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How To Sell Out Your Products on TikTok with Cocktail Cards Founder, AJ Rantz

• Kyle Kaplanis / AJ Rantz - Cocktail Cards • Episode 74

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TikTok is the best place to launch your business but not only that the best place to sell out your products!

Join me as I talk with Cocktail Cards founder, AJ Rantz. AJ and I talk about his story how COVID ended his bartending job, which lead him to create Cocktail Cards. He talks about the highs and lows to kickstarting a business, and how to overcome them. We also talk about how TikTok completely changed his life, and how his SVL (Story, Value, Lifestyle) strategy can help make your next video one that changes your life!

This is an episode you do not want to miss!

Guest:
AJ Rantz
Founder of Cocktail Cards
335K TikTok followers, (as of August 17, 2022)

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Kyle Kaplanis

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Kyle Kaplanis:

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to BizTok for TikTok. Today I have a really, really, really exciting guess. And what makes this so fun is we're gonna be talking about cocktails. Well cocktail cards and in the studio today, we have AJ Rantz, who is the owner and founder of Cocktail Cards. And you may have seen him over on TikTok with 335,000 followers. And on this episode today, we're gonna touch base on how COVID. Changed his scenario and what led him to using TikTok to start this business idea and we're gonna learn a little bit more about his journey of cocktail cards have been and what he's doing now, and if he's had success or fails he's learned along the way. So AJ, welcome to BizTok for TikTok.

AJ Rantz:

Hey, thank you so much. I feel like this, podcast is made for me.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly. Funnily enough, I started, this podcast in March of 2020, so over two years ago, which is pretty insane. March, 2020 was when COVID was really starting to get started. But I thought, how cool would it be to talk to businesses and people in this space, that are doing interesting things and seeing how TikTok has helped them kickstart or launch their, new careers, their side hustles. Yeah, this is a perfect podcast for you. So I'm really pumped to have you on.

AJ Rantz:

What's crazy is March, 2020 is when I basically was outta work, really due to COVID and that's when the wheels for all of this started was that exact month as well.

Kyle Kaplanis:

AJ, that's a perfect starting point to like, give us a little bit of your origin story. Who are you? What's your background?

AJ Rantz:

I'm really a Northwestern kid. I grew up in Seattle or around Seattle, most of my life. I've been to college a couple times, have a degree in biochemical engineering, thought about getting into dentistry, all this type of stuff, and really couldn't find anything that made me happy. A job that I would do for the rest of my life. And I got into bartending to pay for college. Right. And I loved it. Like it was really fun. I enjoyed it. The hours weren't great. it was pretty hard on your body. But it was actually something I enjoyed, which was pretty cool. I ended up doing that for over 10 years, I was a bartender. I've worked at all kind of places. I know everyone knows a dive bar, everyone knows a craft bar. I've worked the gamut. I've worked all different kind of bars you could think of and, really enjoyed it, but I was ready to move on to something else. And I actually left the bartending industry, a little bit before March of 2020, and I started applying for other jobs to do something else. And then COVID hit.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

Jobs are like, oh actually we have no positions anymore. Exactly. I'm like, oh crap. Well, I always have bartending. So I go back to the bar, and they're like, actually we're shutting down. Being in Seattle, the whole city shut down.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

And I found myself out of a job for over a year.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yeah. Yeah. Which is it's insane. It affected everybody in one way or another, in insane ways. So basically now you're out of a job, right? You're like, oh, now what? And the thing is during that time as well, it's not like a bunch of jobs opened up for those who, couldn't work. So what did you do from there?

AJ Rantz:

For a little while, I just applied to every single job that popped up, everywhere. I probably applied to over 200 jobs.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Wow.

AJ Rantz:

I got called in for four of'em for interviews and one job was, really on board with having me join. They like the scrappiness cuz during that time, I was trying to get a YouTube channel. I was trying to think of any way to make money, honestly. Mm-hmm I mean, exactly. I Googled how to make money online and I'm like, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, so one kind of like the scrappiness of it, but that job actually disappeared because of COVID. And all the other three basically said, we could hire anyone we want right now. You're just a bartender. I don't really see what value you're gonna bring.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. And there was probably this six month period of just getting torn down to the core man, like talk about, confidence at zero.

Kyle Kaplanis:

For sure. Yeah, for sure. Your confidence is like in the dumps, you're at the lowest point, that you've been in a long time. And I think, a lot of us were definitely found there, but were you thinking at home like, okay, people are stuck at home. I'm sure people wanna have a drink. Is that where your thoughts started going?

AJ Rantz:

Yeah, it was interesting how it all worked out because that was happening all the time. Was everyone stuck at home and Cinco de Mayo comes around, I'd get 20 text messages, "Dude, how do I make a margarita?"

Kyle Kaplanis:

Really?

