Boost Your Boutique with Emily Benson

11:45.1 We did what we wanted.  We did it pretty professionally and we did it with like a level of class and style where people took us seriously.

11:58.2 We had access to these amazing creative tools, professors who really pushed us, who gave us Tons of access and free time to play and explore with our art. And like our minds were just so rich. And I think you and I, and our whole friend group, we were all just like reveling in this.

18:36.7I need to get in to see a client. I need to convince them that what I have to offer is a value. I need to find out how to make it a value to them because Sometimes they're not advertising in with my brands or sometimes they don't believe in the types of things I'm talking about.

18:52.4So it's a process of getting in, building awareness, making sure they understand what I'm offering, and then trying to find those fits, you know, trying to find that right fit for my clients are all for it.

21:51.0 One of the reasons I want to have you on is because you and I are the type of people were just like, we have this idea and we're going to go for it and we're going to put the blinders on. We're not going to ask for permission. In fact, like we didn't even think that we needed to ask for permission, let alone even like, you know, skip that part. It was just like, no, we're going to do this and we're going to do this.

28:00.4 follow that gut, follow your intuition, follow your thought, follow your, you know, and there's so much of that that like, that's where the magic comes out of.

31:17.6There's so much heaviness, I think that women are still carrying and processing just from that,  that you need good girlfriends, sisterhood. You need that so bad to be able to function, to be able to function and come out of this with any kind of head on your shoulders to get through any sort of day to day functionality.

33:29.9 Owning those choices, you know, as a woman and being informed and being involved in guiding those choices gives you so much agency and so much more freedom than I think it allows. It also allows me as a business woman to operate with a lot more levity. 

34:31.0 Our dynamics and the systemic structures that have been built are not really afforded the luxuries to women that may have been afforded to men in the past when they were the breadwinner, right? 

35:12.5Because you are commission based in your ad sales, right? So very, very similar to a boutique in that you kind of never know what's coming, but you kind of do, but like one day you're making a ton the next day you're like, Darn that deal fell through. Very dry seasons. And then there's like Q4, which is bananas, right? Which is very similar to how retail works, right? 

36.24.7 there's so many things right that'll pull you off track so many little stressors so many flare ups, whether it's a, you know, client you didn't close or it's a sale you see walk out the door, you know,  It can be, it can be really demoralizing.

37:18.0 Go back to your toolkit and what works for you instead of going down the, let me beat myself up over what a loser I am because that sale didn't close.

38:30.2 If you can master a rebound, you can master the game. And that's what it's all about is not letting that little ops offset

40:35.0 The reality of us sitting here is we are very powerful women. We have created a lot of wonderful things in our life. What's to say that cannot continue.

43:25.6Iowa didn't win because Caitlin Clark was the Michael Jordan of that team. Michael Jordan had to learn. He needed Scotty Pippen. He needed Dennis Rosman. And like South Carolina was a whole team. It was a whole support team.  And like, I think from a, from a business perspective, you have a boutique, you have a retail shop who around you is.

44:30.2 But three twigs together are much harder to break, much harder to break  together. You need those, you need that reinforcement. You need that reinforcement because you on your own. You can only do so much. So you've got, get some, get some reinforcement around you. Some people who are going to back you up, you know, when you're having those, when you're having that slip, you know, you need a friend who's going to pull you back up.

50:48.7 I think as a consumer,  you're someone who we should be talking to about what you think is working or what you're noticing or how you're

51:23.6 We all know social media is where people are spending their time and where people are really making a ton of shopping decisions. So, I would say, like, focus on social, but the thing that's working against brands on social right now is you don't know who you're talking to as much

52:01.9The same people you were talking to before, you're kind of talking to a wider net of more unknowns, which makes it harder, makes it harder for you as a marketer, because you don't have that same, you don't know exactly who you're talking to anymore. 

52:24.4 You as an advertiser, you got to think more bound to read less.

53:43.3 What is so distinctive about your brand that I have to come to you to get it?

55:19.4Listen, there's a big millennial consumer right now, right? Like millennials are pushed in a lot of ways. We have like no money, but we have all the money. 

56:34.4 I love perusing a beautiful retail store. Love that's the thing is I think that we have to also and I think like Other people our age have kind of been talking about this because we are all having kids a little later and we're a little you know, and we are busy and all this stuff, but I do really feel like if a space is inclusive for my child, I am way more likely to go there.

58:21.5 I'm very into sustainability. And so I love when retailers are like, bring back your clothes for us to recycle or target does a car seat recycling event that I love. Cause that is a problem. Like solve a problem for me. It's hard to recycle a car seat.

1:00.35.8 Well, and I think that smaller retailers need to think about that. I mean, like all of these things, it's, it's really easy. Value that purpose. The big guys are going to take us out.

1:00.12.2 So the way they're doing that is by looking for these big breakthrough moments. A big trend right now is collabs. 

1:08.49.4 You got to create that distinctive look, the distinctive voice. And so that When someone says your, says your brand name, it just pops right in.

1:11:34.2 Like I have to have it. I don't even care what the price is. That's what you want in your store. That's what you want in your store. You know, there are things I don't even look at the price.

1:15:02.6 I think when you're excited, when you're up on all this stuff, and when you,  when you really do have that unwavering confidence to just go for what you want.

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0:54.6If you're an influencer or if you are in a position where you are ready to start manufacturing your own clothing and accessories or you already do and you want a different take on it and you want to hear from people who are really in the day to day of what's coming next, they're a little bit right ahead of the curve, you're going to want to listen to this episode.

4:24.3 We're now working with influencers, which is super fun and exciting and new. And I think that's the greatest part about the business side that I'm on now is every day is different. Every day we have different products that we're touching, different customers we're working with and really getting to adapt and continue to grow and evolve our business as our customer base changes.

5:59.5 It feels like a lot of people who want to sell don't understand that a retail industry.

7:15.9 I think when you're talking about selling to the masses and especially for what we're doing with these influencers, you know, it is about mass appeal still. And so you have to be really conscious on that trend curve to not push too fast, too forward, unless again, That is your customer. 

9:36.9 I've been saying for a long time, I think wholesale is the biggest opportunity right now. 

11:15.5 I think the biggest thing when you're starting this out is. It's okay not to know. You're not going to know. So finding a trusted partner that can help take you through that process.

12:33.2And the other part of it is selling, you know, and you know, it is, you can have a huge following and a bunch of eyeballs, but if you don't really like to sell, then  You're going to have a problem.

13:36.3 We don't want to ever push a customer into overbuying something and then have them fail. Like that's not a win for anybody. 

14:23.0 if you don't launch the right product at the right time, at the right price point. Well, guess what? You're not going to sell it.

15:52.4 I think it really all starts with that concept piece of starting to think of what kind of items could be right for you and your audience.

16:40.8We don't want to overwhelm. We don't want to bring too much to market. Let's start with one drop. Let's figure out your customer, figure out your quantity, figure out your buy, and then. Put together a strategy and scale plan from there. 

21:05.5 I do think engagement is what's important. To be honest, I think you could have 10, 000 followers. And if you have Super high engagement. I don't think you have an issue selling 500 t shirts. 

21:26.6 Just like when you're shopping in a boutique, right? I mean, I love boutique shopping because it's unique stuff. It's different. You can't find it anywhere else. So it's taking all those exact same concepts, you know, to your own personal product and say, what is unique about this?

24:27.0 I think we also saw a lot of business where, but in really fun ways, I think women are absolutely dominating the world right now, which is super exciting. And I think they're doing it in style. So as you're going back to the office, as you're going to these events, having fun, fashionable stuff, trousers and blazers and all that kind of stuff.

27:17.1 And as a boutique owner, again, it's like making it accessible to your girl and finding the way that makes sense for your customer. I don't think it always needs to be this pushed fashion forward thing, but like, how do you bring that one piece in to incorporate and make it feel new?

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0:51.0Our promise to you today is that we hope you will open your mind to adding more plus size to your retail store as a vendor and how to do it in a way that's going to make you money.

3:08.6 I think sizing is one of the most challenging aspects of the plus size and extended market.

3:36.7 Extra large is not plus size. No. So there's a different size grade to the plus size demographic. So a 1x is not the same as an extra large and that's a huge misconception. 

6:33.4 Size grading is crucial. 

7:26.7 If you are offering plus size, don't charge me extra. You don't charge the customer that's buying from extra small to extra large any different when she buys that size wrap. 

8:42.5 I think as a retail community, we really need to push vendors to take more risks  in the plus size community.

10:56.4I hear these questions all the time. So,  I brought plus size into my store, Ashley. It's not selling. Why isn't it selling? Because the plus size girl is not going into your store because you've excluded her for so long.

17:55.0 We also had true representation of sizes for our models and just everybody. Cause even though the vendors will send us different photos, a lot of the time plus size is shot on like a size eight.  Which then it really doesn't depict what it's going to look like.

21:20.0Quality is key. And to help mitigate those returns, we offer the styling. So, because we carry about 65 different brands, it's kind of a wide range, so we want to make sure that you get exactly what you're looking for. So we'll set up a styling appointment with you.

22:21.2 So what are your big top three tips?  So for stores, I think not excluding plus size in your size run when you're merchandising it.

23:26.6Number two, quality. Number three is having fashion. We do not want. something fuddy duddy. We want really cool stuff. 

25:27.8Because there's nothing better than having that relatability as, as women, as we go into a fitting room, we're vulnerable, or even when you're buying something online, and you take it home, and you're in the privacy of your own home, and you can put something on, and we're, we're the most critical of ourselves.

25:58.0 That's the number one selling thing is feeling good about what you wear.

27:15.0to be honest with you, I think all of us, retailers, vendors, we started our business because we want to make people feel good for our products, right? Like, that's easy. And I think what we're up to today is there's a huge population of women, and probably men,  You don't feel good enough, though.

And we have the opportunity to help them. We have the opportunity to say, you know what? We're going to solve the problem. 

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1:04.0 My name is Darlene Mitchell and I am a retail business strategist. And my strength really is around inventory and profitability. So I help business boutique owners. Understanding inventory strategies so they can have legacy, not just so they can have a business, but they can have a legacy business, a business that stays around. 

1:32.8 I was in corporate retail for 25 plus years. And what I do now is exactly what I did in corporate retail

1:51.4 I'm teaching my clients what I learned in big retail and fortune 500 retail.

2:12.7 There's a lot of money. There's a lot of trajectory. Like it's a great career, I think for anyone interested in fashion or selling or like how products get to the floor.

2:29.8You are not born with this knowledge. Retail math is very different math than math. 

5:43.5 So like a buyer or a merchant, like depending on what the company kind of called it, that's like the lead business person now who I think is like the most similar to like a boutique owner.

11:06.2I don't care what your markup is. Any of that, you're pricing yourself out of the business.  If you don't get that, what are you doing to get that track again?

12:17.3 We planned out every promotion. We knew post promotions would happen. They rarely were reactionary.

12:45.5I think that a lot of people in the  boutique space think that it's okay. To constantly run reactive sales because they're like, well, they're running it. The big companies are running it, but we're not seeing again behind the scenes, the look that Darlene and I are always going to give you is like, that is planned.

13:39.7  It's heavy duty math. And a lot of people are just not getting that. And to your point, they're running these reactionary sales. I'm like, well, you plan to run that sale? Do you need to run that sale? Or are you just doing it because someone else is doing it? Does your business require that?

