EP 63 - Nancy McDonald
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Liz Nable: [00:00:00] Imagine waking up to discover that 95% of your business has disappeared overnight. No morning, no explanation, and no way to speak to a human being. That's exactly what happened to today's guest when meta suddenly shut down her entire business account. Cutting off the channel responsible for almost all her sales.
And it's the exact reason I talk so often inside MMA about the dangers of building your business on platforms you don't own. Because when your audience lives on rented land, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or any other platform, you don't control what happens next. And sometimes the consequences can be devastating.
For most business owners, this feels like a hypothetical risk, but for today's guest, it became very real. Nancy McDonald is the founder of La Casa Homewares, an Australian e-commerce brand known for its beautiful, elevated everyday tableware. Nancy [00:01:00] built the business from the ground up, starting with a single white dinner plate and growing it into a thriving online brand with a loyal customer community.
But just as the business was scaling her entire meta ecosystem, Instagram, Facebook, and advertising accounts was suddenly disabled on New Year's Eve last year. The platform responsible for 95% of her revenue was gone overnight. What followed was weeks of uncertainty, a fight to get her accounts reinstated, and a story that has since attracted national media attention.
Nancy's experience is a powerful cautionary tale for every small business owner relying heavily on social media platforms to reach their audience. In this episode, we unpack what actually happened, the financial and emotional toll of losing access to your audience overnight, and the critical lessons every business owner needs to understand about diversifying [00:02:00] your marketing channels and owning your media.
Hello and welcome to Medium Magnet, the podcast for female founders and women owned businesses, startups, and side hustlers who want to learn how to grow their business, leveraging the media and free pr. I am Liz Nale, and I'm your host, personal publicist, PR strategist, and dedicated hype woman. My goal with this show is to give you a behind the scenes tour of how the media works to break down the barriers between your business and the big MA head.
So you can see how easy it is to get featured simply by giving journalists what they want at Media Magnet. You'll also get access to the top journals, editors, writers, and PR people in your industry and beyond sharing their secrets and expertise on the how, why, what and when of pitching and getting featured in the media [00:03:00] consistently.
I will share with you how to build your reputation as an industry expert. So successfully the media will be knocking down your door. When I first started in small business 12 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had spent 15 years as a television news reporter working at several major networks in Australia, and then as a freelancer in the US and around the world.
I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and traveling the world chasing stories. It was unpredictable and exciting until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next and where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's.
There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business, but getting media and great free PR was not one of them. I already knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made news, and I knew how to leverage those media [00:04:00] outlets to build my business, get more exposure, and ultimately make more sales.
I was featured in every major media outlet in the country, and I never spent a single cent on pr. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses. Let them in on the secret, and they too could build their brands with organic media and pr.
Let me help you take your brand from Best Kept Secret to household name. This is Media Magnet. The podcast and I'm pretty pumped to have you here.
Nancy McDonald: Hello
Liz Nable: Nancy, welcome to the show.
Nancy McDonald: Hi Liz. Nice to see you.
Liz Nable: I'm so excited about this conversation 'cause we've only just been speaking before. I hit record for five minutes about, um, this topic and it's. It sounds like it [00:05:00] enrages both of us, but we're super passionate about making something happen and giving small businesses a voice in this area.
Um, let's start out with you. Um, what do you do? What is your business? Um, I guess what brings you up to, to now?
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, so, um, I run a Homewares brand and started a Homewares brand called The Cars the Homewares four years ago. Um, which has, yeah, been my baby and my kind of great success story, but I have a very mixed career that got me there.
Um, so weird, wonderful job. Path that even made it possible to start La Kaza. So I started at NewsCorp as, uh, an intern when I was like 19 years of age. Spent eight years being a journalist and then went into PR roles and big brands. I've done in-house. I've done agency, agency, I've done issues and crisis, big consumer campaigns with brands like Kraft Heinz and um, Unilever and all of that.
Um, and. La Kaza was born because when you're a consultant and you're telling big [00:06:00] business an idea, they'll only ever do 80%. There's always like 20% left on the table. And so Laa is that full, a hundred percent running towards an idea and trying things. And I just kind of, um, yeah, back to myself and have channeled all my experience into our e-com brand and prior to everything that's gone on with the business today, which we can expand on, um, it was really successful and I'm really, it's something I'm really proud of.
It's a body of work that, um. Was yet 15 years in the making. So that's, that's kind of us. That's
Liz Nable: amazing. What is the, um, promi of Laso? Like what kind of homewares, like what's your market like? Give us, do a little bit of shameless self promotion here because you're Yeah,
Nancy McDonald: I mean,
Liz Nable: time. The,
Nancy McDonald: the thing is, is like, so when I first started the business, our first product was a white plate, just all white with a beautiful edge.
And I remember saying to my mom, I've quit my job. I'm watching this business. It's gonna be online only. Um, and she was like, oh God, great. Um, what are you gonna sell? White dinner plate and she was like, I think you've lost the plot. Like there [00:07:00] is no, like there is so many places that sell white dinner plates, but I was like, no.
It's like no one has elevated everyday pieces that are really affordable, but still luxurious and good quality. We're kind of between Kmart and your dinner set that you get for your wedding. So like you don't wanna bring out something that's like thousands of dollars every night to eat on, and then you just want something like, Kmart is amazing and they've got incredible pieces and Big W does as well, and Target and things like that.
