2024 Best Year Yet - Day 2

Hello. Hello. Looks like you got your hair done. I love it. All right, welcome back, guys. All right, as you're jumping on, couple of quick reminders, if you can turn your camera on, we would love it. We love to see your faces, even if you're eating, drinking coffee, whatever it is you're doing. And please remember to mute yourself when you get a chance because you guys are early today. I would love to get started. If anyone wants to unmute, you can use the raise the hand button. And. And I would love to know the question of the day today is who is your customer? And then what action did you take from yesterday? So if anyone wants to unmute and share that what action you took from yesterday, we would love to hear it. And just use the little, like, raise your hand feature. Dana, you got the green memo. Perfect. I love it. All right, anyone brave enough? I don't see anyone brave enough to raise their hand yet to share. Oh, there we go. Okay, Maggie, I see you. You're first. Hey. So I signed up on Facebook, and I sent out a test, like, an announcement of two garment pieces that I have in my store. So I guess I'm just waiting to see what. What the response is to that. Perfect. And just keep going. Be consistent. Right. It's not just one post, but it's every single day continuing to show up and show behind the scenes and do video and the things. So congrats on your first one. Thank you. Great. All right, Dino, you're up. We're matching. I like it. Sorry. So many buttons. I haven't had to do that since COVID So. Okay, you said who my customer is, right? Yep. And what action? So my customer is typically that fun, over the top teacher that wants to be. That wants to accessorize and have those lightweight earrings but still be fun. Because a lot of the lightweight, a lot of the statement, crazy earrings are usually really heavy. So we want to be over the top and fun and still light. You agree? Okay, good. And what I took away yesterday was that I'm good enough to be here. Hearing you guys talk that whole time was, like, really eye opening for me, because for the first hour, I literally sat here and was like, I'm not sure that I should be doing this. Like, I am. I don't have a boutique. I have an Etsy shop, and I want to sell in the boutiques. Like, I'm not really sure, but I'm writing notes because this stuff was still really helpful for me. And then, like, just the more I kept hearing and. And taking it all in. It was just like, no, like, you deserve to be here too. And this is something that you can still push and grow and get better at, and it's worth it for you as well. So it just was like, eye open, feeling like, this is it. This is 2024. Like, we got this. So sorry, I took that to a whole meta thing. Well, I'm so glad that you shared it. First of all, we're matching. Second of all, I think your cat looks like a Maine coon, and it's a man. Yeah. So we're relating on all kinds of levels right now. But really, I'm glad you said that, because I think a lot of people feel like that. I'm just curious. Raise your hand if you guys have walked in the room and you're like, I'm not sure if I should be in this room or not. I think we've all had that. And, I mean, I've battled with imposter syndrome myself in lots of ways, so you're certainly not alone. I think it just is deeply appreciated when you can give voice to that and. And let everyone else, you know, know that they're not alone, too. So couple things. When I think of the word boutique, we use that a lot. It's boutique hub. But there's so much. Whether you're boutique or not, your home and gift, your children's. You make earrings, you're an Etsy shop, you're a wholes. I think it's a pretty relatable term. You know, we can speak to a lot of people even if you aren't a quote, unquote boutique. So glad you guys showed up. Glad that, you know, you're here, regardless if that is not in your name or not. I would also say sometimes in business, the people I learn the most from aren't necessarily in this industry either. They aren't in retail, they aren't in education with some great friends, like in the automotive industry and healthcare, people that have businesses not at all like mine, but there's always something to learn. So just being able to show up for the nugget, I think speaks volumes. Sarah, would you add to that, oh, my gosh, 100%?

I think we all. We all are here for a purpose. And you guys, I. I'm excited to be here today. Bear with me. My voice is. Is. Is wavering. I've got that crud that I forget who was talking about it yesterday. Somebody was saying the crud that the entire United States has. I got it. I got it. But, yeah, be Here as you are. Come as you are. No matter where your business is, we always talk about your you. You know, you are growing every single day showing up here. Don't compare yourself to whoever it is you think is in the zoom box next to you. We are all here for a purpose and there's a big plan. And we're starting this year off right. We're kicking it off in a big, big way. And everybody's going to take something from this and and build a better business from it.

I love it. Perfect. Thanks again, Dana, for sharing. We've got time for one more. So if you're just jumping on Question of the day is in the chat. Who is your customer? And then what action did you take from yesterday? Tori, I see your hand up. Let's hear it. Hi.

Please do not mind me looking like this. Kate. I don't open my store back up until January 9th. I promised myself I was taking the first week off until my kids go back and so I'm frumping. I look terrible. I look at some of the other people. You just said not to compare yourself. Cute and I'll get out and I look like this.

So.