15:25.4We let a competitor dictate our business.  No, that's  awful. Yeah, that was awful. It was awful. And imagine the buyers and everyone who put all this work in to develop this product line and we were discounting it like crazy  because we were watching what a competitor was doing.

16:13.8 I think most boutique owners, most, you know, I wouldn't say retail businesses doing under 5 million.  They're a little messy behind the scenes. They're a little weird. Like I think until people start to make real money, do they think of investing in someone like a planner?

17:04.8financial planning and your profit and loss statement is really different from your inventory management.

17:33.2 Every quarter we look at what's our intention for this next quarter. What's our sales intention? What's our profit intention? Before we place product before we buy product, what's our intention first?

18:03.0Understand how you show value to that customer.

18:22.4 There are a couple of things you do before you even get to the product.  Because all those things, everything has to mix for your product mix and your position, right? Because if you just go in and buy products at the right, wrong margin, and it's, and by the way, everyone, it's not find a cost times four to get a four times markup. That is not, that's not a strategy. That's just, that's reckless, right? That's a little reckless. So you want to do all those other things to understand before you buy the product.  Yeah. Right. I love it. So position. Person. Pricing. Product.  And then the fifth and bonus is promotion

20:18.5 2024 feels like a year where we can kind of lead with how we want to Move forward in the boutique.

20:42.8​​what I believe in boutique land is that those who are purchasing heavily from other vendors. Are going to have a hard time, but those who are developing their own product will rise to the top because that customer is only coming to you for that thing.

26:48.5 A lot of people are saying, you know,  economics, people are not buying what I have. No, they've seen it already because there's nothing new that's coming. 

27:43.4 I also think that there's a huge opportunity for wholesaling right now. Like, I think if you have the money, the capital, the like leftover money, like if you're a business that's doing half a million a year and you have good profit and you have some good design ideas. 10 to 15 grand into some wholesale styles and trying to flip them in the next.

29:50.5 I think, and I hope that in boutique land, it continues to be about the full price, new, exciting stuff, because I do think that there is the misconception that people love and they love. I would argue totally differently that there are plenty of people that love. new, fresh, shiny items that no one's seen before.

31:50.7Wanting to do smaller concept stores like a boutique and neighborhood shop, right? And at the same time, I think there has to be the learnings from boutiques and, you know, smaller retail. You also need to be looking at big retail and seeing what they're doing wrong right now and what they're doing right and what trends are jumping on.

33:24.4 I think Main Street has more opportunity than ever right now.  It's wild. We came out of the pandemic. The pandemic changed everything, by the way. 

34:50.2 always compare it to um, I always say It's a cruise ship or it's a sailboat, you know, a Macy's is a cruise ship. It is going to take a long time to like turn it around and get to the destination. There's a lot of moving parts and we're sailboats. We can change the sail and go the other way very quickly. So I think that's staying agile and staying small. And I think that's where You and I are always probably going to talk about like, keep your inventory tight, like keep your inventory in a place where you're not overbought.

35:50.9 what are your guidelines that you generally tell people about? Like sort of how much to their budget should they spend? And like, what do you feel like are good general guidelines? So it's going to change with each one of my clients, depending on where they are, depending on where their cash flow is.

35:50.9 fashion changes in six months, the fashion will change and customers are fickle. 

37:32.1  always say, like, even right now, I could make you more money without more customers. Because the customers you have. Like you said, are telling you exactly what they want. And the difference is like, you're deciding to like, guess what they want next, instead of like using the information they've given you to make choices for the future.

40:04.3Why wouldn't you reduce your fixture count on the floor and make you yourself look fuller with less inventory? Like, Oh my gosh, that's kind of like a weird brain fart for me. Like, wouldn't you somehow adapt your store layout to also fit your sales plan?

46:35.6 you know your person. That is the number one. Know your person, know why you're serving that person. 

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1:22.0 I use retail as a sort of the stepping stone to gain awareness about myself and to build capital.

2:58.1 It's very important that I feel that the clothes that we make are just made for a woman's body, not a specific woman's body, but like just the woman's body. So I pay a lot of attention to where themes are and how long certain sleeves are to make it to make everybody feel like they can wear it and not be self conscious.

4:06.1 I do think that the clothes you put on your body have a lot to do with how you leave your house.

4:22.6it's really hard for boutique owners to find  Quote unquote, cute clothes in curvy sizes.

9:03.0  no matter how big or small can they know, well, hopefully they know, or are starting to at least learn what sizes sell best for their particular demographics. 

11:01.3 We're not going to sacrifice style quality or anything like that, but I am willing to  kind of do what needs to be done to stay relevant in whatever changing market is happening or doesn't happen.

13:10.7 That's all I think most boutique owners want. They want to know that like someone cares about them from the wholesale side

19:10.6There's a big piece of feeling represented in clothing and clothing manufacturing.

26:15.3 The best way, in my opinion, to get started is two things. Reach out to a vendor that you trust and ask if they would be willing to work with you, um, with custom designs.

26:43.4that is a great way to get your feet wet in my opinion is go to someone that you like their style already You've already built a relationship with them Ask them if they'd be willing to do custom pieces for you um and  Kind of learn about the process that way, not asking them, you know, and taking all their trade secrets, but just getting your feet wet into that.

30:01.8 that is a great way to get your feet wet in my opinion is go to someone that you like their style already You've already built a relationship with them Ask them if they'd be willing to do custom pieces for you um and  Kind of learn about the process that way, not asking them, you know, and taking all their trade secrets, but just getting your feet wet into that.

35:08.2 you're talking about building more income because you have that unique stuff.

37:24.4  in the course that I took with you, when we worked one on one and looked at  Um, the timing of when I was launching things and we learned that I was kind of a step behind.

So when I, it wasn't that what I was launching wasn't good and people didn't want it. It's just that I was bringing them in a little too late, which made me not sell as much as I could because for a lot of my customers, the time had already passed for them to successfully bring in that style.

44:21.2 you want to be basic, but you don't want to be too basic. I think that's a big piece of it.  And at the same time, the hardest part about being a fashion forward,  bold dresser is. The basics always sell. That's why I'm like, how much, you know, if someone says, Oh, I did a t- shirt and it did so well in, in black, I'm like, did you do it in white? 

46:26.9 If you're starting in April, you're going to want to be working out winter, for sure, as someone who's just starting, because there's no way in hell that your first samples are going to come and you'd be like, yep, perfect, love it.

50:03.4 You probably aren't seeing fully or like making the connections and you know, I just remember our calls, like I would get on and I was just like, Oh, this is the problem.

51:01.8 I think we've all, even at various stages, right. Of our business, we've been in these trenches where we're just like, what are we doing? Well, you know, and then someone comes in and says, Oh my gosh, like, Wake up, you know, or Hey, look left. You've been looking right this whole time, you know, like it looks very different over here.

53:30.2 And I don't know who will be listening to this, who knows me and who doesn't know me, but  I guess it was probably around eight years ago that I was actually homeless. So like,  I,  I make it a point to say that because I literally never had anything in like, period. 

57:03.6 I think wholesale is a really big opportunity for a lot of people that, you know, might not write today, see it, but they feel it and it's coming.

1:01:13.4 The industry that we're in is very lonely. If we're being honest. 

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1:27.0 So when should you start an email list? Like Day one. Okay. If you don't have an email list or you only have a list of people who purchase from your boutique business, that's fine.

1:38.4 Even if it's 20 people on your list, even if it's five, get signed up with an email service and get going.

1:54.7 What are we doing with email? Why are we doing it? One, we're staying top of mind with customers.

2:01.5Email has the highest return on investment, somewhere like 38 for every email you have, like you get in return every time you send an email.

2:20.0 Most people aren't going to unsubscribe. So don't feel ashamed or bad or whatever about sending emails.

2:26.8 They signed up with you. Okay. And you're just communicating with them. You're saying, Hey, this is what's going on in my store. This is what you should know about.

2:43.4 Now, how often should you be sending? I say at least once a week and please don't call this a newsletter. 

3:15.5 Can't tell you how many emails I've gotten that have this title that I'm so excited about and then I open the email and it's like, it's not even in the email

3:24.2 I'm sure that increases their click rate, but it doesn't actually make me click. It makes me annoyed.

3:47.5 So at the baseline, we're sending one email a week. At the most, we're sending three to four

3:52.3 On a busy sale week, on a Black Friday weekend, like any big promotion weekends, we're probably sending a lot more

3:59.8 Also, what time of day is best? It doesn't matter. Test all the different times.

4:17.9 So even just that your name pops up, whether or not they open it, You're there, you're in their inbox. That's what's most important.

4:42.2You want to make sure that you have a general list with everybody on it. Then you want to separate into three different categories.

4:48.4You want abandoned cart emails. You want. customers like people that have actually bought because you're going to have people on your list that haven't bought. And that's going to be the third one never purchased or haven't purchased within the past 30 to 60, 90 days.

5:31.1 If they haven't purchased yet, the best way to communicate with them about you and, and warm them up to a purchase is going to be. Informative things. So how to shop with us? Why we started? Um, what are great styling tips? 

5:50.6 It is part of your content strategy So you should and could have an email Sequence where when new people sign up for your list, they go through a sequence.

6:40.2 ​​Next, we're going to talk about how to shop with you, uh, where can they shop, what nights do you launch, like what credit cards do you take, the questions that people have.

9:21.5 You release it to them and it's like everything's 5 off automatically applied. Something like that. That's going to give you number one, a quick boost in sales. Number two, an urgency to buy because their discount goes away at noon, let's say, right? And then when it's released to the public, it's a full price item.

10:16.6 Social media is great and we love it and it's great and it's going to get us out there. It's going to help build that email list.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland. 🛍️

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0:24.5You don't need a lot of money to start a boutique business.

0:36.6 Let's say that the first way is through dropshipping. There are lots of dropshippers that are now connected through Shopify. So all you have to do is have a Shopify website.

0:55.4You pay for the good as the person buys for it, but it's a really nice way to start a business with very little money. You will have to pay the Shopify fee and sometimes drop shippers do have initial setup.

1:08.6 Then you don't have a whole shipping station in your house. You don't have to worry about getting inventory shipped to a warehouse or storing anything. 

1:22.4 Another easy way to start a boutique business with almost no money is to do it with your own clothing.

1:28.6 Start a consignment store. If you can source really beautiful stuff from your own closet, from other people's closets, and leverage that to start a business, then you can start to make money. 

2:19.8 You do need to design the merchandise that you are selling and you actually really need to make it cute because everyone thinks they can do print on demand now, but you have to make sure it's great.

2:31.6The cool thing about print on demand is you can do apparel. You could do notebooks. You can do mugs. You can do. Bags. You can do so many different things now.

2:53.6 It's a nice way to add income streams to your business and it's a great way to start. 

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0:41.2 One of the things that I know for sure across all of my clients that I work with as a boutique consultant is I want them all to relax.

1:18.4I think we need to set much better boundaries than we have in the past. And I think a lot of people just were hustling and that's like how they were raised. And that's what patriarchy tells us to do.

2:25.4 So every time you expand, every time you make more money, you're going to have to put more support systems in place.

3:47.8 So in for 2024 is relaxing and out is hustle.

4:32.4 You've got to have a basic plan for your business. 