But just wanted something like a little bit more in between that wasn't. Colorful and busy and just kind of a bit more chic. Um, so yeah, it's like we, we, we are elevated essentials essentially, um, is what we do. But we do specialize in a really beautiful set of white plates. We've got two standout designs.
Both just all white, um, but with really kind of intricate detailing, um, to the, the shape and the designs. And they're our best sellers. So 80% of our revenue comes from that little white plate that no one thought, um, would get off the ground. Um, [00:08:00] so yeah, we are just like a white dinner plate. We've got other great accessories and silverware and things like that, but we just really try and bring, um, yeah, a little bit more glamor to the, the everyday kind of pieces at a good price that kids can use and husband doesn't, you know, go.
What is this? Um. Yeah, that's kind of us and we found a good market for it. So there was a gap in the market, um, for, for what we do.
Liz Nable: That's so interesting. So it sounds like the white dinner plate was a winner 'cause here you are. Yeah,
Nancy McDonald: it still is
Liz Nable: incredible business. So we are here to talk about, um, a. I guess the dangers of like building your business on meta alone, and you are gonna talk about this in more detail and, um, I actually don't know yet if you did build your business on meta alone, but it sounds like there was a large chunk of your business coming from Meta.
Tell us about that part of your story, um, and lead us into, I guess, what your experience has been, and I guess what it's taught you about business, um, and that social media platform.
Nancy McDonald: I think, um, there's like so many [00:09:00] different parts to this and it's, it's really. It's a very, we're kind of like a cautionary tale now, I guess, in terms of our experience with Meta.
But because we're the nature of our products, we're beautiful homewares. We're highly visual, so naturally we've always gravitated to social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. Also, the homemaker is our number one purchaser, and so they use Facebook and Instagram just by nature of like 35 to 55 as kind of our customer.
So, um, just by sheer. Numbers. That's, that's where the platform is and that's where we've always grown. Now, if ain't broke, don't fix it. We had incredible social media following. We had like a cult following beautiful community. Um, we're really lucky in that we've always been really successful on Meta I.
Um, and that's where we've grown our community. So 95% of our revenue up until December was coming through those channels, so paid advertising and organic. And we also invested heavily in terms of creating beautiful content for that platform. So it was a huge [00:10:00] part of not only just, um, advertising spend, but our overarching strategy.
So all of our content was shot to appeal to Meta, which was an extension of our Shopify site. So all transactions were through Shopify, but all traffic and conversion was through Instagram and Facebook platforms. We still do Google Ads, we still have a TikTok and we still do other channels like wholesale, but it was nowhere near as successful.
And that's why I say For Ain't Broke, don't fix it. I definitely never planned for a day where that channel would not be. We would have access to it or it would be live, or it would be performing because. We were deep in the analytics of how it performed for us. Um, and it just, it just worked. Um, and we were growing and scaling on December 31st.
Our entire accounts were disabled without any prior warning, no notifications. So December 31st on my way to a New Year's Eve party and couldn't log into the app and I had, all I ever, ever had was one popup that said, you've been disabled because of. Reaching fraud, deception, scam policies as part [00:11:00] of community guidelines for meta.
Now, in those guidelines, it's things like money laundering. Now, I don't have like a jet ski or a big, you know, palatial home that I've bought off the back of, you know, laa. Every dollar we make goes into the business, so there's no way that any of those policies were, were accurate, and it was just. So jarring for me because I am a small business owner, but I'm across every single element of the business.
Like nothing. There's nothing I don't do or don't have like a knowledge about or a across. And so that just did not, that did not fly. It just was not, not possible. Um, so we started what was a very long appeals process off the back of that. And when you, if it ever happens to any other business that's in your community or.
It discovers, um, this podcast, essentially when the popup comes at the bottom is an appeal button and you have up to 180 days to appeal. But all the appeal process is done through the app. So you actually don't get much more than just to press the appeal button. No one asks you for your business banking accounts, any asset registries, [00:12:00] any taxation documents, any employment details, any registrations for like GoDaddy or Shopify or any of that.
Um. Nothing. It was just a button. And so then I went down this rabbit hole of the internet trying to find out how do I appeal this? How do I speak to a human being? At first you think, okay, it's ai. 'cause there's so many advances in ai, potentially we're just being on the wrong end of this. Um, but it, it wasn't, and so you just go down these rabbit holes and I think we sent between 38 or 40, um, emails to Australian meta employees.
So obviously being an ex journal. I kind of just forensic it like a journal would. Okay, so this is the problem. How do we go from here? So I reached out to eight different meta employees, tried to find anyone I knew that knew someone that worked in the hq, just to ask at that point. Stage one was just to ask for a manual or human review of our account because we had gone through everything [00:13:00] and we thought, okay, if a human being looks at this.
Maybe we are looking at seven days, you know, of dis act like being, um, deactivated. And that's on December 31st. So we're right in the middle of our black, um, our Boxing Day sale and January is one of our biggest sales months. So I'm thinking, okay, this is gonna be seven days. Um. And I also was trying to be rational thinking, okay, we're a small business that is huge.
Seven days is a probably a good turnaround for something like a human review process. By the time it gets escalated, goes through a process, you know, seven days. So at that point we were just following writing up the email template, which I can and send to you and you can send onto other people that I found that is allegedly what you use.