But I since starting, I never really took too much to heart and you can slap me on the wrist for this. Who my ideal customer was. I just knew that in our town I knew the women, I knew what they liked and I just went by that. I didn't really focus on an ideal customer. So I wrote a list out yesterday. I took eight pages of notes yesterday and. But I wrote out a list of 30 different things that I think my ideal customer would like. She's like between her 20s and 30s, sometimes older. Because I do have an 80 year old woman that shops with me on a weekly basis. But she's a mom. I am Modern Mom's Boutique. So if that tells you. But she's a mom and she has kids and she wants to be comfy. She doesn't want to be all feeling tight in her clothes every single day. She likes the looser fit, she likes the mom jeans, she likes the boyfriend fit. Just simple things like that that I never really even thought about until y' all said something. So I think that was kind of what I took from that and I think it really helped me to start planning out what I want to bring into the store once I hit the ground running on January 9th. Another actionable thing that doesn't really pertain to that, but I signed up for retail boot camp and I'm so stinking excited. Like I cannot wait. I got in on the group. Of course, the first thing I did was like, where's the group at? Where's the group? I had to go find it and, oh, my gosh, I started crying. My husband was like, why are you so emotional all the time? Like, you got to cry about everything. And I'm like, you just don't understand. This feels like. Like I'm on the top of the world right now. Like, this is amazing. So I appreciate everything y' all are doing, and I'm off my soapbox now, so thank you.

Well, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I'm curious, you guys drop in the chat if you are jumping in retail boot camp too. You're going to meet some amazing people, both online and when we go to LA together. Those of you who've already been through boot camp, you can attest to that. So I'm super pumped. But, Tori, to your statement about your ideal customer, I'm really glad that you narrowed down like that avatar, but keep in mind, you might have multiple avatars. So one of the first things, those of you guys who jumped into retail bootcamp, one of the first things we do in layer one in module one is we do customer surveys together. So we walk through this whole process. After the surveys, we build out your customer avatars. We give them a name, we give them some life, and they can change over time. So just, you know, kind of keep that in mind. It doesn't just have. It doesn't have to be just one. The other thing I want to mention on this, Jeff and Sarah and Beth, you're going to laugh at me because I brought this up in a leadership team meeting one time. But when we were talking yesterday about why your ideal customer wants to shop with you and Tori, you're talking about your. Your ideal customer wants to be comfortable. So. And when we were identifying the villain yesterday, Right. Every person, like their motives behind shopping with you typically will fall in one of three categories. Money, relationships, and power. Money, relationships, and power. So when you think about why are they shopping with me? Well, how does this In. In. How does this impact. I need more coffee. How does this impact money for them? Right. So value the idea of value. The second is relationships. How does this impact a status of their relationship? So a romantic relationship or the relationship with their family, if it's. If it's going to give them more time that they can have with their family, that impacts relationship. And then the third is. Is power or status. So when we shop, whether it's for ourselves and it's clothes or it's accessories or it's home decor. Everyone is shopping because they want to increase the idea of power status. Right? So if I have a perception that my style is here, chances are I'm not going to go shop with someone who I think is going to lower my status. So if I'm a boutique shopper, I'm pretty probably not a Walmart shopper. There's a difference. I'm going to try to go with someone who's going to uplevel me. So when Sarah yesterday was talking about merchandising and product photography and all those things, it's so that you can increase that idea of value in, in terms of power and status right in the mind of your customer. So those three things have to be top of mind when you guys are going through your customer Personas and you're identifying the villain and you're really working to make your customer the hero of the story. So, Tori, spot on. Thanks for bringing all that up. All right, that's it for, for sharing in terms of raising your hand, you guys. So if you have it up, come back at the end. We'll do Q and A as long as we possibly can. Again at the end today. If you guys are new today, if you weren't here just again, quick introductions. My name is Ashley Alderson. I'm the founder at the Boutique Hub. We started the boutique of 10 years ago. This is a family run business for my husband and I. He's our cfo. He does all the behind the scenes things. We've got three kids. We literally launched the very first version of the boutique home of the Boutique Hub the day that we brought our youngest home from the hospital. So my kids have been a part of this journey as well. They're 1312 and now 9. And it's been just quite an awesome opportunity to get to meet so many of you in person and online. And I just feel so blessed to be able to do this as my life's work because I believe wholeheartedly that when you change a business, you change someone's life and you change their family and you change their staff by giving them a great opportunity and you change the community around them. So that's the big why behind the Hub and you guys all get to be a part of it. So. So thank you for that today. I'm so blessed to be joined by some awesome co coaches with me. So Sarah and Jeff, do you guys want to introduce yourselves again quick?

Yeah, you bet. Hey everybody, I'm Sarah Burks. I'm the director of education here at the Bot Cab. I came to work here at the hub in 2017. My store, I, I owned a store for many years and we were a member of the Boutique Hub prior to me closing the store and coming over to help build out the education side and build up the community. Like I said yesterday, you guys, I'm an open book. Been in the retail industry since the early 90s. I started working in a ladies apparel store in high school, went on to study retail merchandising, get my mba, do all the things. Came back, bought the store and yeah, expanded into two locations, took it online, all the things. I've also taught entrepreneurship at the university. I've coached at a collegiate level. Literally all I, I've, I have done so many different things that I feel has really helped me get to where we are today and be able to help build out education and do one on one coaching, teach retail boot camp with Ashley and best year yet as well. Here about in my passions, you know, come through with team management, sales strategy, inventory management, merchandising, all the numbers games, all the things. So I'm an open book. I love to, I, I, my big passion is to help you guys not make all the mistakes, the tens of thousands dollars worth of mistakes I've made over my lifetime in the business. So I love meeting with other industry experts and helping bring that knowledge back here to you guys as well. So I'm from southwest Wisconsin, I'm team Rodeo. I'm a mother of two and I've been married to my husband who's SEC football fan Arkansas. I know there's a lot of southern people in the crowd today, so just that's a little bit more about me and who I am and what I'm here to do and help you guys. So yeah, go hogs. I saw, I saw some Rodeo or some Arkansas people in the chat. That's why I had to say it. So anyway, you guys, I'm so glad to be here. So I'll turn it over to Jeff.

