggles, internal struggles and financial struggles. And so I was in a really despairing place when I prayed and asked for the idea.
Jaime:
And so it took me a year. So finally I have this vision, I have this dream and saw the whole process and woke up and told my husband, "I'm going to start a skincare company." And at that point I didn't know how to formulate, I wasn't an herbalist and it was ground zero. So for anybody out there that's like, I want to do something or start something or build something, most of us don't start knowing things, we have to go learn.
Jaime:
So I spent a year just studying herbal alchemy and essential oils and human body and working with ingredients and then within a year formulated our first product and then hit the streets of Denver and Colorado Springs peddling soap for $2.50, walking into stores, talking to shop owners and buyers. And I had a sales background so for me it was like, put the babies in the back of the car. My mom would drive and help me nine hours a day. And I would just go talk to people. And then we did farmer's markets for four years and that was market research. That was a really critical part of my journey as well.
Mimi:
And were you making the product at this point?
Jaime:
Yeah, so the first seven and a half years, it was just me and my teacher husband, he'd come home from work and for years it was like, "Where's all my money going?" And I'm like, "It's in the shade butter, it's in the essential oils." But I didn't know how to graphic design anything, so I was on pages making my own labels and learning everything from scratch. So formulating, making product, labeling product and we're vertically aligned now. So we actually, as an eight figure business, we make all of our own products in house, in our own facility, ship all of our own boxes and do everything in house.
Passion Has to Go Hand in Hand with Data and Work
Mimi:
That's amazing. So what would you say would be the biggest reason why you went from farmer's market to eight digit sales?
Jaime:
Yeah, that's a really good question. I didn't start this to just play around with it. And so I think a lot of people, especially in this world that we're living in right now, a lot of people want microwave businesses. They want success now, but I think really to build something powerful in the earth, you have to be willing to go through the line upon line, the journey of what it really takes to be long term successful.
Jaime:
And so the farmer's markets was, I think where a lot of people skip the hard stuff where they get to a point in their business and they're like, "Man, I really don't know my person. I don't know my customer. I don't know what they really want. I don't know what their pain really is." But for four years I was talking to thousands of people and kind of getting smacked around a little bit. I mean, I would put a product to market and nobody would buy it or people would come back and be like, "This product is not working." Or, "This is a terrible product. I don't like the way it smells." Or whatever the case may be. And so I spent four years perfecting to the point where after that first year, especially it was like 95% of people coming back saying, "Man, I've been able to get off medication." Or, "I've been able to do things that I, nothing else worked for me."
Jaime:
So, by the time I was ready to scale online, I had so much data and experience and passion for who I was really serving, so when it came time to actually figure out the whole online thing and crack that code, I knew what I was working with. And so is another year long process of understanding digital marketing funnels and email sequences. And how do you take a brand that you've been standing at a table, touching people's hands and giving them products that they can smell and having those one-on-one conversations to now we have to broadcast a message and translate this brand and this experience to the web, which was a whole process in and of itself.
Jaime:
It was about three months of doing this video over and over and over again, this format and not making sales online. It wasn't like, oh, yay, let's just go online and make a million dollars. That was also a process. But when we finally cracked the code, we went from zero to six figures in six weeks and then seven figures in six months and then two and a half years, it took us to get to the eight figure mark, but I believe strongly it had everything to do with faith and knowing my person really, really well. My customer really, really well. And having products that delivered, we have a 72% repeat purchase rate. People come back for our stuff because there's nothing out there like it.
Mimi:
That's great. So when you say crack the code online, is that figuring out the video or is that figuring out like, hey, I'm going to ad spend on Facebook or what do you attribute to that?