Um, and we sent it off to appeals@facebook.com. Um. ment@facebook.com and followed that process. We never, ever heard back from those emails. And it was, uh, someone from the tech council passed on a contact to me for someone in policy at Meta, [00:14:00] and I contacted them via email and I got kind of like a holding statement, um, saying that the account had been investigated and it had breached fraud, deception scam policies.
And then when I asked, okay, well can I please know what we did? Because. I was completely at a loss as to like, what would we have done? What, you know, what is it? And then for privacy reasons, they can't disclose that because it allows people to get around their policies, which I kind of understand that they have protective mesh methods in place.
But I was like, well, I'm the account holder. I'm the owner of this business. Can I not be told privately? Like the root cause because we, this is our, we have a channel dependency on this platform.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: And then we just never got responses. And so then that's why I mentioned about being an urner. We went to federal MPS and they all were terrific.
We went to the small business Ombudsman and we heard back within like minutes from most people. Um, we went to Chris Min's office and the New South Wales business Commissioner and they reached out on our [00:15:00] behalf. And it was only when the Federal MPS started to reach out on our behalf. We started to get some kind of responses back.
Um. But that was still probably 27 days in 21.
Liz Nable: Mind
Nancy McDonald: blowing. That's three weeks. Mind blowing. Blowing.
Liz Nable: Yeah. Billion, trillion dollar company. It's like, it's a game to see how long it takes you just to get someone's email and then to even like a human's email, and then to get them to email you back. Like I cannot imagine any other business that would be allowed to operate like that.
Like it just feels, yeah. Like the whole company policy is to hide behind this brick wall. It's, it's mind. That part alone is mind blowing.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, it, I mean, to not be able to speak to a human being, I just, I really just never thought it, that would happen, like 27 days of just literally looking at a notification on your phone and that's it.
Like that's the most communication you've had about your entire business. Like I just felt like the day that that account got disabled, I just felt like I watched my entire business just blow up in front [00:16:00] of me because I was like. You know, just we hadn't planned, planned for a rainy day of not having it, you know?
And that's, yeah.
Liz Nable: So you're on the way to this New Year's Eve party. You get the notification on your phone. Yeah. Did you just think at the night, on the night of like, it'll be fine, or you just like down that rabbit hole right away, knowing that this was a bad sign?
Nancy McDonald: I just kind of thought like, this is gonna maybe be seven to 10 days.
Before we're back. Yeah. So like we might have to do a bigger birthday sale and like we started thinking about strategies and like the main thing for me was kind of like, I have so many orders going out, how am I gonna speak to customers? Yeah. Because we didn't have, so one of the things that I would suggest is like growing your email database that you own from day one.
And so. I'm definitely not telling business owners not to use meta. Yeah, I think it's just about like making sure you don't have dependency on one platform ever. And so what I wish I had done was from the early days of that brand hype about La Caza and people wanting to be a [00:17:00] part of our community, I wish my call to action on socials wasn't just about following us on Instagram, but about subscribing to.
You know, register with laa in terms of giving us your email and promoting our loyalty program. 'cause we've spent a lot of time and energy on our loyalty program and it's, it's really good. Um, very generous discounts and we've built it that way. I wish I had done a call to action way back when for that 30, 40,000 following to become.
My email database, because now our email database is like a fraction of that. And so for me, because we're a small team too, I was like, oh my gosh, the community reach out and like managing customer service for this is gonna be so intense. Because you know, not every customer of ours is super digitally savvy.
They like to kind of see what's happening on Instagram. And normally if you have like a technical glitch, you probably put it on your Instagram story.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: So it was just kind of like, what do we do? And then. So I kind of think of it as like [00:18:00] stages of grief because you've got the very different stages of grief and then you know, you have lots of different people in your network and your family and your dynamics being like, this is outrageous, but you are still trying to be the business owner and rationalize okay, like one step in front of the other.
What's, you know, what do we do here? Um,
Liz Nable: tell me a bit about the, the damage financially to your business. Because you mentioned, um, I think before we hit record, that 95% of your sales was coming through that meta platform. Meta platforms, yeah. Uh, are you okay to be open about what that meant?
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, totally. I, because I think it's really important as well, because, so I would estimate, 'cause we've been.
We were out of action for just under 60 days. So two full months, um, all of January, all of February. Um, so we would anticipate that's $500,000 in revenue that we would've lost in that period, um, because that was what we were doing and on track to do so. In terms of our yearly target, that's what we were on track for, and there was no sign of slowing down.
If anything, we were [00:19:00] accelerating and in December alone. Like the three weeks of December from like the 10th onwards, we spent 130,000 on meta ads. Um, and we, you know, we have like quite a good return rate, so like in excess of 3.5 to five time return rate. So. Um, yeah, we were 130,000 in just December and just over 200,000 for like Black Friday and Christmas.
And then obviously we were spending more and more because we were getting more and more back. And our ads, we'd spent a lot of time, we probably spent about four months strategizing for our content for this Black Friday of like key learnings. And our Black Friday we did three times what we did last year.
So you're still a bit risk adverse, but I would never, uh, the most that we had ever spent on ads in a 30 day period with meta was 31,000. So to spend 130,000 was really us kind of throwing everything at the platform too. And, and to be fair, it was working. And so if you actually, you know, depending on the, um, the knowledge of your audience in terms of [00:20:00] spend, if we were sit to sit down with a spend agency or a digital, you know, specialist, they would've said, yeah, like if you made 30, like you spent 30,000, you got this return next year, you should probably.