Hey guys, I'm Jeff. I've worked with the boutique up for about 5 years. I specialize in online promotion, mostly online ads, search engine optimization, Google, my business, all, all the different avenues that are related to somebody discovering your boutique either online or for a brick and mortar. When Ashley says this is a family run business, I would have to agree with that. My wife and I asked our son what his best memory of last year was and it was a vacation with the boutique hub Group. And so, I mean, it seriously is a, it seriously is a family run business. And I, I coach Boutique Hub Black here at the Boutique Hub. It's kind of a, you know, the next level as far as, you know, getting your sales to come through online and getting more people in your store through online promotions. And so through that we've, we've actually had the opportunity to discover all sorts of different strategies around the retail industry, which is really eye opening every single day. I swear, I get on those calls every week and I'm like, you guys aren't going to believe this strategy. Like, like every single week it's something new. But it's really, really awesome and glad to have you guys here. And then anything I can do to help you grow your business, just let me know. We'll see you inside Retail boot camp.

I love that you, you shared some behind the scenes stuff, Sarah, personal. Jeff, you've got to share what you do for hobbies. I always think it's fun to get to know, like, what coaches do outside of coaching. So what's your hobby?

Well, I've been known to buy a car too. And I've been known to buy a car or two or 50. And then the, and then, and then I, I, you know, I won't turn down a good athletic challenge whether it's racing a buddy up camelback or signing up for a triathlon.

Love that. He's also crazy iron man. I always find that, like, running is probably the last on my hobby list for sure. So we all live through Jeff a little bit. All right, also on the call today. Just quick introductions. We've got some help from behind the scenes at the Hub. Beth, if you want to give everyone a wave, she's running, answering all your questions in the chat today. Bridie is also here with us today. Bridie has been our intern at the Hub. She's also Sarah's oldest daughter. So cool to see both of you on. And the rest of our team is in the Hub Facebook group. So you guys might notice yesterday we bumped into some capacity issues. So we're streaming this for members of the Boutique Hub today directly in the group. So we'll take questions and answers from there as well at the end of today's session. All right, should we get started? Let's do it. All right, Sarah, you want to go through just kind of some housekeeping and I will share my slides. All right.

Yes, I know some people are wondering, how do I see the slides? Well, here we go. We're going to get started. So day two, we've kind of recapped what we learned a little bit yesterday. All of you should have received an email with the recording on it. Again, this is going to be recorded. So if you have to jump out today. Ideally, this was about a 90 minute session yesterday. We stayed longer. People were super engaged, asked a lot of great questions at the end. We love that, we welcome that. So please, let's, if you have a question, you know, be ready at the end. We're going to ask for Q and a time then, so we'll get started with that. At the end of everything, have opportunity to talk to Jeff, myself, Ashley, anybody you know on the team. Let's see cameras on. We love to see your faces, but if you can't do it, it's. We totally understand, but we do ask that you stay muted throughout the session. Just kind of helps with everything. And for the flow of things, please be active in the chat. Go ahead and ask questions in the chat as well because like I said, Beth is there answering questions. Bri can jump in and help a little bit too. We are, we are so excited you're here. Like I said, there's. There's no silly questions.

Right.

I promise you. We had over a thousand people on here yesterday. There's somebody, multiple people in this group just like you, maybe just getting started. Maybe you've been in the business for 20 years, whatever it is, home decor and gift.

Right.

We had furniture stores in here yesterday, bridal stores. You have someone very similar to you in this group, I promise you. So if you have the question, I guarantee somebody else does as well. But yeah, today, today we're talking about the second. The second lever we're going to pull. And big question of how do I get more sales in 2024, how do I run a more profitable business? Yesterday was all about how to acquire more customers, how to attract new customers. Right. I should say how to get those new customers coming into your store. And today, today we are talking about how to get them to spend more with us. So that is the overall focus of today. All things. You know, it's not just the whole, hey, I need to make more sales.

Okay, noted.

But how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? Let's, like really think through a process and figure out maybe where our holes are in our bucket, right? Where, where we're falling short, where we're maybe targeting the wrong people, we're offering the wrong products. We're just doing it wrong.

Right.

We're going to figure those things out and ask some really tough questions today and again tomorrow to really help you take that business to the next level in 2024.

I love that. Thanks, Sarah. As we look at this again, yesterday, top of funnel, Jeff talked about the, the funnel layout. Right. So attracting new customers, that's the most expensive thing you can do, by the way. Jeff, I'm sure you could elaborate on that. But if, and it seems like it's a thing we all spend our time doing, we want new customers. We're constantly pushing on social, trying to attract new customers, but it's 10 times more cost effective for us. I think Jeff shared some stats on, you know, eight times you're, you're more likely to get your customer to repeat buy on your website once you get them. There's so the two next pieces in the funnel, the, the warm and the hot, getting customers to spend more. So really looking at our AOB today and then tomorrow, getting them to increase frequency, getting them to spend more often. This is a universal truth across all types of retail. This is, this is the really like tried and true three ways to grow your business as we get into it. Today, I'm going to save this. Some of you printed out the ram, the retail action matrix. If you have this, save it for the end of today's call. You're going to come back with a bunch of notes today just like you did yesterday. It's going to maybe feel a little overwhelming. So we're going to use this matrix at the end of today to really decipher between what's priority and going to give you the best return on what action you should take first. So please keep that handy for the end of today's Paul. All right, so today, if you're taking notes, there's six questions we want you to think through today. So if you are, are big in outlining your notes and keeping them organized, this is question number one. Sarah, you want to handle this one?