4:50.0 You need to be examining your business at a really granular level. 

5:47.0A plan safeguards you against these feelings of things aren't going well.

6:28.6If you've been in business for a few years, you've got to stop looking all over the place at what you should be doing.

7:01.7 What is out right now is looking at anyone else in boutique land, anyone else, what they're doing and trying to copy it.

7:39.5 We have to stop looking outside. We have to go within. 

8:30.6 you're going to sell more when you are excited about the stuff that you're selling. 

10:04.3 I've always internally had a problem with a dupe because you're just copying someone else you're literally copying and Selling it and then saying you're doing it like it's very strange to me that anyone would think that this is okay not to mention it's just like  It's not original.

11:20.0 I think graphic tees are good on their way out I think everyone is doing them and I don't know who's wearing them 

13:47.7 I think what's in this year for 2024 is being super specialized, like being a beach shop, being a really boho shop, being like really leaning in like to what makes you feel good.

14:29.0 Your marketing will be that much easier and like you'll have something to be known for.

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1:30.6 Pop ups are anything that are temporary or semi permanent. And the idea is that you're going there, you're testing the location, you're testing the audience, and you're seeing if it works for you.

2:25.8You've got to figure out what the vibe of your customer is going to be so that you know where they're going to be.

2:48.6 You want to study the other vendors that are there. You want to study the ones that look busy. You want to see what they're doing.

3:50.2If you have good product and good branding, you should be okay at these events. So pop ups are really important. 

4:44.4 So understand that getting out and doing these collaborative events with business owners could be so good for you now

5:55.4 I put on a food truck festival in my town where my store was with my truck and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do an event for the town.

6:19.5 I will say just the goodwill, the knowledge, the talking about my business, because I was a  running, it was so good for me.

6:27.1 So don't hesitate to be the leader in your area and bring together other people. Bring together other pop-ups.

6:41.3 if you don't have the opportunity to do what you need to do to run your business, you have to create the opportunity.

7:03.3 Get yourself out there. Get talking to people. Pop ups are so, so good and you should be doing them this year.

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1:33.0The thing about having a brick and mortar is you have automatic traffic If you pick a good location, so All the clients that I've ever had open a brick and mortar business, I'm always like pay for traffic, pay for good location, because that's something that you don't automatically get in a mobile business.

1:56.1 If you're in a location that's really rural or has really specific zones where people go to shop, you want to exist in those places as a mobile shop. 

2:10.2 I find that when people open mobile boutiques in the middle of nowhere, it's just really hard to find customers.

2:16.1 If you're online now, I think the best way to think about whether or not it's more economical or not is what the traffic situation is.

2:32.9 If you live in a place that's heavily dependent on brick and mortars and you could find a good location in a prime spot, honestly, opening a brick and mortar might be for you.

2:47.2 Now I talked about mine being a 30 foot step van and that was huge. If I were to redo it, I would absolutely make it smaller.

3:31.3 Trailer boutiques are like an elevated version of doing pop ups. 

3:37.4 So it's halfway between doing a pop up show, like where you go to a market or you go to an indoor market and set up a booth. And then it's kind of like a brick and mortar too, because obviously it's a more permanent space.

3:55.7 You have to worry about how big this is, especially if you know you're going to do events where the parking lots aren't that huge or like it is a tight spot.

5:09.8 We saw people in New York that had trucks get fully arrested and like taken away and their trucks get towed. So with a grain of salt, I say yes, you do need permission sometimes.

5:20.4Okay, so most places when we talk about permission, you're going to need permission from the state or local authorities with some kind of hawker or peddler's license.

6:07.0 You will have to provide that insurance at some point and you should have it anyway.

6:14.0 So like don't skimp on insurance, get the best of the best, even if it's a little more expensive.

7:06.7 So no matter what you do, your truck is always your billboard.

7:54.4 The insurance you need, two kinds, collision and comprehensive, and then you need business liability insurance.

8:20.0 I never covered what was in my truck in terms of Merchandise.

8:39.9 I was protected with that liability insurance for my business, for anyone like getting hurt or injured around when it was parked inside and outside that covered me for events. It covered me for shopping. I never had to use it.

10:45.8 So just remember, you can put anything in a truck. I've seen people put shoe stores in trucks, kids stores in trucks, uh, soap shops, flower shops, like we've seen all over the place

11:50.9 I stopped for a couple of reasons. One, I got really sick of driving. I was physically very sore. I did like 200 and something events a year. Sometimes like 245 events a year. 

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0:24.0 I want to show you why your January negative self talk and your negative, in general, self talk about the economy is,  it's,  it's putting your boutique out of business.

1:24.6 January is a trash month

1:31.8 In the retail world, it is trash, which means you get to take time off. 

2:24.9 No, the economy is not bad, your product sucks.  You have a bad product. No one wants it. People will buy products that they want.

2:24.1 If there's something you want, you will figure out how to buy it. 

2:47.1 So if you have bad product and you're complaining that you don't have sales, you have bad product. Okay. It's not the economy. It's not inflation. 

2:55.0 Are people spending less? Yeah. Are they being more thoughtful about their spends? Yeah. Are they going to more events and doing more things outside that are more experience based? Yes. So your product based business has to be.

3:13.3 Let's start to be more creative. Let's start to design our own stuff Let's get together with a friend and start making wholesale and having unique styles for our boutiques Like let's stop just selling bad stuff and wholesalers.

3:28.9Talk to your customers, talk to boutique owners, do open pack sizing, like, you have to be freaking for real right now in boutique land, okay

4:03.0 I'm sitting here saying you need better products.

4:20.9 You gotta stop blaming the economy because I lived through retail and one of the biggest crashes

4:30.8The concept still was working right after the 2008 crash.

4:44.8 You're going to feel like crap. You're not going to want to sell stuff. People aren't really going to want to buy stuff unless it's like cozy or candles.

5:45.3Number one, it's not the economy. It's not inflation. It's that you have product that people don't want. I'm not going to say it's bad. I'm not going to like put too much negative stuff on it, but be serious about your product.

6:01.9 Don't be too cheap. Don't be too high. Be somewhere in the middle. And if you sell a lot of high end stuff, could you bring in lower end stuff, lower price stuff? If you sell lower price stuff, could you bring higher price stuff in?

6:33.7 January is for resting. It is for resting in retail. January is a rest month in retail.

6:45.9 Stop putting pressure on it. Go on vacation. Take times off. Do staycation. Count your inventory.  Chill out, okay? You get to have a chill January. And then you can come back and have a Galentine's party for February.

7:16.7 So can we just stop complaining? Can we honestly strategy wise go back and see what were our best sellers last year? How are we going to repeat it this year? What's our sales plan for this year? What's our buying plan? What markets are we going to? What months are we going to be buying at those markets? Let's start to plan the year.

7:38.4 I want to be very clear. You could be flat to last year and that's incredible. Okay. If you want to grow, put in more effort, post more on social media, refine your product assortment, get a buying plan together and stick to the buying plan.

7:55.9 We know all these things that we need to do to grow, but we have to take care of ourselves first. 

8:07.2 Right now is your time to ground down and look to the future, work on mindset, work on getting excited about next year coming.

8:15.5 Analyze your sales from last year. See what, what worked, see what didn't work. Because here's what I'll tell you. If you end up not having a good of year this year, it's because you didn't look at your history.

8:35.4 You're saying every month is a fresh month. It's not, it's not. 

8:51.2 You're saying every month is a fresh month. It's not, it's not. If you're a boutique owner and you're not looking at your sales weekly, monthly, quarterly,  You don't know what's going on. You need to be looking at your sales, looking at your inventory, looking at your turn, projecting a buying plan, projecting a sales plan.

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4:09.0 January gets a bad rap. It really needs to be rebranded into January is rest, relaxation, rejuvenation. It's also like organizing, prepping, planning, and at a pace that feels gentle and tender and kind.

8:27.8 So where I see retail and boutiques being really different is retail feels really big. 

9:39.2 People that look like they're big time might not be making the money you think they might not have the influence you think, or they'll have the influence in the wrong space.

11:29.5  And, you know, I do think if you are interested in doing white label product, beauty products, you want to go to a show that has like more stuff, maybe your general merchandise, maybe you have a gift store. This might be something that You want to come and look at, um, I will be on their podcast too, coming up soon here.

12:37.0 I think one of the things that it's really nice to do in January is analyze your routines

13:47.7 So we do talk about my plan and we do talk about Facebook ads, but we also talk about getting a launch schedule down and doing a launch schedule. And because that's going to lead you to being in a position where you have a routine. And so instead of doing tasks in your business, instead of just saying, Oh, I need to schedule out my social media. It's actually your routine.

16:08.3 I need to get more routines in my life so that I can get more tasks done because my brain is not great at task switching, which like whose is if you are like you're a rare bird, I think.

16:21.4 I feel like I was in search for some systems to get these routines down because at the end of the day, if you think of goals at the top of your hierarchy, like you're, so this is Brendon Burchard again, like taking his work.

16:46.8 But one of the things I really have been wrapping my head around, and I think this has gotten me so clear because  I love manifesting. I love writing down things. I love journaling. I love burning pieces of paper to get rid of my bad thoughts. You know, I love all that stuff. I love it.  Something about this framework, though, just really struck a chord with me.

19:43.7 I think this is how I want to think about it is like once those tasks get put into the routine, then slowly, because the routine is implemented, I'm going to reach my goals.

20:32.9  I think having more discipline, to be honest with you, is going to pull me out of the depression, out of the, you know, a friend said to me, Emily, the reason our bodies get sick and depressed is because like, if we didn't have to slow down, we would just keep going.

20:56.1 Use this time to recoup yourself. You can still sell, you can still do your launches, your live stream, still do it, right? But take the pressure off at least,  like give yourself a little bit of a break.

21:13.4 The amount of pressure we put on ourselves to push, push, push, push, push, like. That's not gonna get you anywhere.

22:10.8 I have noticed that we love to work really hard,  get really burnt out. And then we have to stop because our bodies just can't take it.

23:03.3 I also think that we need to get out of the thought loop that we need to be working harder, doing more.

23:45.0 What we can do and the action we can take is inside our home, is inside ourselves, is, is, you know, picking and choosing what we're going to go after and what we're going to support and what we're going to pay attention to. 

23:59.5 I want to encourage you to double down on loving yourself, being kind to yourself, moving slower, being more decisive, saying no to more people, taking space from people and things that don't serve you right now.

24:19.2 We're setting these, this bubble up around us so that we can regain our personal power so that we can step back into being the powerful person that we are. 

24:48.2 Once they get to know me though don't they'll know what you and I know right is like January is just a smaller percentage of the year So what that means is we have a bigger percentage of time of resources to take care of ourselves 

25:56.4 January is not for having big sales, unless you're in a tropical place, unless you focus on resort. Okay. Like there's going to be exceptions to the rule

26:51.0 Pull back your power. Stop giving your power away to a month. An arbitrary month on a piece of paper that someone decided is the day you need to now lose weight and hit your fitness goals. That's dumb. It's so dumb.

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1:30.1 This is one of the keys to, I think, the problems that happen among so many boutique owners is you just have so much space.

1:45 But It allows you to overbuy and overbuying is one of the quickest ways to not scale your business to become very much unprofitable and to always be struggling to make the revenue that you want.