Three times that and stagger it and kind of see, and over a seven day period, we definitely were seeing that growth. So over 30 days we kind of like, you know, health weather kind of went for it. Um, and then we were mid campaigns. I think that's the frustrating part is like we spent over 200,000 and then had the luxury of our account ripped away from us, but they took every advertising cent.
So then we were kind of like, we've spent the money but we're not getting the return. 'cause it's normally about a 45 day turnaround for our customers to kind of like purchase if it's not immediate. In terms of our cohorts, so, um. And I guess that's the thing is like we, um, sorry the light went off, but for me, but we didn't, um, we were just very dependent on Instagram and so we are a cautionary tale and, um, you know, I, I imagine most business owners would find themselves in that position, right?
You're spending money. It's like a, it's kinda like [00:21:00] a slots machine in a way. It's like gambling. You're putting money in, you're getting money out. So. Yes. It's interesting,
Liz Nable: isn't it? And it, it's, it's slightly different for me 'cause I'm a service-based business, but I, I've, I've been doing analytics of my last few launches and I, I was pretty, you sound like you're way more of a numbers gal than me, but I'm getting into numbers now and my last launch, um, I worked with my meta ads coach on this.
Um, and we applied, um, the strategy that we've been doing for the last sort of year and. A hundred percent. It was almost to the dollar. What was forecast? 'cause I probably tripled my spend. But it's nothing like your spend. But, um, but still, I, I completely agree with you. It's hard not to follow that, those breadcrumbs because it makes sense for your business.
But now that you have your account back, which you told me you got last Friday. Yeah. What are some of your top learnings and what will you do differently now that you know that building your business entirely on meta, although it's attractive and it's. It certainly doesn't mean you're not gonna use them, unfortunately for you.
I'm sure you'd love to [00:22:00] tell 'em to go and shove it, but they dominate the market. Like there's this, this is it, right?
Nancy McDonald: Yeah.
Liz Nable: What would you do differently now in addition to that, building that growth on, on meta and, and going where the, where the money is? What would you do now that's different?
Nancy McDonald: So I'll give you both.
I'll give you what we are gonna do, and I'll give you what I would do if I was starting again or if I was investing. So if I was investing in a business that was e-com led. I wouldn't really care about a lot of things other than I wanna know all your revenue split of how you, I don't care what the number is.
I don't care if you're making $10. I just wanna know what your revenue split is. Because I think if you've got a hundred percent of revenue, you should not be putting more than 20 to 30% in Meta ever. And anyone that had more than 30% revenue in meta I would walk away from, even if they were doing huge numbers, because it's too risky.
And so 20 to 30% I think is the sweet spot. 30% in key times like Black Friday or if you, if certain products lend themselves to certain things. So different milestones. For us, it's um, November, December, January, our birthday sale in [00:23:00] February. And then August is always really popular because we normally launch new collections.
So I would say definitely anything more than 30% is overexposed, therefore, too high risk for me to invest in. Then I would be building platforms like TikTok as well, um, and kind of scaling from there as well. And again, would know more than like 10 to 20%. And obviously if one takes off more than the other, you can move around.
But in terms of buckets, I would have. Multiple buckets. Um, I would also be growing email subscription as a priority. And I think any business that can turn around and say our largest data database cohort, our largest um, return is on email, I'd be like, great, because you own that. And so this is the thing is that what I didn't realize going into December 31st was that I don't own my channels.
I've spent hundreds of thousand dollars for the luxury of building a channel on someone else's platform that I have no ownership to. So I don't own the, the domain handle. I don't own the name, I don't own the users. I don't own any of it. Same with TikTok. Um, [00:24:00] same with Snapchat, any of these like kind of big tech platforms.
What you do own is your Google account. So Google is a far more user friendly, kind of big tech to play with. So traffic through there and really spending the time on SEO and Google. Words, um, again, would be like 20% of your kind of spend. Um, and then growing wholesale. So I would probably try and get your email database to like 30% and then have flexibility with that kind of like other 40, 50% there.
Um, and go, go from there because 20% online channel alone, that's not, email is just too high risk. Yeah. And two dependent on spend too. So this is the other thing is like organic versus spend. So if you are in that vicious kind of like poker machine, like slots machine, sorry, of like whatever you spend is what you're getting out, like that's kind of a little bit dangerous too.
So growing organic channels, starting a YouTube channel where you own the content on that platform, you have all the content that's yours working [00:25:00] with wholesale, um, subscribers. Anything like that and like building out a loyalty program is a big part of your strategy to then reward the email database customers that you have.
Um, that's kind of what I would suggest is like in terms of a new structure, breaking it down into buckets, depending on what you are, if you're an e-comm brand, if you're another business, put a hundred percent on the table and break it up into those buckets.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: In terms of us now, we'll probably still spend with meta, which I think is a weird thing to say, but.
A big communication part that needs to happen for us over the next few months. So we haven't, we got our accounts back on Friday. We haven't posted anything yet because we had a completely different strategy, which was like that channel was never coming back, and so we still just kind of needed to sit with it and.
Do things that are like more business operative and like speak to our customers one-on-one as opposed to, again, educating them through meta. Um, but we would definitely not spend more than 20 to 30%, again, as meta as our channel. So we'll push ourselves to be more creative [00:26:00] and do different things, and then we'll go more into wholesale, but then again, wholesale and direct.