AJ Rantz:

What's your margarita recipe? And I give it to him and I wouldn't really think anything of it. Mm-hmm , I'm like, man, I just really wish I could afford to go party with those guys, but I can't, you know? Right. That's all that was going through my mind. When I said I was, looking at all these different ways to make money online, I went down a lot of really bad rabbit holes. But I popped out with a couple good business models and one of them is creating a product you could sell on Amazon.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yep.

AJ Rantz:

And I ended up joining, a couple courses. People will say there's a million different ways to sell on Amazon. There really are. And none of 'em really spoke to me except for one, said it was basically all about creating your own product, a passion product, right? Yep. Something, you know, well, something you can create a brand around and that really hit home for me. Mm-hmm and I'm like, you know, If we're at ground zero, let's just build this baby up the way we wanna build it. Right. So like that idea. And, I was in there chatting with, the guy who was putting on the course and I was in there, gosh, for probably four months, I couldn't come up with an idea. I am not an idea guy and, he basically just hit me up. He is like, why don't teach people how to make cocktails, but turn it into a product like flashcards or something like that.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

At first I was like, that's the dumbest idea ever. I wanna create a real business. And he is like, no, I think it would do really well. There's nothing else on the internet.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

And then I thought about it overnight and I'm like, whoa, I go to Amazon. I search it in. There's not a single thing there. And I'm like, wow, flashcards. Would've been so helpful for me when I was bartending . And I was you know what I'm gonna do it. Let's just try it. And then, I think I posted on Instagram that day, a really crappy Photoshop version of a card. And then. I started probably about a week later, got on TikTok and just started trying to build a TikTok account, which did not go very well at first.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Really?

AJ Rantz:

Yeah.

Kyle Kaplanis:

So before these ideas, you were not on TikTok before?

AJ Rantz:

I had a personal account. That was actually doing pretty well. I think I'm almost at 200,000 followers on that, but at the time I think I had like, 50,000 followers. So I kind of understood trends and how to use the app and record and stuff like that. Yeah. And that's actually what gave me the confidence to be like, okay, let's focus on TikTok a little bit for this business, because like me with no skills, no ability can get 50,000 followers. Like mm-hmm I think I can get a thousand people who would be interested in this product on TikTok.

Kyle Kaplanis:

For sure. And during that time , were you trying on all platforms or were your main focus for TikTok?

AJ Rantz:

At first the main one was YouTube,

Kyle Kaplanis:

Really? Okay.

AJ Rantz:

So I was like, this is the easiest, a nice, slow video where I can teach people how to make a cocktail. And YouTube did pretty well for me in the beginning. So I think I have somewhere around 14, 15,000 followers over there now. And I have one video that I made very early on that's I believe close to 800,000 views. That was a good Springshot. It doesn't have that speed of growth.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yeah.

AJ Rantz:

Like new TikTok had.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

And I was in a little bit of a panic stage cuz I was outta money. My girlfriend was covering the mortgage at that time.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

She gave me a timeframe she's like six months. You're paying for the mortgage or the house is gone. Okay. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna hyperfocus on TikTok and figure this out. But I probably was on there for three months and couldn't get past, a hundred followers.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Really?

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. My top view video probably had 90 views and I was trying to all these trends make 'em cocktail, fun related. And I'll be the first to admit my content was not great back then.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Whose is off the bat? Yeah, nobody.

AJ Rantz:

Exactly. We all started at zero, you know?

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly.

AJ Rantz:

And then I really just had to go through a growth stage with TikTok,

Kyle Kaplanis:

The three months just not were taken off and were you just like, I gotta double down on this? Where do you think it transitioned to start getting traction or start growing? What was that video or moment that really helped?

AJ Rantz:

One of 'em is actually when I decided to follow through and create an actual physical product, like I said, I'm under the gun, like, yeah, there's no excuses anymore. Right? My back is against the wall. I have to fight my way out and I wanted to get a designer because the product is all about style. It's all design.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Totally.

AJ Rantz:

And I know some of your stuff gets shown on video, but yep. This stuff is, it's a box with a very beautiful design.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Very nice.

AJ Rantz:

And over 103 cards, which are all designed, that's the product. And I'm like, Ooh, it's not working with me designing the product. It's just not gonna work. So I had to hire this designer and I had to come up with 1500 bucks for a down payment

Kyle Kaplanis:

mm-hmm

AJ Rantz:

I was like, how about I run this Indigogo campaign, right? Try and raise some money and see what happens. And I was able to get enough money for a deposit. After two weeks. And I had him design the box in like three different cards with the deposit. I took that, I printed it out on my printer and glued it to the box. And it's somewhere in this room. I don't have it with me, but it is the worst looking prototype ever. But it was enough for me to make a TikTok about it. About designing it, hiring a designer and doing this thing that I have no idea what I'm doing. But I did it. And, that actually went viral on TikTok. Oh, wow. That was the first one. I had a hundred followers and it got 600,000 views and everyone wanted to order it on indigo guys.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That was so cool.