1:56.9 So first and foremost, the conversation around assortment has to come from the fact that we don't want to overbuy.

2:29.8 If something is really working in your store, you could bring something back in another color, in another print, in another material.

3:31.3 Now as you start to grow and scale, you have to start to get comfortable with your assortment, understanding what is truly working and what is not.

6:21.6 Now, value of items has been so diminished over the years because people are loving to give lots of discounts and have affordable pricing, which is fine, but like,  I just don't think it's going to work for much longer.

8:50The Gucci belt principle is that if you have a higher end brand, adding something that's a lower price, that's more accessible to a new customer, someone who's just trying you out or someone who just really can't afford what you sell, you're giving them a piece of the pie. You're giving them something to love on of your brand because really, brand is everything.

9:34.9 So if you have a business, a retail store, a boutique, where you're selling things for 100 to 200 to 400, I really urge you to consider adding some things that are really special, really cool, really branded,  but maybe aren't as tricked out as the more expensive things in this under 100 price point.

10:03.4 But you make it a little bit more accessible to people. They get to wear your brand. They get to like be a part of the mystique.

10:33.6 The biggest mistake I see when people try to scale their boutique and retail businesses is that they expand the wrong way.

11:55.5 But the logical answer to trying to scale your business is not to add  department, like not to add categories, genders, gifts, whatever. The logical answer is to expand on what's working.

12:25.6You expand on what's working. You don't try to go and do something new that you don't know much about.

12:55.8 anyone these days can start a retail business or a boutique, but not everyone can scale and maintain them and stay profitable.

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1:48.1 With seasonal change, the merchandise has to change. So whether you have clothes, whether you have garden goods, whether you have gifts, it's always going to shift based on the season, right? So that's why January and the J months have this bad rep because they're transition months.

3:53.7 You see really weird activity in January. So you don't want to start your year off that like that. You want to know that January is an extension of the year before.

4:45.2  If December 5th, December 6th, you're like, wow, I have extra money in my bank account. I should buy inventory for spring, for winter, whenever. No, don't do that. 

5:07.2 Make sure you're selling down your inventory for the end of the year. You're getting prepped for January to be a bit of a hibernation period for your business.

5:12.6 Do not think the world is ending because the first two weeks of January are slow.

5:34.2 And these first two, three, four weeks in January in the new year to get grounded in what your plan is for the next year.

5:51.1 Number one is You could right now in December, in November, start to offer coupons that are valid only in January and February.

5:04.4 We should be learning from the big people and implementing it in our store. 

7:03.3 Remind people all during January. Don't think you emailed them once and they're going to remember.

8:23.7 Too many people are going into January being like, I got to sell, I got to sell. And they're still on that November, December sort of rocket ship that we've been on.

8:46.8 In terms of your marketing plan for January. Okay. Do the discounting, but also think about other events you could host.

9:15 The big thing that I want you to remember with your assortment during January is it's going to be a funny mix.

9:46 You want to have new arrivals by like at least January 15th, even if it's some Valentine's Day stuff, some Galentine's Day stuff, or it's truly like a new assortment of a small collection that are in spring colors.

11:03.2 That burst into spring is what makes you sales. That's what gets people to notice that you even have new merchandise, that visually you're making an impact through color, print, and pattern.

11:49.1 January is going to be a transition month. It's going to be a slowdown month. Don't put pressure and expectations on your business that you don't need to take a break. Send some fun coupons out, maybe bring in some heart things and lavender things.

11:55.1 Allow yourself to enjoy the break that January can give you. 

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2:17.6This is the time to talk about it. This is the time to get people behind your cause.

3:06.8 We've got to promote the promotions that we're doing, any sales, discounts, events. events we have to promote,  but we also can't forget that we have to educate our customers.

3:36.8 What matters is how you show up for them. What matters is how you present your offer to them.

4:39.6 ​​But the real truth is like we have to be more nuanced with our marketing. We have to be more  assertive, but make an offer.

5:26.8  Be clear in your marketing. Be like so clear that it's like, duh.

6:04.7 Let's really advertise what we're doing, what we're selling, making that offer for the product. 

9:32.1 Remind people, you're a small business, you're a local business, you're a woman owned business, and with your inventory, reflect that. Talk about how you can't get it anywhere else.

10:34.7 Because people need gifts. They want to shop small. They want to shop local. They want to shop minority, BIPOC, women owned. So show up as that.

11:40.5 You should still make a profit on your inventory if your markups high enough and if you're not marking down too deep and too fast.

14:35.2 Because people need gifts. They want to shop small. They want to shop local. They want to shop minority, BIPOC, women owned. So show up as that.

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5:28.0:So I want to talk about the big picture that I want to talk about industry and then I want to talk about you, how you're feeling.

7:47.2: From being a boutique owner to you being a human in the world, right? We are managing a lot. 

10:54.0: If you can get yourself to 12 to 15K, you're good. You're in good shape. You know, like you're good. You're rocking and rolling. 

12:16.1:It does feel like hate and division and the wanting to pit sides against each other and all this kind of like, it just, it's happening again, kind of like during COVID.

13:53.8:That is what we've also been revealed to us is we need to be aware of what's going on. 

15:20.2:Your work is going to always affect not only your family. That's the obvious, but your work does have an effect on the world. 

16:45.9:I believe so much in every single person who's on the other side of this microphone who is I'm in your ears right now. I believe in you so much.

20:50.9: I want you to feel validated. I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel like other people are feeling this way. And it's okay to feel like this, even though you're a business owner.

22:10.4:It's truly hard to have these two things coexist in our life where we want to be really excited and happy about our business. And we are also like extremely concerned about the world we live in and our family or like other things going on. 

23:15.8: A little wild out on the streets, and it would be good for you to protect yourself and to think about what can you actually handle. 

23:50.3: I don't know who said it first, but when you get nervous, be of service. That's really where I'm at at this point. 

25:15.3: And when we have more bad inventory and less good inventory, it's going to get boring and it's going to get annoying.

26:08.3: The root of what we do is like selling fashion. Like go and look at runway shows, go and like look up like Milan trends, Paris trends, London trends. If you can get yourself to London, you will be so inspired.

28:32.3: We got to figure it out. And like, this is a challenge. This is an opportunity. We have the position now to become more expansive and decide that the indicators of success have changed. 

29:09.3:Like that to me, that is success right there in a nutshell, right? If you can pay yourself, go on vacation, have a good life. That's, that's ideal. 

29:53.2: You get to make this manageable for you. You don't have to have some kind of like record setting business to be successful and honestly like live an awesome life. I think if you're in that sweet spot of 250 to 1 million. You'll have a really nice life. 

30:39.9:Let's be honest. We're just selling cute stuff to other women for fun. That's all we're doing. Like, you know, and so if it's becoming not fun or it's becoming blah, we have to start to examine that. 

32:20.2:First of all, I want you to start like doing something that makes you feel good and grounded. This is for everyone. Okay. We have to shift our bodies. We have to shift from where we are to where we want to be. And we have control over that. 

34:27.2: Whether it feels blah, whether it feels overwhelmed or whether it feels actually completely uncomfortable, what this situation and these emotions are doing is they're allowing us to.  See it. Get curious about it and potentially expand our thoughts around it. 

35:15.1: Are you really just bored or are you content and like you're just not used to feeling like that? 

35:53.9:The first two weeks in January, you should also take off. Like I think after any intense period of selling and being around people and being an energy and money and the exchange of goods and all this stuff, You're going to need a little sensory break.

36:33.2: I also think overwhelm sort of correlates with being burnt out. I think if you talk about being burnt out, it's because you're overwhelmed.

37:06.3:Reminder, you don't have to do Black Friday. You don't have to do any of this stuff. You don't have to do any of it if you want to. The option's yours.

39:14.9: Now, if you are truly discomfort, like uncomfortable, you have a lot of discomfort in your body and your mind, whatever,  number one, I think it's important for you to get grounded and start doing things that will help you feel like you're getting, um, connected with the earth.

40:55.5:I also think when you're uncomfortable, you have discomfort in your body, you have to think about what's going to make you feel safe or what is going to help you remind you that like things are okay. 

42:14.8: And so remembering that I have control over those things and how I feel, what I put in my body and what I think and how I sleep, all of that like contributes to just like a healthier me. 

50:31.9: I just think we're going through some unprecedented times, and it's okay to feel uncomfortable and feel like blah and feel overwhelmed and feel like you don't know which way is up.

50:46.2: The diagnosis for everyone is don't take yourself too seriously over the next two weeks. Give yourself space and time to explore what it is you need to explore within yourself, within your family, within your boundaries and relationships, and then come back to work in two weeks mentally, right?

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2:03.7: What you're about to listen to is a group coaching call. We include group coaching calls with all of our programs. So, we have three levels of programs. This particular call is for our Boutique Basics Bootcamp course. 

7:07.0: If you think you can sell everything to everyone and have something for everyone. I've been preaching this for years.  And you're going to see it come true in the next six months, like harder than ever, because you can't just sell something for everyone because everyone is no one. 

13:20.5: I am Arianne Braverman. If you don't know who I am, um, I am one of the coaches here at Boutique Training Academy. Emily and I go way back. Uh, but I also have my own boutique. It's an online jewelry and accessories boutique called Arianne's Jewel Box. 

15:00.6:The reason why I love fourth quarter so much is because I love the energy. I love the spirit, the hustle bustle. Like it just drives me. 

16:15.1: If you ordered anything special for black friday Make sure you know when it's arriving Uh, and anything that you have ordered specifically for holiday, make sure you know when that's arriving. It's really important to check those deliveries because you have a very short window. 

20:03.4:I usually try to make it a little bit less than what it would be if you bought three separate bracelets, just so it feels like a deal. Um, there are so many great ideas that you could do. 

21:44.7: Customers want things to be really simple right now. And the easier you can make it for yourself and for them, I actually think your sales will be higher. 

22:28.5: If you do have a lot of inventory, just use what you have. And like, you're like everything Arianne saying, like making bundles, making packages, making it like gifts giving, like you can do that with the inventory you have. 

24:44.2: I think people are a little bit sick of being sold products too. I think they want the experience they want.

27:28.3: We have a lot of people selling cheap stuff online and then we have a lot of people like Nordstrom has gotten like pretty expensive, anthropology has like 300 dresses, 400 dresses. So I think also there's this really special place for boutiques.

29:53.4:It seems like most of the fall things were 20 to 40 percent off. Like there was some good sales to be had. And I was like, well, it's the right time of year to have the sales, you know, it's very busy.

31:21.0: this is where we stay focused and this is where we say, okay, I have six weeks to like go hard in my business. I'm not going to let this stuff distract me. I'm not going to let someone in a Facebook group say,  The economy is so bad. I'm not making sales. Like that's their story.

32:30.5: So I already talked about like buttoning up your Black Friday stuff, but you should also be planning out what you're posting. 

35:20.4: And one of the big things that keeps coming up in every space I seem to listen to is the more you do, the more you'll make.

36:13.2: How do I attract new customers? You know, the best way to do it is post more and be more clear about your posting.

38:14.9:It's all going to make you money in the end and it's not your job to figure out who's going to buy, what they're going to buy, when they're going to buy, where you're going to ship. 

38:50.2: Your effort will eventually. Turn into orders, turn into money. It might not be immediately. It might not be tomorrow. It might not even be next month, but you're going to get there. 

