The Shoe Consultant Update: How We Added A New Income Stream By Launching An Online Community

Susannah Davda

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Published: April 19th, 2022

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Susannah Davda

Founder, The Shoe Consultant Ltd

$4K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

The Shoe Consulta...

shoeconsultant.com

from London, UK

started April 2015

$4,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Susannah recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on The Shoe Consultant Ltd? Check out these stories:

1. How I Started A $3.5K/Month Business Helping People That Want To Start Shoe Brands (2020) ➜

This is a follow up story for The Shoe Consultant Ltd. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

I’m Susannah Davda, and I launched The Shoe Consultant in April 2015. I help people to start and grow their shoe brands. I’m passionate about supporting entrepreneurs who want to create high-quality footwear that their customers truly need, desire, and deserve.

My clients are English-speaking shoe brand founders around the world, who I support through one-to-one consultancy, training and community. I know they appreciate my advice because my clients write me testimonials that bring happy tears to my eyes.

Since my first Starter Story was published, I have been able to help even more wonderful clients, and my monthly average revenue has grown to ~£6k.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

Since my last interview for Starter Story, I launched The Shoe Community: an online space where shoe start-ups and small shoe brand founders help solve each other’s problems. Included in the price are regular masterclasses with established shoe brand founders and virtual community meet-ups.

The Shoe Community has become a significant income stream for my business since its launch in March 2021. This subscription model represents a recurring monthly revenue stream for The Shoe Consultant, and because members find The Shoe Community so beneficial, we have a low churn rate.

In the past few months, I have improved the efficiency of my marketing activities. Realizing that Instagram content creation represented a poor return on time investment for my business was a revelation, I have since focused my energy on writing more frequently blog posts to improve my website’s SEO. I also transformed my email marketing from pure promotion to a source of valuable information for subscribers. This combined approach has more than doubled the number of new business inquiries I receive every week.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

I put too much time and effort into feeding the Instagram algorithm in the recent past. For some businesses, likes, views, and comments translate into sales. For others like mine, there are more effective promotional channels.

Always consider your customers when making any product or business decision, and don’t be afraid to experiment

Most of my clients find me through a simple Google search, so it makes sense to double down on activities that strengthen my website’s SEO.

The growing popularity of my membership group The Shoe Community has surprised me. The churn rate is low, and the one-to-many model is time-efficient for me. A bonus of creating this community is that I feel part of something greater, just as the other members do.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

My plan for the coming years is to make The Shoe Community increasingly valuable by adding informative evergreen content each month. There is potential for revenue growth from this channel.

I am also planning to create something more playful to add to my current revenue streams. I will use skills I recently rediscovered to entertain a new audience. I wish I could say more, but I’m pre-launch with this and need to keep it under wraps for now.

Finally, I’m keeping an eye on web traffic to Be a Fashion Brand Consultant, to decide if this can become an additional revenue stream for my business.

Have you read any good books in the last year?

I have been listening to some great books on Audible recently. You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero was entertaining, down-to-earth, and extremely useful. It helped me realize what was causing me to undercharge for my services, and gave me the confidence to increase my prices.

Don’t take failures to heart, just treat them as fuel to move you forward, albeit in a slightly different direction than you had planned.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert gives an interesting perspective on how creative inspiration comes to us. It also explores the tortured artist myth. It’s a liberating read for anyone who has felt creatively blocked.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

I would say always consider your customers when making any product or business decision and don’t be afraid to experiment. Nothing is too much hard work to try out in business. Put a new service or product out there into the world in a small way, and see how your customers react. If they don’t love it, ask them why and learn from that feedback. I’m currently in the experimentation phase with my new blog, Be a Fashion Brand Consultant.

Don’t take failures to heart, just treat them as fuel to move you forward, albeit in a slightly different direction than you had planned.

If you run a service-based company, remember to plan for annual price increases. I wrote an article about How much to charge as a fashion brand consultant that you may find helpful.

I would also recommend considering how a membership group could benefit your clients. I have found building The Shoe Community surprisingly rewarding both personally and financially.