AJ Rantz:

Ended up raising. Yeah. We ended up raising $22,000 that day.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Holy shit. So, okay, so you , you needed$1,500 for a down payment for this designer to make this product happen. So you made a TikTok about it, explaining your story around that mm-hmm and it blew up and you ended up being able to pre-ordered $22,000. So therefore the design fee was covered. The whole I'm sure was covered.

AJ Rantz:

Design fee was covered. And then of course, the next step, which I was. Absolutely terrified is actually ordering inventory.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right?

AJ Rantz:

That's the big money. And it's like, oh my gosh, there's no way I don't know how I'm gonna do this. But a lot of entrepreneurship is just figure out one problem at a time.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yes.

AJ Rantz:

Conquer the next problem once you get there. And when I had no other options, it's okay, let's do it. Let's conquer it one problem at a time. I have no other choice.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's insane. Question , was your audience able to help you with the design process?

AJ Rantz:

Yes. Once I was able to fully pay the designer, mm-hmm to finish this product, we actually made a lot of changes. So the prototype that I used in that first viral TikTok, the cards are actually totally different. The logo itself is the same mm-hmm, but the box design's different. The layout of the cards what's included on the cards, they all kind of changed.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yep.

AJ Rantz:

That was what most of my content was at the time was what do you guys think? Should they be horizontal? Should they be vertical?

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yep.

AJ Rantz:

What's easier for you guys learning? Should I look up the history of all these drinks and yeah. You know, have fun facts. Should I taste test each one of 'em and tell you exactly what it tastes like.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Right.

AJ Rantz:

Make it, and everyone wanted things and they didn't want other things. It was pretty cool. And then the last addition we decided to put on them was since I was making these videos on YouTube. Showing people how to make all these drinks. We decided to put a QR code on each and every card. Yes. So you scan it and it takes you right to a video. So, if the card, maybe something's not clicking, you can't quite figure it out. Or you're not sure what it's supposed to look like. Go watch the video and a hundred percent, you can make the cocktail at that point. And I tell people all the time I'm like, I came up with the idea, but my audience designed the product and it just made it what it is today.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly. And to me, that right there is like gold. For people who are looking, do I use TikTok? Do I not? If you're a small business and you're looking to design a product or anything, how cool is it that there's an audience out there that wants to give you feedback. And the best part about that, those are your consumers. You're getting feedback from not other business people that, this is the way I did it or whatever. You're getting it from your consumers that are like, I would buy this. If it had this, I wouldn't buy this if it had this. You're getting real time feedback to be able to design a product that's going to win. That seems like what happened. And that right there is where TikTok also has a lot of power. Is that instant feedback where, like you said, on YouTube, on Instagram, there's slower growth there. So maybe you wouldn't have had that feedback and maybe your product wouldn't have been as successful if you didn't have that audience feedback. To me, that's huge.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. And it was really cool cuz so many people were seeing my content for the first time. Right. Because the first viral video, I could have a clickable link where, I could either send them to Indigogo to continue raising money or I can send them into a Facebook group where we're really doing all the design stuff. Right. And like you said, those people are going to be your consumers because they're now part of the story.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly.

AJ Rantz:

They wanna now be fully part of the story and by when it's done. And so I had about almost a thousand people in that Facebook group.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Wow.

AJ Rantz:

And we're all just designing the product, which drink should we include, which we leave off. That was probably one of my favorite parts outside of the fact I'd Wasn't really making money back then. Mm-hmm it was just the most fun, raw experience of it all. Until the product was pretty much fully ready to send over to the designer and just wrap it up. And then that's where things start to get really crazy is around that time.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Talk to me a little bit more. What do you mean by crazy? What does that mean?

AJ Rantz:

So things were slowly growing. I probably had, I'd say probably 4,000 followers on TikTok had some really good views we raised, I think at this point, probably around $27,000, which was awesome.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yeah.

AJ Rantz:

but the design work, having to pay my mortgage right there. Wasn't a whole lot of money left over to do a massive order. And business 1 0 1 for people out there when you order from a manufacturer and you only order 250 units, something makes expensive $10. Yeah, exactly. But if you can order 1500, you can probably get that price down to $7 or $6. And that was the battle I was at. It was so tight. I'm like, there's no way I can do that. Cuz you also have to pay to get your product shipped to you.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly.