41:06.7:So think about how you can, you know, think differently, think outside the box about what you're doing, and not overdo it because you think that's going to make you more money.

46:02.1: Like make it very clear, like what you want to do for each day and just figure out how much you want to take off or like, you know, it could be a flat price.

51:36.1: A lot of times when people are doing sort of the progressive deals like that, they also can have the option to just save it and ship it all at the end of the week, like if you're just online.

58:25.9: I just think the less clicks to get to where you want to be, the better. 

1:03:51.5:As a good reminder for everyone here is like, just make sure of your return policy and all that stuff.

1:05:49.3: I don't think it's unreasonable if people know that it's final sale for it to just be final sale. 

1:09:53.0: This is a time to be very tight with your buying because you don't want to end the year with a lot of stuff. 

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2:16.5:There's no one path to success.

3:13.3:There's been some quick fixes or people who've started businesses really quickly and maybe seen some success. But this is where the short and longterm thinking in my mind happens because you have to be on the pulse and you also have to be thinking longterm.

4:37.4:Size inclusivity has been something that we have been fighting for from vendors, from brands for so long. This is something that, you know, we want more cute clothes and inclusive sizing period. 

6:22.4: We're just kind of, again, reinforcing the fact that women fluctuate sizes no matter what.

7:05.4: And while we don't want to take our eye off the ball with making sure brands and. Vendors have inclusive sizing, also watching our customer base, watching our size selling, seeing if we're like something's changing because this might not affect you at all.

7:29.1: I think we have to recognize that as boutique owners, we have to start being really flexible. We have to start understanding that our demographic is changing kind of all the time. 

9:33.2: Maybe you start to expand where you're shipping or where you're advertising to, to encompass more people. Because for sure, one of the things we always need to be doing is attracting new people. 

10:46.8: I'm going to know what's the best thing for me and the best thing for me is really looking at your inventory. I think we think there's these quick fixes, um, but to grow and scale a boutique business, it really benefits from time and consistent effort.

11:12.5: If you're sending an email, sending a text, doing an app notification, all of these things, these are touch points with your customers. The more they see it, the more top of mind that you are, and the more they get closer to buying.  2 percent of people buy on their first contact with you.

12:27.2: So I want you to consider what are some areas of your business that you're really just thinking about in the short term too much. I need to fix this quickly. I need to post more. I need to make more sales.

13:37.7:Look really long and hard at what you have. What have you bought? How are you assorting it? How are you styling it? What are your, um, tips and tricks to being able to style it differently for someone who maybe can't?

16:07.4:And I think it's interesting because we forget that it takes time to build a business. 

17:06.0: The hardest part is staying excited because when you first start and you're buying stuff and you're like getting quick wins or you're feeling good about stuff, it's really addictive and it's really hard because you can get really addicted to the money coming in, right?

19:02.8: And you might find that you get into boutique land and you don't like it. And that's okay too.

21:05.0:You can grow your business fast, but you have to also think longterm. You have to set yourself up for the long run.

22:11.9: If you're thinking negatively, guess what? Your longterm is going to be tough. 

25:23.3:I don't wanna commute, I don't wanna have a boss. I don't want to hope that someone puts my paycheck in. I wanna know I have control over my financial future. And I think that's the longterm thinking that a lot of us need to start to shift to.

26:04.1:Whatever your decision is, make sure you're baking in what that life looks like for you. 

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5:32.0: You know, there's a lot of people that just step into entrepreneurship and it's like not their thing and no judgment.

6:47.0: Because let's be honest. Most people that own a boutique and you know, I know I have my dudes out there and I also have mostly women I'm chatting with, right? And we know we are tired like we were tired.

7:48.6: I think we have to all really, really be honest about when we start a boutique. Like, what's enough? What's enough for you? What's not enough? What's worth it? What's not? 

9:24.2: It's money and numbers that we in a capitalistic, like, society have been raised to look to for success. And I don't really believe that that's true anymore.

10:59.9: I really feel so strongly that you should be afforded a business that can make you money and give you a really nice life. Whatever that looks like to you.

12:28.4: I think we focus on all the wrong things when we start businesses sometimes because we think we just have to do all the things and it's not true.

13:29.3:Billionaires don't really care when they work. Or when they don't work.

15:21.9:I worry that people are just getting themselves back into the LuLaRoe mindset of like, the more I work, the more money I make. And it's absolutely not true.

16:31.0: So in my mind, I think you've got to think about what does demand look like in your business?

19:39.0: So I think thinking about your business from a big picture of what do I want my life to look like? How much do I really want to work? How much money do I really want to make? And what information do I already have at my fingertips to be able to implement a strategy that's going to be profitable for me.

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8:35.0:I've been studying money and money mindset for a long time. I will preface all of this conversation. With a short legal disclaimer saying, I am not an accountant.

9:33.1: I want to speak to this idea of debt because especially in the United States this is something that Basically, our society has decided is bad and I'm here to kind of flip the script on that for you boutique owners. 

11:00.8:So often as women, we give away our power around money.

11:48.3:Taking out a 300, 000 loan that's called a mortgage isn't considered debt. Like, FYI, that is debt, okay? It's the same as the credit card debt you use to invest in inventory for your business. 

13:04.6: We also then look at someone who's spent money on a credit card to invest in their business and think that that's bad. Guess what? That business could actually grow. 

13:51.8: Can we start switching our mindset around calling money we have used to invest in our business, actually an investment and not freaking debt. 

16:08.3: You've got to realize that like when I talk about the fact that I made six figures every year in my business, I also ran with that. Those investment loans, right? I ran with those loans over time. That doesn't mean that I didn't turn a profit. I did, but I was paying back those loans over time.

18:34.1: I see women paying off huge chunks of their credit card with the money they make from their business. And guess what happens, they pay off a chunk, and then they have to go buy more inventory. So what do they do? They use their credit card again. And it's this ridiculous cycle.

20:15.0:You've got to stretch out those payments because it's going to start to wean you off the credit card. Okay, you want to be running a cash business as much as possible, right? You want to wean yourself off the cart.

21:10.9: The deal is, is that if you can start to work off cash, then what's going to happen is you're going to end up being able to pay yourself. 

22:01.0:As you pay a small amount is it's actually gonna build your credit score you guys And when you have a better credit score you're able to access more capital for when you do want to grow your business.

23:09.9: You need to make sure that you're maximizing what works in your business and minimizing what doesn't from an inventory perspective.

23:57.9:Realize that debt actually equals trust. The idea that you are so trustworthy. That a bank or a parent or whoever has given you this money has given you this money, right?

28:15.5: We have the opportunity to heal our own money story at any given moment of any day. So guess what? You have control over your fate and you have control over your reality.

30:36.1: Choose what your money story is. So shifting your money from debt is bad, debt is shameful, to debt is people trusting me.

33:33.5: We all have to thrive on our businesses. And so I encourage you to check in with your own self worth. How are you feeling about yourself? You know, do your prices reflect how you feel about yourself?

35:04.7: Let's take a quantum shift in your mindset around your money story and around the idea that borrowing money, AKA having debt is a bank trusting the hell out of your smart brain and your hard work. That's what it is.

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1:28.3: It's going to cost you some money, obviously, to have a point-of-sale system, meaning you need somewhere to sell it and accept credit cards.

2:13.8: If you're going to start a boutique, uh, whether it's home decor, gifts, children's, women's, men's, you've got to think about what are the things that people buy most often? What are the categories that they're buying? 

3:55.7: Now people always say like, Oh, I should have something for everyone. No, you should have. Lots of things for one person or maybe two people that are kind of similar. That's the way to go. 

4:40.8:You can't just sell graphic tees. I'm sorry. You can't just sell Stanley Cup dupes. I'm sorry. You can't just sell a bunch of junk and think you're going to make money. It doesn't work like that anymore. And if you think that, then you're on the wrong channel.

5:31.8: You've got to start somewhere. And the more focused you can be, and I hope that's what I'm getting across to you now, but the more focused you can be, the more successful you're going to be. 

5:53.1:​​Having cash on hand is your greatest superpower when you're starting any business but especially an inventory-based business like a boutique. 

7:07.3:  As long as you're figuring out how you can work it into your cost, I think free shipping is a great way to go. That said, you don't have to.

7:44.0:People always ask me, can I use stock photos, Emily? Yes. The answer is yes, you can. Do I suggest it? No. Don't do it. 

8:23.2: Now, it could take a tripod, it could take a friend, it could take a spouse, it could take a child, but please model your own stuff. Be in your clothing, be in your outfits. If you can't do that, at least do a flat layer, and put it on a mannequin, but have the photos be yours.

9:47.6: You want to have a real active website with a real-life human behind it. That is the way to be successful. That is the way to stand out and stock photos don't get you there. 

10:57.0:Put yourself in the game so that people know that you are a boutique business and show up for yourself if you're going to have a boutique business.

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This episode has not been edited for ums or gaps! Enjoy!

Emily on IG: @stylishandsuccessful or @boutiquetrainingacademy

00:07.1: Let's talk about what jobs or where we see most people come from in boutique land to start their boutique.

1:01.8:First and foremost, it's stay at home moms, it's mothers, it's women, people with uteruses that have had children that want to start a business. 

1:49.2:You're going to need support with your business and with your child or children. The more kids you have, I think the harder it's going to be. 

2:03.1: If you have kids and you're really good at managing your time and you feel like you have these pockets of time to work, then yeah, having a boutique is going to be awesome for you.

2:31.6: Now, the one downside about being a stay at home parent and starting this business is summer. 

3:29.5: If you have the time and you have good skills to manage lots of things, like as most stay at home parents do, then having a boutique is a great business for you.

3:45.1:Believe it or not, nursing and teaching, listen, you're in a power position in those places. You're in a position of power and you're dealing with people, whether it's children or adults. That is what you're going to have to do when you have a boutique business.

5:04.4:The other two places we most often see boutique owners come from are the world of sales or finance. 

5:39.6:You're going to have to take pictures of yourself. In these items, using these items, videos, all of that stuff is going to be so important to your success. And so just know that you're going to have to kind of get over using yourself, using your voice, your image to sell.

6:13.3: If you are good at selling, if you can put yourself out there, if you can talk to anyone, and if you have style that people comment on all the time and say, I want to dress like you, or where did you get that? You could be really good at having a boutique.

Resources:

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46.6: I worked for seven years in corporate retail merchandising in New York City for big brands that, you know, then I started my own boutique.

2:08.0:If you are not committed to either finding cheaper wholesale items or marking things up appropriately, and I'm talking like three times markup, you will not be successful.

2:46.4:And the amount of money we make is dependent on the difference between the wholesale cost and the retail price of that item. So the bigger that gap, the more money you're going to make.

3:28.4:Because if you want to join Boutique Land and you don't have a clear vision of who you are and who your customer is, you also will fail. 

4:49.9: You are allowed to have a strong point of view and that's what actually makes you stand out from the crowd.

6:10.5: Sell your own stuff. Sell your own style. If you can go to LA and you can go to some markets and you can shop other places other than just Fashion Go fair and online spots, you're going to have a better go at it because you'll be able to connect.

7:01.5:You've got to pivot to something more unique and you can inherently charge more for things that are more unique. 