You know, you never want too much of a split whole either because that has its own pitfalls. So, um, we will be very kind of like skewed in terms of like small buckets that have great return. Yeah,
Liz Nable: think diversification is the key. And I think that goes, it's a really interesting tale because this is one that involves meta, which is a big behemoth that controls a certain aspect of the market.
But I remember when I first started, I had a bricks and mortar business. I had fitness studios, and I remember after COVID. When we got shut down, thinking to myself, I will never build a business again where there are so many levers that I don't have any control over. Yeah. So, um, a landlord, I would buy my own.
And I know we are not always, you know, in a position to buy things like the property that we operate out of, but that was one of the things I would do differently. Um, I was in franchise agreements that I had no control over. I just felt like there was so many aspects of the business that I had no control over.
Um, [00:27:00] and obviously being online, um, I'm not a product-based e-commerce business. I'm a service-based business. I do control a lot more and you can't control everything. But if you are finding yourself in that situation, whether it's meta. Or a major landlord who's controlling what you can do or what you can say, or where your, you know, your signage is.
That's a really big red flag for me now looking back, because I think, yeah, it would happen if all of a sudden, which would happen to us in our business. We weren't allowed external signage. You know, that's huge. And it's the same, you know, lesson here is yeah, have a look at your business. What can you control?
What do you own? And that owned media, obviously I bang on about this 'cause it's what I teach and you know this 'cause you're a journal. Yeah. Is really being able to. Those owned channels. To me, what I've learned from building this business is they're so underestimated by business owners, you know, and that email database is a gold mine.
If you nurture Yes. And you love it, and you bring people [00:28:00] over from, um, social media consistently to those owned channels as well. Do you have any advice? For someone, for example, who's sitting on a large amount of followers who bring in the main part of their income, how would you advise that they start to bring people over to their owned media being their email database?
Do you have any ideas or strategies for that?
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, I mean, like, the thing is, is that if you are successful on the platform and getting like a five time return rate, 'cause you've then nailed your call to action and your content and everything, you can't just then turn around and change your call to action to subscribe because you will then see your revenue drop off in the same way of not having an account.
So I think it's about, um, I would just start testing a. In conjunction with your successful ads that do convert to make sure that you've got like other firing lines in the pipeline that you're testing and, and working out to see if that's, you can start doing the same kind of analytics on your call to action for subscribing if you can then migrate people over and just keep testing that until it works and you find a formula that works to, to bring people back into your [00:29:00] ecosystem, into an orange channel.
Um. I wouldn't do it overnight and just get rid of everything, um, because that just wouldn't work. But I would stagger, I know say you're spending $5, I'd put at least $1 of that spend into like a, a subscription call to action and see if you can build it. And I would invest in content and start thinking about loyalty programs and like what your messaging is, and make it unique that if you subscribe, you have a unique experience that's not found anywhere else.
It's like a back, you know, closed kind of VIP experience. Um. I also would just be commu, like communicating more about. You know, on your channels about the fact that you wanna have this direct relationship with your customer base too, and just kind of like, you know, now that you can see things like us, you know, happening in market, you know, you're so reliant on it and you want your customers to know that, you know, you give more generous discounts as a subscriber and that's kind of where you wanna have that direct relationship because you don't want the business to ever be too reliant on things.
I think transparency to consumers [00:30:00] to know if a business is changing things is, is fine, is, is probably relished because. We've had a lot of beautiful customers really like just sympathize with us and know like what we've gone through because we're not, we might seem like a big business online, which everyone like, you know, perceptions everything, right?
You try and be bigger than you are, but they know that like we're essentially a very small business and I kind of have my hands in most things.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: So I think just being honest about that, most people can really, like, you don't have to kind of pretend to be anything that you're not, if you decide to like, be transparent about why you're changing your strategy.
Um. Yeah. Even like sending emails, explaining that being like, for years we've grown on this channel and we are moving, you know, we're gonna now launch this loyalty program. We want you guys to connect. And like, that's where you'll be hearing from us most often.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: Um, if they know that, then they've got like a call to arms to kind of do that too.
And that's the best way, I think. Um, and then, yeah, just looking at different channels, like growing your own YouTube, like being part of your own content, like just really thinking about your content and breaking it down about. [00:31:00] What you're doing. Um, because if you don't challenge yourself and you are doing really well on Instagram, you just like, it doesn't mean it's gonna happen to you, like what happened to us.
Yeah. That is an incredible channel and you know, I'm not bitter about it, but it's, um, you know, what happened to us as well. I think that's the other thing is that, um. So we didn't actually breach any of the policies in terms of like content or anything that we did. It was actually manual intervention. So we had a customer who, um, put in the wrong address and, but they thought they could click and collect.
We don't offer click and collect as a service, and we especially don't during Black Friday and Christmas, they put in their address and they. Um, put in the address, but not the unit number. So when Australia Post has gone to deliver, they're not able to actually deliver because there's no apartment number.
And so it went to the local post office. Now that customer got multiple notifications from ZA through our Shopify, which are all automated, so it's not actually like you, it's not possible to not have received them because they go through [00:32:00] automatically. And then obviously Australia Post sent several notifications saying, your goods are here from this person that delivered, which we've all received.
Um, and all the tracking information was sent at the time. So all that. Data has always been available to the customer. Um, that customer was really unhappy with us, um, and came to our warehouse and. Um, tried to pick up the order and our reception said, we don't, they don't offer click and collect. Um, I could show you the link and like show them the link and I could Australia post.