AJ Rantz:

And so that's a bigger cost, the more you order. And I was so nervous. I couldn't sleep at all. We're like, we're almost here. We have this product, and I decided to post more TikTok, get more people excited about it, and we're able to get that money raised up. This is just a grind stage, right? Mm-hmm get that money up to around $44,000. I feel comfortable ordering 1500 units. Yep. And, the product it's shipped to me, I'm learning so much about business now. It's wild. Mm-hmm I'm like, holy crap. What did I get myself into? They show up. I have to ship out 1300 orders, right. Of cocktail cards, which holy crap is a lot of work.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's a lot. Mm-hmm,, AJ Rantz: that's a lot. So I had a really good friend, and I had my girlfriend's mom just boxing up orders all day for multiple days in a row, sending him out. And then, I had about 200 left. And I'm like, The whole goal of this thing was to get on Amazon. Let's not sell these, let's send 'em into Amazon and see what happens. Right.

AJ Rantz:

So I send 'em into Amazon and, it takes a couple weeks for them to check all that stuff in. Yep. And we're on there and I'm like, okay, I got an Amazon launch date. Let's do it. I go live. And there's one sell for the first four hours. And I'm like, oh man, this sucks. What do I do? What do I do? And I was like, let's do a TikTok telling the whole story that, right. Yeah.

Kyle Kaplanis:

How do.

AJ Rantz:

Creating this product, raising enough money to get designer and so on and so on. Let's do it. So I posted that thing and that is the moment my life changed was posting that video because it ended up getting, nearly 6 million views. We sold out on Amazon in two hours and everyone wants to buy them. So I'm like, oh crap, what do I do? Right. So I redirected 'em back to Indigogo cuz they allow me to continue raising money even after campaign. And we finished that day with $57,000 in sentences. Shit, AJ. Yeah, dude. And it, it kept coming in throughout the rest of the week. And the Indiegogo, by the end of the week was over $107,000.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Wow. From literally that one viral TikTok. One video

AJ Rantz:

Changed my life.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Wow.

AJ Rantz:

And there's so many other things that built off of that. So I got an email from, one of the directors at excess Hollywood. They're like, we want you on the show. I'm like me like me. Okay. So I flew down the next day went on excess Hollywood, that got a ton of sales in there and were able to do larger inventory orders. I went from having a 20% profit margin to a 40% profit margin like that.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Nice, nice.

AJ Rantz:

And when you have no money, oh boy profit margins are everything

Kyle Kaplanis:

right? Exactly. So one TikTok video change your entire life. Mm-hmm and now your business is off the ground and it is successful and you're still racking. Tons of orders. Right?

AJ Rantz:

Kind of.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Okay.

AJ Rantz:

Here's the problem. When a video goes viral mm-hmm and you sell all your inventory. You're out of inventory for a very long time. Mm-hmm so there was this battle of can I get enough inventory in and of the year that I was selling? Were about to reach a year of being live. I probably only had inventory for six months. Wow. There's a lot of money missed out on the table. Early on. I had an excuse. I couldn't afford all that inventory. Again, I came from a place where my confidence was completely shattered. I had zero confidence in myself, in me running a business, and. I under ordered inventory every time mm-hmm and I killed myself, I'd probably have double the sales I have today. And that was a battle. And then it was always, I'm pre-ordering cuz I created a website at this point. Yep. I wanted to allow people to pre-order and they did, they pre-ordered and then I get the inventory and I'm shipping out 80% of it right away. So there was a lot of ups and downs. I wasn't using my time, the right way. Mm-hmm I wasn't able to make a lot of TikTok because I'm shipping all this stuff out myself.

Kyle Kaplanis:

You're so busy.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. So there, there were ups and downs, but as far as problems to have, I couldn't think of, you know, a better problem. Right? Exactly. So it's not like, oh,

Kyle Kaplanis:

I can't keep inventory in, damn.

AJ Rantz:

But I talked to other successful sellers and they're just like, oh my gosh, dude, that's the coolest thing in the world. but, well, we gotta tweak this. We could handled this so much better. yeah. And then the next thing we had to do was we're starting to get around holiday time. Mm-hmm I have no inventory and I'm like, okay, we gotta get a big order in before the holidays. And COVID spiked again. Right? There's all these protocols. Now it's gonna take two months to make inventory. Now it's gonna take an extra month issue. Yeah. And I'm. Oh shit. Okay. I can't not have inventory for the holidays and I ended up doing one of the hardest. I still don't know if it's a mistake or not, but, I ended up taking my entire inventory and getting it flown to me, which cost $69,000.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Are you serious?

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. To make the inventory was around $35,000

Kyle Kaplanis:

thousand. Yeah.

AJ Rantz:

That's when my bank account went all the way back to zero. Holy shit. Yeah. And because I just wanted it around for the holidays, right?

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yeah. You wanted to have people have these cards so they can enjoy the holidays and make some cool cocktails at home when we're all stuck at home.

AJ Rantz:

Exactly. And at this point, the reason why my TikTok were starting to go viral is I was so vulnerable at this point. Mm-hmm like, I'm letting people know the highs, the lows, the wins, the losses.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly.