9:55.1:You can take your own photos, whether that's a mirror selfie or you set up a tripod just like I have right in front of me, a tripod of a video camera, and that's shooting me and I'm going to publish this out to the world.

Resources:

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1:42.4:Having a mobile boutique was really fun for me. I loved all four years that I did it, and I want more people to start the business. And I want you to start a mobile boutique if it's something you're excited about. 

2:18.8: The obvious first thing is you need a truck, a trailer, a whatever, an RV, a bus, before you even get into buying that vehicle, you really want to think about what you want to do with your boutique business.

3:39.6: I actually would keep back stock while I was at events in the front seat, and that like really helped me carry more things, and it just kept me more organized.

4:17.2: Now the downside to that is that every repair, every mechanical issue became a business issue because I couldn't just swap out a different truck or a different vehicle to tow it. 

4:56.3:If you go the route of a trailer, again, you see... You still have to think about how big it is. You still have to think about the interior height. And this is a spot where you would want to think about adding some sort of back room or back stock area as you start to build it out.

5:50.4:You're going to have to search for the right thing in the right place at the right price for you.

7:34.8: But remember, the outside is your marketing. That is your front door. That is your brick and mortar lease. 

9:57.3:You're going to need commercial liability insurance. That will cover when people are in your truck walking around. it will cover any injuries that happen.

10:26.1:From my experience, auto insurance is, it's going to vary depending on where you live, where you're going to park that truck. If you're in a city, it's going to cost more. 

11:59.5: So one of the biggest costs, honestly, is going to be vehicle repairs and event fees. Instead of paying rent, you're now paying event fees.

13:54.1:Most of your ongoing costs are going to be gas, supplies for the store, vehicle repairs.

15:00.5:You might have to have the trailer replaced, maybe some spare tires. It is less of an ongoing cost to have a trailer. 

18:57.2: My whole thing was like, you host the party, I'll pull up, and I'll do a great job entertaining your friends.

Resources:

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1:19.7:We need more boutiques to open because we need more perspectives. We need your point of view.

1:50.4: So first and foremost, no, you cannot buy samples. I know it sucks. You just can't. Okay. The way that the wholesale piece of the industry works. 

2:57.3:This is why I always say you should go to market or try to go to LA or New York or wherever these people are so you can see samples and you can see what's going on.

3:43.2: So now when you're on a wholesale website or you're looking at a wholesaler's line sheet, what you're actually going to see is the wholesale cost per unit.

4:18.5:You are going to get great prices on styles that you didn't even realize you could get such low prices on.

5:48.3: You're going to have to ask that vendor, what are their packs? What are their minimums? How are their packs broken down by size?

6:41.3: Now, when you go to buy from a vendor, they're going to tell you what their minimum order is. That minimum order is for an order. That's not for a style. That's not for a color. 

7:11.1:Generally, the minimum order is around 100. It's really easy to spend, that's like a style or two or three, you should get there pretty easily.

8:20.5:Now, if you're going in and you're buying women's or men's, you want to make sure that you're buying the right size kind of template. So there's a difference between juniors, missy, contemporary, and men's. 

Resources:

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1:14.6: We're talking about growing our assortment today. And to me, that's a really important topic because I've seen so many people do it incorrectly. They end up with lots of inventory sitting in a back room or sitting in a warehouse or in a storage unit or whatever.

1:47.2: If you're in a spot where you're like, I'm making all these mistakes that I'm like, talk about great. You see your mistakes. You can fix it. 

3:59.3: What it really is, is money being spent that shouldn't be spent there. That's the problem.

4:07.5: The wrong way to add more inventory to your assortment is to willy nilly expand in sort of breadth of like, I'm going to carry more different stuff. That's wrong. 

6:00.8:So there's sometimes where it is just a bad product, a bad product idea, a bad concept. Move on. move on to the next. Be like, I made a mistake. 

6:24.5:The best way to grow your inventory and your assortment is to double down on what's working.

6:57.9:How can I also entice the person who already bought it to buy it in this new version that I'm going to bring in? That's what I call the sister-cousin effect, okay? It's not the original. It's not you. But it's your sister. It's your cousin. They sound like you.

7:30.1: We are going to get on a path where we start to invest more in our top five categories, our top ten categories. Our top category, period. 

8:42.5:You don't have to be perfect in your guesses, but you have to be perfect in your reorders, your restocks, your sister-cousin buys.

9:20.4:The minute you start selling is the minute you start understanding what will sell in the future. 

10:54.2:Whether you have a big store, whether you have a small store, your best bet for growing, scaling, and investing in your product assortment is always going to be to support your top five categories. 

12:58.8:Don't buy or run a sale to fix a sales problem.

14:49.2:So regardless of where you're at, you're going to have to grow your assortment, whether that's from a small amount to a bigger amount or a big amount to a bigger amount, you're always going to be growing your assortment, growing your inventory. 

Resources:

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0:56.8:I always say focus on one store first, grow that, and then add. 

2:39.1:They do local pickups, things like that. That's actually, I think the best-case scenario for opening a brick-and-mortar because you already have this built-in customer base locally. And then they're going to say to their friends, Hey, let's go to this store. I think it's really different.

3:10.8:Let's say you have been selling online and you're sending orders all over the country, you do want to be sure that this location is going to have your people at it. Like, do demographic research on the area.

4:42.9:So if you are focused on building a brick-and-mortar boutique, the online business is going to suffer. Unless you have an online boutique manager who is going to continue to maintain that business.

6:46.7: The hope is that obviously they follow you and you are still selling to the same customer that you sold to online. Now, will they buy the same things? Yes and no. 

7:29.7:  Just because you open a brick-and-mortar does not mean that you need fillers. 

9:19.7: The thinking is different. You want to make sure the store looks great. So people walking in want to buy things that are gonna pay your rent, pay, you know, all that jazz. 

11:23.3:There’s going to be the shift in your marketing that needs to happen is you're just going to make everything local now, okay? With anything paid or organic. Every single post is going to have your location. 

13:00.7: So if you have a brick and mortar, it is also still important to make sure you have a good amount of your inventory online so people can really get a preview and get an idea of what the prices are and what the selection is.

15:28.3: These are the types of things that build community, build a sense of loyalty over time, and building those genuine connections, honestly, I think that is why brick and mortars are doing well.

17:12.2: The brick-and-mortar model has been around forever. So if you have the right concept in the right space with the right marketing, and you're the right person for it, like, those things can line up. 

Resources:

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1:30.5: If you are someone who feels overwhelmed often, or you can't handle lots of people, then going to market or a show might not be for you.

5:48.2: So the intention of going to a show would be to hopefully place orders, but to touch and feel and try on and meet the vendors and maybe meet new vendors that, you know, every vendor isn't on Fashion Go.

6:47.1:You'll find is generally organized in a way where the buyers that are coming to that show are all buying for the same kind of customer. 

8:37.4:If you're online, you are never going to like touch and feel things. You're taking a gamble every time you place an order. And that's okay. It's an educated risk. 

11:38.6:Each show is going to be a little bit different. The off-price show tends to sell things that are, they would call the margin builders. So they're lower-cost items.

12:05.2: So it's a good thing to go through the vendor list before you sign up for one of these events.

12:30.9: For someone who is neurodivergent or maybe has trouble with crowds or bright lights or music, something like magic could be really hard. That's a downside as well as going to a market center or a show.

14:13.9:You don't have to, like, be dressed to the nines with your perfect hair and your perfect purse, you're there to do business, you know? And so, whatever that looks like for you. 

14:34.8:Remember, at these shows and at these markets, you have all mixed goods as well. So there's a lot to see. There's a lot to do. , you also can get education.

16:55.8: The coolest part about it is really getting to be immersed in it. Immersed in the industry that you've decided to start a business and there's so much benefit to that. 

18:03.2: You don't have to buy anything and what you buy, you should love it. Like, love, love, love, love, love it.

18:57.8: whenever I bought what I absolutely loved, those were the things that sold out first. 

20:27.3: Make sure your deliveries are going to work. Make sure the retail prices are going to work and then either place an order or. Take a step back and say, you know what, I'm going to just take pictures and take notes on this and I'll follow up, give me your business card. 

21:36.9: If and when you do place orders, the vendor should give you a sheet, an invoice. You're going to take those sheets. You are going to guard them with your life. You're also going to take pictures of everything you ordered with your phone or a camera.

Resources:

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1:12.3:20% is a lot of money for a business. But it's also not that hard. So let's think about what 20% would look like in the next 30 days for you.

1:51.3: You need to make sure that you have inventory. Okay. If you don't have inventory, then that's okay.

2:32.6:If your customer is already bought into something that's really working, then you're in a position where you have the opportunity to buy more in a different color and a different print and a bit of a different style and potentially charge a little bit more for it.

3:34.5: But when you're pricing products, I find more often than not, people are pricing too low. 

4:22.6:So many people don't want to charge more for like an everyday item when someone's going to get way more wear out of it. They think, oh, well, I'll charge more for like a nice dress that someone would wear to a wedding.

5:00.9: I think that's the craziest thing because what you're doing is you're saying that the cost per wear of that item is going to be way better because someone might spend 30 on it, but they're going to wear it 30 times.

6:30.5: Look at the inventory you have and be honest with yourself. Did I buy this and it was a mistake? Did I buy this and I haven't really shown it enough?

7:31.6: I see so many boutique owners that are just like, well, things aren't selling and I don't know what to do. Keep trying. You have to keep trying. 

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3:13.8: I was raised middle class in a blue state. And I think that generationally, I'm like two generations away from the Great Depression. And I am one generation, not even, I'm 10 years away from women getting bank accounts. 

4:09.2:I want to recognize that things are changing in the boutique industry, especially because it is a woman-led business, and I'm sorry, I'm a woman female-identifying.

5:07.0: I think this is a big piece of it is when you are starting to make more money, you have more access to things. You have the ability to really affect change when you have that economic power, when you have wealth when you have money, and for so many of my scale girlies out there, my scale people out there for you, you have so many opportunities to build wealth.

6:49.6:That's where this stuff, this Underlying retail mindset stuff starts to come up around us being wealthier than our spouse, wealthier than our parents, making more money than family members. 

6:56.5:The boutique industry is definitely a path to wealth, a path to building a sustainable business and a sustainable income for your family and a sustainable like this is not a hobby.

9:48.4: If we're not the change in the conversation, then no one's going to change for us.

11:10.3: I speak from a place of knowing where you're at, having worked through some of it and like still working through it with you on this podcast, like coaching myself as we go through this.

14:12.2:How does that power dynamic play out within society, within your home, and within your family? 

14:55.7: What happens when we do make half a million dollars a year, our husband gets to quit their job, wants to quit their job, and stay home and take care of the kids? Or, maybe doesn't stay home and fully take care of the kids, but is the lead at the house.

18:00.4: I think with an untraditional relationship and a traditional male-female identifying household partnership where that we have all been sold I do think that there are some unique things going on.

21:03.1:You've got to figure out how to navigate with your partner. Managing what you want, managing the downtime, managing your family time, managing that labor at home. 

22:18.3:A lot of insecurities can come up when money shifts and money gets different, right? 

24:21.8:You have to navigate in a way that works for you and not forgetting how powerful the money that you're bringing in can be and what it could afford you, what it could give in your life to your partner. 

26:33.4: There is an opportunity for us to start to embrace women as being head of household. 