Um, they just got very angry with us, um, and wrote like all over our Google, Google page. They wrote all over our Instagram and like, called us a scam and a fraud and said that we don't deliver on orders, whereas the order went out within 24 hours. So it was like in and out within like, you know, a matter of days and delivered within two days.
It's just that we are not, we can't. We don't know if someone's address is right or wrong. Like we, we don't have that. It, it's the only thing that kind of is automated from the customer. Um, so yeah, they kind of went all, all across our digital channels and kind of promoted that. And [00:33:00] then, um. When I was doing all the returns and they also put through for a chargeback so it got like a refund as well.
Um, even though the goods were sitting at the post office, but we do that, we give refunds all the time. 'cause I think it's the right thing to do. It's probably not the best business model, but I think it's the right thing to do in this day and age for consumers. So that was kind of the user experience.
And then when I was doing all the returns, I wanted to do them myself because we didn't have these channels. I wanted to be even more. On top of all the comms going out and, um, this particular customers ordered got returned to me at our hq and when I put in the details to our like CRM customer base, I saw that there was an email that was threatening to report us to meta, which was about five days before we got deactivated on meta.
And then just through like, I guess it's the journalistic instinct, I kind of had a sneaky suspicion that that person potentially. Worked at Meta or had something to do with Meta. Um, and then Channel Nine reached out to do a story and then through their investigation [00:34:00] and through them speaking to Meta, 'cause Meta actually spoke to the media.
They never spoke to us as the customer, but they spoke to the media, um, through Channel Nine's investigation. Meta on the record said that Yeah, it was manual intervention that
Liz Nable: Wow. This
Nancy McDonald: person, US customer. Um. Put in a complaint about the business. And that's, um, look, we've never had it on the record that that's kind of why it got disabled, but they weren't, there weren't any other triggers.
When we've been given back the platform and when we have been given back the platform, now, there was no signals or things that we did to breach the policy. So something's happened in that gray area. So one customer we do know in a policy,
Liz Nable: one customer, essentially, almost completely.
Nancy McDonald: Obliterated.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Obliterated Your business nearly sent you bankrupt.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah. And so I think that's, yeah, that's why I say we are a cautionary tale, but we're also, there's very specific nuanced detail to, I guess, um,
Liz Nable: yeah, it, it goes to show that that meta aren't. Like they're just going on. [00:35:00] Um, I mean, like you say, it, it's hard to know if that person did it was that person.
But it, it sounds pretty suspicious, but it just goes to show if, if it, there had been some sort of human intervention in the response to that you, you know, you wouldn't have lost your business if you'd had other ways to connect.
Nancy McDonald: And I think that's the thing is like meta, you know, you can't, I don't ever wanna, like, shit can matter because they also have allowed our business over four years to grow wonderfully and generate revenue and, you know, um.
It's hard because I, I think they are a great platform. There's just pitfalls to the appeals process and they are too big and there aren't enough humans and bums on seats to deal with this. And, you know, they do have a, they have a responsibility to have policies that protect customers and businesses too.
So we still want those policies. And we still want that in place, but what we need to do is like, we all make mistakes and so the appeals process needs to be overhauled and there needs to be more accountability, and there needs to be a dialogue, at least. I think like what I, you know, I'm not saying this is perfect, but [00:36:00] very minimum.
I would've liked to have had to have supplied documentation to prove that we were shipping orders through Australia Post. So, um, offered transparency where we had to like send a log or show our financials or show our years of trade of like, are we actually legitimate? Um, be interviewed like. Sign stat decks, like get our accountant to sign something on our behalf.
Like anything that could actually kind of be more of a formalized, um, appeal. I think a 30 day warning of like, if you don't do this within 30 days, your account will be disabled and it won't come back. I think that's fair and reasonable for a business to have to justify it to someone as big as net and give them like something that they can go off because otherwise, you know, even if it was.
I could go onto a business and just write whatever I want about it on there. And it doesn't mean it's true like you control companies, you know?
Liz Nable: Yeah. And this is the, this is the the other, I mean, this is a whole nother podcast episode, right? You can do it on Google reviews, [00:37:00] you can do it on social media.
Yeah. You know, crazy people can try and destroy your business and you've got no recourse to like prove them, you know, wrong or that that, that it's a mistruth or that's a dangerous place to be. And yeah, I, I think that the cautionary tale is absolutely diversify your channels of communication with your customers, but also that that meta response needs to be managed by humans because a human could have interacted and known within.
Five minutes that it was a little,
Nancy McDonald: I mean, yeah, I don't think, I don't know if it's like, you don't want them also to have like the power to say yes or no, like judge or jury. But there should be a systematic process of like, you know, tick boxes and you either meet the tick box or you don't. Um. I mean, we definitely had some complaints with like, delayed orders because of the, the peak period.
Like, we're not perfect either. But I think the thing is, is that we did like 1500 orders over a 60 day period, and we maybe had 12 comments that were even technically deemed negative. And I'm, I'm calling something [00:38:00] like, where's my order? A negative comment. Yeah. 12 comments over 60 days and 1500 orders, it's less than 1%.
So it's a disproportionate response to deactivate an account.
Liz Nable: Yeah,
Nancy McDonald: like even if you remove the meta employee who was upset with us, like remove that. It's still 13 comments versus 1500 orders. E-comm, anyone that runs an e-comm knows that you can't keep every customer happy and everything doesn't always go to plan.