AJ Rantz:

Once I paid for it, I felt like it was a loss mm-hmm cause it was just such a dumb thing to do to take all my profits and just throw it all away to get inventory quicker,

Kyle Kaplanis:

to put it on a plane.

AJ Rantz:

yeah. To put it on a plane and I'm like, oh man, what did I do? But again, TikTok responds pretty heavy to that. Right. And they, well. I'm gonna get it for a gift, then I'm gonna buy five for friends and family. People at this point are on board with the story mm-hmm and they want, they wanna give them out to friends and family and be a part of it. So we ended up, doing, somewhere around$47,000 in sales in November, and then around $58,000 in sales in December profit margins were only around 23%. Some people come over and they talk to me and they're like, okay, here's the thing. 23% of this is a hell of a lot better of 0%.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's those learning lessons though, like in our business careers and through our journeys that help us, for the next time, the next go around, you know? So was it a mistake? I don't think so, because that was a huge, valuable lesson for you as a business on moving forward and without that, maybe later on down the line, you would've made a bigger mistake without that early lesson. But my key takeaway, from all of this, and I would love to get your opinion, but storytelling, I think is one of the top things that people need to be doing. If they're a business, would you agree?

AJ Rantz:

I agree. I actually have this thing. I call it the SPL strategy. Where you need to have story, you need to have value and you need to have lifestyle content. And what that does is obviously the story. It allows people to see what you're doing, what you're working on, what business you're doing, your highs, your lows, your vulnerabilities, your wins. Yes. It lets people see what you're working so hard on. Yes. And then you need value. because you know what? The universe is, the universe, and there's a thing called the law of reciprocity. Yes. And if you ever want anything to come back to you, you've gotta put value out there first mm-hmm . So that was me doing so many cocktail videos doing so many how to make clear ice videos, how to do this. Yep. DIYs, hacks, tips, tips, tips, tips, tips, asking nothing in return.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Absolutely.

AJ Rantz:

And that's really big. And I think when you start, you should go real heavy with value content. And real heavy with story content. Absolutely. And then 10% of the time bring people into your world and figure out who you are and what's important to you.

Kyle Kaplanis:

I love that. The SVL strategy that's golden man.

AJ Rantz:

And you can incorporate your business into it as well. Right? We love to hike, so. Why not record myself going on this hike. And people are like, wow, the cocktail guy going on a hike, I guess that kind of makes sense. But we get to the top of this snowy mountain and we bust, we make hot toddies. Right? Exactly. Exactly. So it's related, you're learning more about me. Yes. And then TikTok is also a really great tool for. For you to also share what matters to you a lot. And one of my mentors and really good friends, who taught me so much about bartending, he ended up passing away from cancer. Mm. And I know how important it is to have, the cancer societies and stuff, getting funded and improving their medical technologies and all that type of stuff. So, I like to go live and raise money often on TikTok for the, cancer society. Last year, I was able to raise over $40,000 for cancer society just doing lives. Wow. No way. Yeah. So we would. I have this hook and ring game down in my basement by my bar and be like, all right, I got 10 shots who wants to bet, money to donate. If I don't sync it, I'll give you a free box of cocktail cards and I'll donate five bucks to the charity. If I do sync it, you gotta donate, 10 bucks to the charity or whatever. And then I got even to the point where people were like, if you take a shot of, for. I'll donate 25 bucks. Right. and, I'll be like, okay, we could do that. Let's do it. So I'm having fun with it. I'm letting people know what's important to me. I could do anything with my night, but I decided I wanna raise money for charity.

Kyle Kaplanis:

I love that,

AJ Rantz:

and that's part of that lifestyle as well. And it adds moral personality and importance to your business also. Exactly.

Kyle Kaplanis:

This strategy right here is all you need. And a lot of people overthink it, but it really is. And the number one, way to sell out things or whatever is to humanize your brand. When people have a personal connection to you. They're sold. It's like a friend telling you to go see a good movie. You're most likely gonna go do it. When you're able to tell your story, people get to learn a little bit more about, you make some sort of connection. You have a consumer for life that is now gonna go out and tell the world. Tell their friends about you be like, Hey, did you hear about these cocktail cards? You gotta buy these. And that's the key thing, I think the takeaway here is this SPL strategy, which I love. I'm gonna use this man. that's fine. Like story value lifestyle. I think that's brilliant. And clearly this strategy has worked for you because now you are running a successful business and, you have big problems that people would love to have is sometimes, you have a hard time keeping product in stock. Just using TikTok was able to change the game for you. And I mean, that's huge. I think, the audience listening, they're gonna be really inspired by this cuz there's a lot of people trying to start a new product and you never know your product could be the next big thing. Whoever's listening to this right now. You might have an idea and you gotta just go for it. Tell your story on TikTok before you don't even have to have a product right away. You can just get your ideas, flowing, see what audience is listening, see what they have to say. Would they buy it.

