Okay, so I feel like it’s safe to reveal that Laguna Blends (LAG.C) hasn’t always enjoyed its time with me serving them as a consultant. I wrote about the company early, focused on some timelines they said they’d hit, and when they didn’t hit said timelines and the stock slumped and a rollback crept in and all hell broke loose, I wasn’t backwards in coming forwards about my disappointment in the thing.
And that didn’t make me the favourite of the Laguna crew, who wondered why I was coming at them, bro, especially as I owned stock and they were a client.
As I’ve always said here, sponsors pay for my attention, not my favour, and Laguna felt the pointy end of that. I can’t just say nice things about someone who I have a financial interest in, because then you, the reader, will see now reason to ever believe what I write again.
Credit must be earned, not bought, and Laguna didn’t start well in the earned column.
But in everything I wrote about Laguna, every disappointment I expressed, one thing remained constant: I lost my ass by buying early, but those buying in today have nothing but upside. You get it at a 90% discount to what I got it for, and that’s a bargain.
That sentiment goes double today, with news emerging that Laguna finally has sales numbers out. And they’re good, for a company at this stage of its life cycle.
In the first eleven weeks they’ve been selling (taking into consideration they’ve been building their affiliate sales network from scratch and haven’t actually launched yet), Laguna sales have topped $105,000.
Now, there are affiliate marketing programs that do that in a year. Laguna did it in the first 11 weeks. That’s $105,000 in low priced coffee and protein drink sachets, which is a lot of product moved. The company is reporting a solid number of repeat orders, especially for early in the cycle, which is a really positive sign.
Laguna President Ray Grimm Jr. said in a news release, “Laguna has exceeded its internal sales goals. This indicates that Laguna is on track with its long term sales growth strategy. In addition, there were a lot of product re-orders from March to May from the existing affiliates which is very encouraging. Seeing a high re-order rate further indicates Affiliates and customers are having a positive product experience and that there is a strong demand for the Laguna products.”
Now, affiliate marketing is not like regular retail. You don’t pay for shelf space and you don’t sell in big blocks and wait many months to find out if anything sold. It’s a much faster to market program, with immediate understanding of how the product is being perceived on the ground. And if your’e getting reorders, your network of sellers grows quickly.
You can scrub the last year clean for Laguna as far as I’m concerned, as, despite hiccups and delays, it has finally done what it set out to do, and is now in phase II, where dollars are coming into the office. Investors that jump in today get it as a savage premium to what I got in at, which makes you cleverer than I am.
Stock was at $0.095 yesterday,it’s up to $0.0105 today, and I suspect it’ll grow from there as more numbers emerge.
If Laguna management is on point,they’ll be dispersing more numbers on an ongoing basis and ensuring the recent warmup doesn’t start cooling down again, and there are plenty of numbers to talk about. From sales to number of affiliates, to areas where sales are highest, to products doing best, to new products coming soon, to website visits and more.
I suspect they’ll be doing exactly that.
I’ve warned you off for a while now but, as of today, Laguna is a go. It will not see $0.10 again.
— Chris Parry
http://www.twitter.com/chrisparry
FULL DISCLOSURE: The author is a consultant to Laguna Blends and owns stock in the company.