31:18.1:But you are allowed to gently and firmly push back when people challenge your little business. Oh, yeah. My little business. Yeah, it paid for my new Mercedes. Oh, yeah. My little business that paid for our house.

32:20.8: Be okay pushing back, and then be okay with people not understanding. You are still allowed to be the change. You are still allowed to speak that things are changing. 

35:45.9:I want you to feel empowered. I want you to feel like you own a business that is successful, even if don't feel like that all the time. And I want you to start thinking about as you grow this business happens next. 

39:18.0: There's so many opportunities for you to make more money and make money with the power and the leverage that you have with your business.

Resources:

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3:13.7:I'm worried that so many boutique owners think there's one way to do things. 

3:44.7:  It's just so important to be your unique self and only do the things that you want to do.

6:34.5:One of the biggest things I see across the board and boutique land is this turnover. 

8:16.2:This is a good double-check on, do I really need to buy this? So many of you are overbought. Even working with people who are helping you with buying plans. I'm shocked to hear how many well-established companies are having people overbuy.

11:57.5: It's an opportunity for you to re-examine your business. What days you're open, how it's structured, what you do in your business. Do you do more events, uh, and have fewer store hours open, right? Do you teach classes on something that you're interested in?

12:32.8: I think you're going to have to have a multi-dimensional boutique business. You're going to have to be able to scale up to the point where the business can support you.

14:49.6: We need to continue to challenge vendors to actually like fit things on plus-size women so they fit. There are some vendors that are doing it really well and there are other vendors that need to get it together. 

15:53.9: Remember, all of these beauty standards, these fashion standards, aren't necessarily originating from women. 

16:39.8: Do something that like feels like a passion project and might make you money.

20:00.5: When you're in a regulated nervous system, when you've taken deep breaths, when you've had a great night's sleep, when you're in a position where you just feel really good, what sounds fun? 

20:27.0:Especially in your business where you have complete control. If you don't want to be open Mondays, don't be open Mondays. If you only want to be open in the middle of the day, just be open in the middle of the day.

21:08.6: A buying plan is so imperative, even if it's not perfect. 

25:52.4: I think that as you become a more established boutique owner, those are the things you're thinking about more and more. And because you're thinking about that more and more, some of it you've masked. 

29:00.0: What I will say is that being in a community and having the support. What I will say is people are uplifted by it. They're motivated by it. They get to the point where it feels really good to them.

34:01.0:is the demand there? Yeah. But also are we kind of like creating the demand ourselves by producing so much by offering people so many options and so many choices?

35:07.0: Maybe you honestly open up your store because you're like, I want to dive into this and help people like me or I love fashion and I want to show my unique style. 

38:30.4: I'm showing up in the ways that I can. And I'm pouring my heart into the spaces and places where I can, because that's what I have the bandwidth for. What do you have the bandwidth for? 

40:40.8:Be careful with shackets, please. And I would also say, like, maybe be careful with sets, like, two piece sets. I think that people are still going a little too hard on two piece sets, so I just want to, like, warn you.

41:37.4: I want you to remember that there's still the woman just like you who needs to get dressed for every day, not just the Taylor Swift concert, not just the Barbie movie that they're going to with their girls.

43:29.3: Remember, people are coming to you because you're more fashionable than they are. You know what fits better than they do. You have a magic inside you that allows you to see a person.

47:17.7:Fall is always a good season, even if it's only slightly good, even if it's flat to last year. We still know that the price points are higher in fall, and so we'll naturally make more money because we're selling more long sleeves, more jackets, more pants, denim, you know, there's more fabrics.

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3:31.1:I turned 40 a week after my daughter turned one. So I currently have a 19-month-old at age 40 which most people would say is super old. I actually love it.

5:02.8: I honestly think that women's healthcare after having a baby is ridiculous. The fact that they talk about baby blues and postpartum depression and anxiety and rage and all of that, like only being up to eight weeks after 12 weeks after you give birth, like. Oh, no way.

6:31.3: I think the motivation to want to work after you have a baby is also not always high for people. 

9:29.4: Focus on how you wanna grow your family. Because growing your family could happen in a lot of different ways, and it's gonna happen how it's meant to happen. So just focus on growing your family and that really reframed my headspace.

16:27.5: I didn't realize how tough recovering would be, regardless of how you choose to feed your baby.

20:01.4:I am still running a business, and that business is the backbone of our family. Like this business financially supports our family. My husband does not have a traditional job. Like a nine-to-five job. So in a lot of ways that's great because he has time to help. He has time to, he's with her 30 hours a week right now because we don't have, we're not doing daycare yet.

21:21.7: In a lot of ways, having a business has really helped me. Be a mom managing everything, whether it's like nap schedules, food, bottle choices, toys, clothes like knowing that she's hitting her milestones, all that stuff.

23:16.8: Like you're gonna have those days like you just are, and the added pressure of having a business and feeling motivated to work on your business it's a balance. I think having flexibility in more ways than one is gonna serve you so much better.

27:16.2: When you have a business and you've started one and you grow one and, You have so much ability to adjust it, and I think what you have to do is give yourself the permission to adjust it and pivot and figure things out.

29:52.2: I think you have to allow yourself to pivot to what's gonna work for you now. Because like you said, what used to work doesn't necessarily work. So what is gonna work for you?

32:41.2: It does get a little easier in some ways, but also again, harder in other ways because now she's also a runner.

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0:32.2: I really want to help you understand that starting a boutique is not for everyone and going into it with a full scope of understanding what could go wrong and what could go right is really important. 

1:01.5:I think one of the things people think when they have a mobile boutique is that things are gonna be easy. Like, oh, I'm gonna just pull up and sell things. And that's not at all what happened.

1:58.2:My perspective is totally unique and I'm gonna show that perspective in my retail store, and so I'm not gonna worry about competition. 

2:40.9: I think one of the things that I would not do again, would be to get obsessed with having this beautiful website if I had a brick-and-mortar or a mobile boutique.

3:52.1: I think too many people think, oh, I'm gonna open an online store and have a brick-and-mortar and it's gonna provide the same amount of revenue as my brick-and-mortar. And to be honest with you, that's just not really how it goes.

4:33.9:If you're going to do one thing, don't feel like you have to be online. And if you're online, don't feel like you have to open a physical something.

5:20.4: In the entrepreneurial world, most of the time partnerships don't work. They say partnerships sink ships.

5:49.8: Having someone that's like sort of a higher-up person rather than a partner I find is really good.

6:48.1:If I were to start a boutique again, I would be really focused on one particular style or one particular lifestyle. I would be really narrow with my assortments starting out, and then I would expand.

7:58.6:I would make sure that everything I brought in was something that I'm like, I absolutely love this.

8:33.8:You don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to buy all this stuff. Just buy what you absolutely love, love, love, love, love.

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50.7:A lot of people are getting into this business now, and they're not realizing the impact that it's gonna have on their life and what they're gonna have to do to be successful.

1:01.6:  An online business obviously requires a lot of technical stuff. 

1:33.4:If you're not tech-savvy, that's okay. Just know going into it that you're going to have to at least be adaptable and open to learning all this new tech stuff because once you learn it, you can totally do it.

1:49.4: You have to be willing to be a DIY person and go through the tech, the struggles, and the annoying little things that happen 

2:24.4:You're gonna have to plan your product assortment. You're going to want to identify your ideal customer, and you're going to wanna have a point of view if you don't have a fashion point of view for the person that you're trying to sell to. 

2:42.2:And I think it's important to know that the stronger your point of view is, the more you have a direction with your assortment and, and what you're doing and where you're growing and who you're catering to, all of that really matters these days. 

3:09.9:When you have a boutique having five core items that are just really good items that put a uniform together.

3:38.3: It's important to know though, when you're online, you have to be the face of this or you have to hire models.

4:32.1: It's important to know though, when you're online, you have to be the face of this or you have to hire models.

6:09.0: Social media is like having free newspaper and magazine advertising at your fingertips all the time. 

7:00.7:But for you as a boutique owner, it's also important for you to show up how you're wearing your own clothes.

7:39.0: You are the best influencer for your business.

Resources:

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1:33.0:It's really important when you start your kid's boutique or children's boutique to focus, you cannot sell newborns to tweens. All of the things in between boys, girls, gender neutral, wherever you're headed with this, plus toys, blankets, it's a lot. You guys, you've gotta focus.

2:14.8: I think that opening a children's boutique is a no-brainer because you're always gonna have customers. There's always babies being born.

4:24.4: Is the wholesale high? Can we only get sometimes a 2X markup? Yes. But there's going to be places where maybe you can make more.

4:52.7:Don't be ashamed if you have to charge what you feel like is a lot of money for kids' clothes. You have to find the right customer for that item, but I guarantee you will find those people.

5:40.9: But from my perspective, children's inventory can be hard to find. But when you do find it, there is some really good stuff out there.

8:43.1: Really, I want you to make money with your children's boutique because it's important, it's necessary. It's definitely a needed thing in the boutique landscape.

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1:30.5:I'm seeing boutiques run ads and they're one of two things: They're either targeting me with “Come to our store opening” and they're in Virginia, I'm not in Virginia. Or they’re advertising denim, which I hate.

3:24.3:This is the phenomenon I'm seeing in Facebook ads. It’s a video and two photos the size of your phone screen. In the video the boutique owner or model is pulling on the side of their jeans, basically showing they’re form-fitting but stretchy.

4:43.9:In the past five years, denim has become really saturated in terms of how many boutiques are selling it. The main brand I’m talking about is Judy Blue. Because they're a wholesaler, they distribute to a lot of places.

6:28.7:I'm the one that says, sell what you love. People fight with me all the time about this saying “No, you shouldn't sell what you love.” Yes, you should!

8:13.2:The way Judy Blue has grown in the past four to five years has been phenomenal. What did they do? They realized that people wanted stretchy jeans. They realized women want stretch, and they shifted their assortment to fit that. They also started carrying plus sizes.

8:56.9:What Judy Blue did is partner with at least one, if not several, big boutiques. That made the boutiques the resource for Judy Blue Jeans, almost like a distributor. But what happens when you have that much inventory? You have to advertise it and become an expert in that category to move units.

10:41.0:Judy Blue has given themselves an opportunity to get to more people because they end up having more reach. They basically partner with big influencers and big boutiques.

11:10.5: I would call a big boutique, someone doing over 10 million a year. If you're doing 100, 200, 300 million a year, you're not really a boutique anymore. I think a boutique is really five million and under. Your footprint is small.

12:12.5:The stretchy gene ads. You've seen them, I've seen them. There was a moment when I saw three different boutiques advertising the exact same ad. There's some good stuff about that. One is that this boutique is becoming known for this. That is their thing and they know their customers love it.

13:23.7:Become known for something. That's what's going to make you stand out. Learn from this. Think about how Judy Blue, said, oh my gosh, there's a niche in the market. How can we make better denim and quality products stick at a really nice price where we know our boutiques need to be? And then how do we partner with some really big boutiques to get ourselves out there. Get to their customers, give them exclusive styles, and maybe give them a first look at things. Can you do that with certain customers? Can you do that with certain influencers that you work with? Or even just yourself?

14:05.3:You could create a VIP email list where it's ten of your top customers and you email them first with “We just got new styles in” or “Here's my top five favorite styles”. Maybe you sell $100, $200, or $300 out the gate. That's going to fuel you to be able to launch to more people.