AJ Rantz:

I tell people all the time. I'm like, if you really want TikTok to be successful in your business, create your TikTok account and start posting long before you have a business. Absolutely. Because people are just gonna see it from the beginning. And I don't think people understand how powerful it is to see the story from ground zero. All the way until you release it. And the story never stops either. You know, I have a product around cocktails, in January people don't drink. That's what happened? Yeah. Dry, dry crash and burn like sales, you know, I spend all this money on inventory. I spent all this money gets shipped to me and then we do like 13 grand in sales, which that was a good lesson for two things. One. I would've done anything for 13 grand in sales when I started. Right. So it's always take a look back at where you started and understand, it's not the end of the world. And two, It's not always gonna work out the way you think it's gonna work out. I'm obviously on this trajectory and then I get slammed back to reality and, sales are actually pretty low for the next four or five months. And I had to start thinking of new ways to get revenue and, and things in. And that's when I actually started getting into wholesaling. Nice and getting into stores and mom and pop shops. So of course, who do I tell. TikTok. Right. Exactly. So like TikTok, I actually got another shipment that came in, so I went through all of that holiday shipment finally after March, April time. And now I have a shipment that came in with much better profit margins on it. Because I wasn't selling out that first one as fast as I thought I would. So I was able to get it shipped to me as affordable as possible. And I'm like, cool. I can actually do wholesale with this. Let's see what happens. So I do one month of wholesale was last month. Actually we had a couple orders the month before that. Just to some people that. If you emailed me, I would sell you some boxes and test it out. Yep. And then last month was our first full month of doing wholesale orders and we ended up getting 48 stores.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Wow.

AJ Rantz:

Purchasing

Kyle Kaplanis:

congrats,

AJ Rantz:

or somewhere around $18,000.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Congrats man

AJ Rantz:

in extra revenue. Right. And I'm like, exactly. Whoa. And guess how all of them found. TikTok TikTok. Right. So huge. That's huge. Yeah. It's one of those things that it's like you just so many extra opportunities to pop up.

Kyle Kaplanis:

so basically you decided to figure out your business and figure out new streams of income. Wholesale was a huge success for you so far, and you're in 48 locations. So.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah, we're in 48 locations and there was also something else that happened as well. There was another TikTok creator over in the UK who, he's actually an 18 year old who started a liquor company. Okay. Which is normal over there. Well, not. That normal, but you're able to drink at that age over there. Yeah. And I saw him hustle and build his business and he reached out, he's been watching me from the very, very beginning and he wanted to distribute the cards into Europe and UK as well. So we actually just made an order. We're sending 3000 units over there. Wow. And one of the stores that we are already in is Harvey Nichols, which is actually one of the biggest retailers in UK.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's awesome.

AJ Rantz:

From Europe. So that's pretty cool. I think most of their inventory is already sold. It's already sold to stores. It's been very easy for them to wholesale over there for the product. So we're probably, I would guess we're probably in 60 stores or so already. Wow.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's so cool. That's so cool. And I wanted to mention something, cuz you mentioned Europe and England and everything. Interesting enough. I watched one of your videos and you said the 10 bottles of, whatever that you would recommend that everybody has. And one of them was, Plymouth Gin.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. I love Plymouth gin. It's actually really good gin. Yeah.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Interesting enough. I lived in Cornwall, which is the Southwest side of England, for two years. Me and my wife loved gin, and we went to the Plymouth distillery there, which was amazing. I remember when you saw that bottle and it just reminded me of how cool that was. And it's a really, really good gin as well.

AJ Rantz:

That's so awesome. Yeah. And that's one thing, I love traveling a lot. This job's allowed me to travel a lot more cuz you know, most of what I do is posting TikTok. I can do that from all over. Right. And I love going to different countries, different regions of the world, experiencing different spirits, different alcohols, different cocktails, it's super, super wild. All the things that you get introduced to, you don't even know exist out there that. Absolutely amazing. And when I do videos like that, I always like to throw in, a couple things that people may not know about like KHA or a gin from the UK. Right. Exactly. Or something that are actually available. If you looked, in the us, you can find them here. Yeah. But yeah, it's really cool to experience a different cultures, different spirits, different alcohols, all that.

Kyle Kaplanis:

That's so cool. So tell me what's next with cocktail cards? Are you planning on doing a part two to your product? Are you expanding it or what's your next steps?

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. So we have a couple ideas, that we're throwing out there. The first, most prominent expansion that we want to do is I've realized that there are not a lot of options for non alcohol drinkers out there. Love that. Yeah. It's kind of trendy now, which yeah. Which actually all about, I love. My mom, she passed away pretty early and a lot of her demons were actually with alcohol and abuse. Right. And, I just wish there was more normalcy around people who just don't drink. Exactly. It's kind of weird how everyone's like, why aren't you drinking? That's weird that that's even a question, right? I

Kyle Kaplanis:

don't wanna.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. And I love cocktails. That's one thing. I notice people that have a lot of consumption problems. They are typically drinking beer and shots of things. They're not making cocktails, they're not enjoying the experience. Yep. So that's a big reason. I really. Felt confident, about going into cocktails and, I think it would be really cool to create a box of cocktails for people that don't want alcohol in them.