Yeah, you bet. Okay, so here's, here's the big thing. You know, I always. One of the things I like to say is if we're not winning, we're learning, right? Well, first of all, we have to recognize why are our customers shopping from us to begin with? What is, what is the reason? Ashley kind of talked about some of these things earlier in the introduction, but I just want you to maybe take a note, you know, get your pen and paper out and write down why do you think your customers currently buy from you? What keeps them coming in what are the things that you do as a business, as a, as a human, right? That up level their experience that, that brings out the best in them, that you're, you are that hero in their life, right? So these can be things like, you know, you're improving their quality of life. You are the experts in the industry. You might think that silly. You might think that's silly, but I forget that, I'm sorry, I forget the name of who was talking about the earrings for the, the teachers. That's a real thing. Don't minimize what you're offering because teachers need that lightweight, fun, energetic, vibrant earring, right? I mean, it sounds silly, but put yourself back into the kindergartner's shoes where you're sitting on the couch looking at this teacher like she's the be all end all. Like she's the most energetic, fun, vibrant person you've ever seen. You're so attracted to her about so many different things. Like you're just a sponge to the information she's giving you. And she's got these fun earrings on every day, right? And, but that teacher needs them to be able to work with her life. It needs, she needs the whole, the whole vibe. It doesn't need to slow her down, doesn't need to give her a headache, right? They need to be, they, they need to fill a void and solve a problem for her. That's it. So you're the expert in the industry saying, hey, I recognize this is an issue that teachers need. Maybe it's the earring, maybe it's the pants that they can get up and down off the carpet and they can wipe the, the chalk off of and all the things. It's not a pair of pants that's a solution to a problem. It's not just an earring, it's a solution to that, that person's problem, right? So you're the expert in the industry that comes in and educates your staff to be able to sell to this person and serve to them. And that person, that customer like, knows and trusts you. So that's a reason why people shop with you. Obviously, that brand trust, that's huge, right? We're going to talk more about that today in this session about big brands that are out there or big companies that are out there that people just don't trust. So that is a reason they can they continue to shop with you. Freshness of inventory. This is a big one. Nobody comes into a store and says, hey, show me what is left over from last year. Hey, show me, show Me, what was big in 2020?

Nobody.

People aren't doing that. They are looking constantly for the freshness, the, the new, unique things. Right. Another thing on here is a shipping policy. Who here has refused to shop with certain stores because of their shipping policies? It's, that's a big customer service thing for me. I love to know that if I put the confidence and trust in you and have bought something from you, I want to know, to be able to track my product from the time I, I purchase it to it's being packed, shipped, it's, it's out for delivery and next thing I know, confirmation that it's on my doorstep. So shipping policies, whatever that might be. Top of mind. What's that mean? That means that I don't have the opportunity to forget about. Just like Ashley said earlier, you're not just posting, you know, whoever said that earlier today, you're not just posting that, this or that once. You have to be doing this consistently in front of me all the time. I like to say, you know, some of the best scrolling we all do is laying in bed at night, right? Well, sometimes people, stores get, they get stuck on posting and scheduling posts during the day. I'm busy during the day, I don't necessarily see it. But when I finally chill out at night, I'm an attractive audience. So being in top of mind, getting in front of your people, the next one, loyalty that goes, you know, without being set, I mean, makes total sense, you know, being loyal to each other. And then the last one, value and quality. Oh man, that is a big one out there right now. We're going to talk a little bit more about that as we go on today too. But customers are shopping with you because of these things. And value might not be obvious. This is one thing I just want to remind you guys, take some notes of this. Value might not be obvious to the consumer. It is up to us as that hero, right, as, as the industry expert to express and explain and demonstrate the value to a customer to help them have that confidence in that purchase. Because quality, it's hard to find quality or understand and recognize quality on a, on a website. So that's something definitely that we need to bring forward and raise that trust and raise and raise that confidence in that purchase. And when we do that, that customer will continue to come back with us and continue to shop with us. But if we just throw it out there, black dress, $49. There's not a lot of. I don't perceive the value there and I don't perceive the quality. So again, when you're looking at reasons that they're shopping with you, think through that, think through the eyes of the customer. What is it that makes you open up your wallet and check out on an online store or walk in, walk around, pick up a few items, take them to the counter and check them out.

Right?

Because you understand and you appreciate these things that just are. And there's more. And I would, I would encourage you in the chat if you have some other ideas. These are just a few, if you have some other ideas why people shop from you, that value, add that quality, that expertise, things like that, I'd appreciate you guys dropping them in the chat as well so we can all, all see what everybody else thinks as well.

You know what I love in hearing you say that, Sarah? How many of these things does she offer?