So you can invest heavily into like fulfillment services. You know, so I think it's all about what's proportionate. 'cause less than 1% of comments is not enough to warrant that there's like actually behavior here that should be triggered. And then also meta's whole policies that they don't moderate or mediate content.
So then how would you then make that determination? Like there's a lot of things. So I think if it was legislated at a federal level, more about kind of, or there was an ombudsman, so there's a telco ombudsman and things like that. If you had an actual, like big data or tech. Ombudsman for this, you would actually be able to like, yeah.
Have an [00:39:00] appeal. And then it's at, it's at the business owner's discretion as well of like, you need to prove that you are not a scam of course. And that you're using the channel effectively. Yeah.
Liz Nable: It's the same with banking and, and chargeback. Yeah. You've gotta prove it. And if you can prove it, and a lot of the time the chargebacks are incorrect, so that, that's why there's a process.
Right. Um, just before we wrap up, what would you like to see? You sort of touched on that then, like in government, and we talked about this a bit before we, we hit record, but to me it feels like small businesses, it's. Never been more challenging to run a small business. And we are sort of getting eaten alive at both ends.
We don't have the power of negotiation of big businesses. We don't have deep pockets. We are running this ourselves and we also don't have anyone protecting us at a government level as a, yeah, an industry, a small business industry, like there's specific associations like the Hotels Association and those sorts of things, but it seems bizarre that like.
To me that 97.3% of businesses in Australia are considered small to medium sized enterprise, but we have no one representing us at a federal level.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, and I think this is the [00:40:00] thing is that every politician will say, you know, small business is the backbone of this country, and like we care about small business.
And it's like, okay, well what I would love to see is a breakdown of small business in this country and how much of it is reliant on digital channels and therefore overhauling kind of like I spoke, like I have a big background in FinTech and working with founders in that space. And part of the reason why our FinTech and tech community in Australia is so strong is because there was legislation that was like anti-competitive and things like that that came in during Morrison and Turnbull's government and their time in office that really protected and created like great reforms and legislation for the FinTech and tech community.
And now we have all these great success stories years on who are going on to great things. E-commerce is a huge part of small business in Australia. Small pit, like globally, but e-commerce is the new kind of norm, and it is a new revenue channel and you've got, you know, massive amounts of money coming through it.
We need an ombudsman, we need a federal legislation, and we need something to overhaul and look at small business, not just the cost [00:41:00] of utilities and those sorts of things, but actually like the business practices. Most of us are heavily reliant on digital channels and big tech, like whether it's Google, whether it's TikTok, whether it's meta.
Like there needs to be reform there, there needs to be protect that, you know, just needs to be completely overhauled. And I think if someone at a federal level is serious about small business, then they should be working with the ombudsman and like state governments and like their commissioners and things like that to make sure that examples like us unpacked and kind of learn from, um, and work with big tech at that kind of higher level to.
Sure that there's that protective methods in place because you know, we've got huge success stories in e-comm coming out of Australia that are global brands. And so we need that. We need that to happen.
Liz Nable: Just my last question, 'cause I'm just in like, maybe I'm just nosy, but I wanna know, yeah. First of all, refund from meta for the money that you spent and also like how do you reconcile half a million dollars in lost revenue?
Like are you okay with that now or are you like, how can I make [00:42:00] that back? Like, yeah, I mean, it just makes me feel ill.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, I think that's the thing, and this is kind of one of the reasons why I'm always happy to be transparent about my background because, um. I definitely, like every founder has like a superpower and like, you know, like all those sorts of things that you talk about.
But basically all that means is like as a founder, you're good at some stuff and you're really bad at others. And like my thing that I'm really good at is resilience. And it's probably a little bit like, doesn't serve me so well sometimes too, because I'm too resilient. But I've had a very layered. Career and lots of different challenges, and I've kind of played roulette with my career and went to businesses to learn things, to get to meet this position, and I think it is frightening.
Just think about someone else who could be in my position and what I've kind of gone through. I'm lucky that that's my main thing that gets me going. But I really do, the reason why I'm really strong about the advocacy side and sharing my story and being as transparent as possible is because if it happened to someone else, we could have been a very different [00:43:00] response and like emotionally, very triggering and like, you know, just completely ruining someone's livelihood.
And it's not a secret, like my, my whole livelihood is through La Kaza. Like I'm paid full time. It's my only job. Um, I'm a black majority owner of the business. You know, it was, that's it was my everything. And so, yeah, to reconcile half a million dollars, I just have to, you know, it pushes me to be more creative and strategize and kind of go from here.
Um, and I'm lucky that I've had like great support, but. It, it's not, it's not an easy pill to swallow and there is no sugar coating it. Um, and we would love to be credited back by meta for our advertising just because of even like the customer journey of like, say we spent money with them in like November, probably they weren't gonna purchase through January, but we were offline on the platform.
And then like that brand trust is gone and like reputation, like, you know, they put out a public statement to Channel nine. Had multiple signals for fraud, deception, and scams. Well, I've got my account back and it's all green ticks and there's no signals. And the letter I got [00:44:00] when we got the account returned from Meta Inc.
Definitely doesn't say there was multiple violations, so Wow. You know, like I've got a thick upper, like a thick skin and a big appetite for PR and like as an NextGen like yourself, like I can do it in an interview and I'm happy to do that, but that's not. Every small business owner,
Liz Nable: no.
