When Brenden Marquardt acquired his first furniture brand, he thought that all he had to do was put it up on the internet and then people would start buying it. As it turned out it was a lot more complicated than that.
Convincing people to come to your website and convert them into customers is a difficult process. Yet everything about your site - from the design, to how you answer your customer’s questions - should have that process in mind at all times. That’s where Conversion Rate Optimization comes in.
Let us hear from Brenden Marquardt, Co-Founder of Homestead Brand, as he shares his journey from working in the finance world to starting his own e-commerce business selling furniture, and how focusing on Conversion Rate Optimization helped them achieve a 3,916% growth rate over the past three years.
Top Takeaways:
02:53 How the book, The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris changed his mentality
04:59 How he got into selling furniture
08:15 The first thing you should focus on if you’re having trouble making sales
09:27 One of the key things about being a CEO
12:08 What’s a good rate to pay for a Conversion Rate Optimization expert?
14:21 How they structured their first acquisition
20:38 Why they’re not using influencers to push their product on social media
21:15 How Homestead Brand deals with their “cheaper” competition
26:23 What was his company’s hockey stick moment?
30:35 One of the most exciting things about being a business owner
31:16 Brenden’s philosophy about work
To get in touch with Brenden Marquardt, visit www.homestead-brands.com
About the guest:
Brenden Marquardt worked as an investment analyst for Merrill-Lynch and Rice University’s $6B endowment fund. He’s also worked as a Business Development Manager for Kinder Morgan.
In 2014, He and his brother Kyle, met a lady who had a very cool design for a Murphy bed. It was affordable and can be assembled easily, but the lady was having a hard time with production, and she really wanted more time for herself. That’s when they decided to acquire the business from her.
From there, they studied how to scale the business, and worked on putting the right structures in place to ensure its growth.
Today, Brenden is the Co-Founder of Homestead Brands. They acquire, invest, and grow multi-functional furniture brands and include them into their growing family of e-commerce businesses.