Kyle Kaplanis:

I think that's so smart.

AJ Rantz:

Yeah. Normalize it, have it behind, every bar in the country. So, a customer comes in says, do you have mocktails? A bartender will be like, yeah, I got a hundred of them. What do you want?. Kyle Kaplanis: And not only Are you kidding? They would probably go crazy with that. Yeah. Making mocktails and the thing is they could be making them right on TikTok if you're nine years old and think it's fun to have a Virgin. Dery like, I love that when I was a kid, I love that stuff. I was like, can I get a mocktail mom? Yeah. Just to feel cool, but to be able to learn how to do that at home, like these teens would go crazy with. Yeah, I think it would have a good potential. I don't know if it's quite the runway that cocktail cards would have mm-hmm but it's honestly one of those products where I don't really care. I think my big goal with that product is just normalizing people who don't drink mm-hmm and. There's nothing wrong with that and why not allow them to go out and have the same experiences as everyone else.

Kyle Kaplanis:

Exactly.

AJ Rantz:

So I think that's a big one. And then as far as the business, expansion side of things, it would be really nice to keep getting cocktail cards into more stores. I think it would do really well. In major retailers. It totally, it would. Yeah. it's very scary. I was actually down in LA speaking at a conference mm-hmm and my whole thing was TikTok, the SPL strategy, all that type of stuff. And there were some other much more higher level sellers there. And they're talking about getting into retail stores and everything that entails. And of course they all think my product would do really well in there. And then I listen to their speech and I'm like, whoa, that sounds terrifying. they order how many, uh, thousands of units, like 80,000 is a test run. That's more than I've ever purchased ever. Uh, you know, and, you gotta pay for advertising. You gotta prove your product sales, all that type of stuff. I'm like borderline whether that's the next step or. Continue just getting the sale of the brand out there last week we just crossed half a million dollars in sales. Oh. Which is pretty awesome. So congratulations, Ben, thank you. Yeah, congrat, it's a huge milestone and I'm kind of like, Ooh, should I get to a million first before I risk it all or, is now the time. And it's funny because, a lot of your viewers, this is big BI talk. This is business. Um, and using TikTok for it. You don't know the answer to most of the questions you're gonna have to answer. Absolutely. A lot of it is weighing your pros and cons. A lot of it is how committed are you? Mm-hmm a lot of it is. Do you have enough tools in your tool belt to feel like you can make it happen? TikTok is man. That's like the Swiss army knife for me. Right. So I feel confident in it, but it's always nervous taking that next step hundred percent. That next step. It's exciting though. It is first job I've ever loved waking up for, you know,

Kyle Kaplanis:

exactly. They say, you can't grow if you're in your comfort zone. And it is it's scary, but it's those moments that you do put yourself out of those comfort zones and take risks that the only way to see if there's a reward, right. If you play it safe, you'll always get the same results. Through your journey, it seems that is the way it's been going is like scary moments. Oh shit, huge success. And then the same thing, but most businesses out there, they go through that exact same process like that rollercoaster ride and they just learn along the way that they're able to then take those learning lessons to scale more and more and more and more. And it seems like that's where you're at. And I can imagine that, million dollars in sales will be right around the corner. I can see your drive, your hustle. You have a really good strategy right here. You have TikTok. You've learned that swiss army knife to, help take you there. And I think that's really exciting. and I think, January sales, if you do the mocktail cards you'll have really good sales in January for those exactly., AJ, this story was phenomenal and I think it's really, really inspiring. I think that there's a lot of people out there that are sitting on the fence, not knowing what to do. I've had a lot of people find my podcast and say, man, you know that story with so and so really helped me inspire to create content and thank God cuz it helped my business or whatever. And I'm a huge advocate for it. I think it's one of the best places for organic reach and be able to get real time feedback from your future consumers or audience or whoever to build that community. I love this story. And I'm rooting for you along the way. I know personally, a ton of people that would love these cards and that I'm going to go ahead and send them to 'em. Do you have any discount codes or anything that you can offer my audience or,

AJ Rantz:

Ooh. You know what do you have speaker notes on the bottom?

Kyle Kaplanis:

Yep.

AJ Rantz:

Let's create a disco code for them. And let's get 'em 15% off. Okay. Sure. For your audience. I think that'd be pretty cool. They could just use code BizTok and it'll get 'em 15% off. That'd be super great. A good thank you for, bringing me on the podcast and all that type of stuff. And hopefully we motivate some people who, maybe they buy the cards and they're like, whoa, let's learn how all this stuff worked. And maybe I can absolutely do my own business and kind of steps. It's fearful. It's scary. I'm not particularly skilled in any one thing. I just do it. right. And that's half the battle is just doing it, doing it, doing it long enough to see results. Yep. And try to get 1% better every day.