Well, that's what we're going to talk about here in just a second. Right? That's, that's the big thing. That's, that's one of those things that, you know, when we, we start looking at this, you know, yeah, that's, that's a huge topic today is, you know, be. Because I'm hoping a lot of you guys are thinking about that in the back of your mind and up leveling who you are and what you offer. And don't put yourself in this box of like, yeah, but I have to compete with the Sheens. Not when you're doing these things. If you decide not to do these things, then you're right. Your competition is Sheen. If you decide not to do these things and you want to lower yourself to a price driven retailer 100% only. That's a whole nother question. That's a whole nother conversation. Let's jump to the next slide. Ashley, let's talk about why customers do not buy from you. Okay, so this is a big one. I, because I get a lot of one, I do a lot of one on one coaching. And we hear this inside retail boot camp. In that closed group, we specifically hear this. And even in the main members group we're seeing this thing where people are like, well, my customers just aren't buying. Okay, So I, I go back and you know, I'm going to say we're going to ask some really tough questions. First one, are you confusing your customers? What does that mean? Well, you know, are you that store that like hung your hat on trendy mom clothing? Somebody said that earlier. And then all of a sudden I jump onto your site because I want to be a trendy mom And I see sequin bralettes, and I see, you know, like, club wear. Okay, I don't know.

That's.

That's confusing to me. All of a sudden I'm thinking, wait, what is happening?

Why.

Why are they. Why are they offering this? This is not what I've been coming here and being caught. You know, I've been confident in purchasing here, and all of a sudden I. I'm seeing a whole different vibe. So. And I don't understand. Right. So that's just one example. But confusion can definitely happen in. In product assortment. Confusion can happen in hours. I talk to a lot of stores that are like, gosh, I just. I just. I don't know. I don't really want to work five days a week. I don't want to work seven days a week, whatever it is. And I totally get that. And so their hours are constantly changing, and they're not communicating that properly. Their. Their. Their website might say their hours are one thing, and when you Google them, it's going to say something else. Or their. Their window sign is going to say one thing, and then you get there and they're not open. So that's another way of confusion. Is, are things consistent? Are things consistent? Is your shipping policy and your return policy confusing? That's a big one for me. I check that out first before I do a lot of online shopping. Number two, lazy staff who here struggles with the energy crisis of the workforce. Right? I. We've all seen it. We've all seen it. And then we've all had those exceptional customer service days where we go in and the staff is just over the moon, excited and thankful you're here, very knowledgeable, very educated on the products. They're going above and beyond as I talk in retail boot camp, doing the unnecessary, undeserving, and unexpected. Those are three things when it really comes to customer service. But that, ultimately, that lazy staff. I hate to say it, guys, but that's on you as the business owner and what you allow and what you, you know, you let gets slide by. And when you want a day off, you're like, oh, well, that's all right. Susie can take my shift. I'm just gonna have Susie do it. But maybe Susie's lazy. So next thing you know, the customer that always buys from you comes in, and Susie gives her the old head nod with an earbud in, and it's like, do you need some help? Okay, Walks away.

Right? That's.

That doesn't work. So that's another reason why customers eventually they don't buy from you. You know, they. They have that bad experience offering the wrong products to the wrong customer at the wrong price or value. This goes back to that glittery bralette thing I'm talking about. That's a huge, huge thing. You know, offering that wrong product to the wrong customer at the wrong price or value. Think through that one a lot. We will talk about that more. But this is a really important thing. When I coach about inventory and product assortment and buying and investing in inventory, everything you invest in should have that purpose. And I really coach for you to identify that customer Persona and look at a product and say, I can name three people that want to buy, will buy that. I can name three of my customers right now that that's going to work for. And if you can't and you're taking the risk on it, you have to be prepared for the risk and you have to be prepared to offset the confusion that a customer might have when they come into your store on your website and they're. They're introduced to these confusing products. And I understand sometimes we, you know, we're shifting gears where we see a transition, so we have to make some of those things. But everything we do should be backed by a reason. Everything we do should be backed by reason. And a lot of times we just make really fast, rash decisions in our business. Some of that, too, is offering way too many products. We talked about that yesterday. So if you didn't catch that, I talked about, you know, the overwhelm. So, you know, go back, definitely go back and listen to that on the replay. The third part here, lack of trust that, you know, I talked about that for sure. When you have. Earlier, when you have a customer that comes in and they do not trust you, there's multiple reasons they don't trust you, Right. One, maybe they've found your website, but they don't even know if you're real. Right. Who has. Who has phoned a friend over the last year in the retail industry to say. Or had a friend phone you to say, is this website real? Is this store real all the time? I mean, especially over the holidays, I had friends and family messaging me that all the time. Sarah, do you think this is a legit site? Actually, let's check. Do they have a return policy? Do they have an about us section?

Right.

Do they have reviews? There's different things that you can do to double check, right? But lack of trust is a really big one. It holds people back all the time. Shipping options, same thing we talked about. That a second ago, not providing enough inventory to get a full outfit or to get your free shipping. Not sure how to wear it or style it. Those are big things. If I. Right now, as Brady knows, I'm in the. I'm in the market for a mother of the bride dress.

Right?

Congratulations, Brady. But I love going in and looking at websites, but nothing drives me crazy more than when I go to the dress section and there's literally two dresses there, or I go to the shoe section and there's one and it says shoes. And I get there and there's one pair of shoes. To me, that's just it. It's not a re. Not enough for me to fill a cart.

Right.

