The Sales Mirage: Why a Sexy Brand Isn’t Enough
Part 3: Lessons learned while launching then closing my skincare company.
A great salesperson is quite literally worth their weight in gold. Without sales, even the best-designed brand can crumble. Great product doesn’t sell product. At Wildland, we learned that lesson the hard way.
For us digital product builders, good salespeople have the uncanny ability to translate simple and obvious features into real cash. It’s pure magic.
You can sometimes skate by with digital products by just paying for digital ads and marketing campaigns to handle the bulk of your selling. A/B testing, influencer buys, social media posts might be enough to sustain as you ramp up growth. This is easy to do when you are not paying monthly for product storage and have no fear of a product expiring in the next couple of years. It allows you to take the time needed to grow organically, not necessarily needing a full sales team. Sure, growth might be slower, but it is definitely possible.
Physical products are a different beast.
The second you manufacture a product, it’s a race against time. You need to validate your product that is untested in a market, all while spending money to basically stay in business. This constant threat of costs being unmet by sales forces big ad buys or other swings (like sponsoring industry events or attending conferences) simply to get your product in front of the right people.
But in theory, this is where salespeople come in. These white knights ride in to sling your product to anyone and everyone who might want it. From distributors to mom and pop retail shops to big box retailers, they are here to sell, armed with a cell phone and an industry-specific rolodex.
Right Perspective, Bad Timing
The realization of how valuable salespeople are came a little too late for me at Wildland.
When our product launched in 2019, we agonized over every aspect of the product and brand. Whether it was because my chops were in brand and product design, or because neither of us founders particularly liked or were any good at sales, I’m not exactly sure - probably a bit of both. Either way, the outcome was the same. We basically ignored traditional sales.
In my mind, though, that was ok.
I genuinely felt that if we built an incredible brand and vision alongside developing and manufacturing the best product in the category, people would find it and share it with their entire contact list. But here’s the raw truth:
Great product doesn’t sell product.
Our product and packaging stood alone, beautiful on shelves against others in the space. Our wholesale brochures were agonized over, and looked sexy as hell. Our website told a story, had beautiful imagery, offered tips when engaging with poison oak and ivy, even gave advice on which trails to try when visiting California’s central coast. We had dope merch, custom hats, sticker packs, water bottles, and even custom, unscented air freshener trees that encouraged you to roll down your window to experience the mountain air.
But it turns out none of that sold product at enough scale to stay in business.
I knew that the idea of “if you build it, they will come” was a farce from when I started my first business, but I had never translated it to physical products. I assumed a good pitch and elegant brochure would open doors to any retail store or connection Wildland made. Turns out we were wrong.
Aside from a few of our friends and connections who have retail adventure and mountain bike shops on the central coast (shout out to The Mountain Air) and a random contest allowing us to pitch and eventually be sold in REI nationally, most sales were one-offs on Amazon or our website. Not nearly enough to float a company.
We needed some big accounts to make this thing work.
Retail Sales Nightmares
A year or so into business, the writing was on the wall that we needed some large retail accounts to help kickstart our exposure into the greater market. One-off sales were great, but they simply weren’t moving the needle fast enough to gain any momentum with our brand.
This reality pushed me to move far outside my comfort zone, trying every avenue I could think of to get Wildland in front of buyers for regional and national retail chains.
I got pretty good at tracking down and cold emailing category buyers from the big chains. I had created a list of about 20-30 names and emails pre-COVID, with one to two emails back with super soft interest. I’d send products and follow-up emails into the depths, never to hear from them again. Then, post-COVID, I found out that most buyers were let go or changed jobs , forcing me to start the entire process over.
The worst experience of my failed attempt at retail sales came from the three different times I specifically hired firms “with previous buyer relationships and experience” to get my product in front of large regional and national buyers for stores. With a simple monthly retainer, these companies promised buyer exposure to companies like CVS, Costco, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Dicks Sporting Goods, to name a few.