Nancy McDonald: Like, you know, we're not talking someone who's got years of media, you know?
Liz Nable: That's right. And I feel like you, it's an unfair Yeah. You're well versed. You know your stuff, you're diligent, you're, you know, dogmatic, and you're like this journo detective, right? To get to the bottom of it. Most small business owners, that's not their superpower. They're passionate about their product or their service, or their, you know, they're balancing a million other things.
And this is not something that they would survive through.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah, and I think the other thing is like, um, the world has become a little bit too unkind as well. I think Google reviews and comments and like very quick to like even customer service, like some of the emails that come through from our customer service.
I'm like always just like a bit baffled [00:45:00] at like the way that people choose to speak to people. And I think, I think there's just a bit more kindness as well in terms of these digital channels that could be really helpful as well of just. You know, every time you are writing something about a small business, just remember like that's another person on the other end.
And like, not everyone's perfect, but you know, to, to be in a position where someone's saying that we're a fraud or a scam, like, you know, we have challenges. We might be delayed on orders or we might have like, but we're not running a scam. Like, you know, I think there's no way we would go to the media.
Yeah. So I think there's a bit of kindness as well. And I think if you are starting out in business, like encouraging that kindness and I think having a voice. For me, one of the things that was really mentally very hard was knowing that we hadn't really done anything but that technically the outside, you know.
But what really upset me was one person said to me, there's three sides to every story. And I think that's a very normal response for a human being, to think like there's the truth, there's someone's version, and there's another version. And what was [00:46:00] really hard for me to accept during this whole ordeal was I knew, I knew what had happened.
But I had so many limitations to be able to prove it, appeal it, and make that business come back and be a reality. And so, you know, as someone who's very well versed in reputation, our business has definitely had a reputation here. And I think there's no way of sugarcoating it. There's the monetary side, but if, if you are a normal customer and someone gets kicked off meta, you are not gonna think, oh my gosh, that poor small business owner.
Like what?
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Nancy McDonald: You're just gonna legitimately, um. So, yeah, you know, I think there's, there's so many things, like there's the monetary of 500,000, but like there's reputation costs and it takes a big, it takes gusto to like really kind of push through that and have the confidence then have direct conversations with customers.
Like during that period I called maybe like, I think 300 plus customers who had like a delay or just to check on their order or like [00:47:00] just to anything like, just to have that human approach. And I think, um. Yeah, I think that that's just another big part of it as well, is like if it does happen to you or someone does kind of write something about it, like not losing the confidence that just to be a normal person, you know, I think there's like so many things of what I've gone through in terms of like, it is very hard, but we are in this weird digital world where everyone's a keyboard warrior and I think it's like, it is okay as a business owner just to be honest about like, Hey, yeah, cool, we make mistakes.
We're like, we're not hurting anyone, we're not harming anyone. Um, we're doing the best we can.
Liz Nable: Nancy, I think you're amazing. I don't think there's many people like you who would still be standing after what's happened to you. Um, I have to run. It's been amazing to chat with you. Yeah,
Nancy McDonald: you too.
Liz Nable: And I'm, you know where I'm running to, I'm going to Laa to buy myself some elevated white plates, as should everyone who's listening to this podcast.
Nancy McDonald: Yeah. Some classics.
Liz Nable: Yeah. You wouldn't be telling this story if you weren't the real deal, if you didn't know yourself. If you [00:48:00] clearly, you know, it's a business that you've built on love and Yeah. Passion and you've worked your ass off to get where you are. Um, and I, I love the story, but I, I hate that this is happening to small businesses.
But
Nancy McDonald: yeah,
Liz Nable: I can see you telling this story on stages, small business summits. Women in like, I just feel like this is such a, an interesting story, but you know, I think you're amazing to still have the attitude that you have. 'cause I don't even know if I would be, I don't know. It it, I just think you've managed it beautifully and um,
Nancy McDonald: thank you.
I mean, at the end of the day, we sell white dinner plates, like you said. We're not,
Liz Nable: yeah,
Nancy McDonald: we're not reinventing the world. We're not harming anyone. I'm not selling for cellulite treatment or. You know, weight loss drugs, like what turns off is a white dinner plate. So we know,
Liz Nable: you know what? White dinner plates, it's, it's a nice distraction.
It's a, you know, like you say, it's a bit of a luxury for people to have. You've done, you've built an amazing business off it, so it can't be too bad of an idea. Um, thanks so much for being on the show, Nancy.
Nancy McDonald: Thank Liz. I appreciate it.
Liz Nable: It is forever.
Nancy McDonald: [00:49:00] Yeah. Enjoy your afternoon.
Liz Nable: Good
Nancy McDonald: luck.
Liz Nable: Yeah, you too. Thank you.
Nancy McDonald: Thanks for the time. Cheers. Bye.
Liz Nable: Bye. This episode of Media Magnet was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, the Media Masters Academy. The Media Masters Academy is a live online six week course taught by me and designed to teach you how to become your own publicist and give you exclusive access to pitch the country's top journalists and editors doors open just three times a year.
Check it out@liznable.com, along with a ton of free resources to help you get started taking your business from best kept secret to household name. Right now, if you love this episode of Media Magnet, please share it with your business buddies or on social media and tag me at at Liz Naval. And if there's a specific guest you wanna hear from on the show or a topic or question you want to know more about, please tell me so I can make sure the show stays dedicated, [00:50:00] especially for you.