Or to take that risk because I ultimately want to get to that free shipping threshold or I want to make it worth my time, my value of shopping with them. So that's just. That is one thing you would never. I'm gonna take that a step further. When you have. If you have that one dress and you're a brick and mortar store, you're not going to put it under a big sign in the corner of your. Of your store that says dresses. And then there's literally one there. So think about that as. As we talk about inventory crossing over and how, how we merchandise it in our website, on our website and in our store. That's. That's. That's a little side note.

But.

And then don't understand the value, but call it price. Ah, that's so people gets. They get stuck on a sticker, but they don't understand why it's priced that way. Like, what am I getting when I buy these 120 pair of jeans? Why don't I just get the 30 pair of jeans? They don't understand the value. And that comes back to us and how we're offering the product and how we're educating our customer on the product. So those are, those are a few of the reasons why customers don't buy. And so when we're sitting there talking about, gosh, I just need to make more sales, I need to make more sales, I really encourage you to go back and look at some of these different things, some of these different reasons, and say, you know what? I'm guilty of this. I put Susie on the payroll way too much. I give Susie the best hours of the week and she's not converting, but damn it, it's easy for me to say, susie, have this day because I want to take a day with my kids or I want to do something else.

Right.

That's. That it's. It's really important to look at these things and say, all right, where. Where am I winning and where am I learning when it comes to why are my customers buying or not buying? Because, like Ashley mentioned, people want these three things. They want these three things. They want. They want money.

They.

They want the feeling of that freedom that, you know, the more cash I have, the more freedom I have. Right. The more prestige I have, that status and power, and the more healthy relationships I have. And I feel. I feel more loved and I feel more appreciated these things. And so often, whether you like it or not, humans go and buy things to help them, make them feel this way, enter your business. How are you helping them with this? How can you provide one or maybe all three of these things to your consumer? Every marketing decision you make, every purchase you make, every investment into your business, every staff you hire, we need to be recognizing these things, and we need to say, all right, our sales are down, Our inventory is turning slower. We must not be doing these things. We must be leaving something on the table, and somebody else may be capitalizing on that.

So true. Sarah, you know what popped to me in all of these things? I think this was so helpful. But I would just want to echo, like, one of the most common mistakes I see is people not really thinking about, again, going back to the ideal customer and how does it affect these three things and instead just chasing what's the popular product on TikTok this week? Yeah. And I feel like we're. We, you know, with everyone kind of looking the same, we almost have an industry full of just product flippers. We're just trying to flip a product that we think is going to just sell through and make us a quick buck rather than being brand builders. So do you want to be a product flipper or do you want to be a brand builder? I think that's going to be a huge shift for the next year, is we have to build brands that really serve that ideal customer in order to maintain longevity in our business.

Yeah, I see that a lot. I see. And I'm sure there's people on the call that would say they have found themselves with racks full of inventory that didn't sell. And they say, oh, I better. I need to go back to market or I need to jump back on a platform and buy new inventory, because it must just be the wrong inventory. Instead of learning from those unsold products, learning to figure out why did they not move, what was I, what were myself or my staff or my brand not doing, and how do I improve that before I go spend another penny on inventory?

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, man. Costly lessons, but so good.

Yeah, so good.

All right, let's jump on to the next question. Question, Third question of the day. And you really have to get to the first two to get to the third one. Right. So why are people buying? Why are they not buying? Because then that's going to answer this question. What is your aov? You guys drop that in the chat. I would love to know and separate it for online versus in store. What's your online AOV and what's your in store aov? Curious what everyone. Where everyone's at here. And we're going to talk about how to find that number, how to increase that number. But I, I also want to start as you guys drop this. If you've been through retail boot camp already, you know I'm huge on the boutique traffic formula. I should have put this on this slide and I didn't. So I will type it out. Or Beth, if you want to type it out and drop it in the chat, this is why your average order value is so important. Okay. I just want to, like, give you math. You can run this math with your team if you want. Again, we're not just chasing sales, as Sarah said, but we're chasing these other numbers that impact sales. Sales are a lagging indicator. A lagging indicator, meaning it's telling you your sales are telling you what you did a week ago and a month ago, and your sales are the result of it. So you really have to find what are the numbers that are going to be my leading indicators and tell me, where am I going to go next month? And the leading indicators in our business are traffic, our average order value, and our units per transaction. Those are leading indicators. So if you have staff and you want to incentivize them with anything, it's those three numbers. So here's how they work together and why they're important and then we'll dig specifically on aov. So the boutique traffic formula is this. You're going to take your sales number, however you want to slice it by a time period. So your sales for the year, your sales for the month, your sales for the week, your daily sales goal, whatever it is. Pick, pick the time period. Okay? Take your sales divided by your average order value, your sales goal divided by your average order value, and it's going to give you the number of orders that you need, the number of transactions you need in that period of time to hit your Sales goal. Okay. The second step would be I take my transactions that I need divided by my conversion rate. My average conversion rate again online and in store are probably going to be different. You. And then that's going to give me how much traffic I need. So Beth's dropping this formula for you guys in the chat. You can just copy and paste it. But the reason this is so important is it gives you a direct correlation between how much traffic I'm driving from my marketing. All the social media we talked about yesterday directly tied to what is my average order value, what we're about to talk about and those things along with our conversion rate are going to really help us know, am I going to meet my sales goal or not. Now that's not taking into account inventory on hand and sell through and mark down Sarah, that's a whole nother conversation. Right? But this is such a great framework for us just to go, oh crap. This average order value that's below $50 should be a major red flag. The average order value right now that's below $60. Should be a red flag. Right? Because we've got to get that up to a hundred dollars. Otherwise we have to drive buttloads of traffic in order to hit whatever our sales goal is. So the name of the game is how do I take this AOV and really increase it? Because it's going to decrease the amount of traffic I need to hit my sales goal. Are we, are we all together on this? You guys good with the formula?