Jaime:
Yeah, that's part of it, all the tactics and some of those strategies, but ultimately, and you hear this all the time, "Oh, I'm in a saturated space. Skincare is saturated." So many of us are in saturated spaces. So part of the big thing was who are we? What do we stand for? I mean, I knew how to explain that when I was at the farmer's market and I could hand somebody a product and they could feel it and say, "Ooh, I'll take four." But when you go to the web, it's like, okay, how do I differentiate myself in my copy? In my visuals? And part of it as the founder, I just got in front of the camera, even though I started out really awkward and terrible, I just got really comfortable verbalizing this marketing strategy on the online and then got really good at writing copy in a way that was incorporating story and telling stories and then serving people really well in the back end. I mean, of course fortune is in the follow up.
Self Funding Her Company and Being Able to Handle the Vision and Success of Her Company
Mimi:
Yep. And then have you self-funded this the entire time?
Jaime:
Yes. Yep.
Mimi:
Wow, that's amazing.
Jaime:
That's another thing too, I always want to encourage entrepreneurs to consider that what they're capable of. I mean, there were so many times when I had people and investors come along and want to invest and I always came back to, what if I could do this myself? And I was always asking myself those kinds of questions. What if I just did this part? And so we have, at this point been able to be self-funded. That's doesn't come without, I mean, there's no such thing as a solution. It's only trade offs. So with that comes, I think maybe a delayed in hyper-scaling, but I think at this point it's been worth it.
Mimi:
What has been your hardest part to date? Looking back where you're like, "Ooh, I wish I knew this."
Jaime:
Yeah. Maybe having a lawyer earlier on. Business is hard sometimes, you got people doing crazy stuff and so just not knowing what you don't know, I think I probably would've had more legal counsel in the beginning. But I remember a friend of mine who is, she's actually a corporate executive, she's making multiple six figures, really good money. And she said, "The hardest thing you'll ever do in business, Jaime, is grow a backbone."
Jaime:
And so I think becoming the person who can handle the vision, most of us can close our eyes as business owners and see where we want to go. But can you be the person who can not only get you there, but handle the success? And one of the biggest fears I had when I first started really growing was, am I going to lose it all? How did I become successful? And so being able to put success into frameworks. And so if I lost it all tomorrow, could I get it all back because of what I know and who I've become? And so I think that changing and being willing to grow and grow backbone and educate yourself and make decisions that would've been really hard a year ago, but now I have to make them because it's do or die, the business is on the line.
Transitioning to Digital Marketing & Organic Ambassadors
Mimi:
You've recently transitioned to a direct marketing. Could you talk about that as well?
Jaime:
Yeah, absolutely. So for years and years, from the very beginning I had mentors and teachers and all kinds of people say, "Jaime, you should start a multi-level marketing company." And I was like, "No way, I am never doing that." Nathan and I had spent, I think probably more than 10 years in social selling, years and years ago when we first got married and I was like, "Heck no, I would never associate my brand with that industry."
Jaime:
But back in 2019, I was in that place again, I have a very strong tie to my faith and so I was just kind of in this state of like, I want to go bigger, I want to make a bigger impact. And I feel like what we're doing right now is great and we're making good money, but it's not really the thing yet. And so I was in this sort of research process and then just prayer journey again, of where do I go next? And felt prompted to start searching out the MLM business model. And so it was 90 days of flying around the country, talking to CEOs, founders of MLMs, logistical companies. And what would this really look like, but what does the industry really stand for?
Jaime:
And I picked up a book written by a billionaire who's from Australia and it was basically this survey of network marketing. And he's pointing out all the fascinating facts. The fact that it's the most powerful model on the business planet because everyone can win if you do it right. And all the things that would need to change in the industry for it to be really like get back to the purity of what it was founded on. And I was fascinated and captivated by that. And he wrote something very powerful in his book. He said, "This industry is the most powerful model on the planet because everyone can win, but people have really come along and kind of messed it up. But if there was a leader that could restore this industry back what it was originally intended for, which we know impact people, being able to start something with no capital, with no educational background, without having to have a marketing strategy, all of those things, then it would be a force on the earth."