14:33.6:It looks like a coordinated effort to grow your business through partnering with someone bigger than you. Over time, that's going to be more and more strategic for more vendors and more brands.

14:57.8:This is your strategy too. Be good at one thing, be good at one product category. Be really good at knowing your customer.

15:33.4:When you are ready to do ads because you're known for something because this is like your thing and your customers and you know your customer so well when you go to write that ad copy and do the pictures and do the video and create this. You know, again, pulling the stretchy jeans out, but your version of it, that ad writes itself because you already know what's going on.

16:41.7:Let's learn what's working and let's see what the trends are in the industry. If something's working for someone else, it could work for you, but you have to do it in your own way.

17:01.8:Take a stand in a category, be known for something, and, and have fun doing it, and have that be your thing. This is where I want you to start thinking about how to define yourself in 2023 and beyond.

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1:36.8:Now a lot of boutiques will start online or they'll have one brick and mortar and there's all these opportunities to sort of rent a space inside. We see it a lot in salons.

2:09.8: If you are just online, it's definitely a good opportunity for you to be in front of people and see what the sales look like and see how things can change for you from an assortment perspective and from an ideal customer perspective.

4:22.5:My biggest question is how would I mark up these items where we are both making money on the deal? 

4:34.9: She started listening to my podcast and taking courses and attending retreats, and she's grown from a thousand dollars, barely a thousand dollars a month to making at least $25,000 a month. And she's only open five days a week, six hours a day. 

5:52.5: I would, number one, learn about who's the ideal customer in this pickleball situation. 

6:33.9:You're going to have to build into every product a margin where he gets a cut and you get a cut. Now, how do we do that in a way where, it doesn't blow the budget too, right? 

7:14.8: How often will you have to change merchandise? Will this be monthly? Will this be biweekly? Right? Are you gonna have a branded set of things?

8:14.9:My next step would be to build out an assortment plan and say, what do I think this person needs? What do I think realistically they're gonna buy too? 

9:24.9:I think when you start a new business, which let me remind you, this is a hundred percent starting a new business. When you are in this situation, you get to start from scratch, but you already have all the knowledge that you have currently. Right? So, I think it would be really nice to consider, like, what's the assortment, what is the space he's gonna give me?

12:10.2:A lot of it lies in the detail of the product. You don't know how much money you can make until you know how much space he's gonna give you. So you know, kind of your per square foot money that you wanna make. 

12:41.7: I think the big crux of it is figuring out are you gonna pay him rent and you invest in inventory and it's like you own a plot of land in his complex or is he partnering with you?

14:27.12: Another really good logistical question is how do I come up with a contract?

15:04.7: So the way I keep imagining it, to be honest with you is that you are renting space. Inside of his store, inside of his complex. So it's not his store, it's your store that you're renting.

16:04.1:You have to be able to run this and make money on its own without saying like, oh, this is great marketing.

18:50.4: I'm sure you can do research, maybe you play, but I would get to know that ideal customer, and this is the same if you were gonna do any popup or an event, like people used to invite me to do craft fairs. All the time at their church and I was like, thank you so much. Like I am so honored for the invitation. However, the craft fair customer is not my customer. 

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2:05.3: The fundamentals of retail are the fundamentals of retail. They don't change over time. What does change sometimes is marketing or building a brand.

2:44.3: I think it's important to take a step back and think about like, what about my business do I love? 

5:51.5: So whether you're new or you are established, or however you see yourself in the scope of what boutique land looks like for you, I want you to know that there is always room to grow and there is always room to maintain and stabilize.

16:36.4: Create an experience for your people, find them where they're at, whether that's social media, or online.

22:01.8: I started to hear what was going on and I realized that boutique owners have very little genuine consistent support outside of potential friends and family. 

23:57.2: And then combining it kind of with, with my experience in, in my own boutique, it was like people were doubling and tripling their sales numbers in three to 12 months. 

24:25.2: I saw that scaling someone's business not only increased the boutique owner's personal income, like because it increased that, it also helped boutique owners feel safer. I felt that they had time, freedom, and they were able to do things with their kids.

35:18.4:This year has been super weird and inflation on just straight up everything. And then shipping charges went up too. Because these corporations are charging more, they're taking advantage of small businesses. It just kind of all hit the fan this year in a really awkward way that it's just been difficult to navigate.

35:52.9: I guess the question now is when outrageous growth slows down, so like outrageous growth of 2020 and 2021, like what is the result? 

39:28.8: I think as established boutique owners we're just like really sick of new boutique owners coming in and just like trying to undercut everyone. It's just like, stop doing it. It's not cool. 

41:53.0: We as boutique owners need better options to buy inventory in a leaner and more efficient way. 

44:09.7: It's not okay for our industry as a whole to accept that boutiques are underpricing. If you have someone open up down the street and they're not charging enough, it is up to you established boutique owner. Go over there and be nice. Introduce yourself. Be like, Hey, listen, like I've been doing this a long time.

44:32.3:As established boutique owners, we need to start becoming leaders in this industry and pushing back on new people.

47:38.6: Boutiques are focused on what products make them the most money. Right? What works? Do what makes you more money based on your boutique? What are your top departments? 

48:13.5: You've gotta know what are your top departments. What's really working? Start to analyze your sales, okay? This is like what I've been doing with so many people. This is part of my process, is I, I help people understand how you analyze sales by department, by price point, by color, and by size.

51:22.2: I don't care if your buying plan is for your $ 2,000-a-month boutique or your $ 200,000-a-month boutique. I don't care. You need a buying plan, okay? You need to go to market. 

53:55.4: Your buy plan is a hundred percent based on your sales plan and then your markup. That's how we get accurate and we understand our sales, we know our sales data, we know our top sellers, and we know how to protect them through the buying plan moving forward. 

1:03.29: Having a launch day, having a day where you feature something, whether it's new items, a look, whatever. To me, this has to be based on how your schedule runs because everyone has a different schedule in their life, and also how your customers shop and spend money.

1:08.21: You need downtime. You are a human. You need downtime. You can't run a business if you're constantly on and you're constantly not sleeping and people are taking advantage of your time. 

1:10.06: You need a predictable schedule. You need predictable deadlines. You need predictable income. Part of that is creating a schedule. Part of that is having more boundaries. And when you do that, the result is actually so great because you'll feel more financially secure.

1:15.58: So knowing myself and leveraging sales data will give me the cheat codes to a Stressless schedule. 

1:25.13: Feel empowered to take a stand for what you know sells what you're excited to sell and go forward with that. 

1:28.45: But setting boundaries and having that point of view, having a buying plan, all of that combined is what I know is gonna make a boutique successful as we move forward. 

Resources:

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1:10.5:we're talking about meta, which runs both Facebook and Instagram ads. 

1:33.8: I think this is something that you wanna do when you start to hit like three, five, $10,000 a month. So $3,000 to $10,000 months in your business. 

2:45.3: Facebook ads are really an additional way to continue showing people who already like you more of your stuff more often.

3:25.5:The easiest way for me to explain what a cold audience is, is that it's people who have never heard of you. They have never interacted with your brand. 

4:18.9: I always recommend starting with a warm audience, people who know you. Advertise to them because they're just going to buy more.

6:00.0: You will get a return. We have people who have spent a thousand dollars a month and they've made back $10,000. I once had a client who spent a hundred thousand dollars on ads that she and I were running kind of on the back end, just the two of us by ourselves. She made a million dollars off those ads one year.

7:21.1: Between knowing what to run ads for, you could really scale your business pretty big. So don't count yourself out for Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or meta ads.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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2:33.4: And so I'm here to remind you that you are a very, very, very powerful being and that you get to decide, you get to have the choice about what it is that you want, where you wanna go. And so I want to tap into what might be holding you back.

3:27.4:One of the very first ways that I see people blocking themselves from having a great boutique is fear. Fear of success, fear of failure. Fear of what will other people think. Fear of I'm not good enough. Fear of what if I run out of money? 

5:08.6: It's okay to be nervous. It's okay to be in a space of feeling unsure about what could happen. It's okay. Feel that feeling. See it.

9:20.3: Anyone can set up a schedule, actually. But what I will tell you is that it takes you sticking to that schedule and it takes you deciding that you're gonna show up for that schedule.

10:34.4:I find a lot of people that start boutiques just aren't taking themselves seriously. They're not taking the business piece of it seriously. They think, oh, I can just dabble here and I can just dabble there and I can disappear, and I can come in and I can come out. Guys, consistency and patience is what builds a business.

12:30.4: So where in your business, again, are you blocking yourself? Where are you in fear not taking action around taking your business more seriously? Stepping up into more of a, what I call a CEO role, right? Boutique, CEO. 

17:19.0: The third piece of what's holding you back, I will tell you is accountability. What I see so often in my groups, what I see so often happen with boutique owners is we live in our world, our little lonely world, and we don't have the community of positive support.

17:57.4: Accountability is why we start to feel more responsible and more serious about our business. 

21:52.6: I want you to check in with yourself and ask yourself why you're not doing something about it. Why you're not showing up for your business, why you're not showing up for your life. Because something deeper is going on and something is blocking you. So get to that root cause, and start to take some action. 

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

Let’s be friends! 

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Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

Let’s be friends!

Facebook 

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2:03.3:When I was a new boutique owner with my business, the fashion truck, I avoided a lot of mistakes because I had corporate retail experience. That's why I'm here. I worked for over seven years for big companies like Abercrombie and Fitch Club, Monaco, in their corporate office as a buyer.

3:20.4: First and foremost, I knew that I should not have something for everyone. When you have something for everyone, you have nothing for no one.

4:21.0: The more niche and narrow you can get with your ideal customer, really understanding who they are, how old they are, keep it tight, like 10 years.

5:27.3:I hate to say this, but most people come to me when they're really far down the road and they've bought way too much inventory. When you start buying inventory, you've got to track it.

7:10.5:The other big mistake I see people make is that they just are on every single platform. They think I have to be on TikTok dancing and going viral. I have to be doing reels. I have to have a Facebook group, a Facebook page. It's too much.

7:24.9:When you first start out, you've really got to focus on one, two, maybe three platforms where you can repurpose content, you can stay consistent on everything and really focus on being good for your ideal customer in those small places.

10:30.4:No one remembers what's new arrivals and not, you could re-show things over and over for a long time, and there's always gonna be those people who are like, oh, I didn't see that, or, and then there's gonna be the people who are like, oh, I've seen that eight times and I still don't want it.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

Let’s be friends!

Facebook 

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Thanks for listening! I'd love a review and rating on your podcast player if you liked what you heard!

Links you'll need from this episode:

Maximizing Your Boutique's Growth Potential: Strategies for Success from a Retail Pro

https://www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/maximize

Overworked and Underpaid Training: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/underpaid

State of the Boutique Industry Webinar: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/state

How to Start a Clothing Boutique On Demand Training: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/registration-page

Thanks for listening! I'd love a review and rating on your podcast player if you liked what you heard!

Links you'll need from this episode:

Maximizing Your Boutique's Growth Potential: Strategies for Success from a Retail Pro

https://www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/maximize

Overworked and Underpaid Training: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/underpaid

State of the Boutique Industry Webinar: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/state

How to Start a Clothing Boutique On Demand Training: www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/registration-page