Yeah, I love, seems a lot of people, a lot of people know, know it, know how to figure it out. Love that. I just want to, I want to just say, you know, everybody defines success in their business different. So when you sit down and set your goals, set your sales goals and maybe you're running a very part time business and you work full time and this is a side gig that you're hoping to eventually build up or maybe you always want it to be a side gig. Whatever it is, maybe you have that in your back, your mind. Your sales goal is $10,000 over the next year. Okay. And if that is success to you and that's what you want, more power to you, 100%. If you're, you want multi million dollars, more power to you, there you go. But these numbers and figuring out some of these formulas really gives you those. Am I winning? Am I on track? Am I, am I working towards that goal or am I way off in my, I'm just, you know, just blowing smoke and saying, well this is what I want to do but then really have no, no radar on it, no tracking on it.

No.

You don't know if you're fast approaching it or if you to fix something. And that helps you make all these investment decisions. It helps you know how to market, it helps you know when to staff all of these things, when to run a sale, when to run markdowns. All of these things are so important. And one of the things Ashley always teases me about is I love, I love sports analogies because I just love analogies because this is that's way my brain works. So. And as Bry's on this call, BR was a big track athlete in high school and cross country was one of those things that was a long game. Right, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. Coaches cross country. So you can't just come out and say, hey, this is what you want to run your, your, you know, your, your cross country race in and never time it right. You have to time it. You, you break it down by mile, you break it down how fast you're getting up the hills. You break it down all these things and say, all right, this is part of the long term race and this is where we really need to improve, right? We can't just at the end of the day or at the end of the year look and be like, oh, nope, guess we didn't reach that goal. Without knowing what practices do we need to implement, what, you know, what strength training do we need to do, when do we need to, you know, work on X, Y and Z to get us to this goal or where are we falling short? So figuring out just simply this AOV really should be eye opening to you for, for that. Because, hey, do I have the opportunity with the hours that I'm putting in, with the hours that my store is open, with the products that I have to reach the sales goal. The other thing, when you look at this, if your average order value is say a hundred dollars, when you look at a customer come through the door, you're like, cha Ching, that's a hundred dollar bill right there. 100. And if I let her go, I just let a hundred dollars go. And when you start taking that personal, you all of a sudden start realizing, that's my hundred bucks. Do you think that when you talk that way to Susie that the next time, you know, I come through the door, Susie isn't going to be like, hey, there's a hundred dollar bill right there. And then if I shop with you eight times a year, I'm not just 100 bill. I'm 800. Because if you screw it up once and I lose confidence in you once, I didn't just lose you a hundred bucks. I lost you $800 for the year. So that is where all of this stuff really comes to play. And if you guys are like, oh my gosh, my head is just blowed up right now, I don't understand, or that's a lot. This is why, this is why we teach retail boot camp and this is why we do these more in depth calls and Boutique black and all these things. Because it's too much to talk about and really get into on just one webinar like this. But getting your mind in the right state to be thinking through this like it's not just a number you're putting down there, it means so much more to that in the long term game to reach those goals.

Right?

So that's why we're, that's why we're just trying to open everybody's mind to this and, and try to put the pencil to the paper and come up with some of these numbers.

I love that. Sarah. Thank you. Amen. Lots to cover. So let's go here. Next, how do you increase your aov? Let's just talk about some quick strategies on what really helps to get that number up. If it's maybe not where you like it because now you know, it impacts everything about your business. And this is a really easy lever to pull and maneuver in your strategy. So first thing, we talked about this yesterday. Number one way to increase AOB is your merchandising. You've all heard the saying, you will sell what you show, right? And you think about that black dress Sara was talking about earlier, and you're like, man, why hasn't this dress sold well? It's because it's actually been buried under, you know, some random pile of crap in my storefront. And I posted it one time on Facebook on a Tuesday morning two months ago, and no one's seen it since. But I'm just hoping someone's going to come across my website and find it. But the truth is, we sell what we show, right? So when we think about the frequency we're posting on social media, we got to increase the frequency of what we post. We have to have, you know, a live video showing multiple pieces. We've got to have an email that shows a collection. We've got to have carousel posts that we can swipe through. We have to have when we're doing, whether it's you're styling, a, a vignette like a display for home and gift, you got to show the whole thing together. What does it all look like together versus just one product at a time. I'm showing a black dress. I'm also showing the shoes and the jewelry and the purse and the accessory and the candle. That's going to set the mood, that's going to go along with the black dress. So the more you can put pieces together, because again, as a retailer, your gift is curating pieces that fit really well to solve a problem and achieve a goal. Right? Your customer doesn't have that gift. How many of you guys that sell clothing have a customer that comes in and says, I'll just take the whole mannequin. I'll just take the whole outfit. And they're like, I don't want to think about it. Just give me the whole thing. Whatever you wore yesterday, Ashley, I'll just take the whole thing. Right? That happens all the time. Same with home and gift. I am not very great at decorating my house. I just struggle with it. I have a great friend who is, and she has a home and gift store here in town. So she's going to come over in the new year and redo my entire basement for me, like, God bless her. And I'm going to tell her, like, okay, that thing there that you have displayed in your store, I just will take the whole thing because I don't want to mess with it. So that is your gift. So when you're doing fit videos, try on sessions, live videos, Instagram story, TikTok reels, YouTube shorts, all those things. Show the whole thing, merchandise it. That's the number one way to really work on upping your average order value. The second thing I would say is, what is those of you selling online? What's your free shipping threshold? What's your free shipping threshold? That's a really easy lever to pull. It should be at least 10% over or more what your AOV is. Okay, so I see someone who just said 50. Thank you. So if your free shipping threshold's $50, what's the incentive for them to spend more than that to bump up your AOV? There is none. Right. So your AOV, I'm going to guess, is probably under $50. So if you're wanting to get that AOV to a hundred dollars, then our free shipping threshold should be like 125. So that's a really easy way. Just bump it up. Because how many of us, Just like Sarah said, I'm not going to put anything in my cart. If it's just one thing, I want multiple things because I want to get free shipping. It's easy math that we like to explain to our husbands. Right, Jeff? Does Robin ever do that to you? I spend a little bit more so I could get free shipping. Duh. Why wouldn't I do that?