Jaime:
And that resonated with me. And I immediately was like, if I'm going to do this, then that is what I'm going to say yes to, of restoring an industry and doing this differently. So I said yes, and then just plunged head first. And a lot of our mentors were like, "Keep your ads going, keep Amazon going, keep doing what you're doing and ease into this thing." But I really felt like in order to build trust with our field and do this in a way that would be kind of shocking, but probably the best decision long term is just to go all in. And so I did that day one we launched and I turned off all of our ads. I stopped Amazon. We stopped doing everything we were doing, but we paid out in our first year, 3 million in commissions and just blew it up.
Mimi:
Wow. Was it hard to find ambassadors?
Jaime:
It's like, yes and no. Finding the right people. What's his name? He wrote a book. Good to Great. He talks about getting the right people on the bus and the right people in the right seats and then the wrong people off the bus. And I think we've had like a pruning, but yeah, I think finding your tribe is usually a journey, especially when you're starting something. So when we started, it was like, "Here's the vision." We had all these people jump on, but then when it comes time to do the work, who's really with you? And so we spent the first year just of actually launching, so we went through kind of a skinny launch phase and then we went through a pre-launch and then we actually did a launch launch. And in that process we were really just identifying who's our who and how can we serve her really, really well and do it differently? But yeah, I think that's always a challenge.
Mimi:
Did your sales take a dip or did they stay flat or do they go up once you turned off the ads? I mean, that was a big risk, right?
Jaime:
Huge risk. But isn't that why we're here on this planet? I think as entrepreneurs is taking huge risk. No, we grew massively and costs are higher I think right now too, in the beginning because growth is expensive, but as far as revenue goes, we grew like crazy.
Mimi:
That's great. I would think that most of your repeat customers probably wanted to sign up as ambassadors.
Jaime:
Yeah. We had actually quite a few people jump on over and want to join there. And then of course we had our previously existing model of subscribe and save people and so we wanted to continue serving them there, so that was the only thing, actually I should say, that we didn't turn off. But yeah, a lot of previous customers and just people in that world have joined us. A lot of ladies that have seen me speak and stuff too.
Stay the Course and You Will Figure It Out
Mimi:
That's great. I think we talked about this before, only 1.7% of female CEOs ever reached that million dollars in sales, which you have done. What would you attribute your success to, if you had to name one thing?
Jaime:
Yes, perseverance. I mean, how can you not win if you just keep going? I think the greatest travesty is all this potential that people have and then they give up too soon because they don't see the results that they want as quickly as they want. But you can't help but grow and win if you just keep doing the thing. I mean, we as humans are built to learn. We'll figure things out. We'll course correct. We'll do it differently. All the things that we need to do to grow. So if people just stop dying along the way, they'd probably hit that seven figures at some point.
Have Faith in the Little Things
Mimi:
That's great. Now, is there anything else you would like to leave any entrepreneurs that are struggling or thinking about starting their own business?
Jaime:
Yeah, just start being faithful with the little things. I think we often think that big success starts on the stage and it starts with all this money in the bank and knowing how to do stuff, but it starts with taking that one little idea and being really faithful with it and stewarding it really well and serving people really well with it and then you'll grow from there.
Mimi:
That's great. Well thank you so much. This has been amazing. I really appreciate it. So in order to buy from you, you would have to have an ambassador and then do you put them with an ambassador if they don't have one or can they go directly to the website? How does that work?
Jaime:
Yeah, if you go directly to the website, we actually on the backend, we plug those people into leaders and that kind of thing. So just migliving.com
Mimi:
Okay, perfect. Well, thank you. I wish you the best of success. I love what you're doing and that you're serving cleaner, safer product to the world.
Jaime:
Thank you.
Mimi:
That what's needed. Thank you so much.
Jaime:
Thanks Mimi.
Mimi:
Thank you for joining us on the Badass CEO. To get your copy of the top 10 tips every entrepreneur should know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips. Also please leave a review as it helps others find us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. So email me at Mimi@thebadassceo.com. See you next week and thank you for listening.
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