Each time I would chat with them on the phone, guarantees would flow with stories of their firm launching brands I had never heard of, but should have. But even though my bullshit-o-meter was off the charts, the promise that for a couple of grand a month I would get infinite opportunities for success would push me to sign the contract. I just kept thinking, “all I need is one deal to pay back the investment.”
After three separate companies, guess how many times I was able to even speak with a buyer? You guessed it. Zero.
Thousands of dollars of product, combined with endless hours in preparation and check-in meetings for absolutely nothing.
After the last attempt, I was resigned to simply reacting and moving more to DTC sales as opposed to retail.
DTC: My Last Real Attempt
To close the loop on Wildland, my very last attempt was to go as all-in as I could on DTC sales. This meant bringing someone on to optimize my entire digital ecosystem (socials, website, Amazon, etc) and then run and optimize ads.
I genuinely felt that if I could prove some sort of return in advertising, I could see a path to Wildland’s success.
I found an amazing ads guy through a friend of mine and got working. We started running ads and optimizing at the beginning of 2025, and then ramped up to the height of poison oak and ivy season in April and May. This was it.
It was amazing seeing so many sales happening. I used to have 3-4 sales a week, so seeing my phone blow up with 10-20 orders a day was incredible! Sure I was spending money, but sales velocity was starting to happen and it felt validating.
It felt good until I ran all the numbers in May from April’s sales.
Numbers don’t lie. My average order was $22 through Shopify (direct through my website), and $24 with Amazon. After refining and targeting over the past three months, my CAC (customer acquisition cost) was $55 for Shopify, and $24 for Amazon.
The delta between what I needed to make to be profitable and reality was just too much. I could probably make small, incremental changes and combined with more time refining ads see a little better return, but by that point I was just done. Any light at the end of the tunnel flickered out that May.
Lessons Learned
There are definitely things I wish I knew before starting this journey. In previous digital ventures, we had a ton of marketing and advertising success when launching ventures through smart ad buys, partnerships, and referral programs.
But that success did not translate to my physical product experience. Here are the sales lessons I wish I had understood before starting Wildland.
Yes, you need a salesperson. If you or a co-founder doesn’t have preexisting relationships or an unfair advantage to sell your product in your market, you either need to find a sales co-founder or first hire someone who does.
DTC takes serious cash + a lever. For DTC to begin to return and begin to make enough revenue to actually pay yourself, you need two things:
Money. A lot of it. For ad spend to work, you have to burn a lot. If I had to do this again, I would start at around $500K for the first six months, ramping up from there before I expect a return.
A “lever”. You need something that ignites sales. Think previous retail relationships or The Rock.
*(These two things are not required for growth, but know that if you bypass these your growth will be really slow and tedious.)
Influencers ≠ sales (99.99% of the time). A few might work, but you can’t expect any direct sales. When budgeting for influencer posts, file under PR rather than sales. Influencers are good for exposure versus return.
A sexy brand isn’t enough. Most people can’t tell the difference between a Timex and a Rolex on someone’s wrist. When selling on brand, you’d better be selling in a category that is looking for status, rather than a solution.
Small marketing spend creates small results and minimal information. The opposite is true as well. Strategic big spends create big results and big information. You get what you pay for.
Retail buyers are risk-averse and want proof. This practically means:
Distributors with current shelf space are a priority.
Without proven retail sales, you have a very, very slim chance of getting on their shelves.
After you have proven successful, they will hold you.
*This is why a salesperson with connections into big box retail is the most ideal cofounder or first hire.
Beware firms promising retail access. If you’re seriously considering this, hit me up and let’s chat.
I recognize that marketing and salespeople will probably read this article and cringe. It’s so easy to poke holes in strategy, or comment with “Well Jim, your problem was _____”.
I get it. I’m not a sales dude. I’ve come to terms with that one.
But if you take anything away from my experience, take this: sales is about relationships and traction, not optics.
You can’t bypass the hard work of connection, selling an idea or vision, or years of established trust and relationships by having a kick-ass brand and product. Most people want to care, but at the end of the day, will move to what’s the most convenient, available, and has the least barrier to entry.
A great salesperson can get your product into the hands of your people and will be the best co-founder or first hire you make.