Kyle Kaplanis:

You know Gary? You know, Gary. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So when I met Gary via asked him a question, I was like, bro, gimme something. I could just take away. And he was just like, okay, if you have ideas, that doesn't mean Jack shit. It's all about doing it. And if you do it shitty, it's better than not. And I was like, damn, okay. Cuz like I there's so many people out there that have all these great ideas written down, but they're not taking action and that's just worthless. Like it. Words on a paper. It doesn't mean anything. And so to me that was like, damn, okay. It's so fucking true. How many people just don't take action? Right? Like you just gotta do it. people listening that can just be making a video today about your idea, because that's taking action , getting audience, feedback or recommendations and just go from there. And it could be as simple as that little step right there is just making content. Yeah.

AJ Rantz:

And I'll leave you with this weird little story that I forget to tell people. it was probably seven years ago. I created my own PC. I bought a, nice camera and I bought a microphone and I bought this little cheesy bar to put in my house at the time. And I was like, I'm gonna make a YouTube channel teaching people cocktails long before I ever thought about cocktail cards. I just thought it'd be fun. Cool thing to get on YouTube seven years ago, you wanna know how many videos I made and that would've been a five year span where I had all that stuff.

Kyle Kaplanis:

How many?

AJ Rantz:

Zero

Kyle Kaplanis:

right.

AJ Rantz:

I was so scared to hit record. I was so scared to post by face on YouTube. I was so scared. I thought people were gonna think I looked dumb. Mm-hmm I thought maybe they wouldn't like my drink recipes. I didn't do anything for five years and all that money, all that like planning, all that stuff was wasted. Right. And yet, Here I am in less than two years. Yep. Thinking, oh my gosh. How much of this time did I miss out on? Right. and then when you actually do post a TikTok mm-hmm and you actually do post a piece of content, you realize, oh, That's not that bad, right? Like I'm no longer scared. Exactly. It just helps you realize, people are rooting for you. Mm-hmm, rarely are people against you unless you're, maybe political or something like that. but people want you to do well. And people understand, you are stepping out of your comfort zone, like you said, and you guys just, you gotta do it and be consistent. And. You're just gonna realize all the amazing opportunities that come from that. I love

Kyle Kaplanis:

that. I love that it is that fear. You just have to, close your eyes and just do it. But obviously, don't cuz you're video but it is true. You just have to put yourself outta that comfort zone hit record. And I give everybody this advice and it might be redundant for people listening, but I think it's always something important to do. If you're fearful of making a video, find your favorite creators, find them and scroll to the bottom. Always scroll to the bottom, watch their first few videos. And I guarantee you they're going to be not what you're used to from seeing your favorite creators, because they were in learning modes. And if they're good off the bat, I guarantee you, they were making content somewhere else, track that shit down and find out cuz everybody sucks. At first, everybody sucks, everybody. Everybody sucks, studying every like strategy and starting off great, like there's people, but they have a backstory. Everybody sucks their first time. And, who cares if you suck, you're going to get better, but the only way to do it is to get in front of that camera hit record and keep going and learning from your journey and if haters hate on you, I guarantee you, they don't make content. So put it over your head because people who do understand that it takes. Time, it takes effort and it you're rooting for people. So those that are hating, they're not doing anything. They're just sitting at home. And, they're the ones that just have ideas on a paper that are never taking action. So look at that. So AJ man, this was a Hiller podcast. I'm so pumped about this one. You brought tremendous, tremendous value, especially with your SBL strategy. Talking about, your product, your ups and downs, sharing that story with everybody. I think that's huge. And now it's the time to tell people where cuz people are gonna be excited. Now they want this product, where do they go? How can they.

AJ Rantz:

If you search cocktail cards on the internet, thanks to TikTok and many other things. I will be the first thing to pop up. Love it. We do have our website get cocktail cards.com. If you guys want to go there, we are available on Amazon and the us and throughout Europe now so lots of different options and maybe you have some international viewers yep. Especially up in Canada. Yep. You can order through our website, get cocktail cards dot. We also shipped to Canada and everywhere else in the

Kyle Kaplanis:

world as well. Awesome. I love that, AJ. Thank you so much. And everybody go, make sure you check out AJ on TikTok at cocktail cards, and go scroll through and just watch his journey, cuz it'll be a really good indication on what he did to, have success and maybe you'll be able to replicate some of that for your own self. But yeah, AJ, thanks, man. This was awesome. And to leave the audience with one thing is your only one video way from changing your. Absolutely.

AJ Rantz:

Thanks, man. Thank you.

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Kyle Kaplanis

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