And my marriage is kind of the other way around. I explained that to her.

Perfect. Perfect. I needed all the upsells and add ons to this car, right?

That's right.

So free shipping threshold, easy add ons and upsells. That's a third way that are really easy. God bless. I've got two daughters that really like skin care. All of a sudden, they make me go to Ulta and Sephora all the time. Anybody else? Why? I don't know. But when we wind through the checkout at Ulta and Sephora, guess what happens? They pick up like four more freaking things that they really don't even need in the first place. But I'm a sucker and I buy anyway. They get me every freaking time. So we learned this, you know, growing up. Going to Claire's. Going to Claire's, and you get to the checkout and you're like, buy two, get three free or whatever it is, and you're like, oh, my gosh, more Lisa Frank earrings. I can't even handle it. But you buy them because you want the deal. So what is your add on an upsell offer? Whether that's digital and you're using, like, Honeycomb or whatever Shopify app you're using, or if you've trained your staff to do this in store and you have an offer right at checkout that's going to increase that average order value. Collections. Collections to me, really tie hand in hand with merchandising. So we talked about the small business marketing bundle yesterday, and like, all the lists of collections that are in here, that's a really great way to bump your aov because again, what you sell is. Or what you show is what you're going to sell. So if I can solve people's problem by launching a group of products together in a collection, people are going to buy multiple items. Right. Last year, Nashville collections were huge. Anyone that was going on a trip to Nashville, which is the new Las Vegas, we all know it. They aren't just buying one sparkly cowboy hat. They're buying three. And they want to see all the sparkly cowboy hats in your Nashville collection. Sarah owns like seven of them. I know. And the sparkly bralette she was talking about, I Think I've seen it. So they're gonna buy all the things in your collection. So making sure you're using collections to solve problems. Sarah, you talked about rewards yesterday. Reward programs are another great way to increase aov. And then finally bundles, bundles especially. How many of you guys did bundles over the holidays? I'd love to know in the chat. Bundles are a tremendous opportunity to increase AOV and your uptick. Also to move unsold inventory things you just need to push out the door. Bundles are really great ways to get those things moving. And that's, that's definitely going to bump that AOB up. Mystery boxes. Yeah, absolutely perfect. So all kinds of opportunity to increase that aob. When you do that again, traffic that you need goes down and you're going to get to that sales goal faster.

One thing on this, Ashley, is just, you know, inside of Boutique of Black, we really struggle with AOB because you have to have a certain amount of, of order value to pay for the ad. And so it's unbelievably critical. And so, you know, one, one, one huge difference that we've seen is something you guys have really been hitting on is one of you guys talked about merchandising and the other one talked about collections. But those boutiques that focus on style like an outfit, style like styling, their AOV is significantly higher, is significantly higher than a boutique that's trying to sell one shirt at a time. And so that's just, that's one thing that we've seen on return on ad spend is, is if you focus on the style, your return on ad spend will be dramatically higher.

Perfect. Sarah.

I love that. And I just want to, I want to say, you know, you guys are not in the business of selling one item at a time. Nobody is really, when you think about it. Name me a business that is successful right now by selling just one thing. There isn't. Everything has a add on to it, you know, everything has a upsell with it. Everything. And it can be as simple as, you know, well, heck, you can't even buy a house without getting the insurance. You can't buy a car without getting, I mean, whatever, all Jeff. I mean fill in the blanks, all the little bells and whistles, add ons, all the things. You can't go to Walmart. Who could possibly go to Target or Walmart and buy one thing? Nobody does it. It's just impossible the way they have the store set up all the things. So think of yourself that way, right? Like don't allow the one item purchase in your business. I mean, you can't, you're not going to tell the customer, sorry, I'm not allowed to sell you one thing. But talk and train your staff and think about it through that merchandising perspective that you are not in the business of selling one item at a time. That's exhausting. So exhausting. And it makes it so much harder to reach your earning potential and your goals and be able to afford the ads and be able to afford the lights on and be able to pay yourself when you literally have to work twice as hard if you are making a goal of selling one item at a time. So I appreciate you saying that, Jeff, because when you think about that, like, how do you afford these ads? And how do you make that ROI worth it?