#21 Maximizing Facebook Live and Plus Size Selling for your Boutique with Mindy Switzer
Mindy Switzer built a high-volume Facebook Live boutique selling sizes XS to 3X by going live 3-4 hours weekly with games, new arrivals, and a deal-of-the-day model. She ships next day, turns inventory in 21 days, and limits refunds to store credit to reduce returns. One viral night added 800 members to her community.
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Get ready for Boutique chat episode number 21 with Mindy Switzer, the founder and CEO of Mindy's Boutique. And we're talking all about the wild success of using Facebook Live for your business. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those in insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. Hey guys. She is unapologetic, she is real, she is raw. And she's created a brand around serving her customers better than anyone else ever could by simply being herself. And I'm talking all of it now. Pairing Facebook lives and adding in using comments. Sold. Mindy Switzer has built an impressive business by maximizing this consumer trend that we're living in, following live and reality based marketing. You know what I'm talking about. Facebook Live instastory Snapchat. People want to do business with people and they want you to bring them in behind the scenes of your business. And Mindy has definitely figured this out. Each and every Thursday, Mindy goes live for what can last up to three to four hours. Yes, hours sharing her weekly new arrivals, also chatting with customers and even playing some weekly engagement games to build some laughter and excitement. Inappropriate Pictionary, anyone? What's even more impressive about what Mindy's built is her willingness to help other people follow along the same path. She totally believes in the movement of community over competition like we do at the Hub. And in this interview, I think you're going to quickly see that she is happy to help anyone by sharing her greatest tips. She holds nothing back, literally, because she knows that her customers are looking for her and that she can serve them better than anyone else. She's got no time to worry about what other boutique owners are doing and the message is that neither should you. There is more than enough to go around when you step into owning who you are and who your customers need you to be and then deliver it on a live weekly basis, creating something truly from nothing and starting her business when she was at one of the most desperate, darkest moments of her life. Mindy's definitely a living example that your business is truly what you make it to be. Guys, this is one of my favorite episodes of Boutique Chat yet. I can't wait for you to hear this story, these tips, and get your own awesome takeaways by listening to Mindy. So let's get started. All right. Hey, guys, welcome to the show. This week. I cannot wait to dive in because I'm just going to warn you now, there's probably going to be a lot of rabbit holes and a lot of excitement as we get into this conversation this week. We're joined by Mindy Switzer, who is the owner and founder of Mindy's Boutique and and probably one of the most dominant Facebook lives that are happening online today. I mean, your boutique, Mindy, has absolutely blown up because of what you've been able to do and the way that you're able to connect with your people online and sometimes for three to four hours at a time where you've got hundreds and hundreds of women watching. I mean, talk about fill your glass of wine and sit and enjoy not only a reality TV show, but an opportunity to shop that sells thousands of products in that short period of time. So there's a lot of things we're going to try to give you today as takeaways, tips from Mindy. But I want you to hear Mindy's story to get started because I think this has a huge impact on why the boutique is as successful as it is today. So, Mindy, welcome to the show. Let's talk about your background and how you got started in the business. First.
Yes. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much, Ashley. This has been amazing talking with you. And I love the Boutique Hub and everything about it. I got started about two years ago. I actually had a custom jewelry business that was just tinkering just to make a little extra money. But before that, and the reason I started my boutique is When I was 18, I had a serious, serious injury and I was a powerlifter, long story. But I had a serious injury that required I've had over 20 plus back surgeries. I've had my hip redone, I've had my tailbone removed, you name it. Surgery wise, I've had it like all the way on disability, not able to do anything. Well, about three and a half years ago, four years ago, I finally found a doctor that what I call fixed me to where I was able to walk right again, live a normal life as opposed to being in a wheelchair or being on a walker for a very long period of time. Well, after they fixed me, I got really into working out and all of that. And I lost a lot of weight. I had lost 128 pounds. Well, then I woke up one morning and could not walk again. I had to have emergency surgery. Total start over nightmare. Well, in those 90 days after those big surgeries, I was on a walker in a wheelchair. I gained 90 pounds back. Well, luckily they fixed me again after all that, but I had gained 90 pounds back. So I went to all the local boutiques in around and even in Fort Worth, which is a bigger city, and was looking for plus size clothing or something that would be cute on me and I would walk in the door and say they would kind of look at me, some of them, and go, well we have two plus size options in the back or we don't really carry anything bigger than an extra large. So I was devastated. So I went and got in the car and just happened to Google how many women in the United States are plus size. And it was 69%. And I thought to myself, why is no one selling clothes for 69% of the women? So I decided to instead of just doing the 69%, I wanted every woman of every size. So we go from sometimes extra small all the way up to 6x sometimes. So mainly small to 3x. But it's been an amazing journey.
I was shocked when you told me that number because from the boutique perspective I know how many stores don't carry plus because it can be a challenging demographic to get into. If the boutique owner themselves don't really understand it that well, there's only a handful that are in the game. So when I kind of heard, when you shared this with me, I think it's amazing what you're doing. Like the fact that you got into it like you do and you're able to serve people not just by selling them clothing, but you're serving them on a much bigger level. Can you talk about that?
Yes, absolutely. And another thing too is confidence. Especially plus size ladies. Any lady, no matter her size, wants to feel beautiful. So I always tease, we don't sell clothes, we sell confidence. Because I want anyone that shops with me to go out of the house and be so proud like every Sunday. This is a great thing for other boutiques to do too is we do how I rocked my Mindy's and it's just a post and I get every girl of every shape, every size. Age does not matter. We sell from high schoolers up to. I have an 89 year old customer that does Facebook lives and can check out their comments. Sold like 89 years old. So they do it all age groups. But I want them to know to Take pictures to be confident in their bodies and to be happy and not be the one that's not getting in the picture because they don't feel. Feel good about themselves. So even during my live sales, people say, I will actually say I weigh 242 pounds. Since all my injuries, I've lost the weight. I've weighed 114. I've weighed everything. But I will tell people I'm a 2x3x I weigh 242 pounds. I will actually tell them that on my life. And I feel like it makes them feel so much better about themselves and say, you know, if Mindy can get in front of a camera, in front of all these people, I can take a picture or I can post on my Sunday how I rocked my Mindy's. Even that little starting point has been huge for some of my ladies.
Oh, man. You know, we were talking about people want to do business with people. Like, if anyone wants the magic bullet to success, it's that be human, right? Was there fear for you when you first got started to really owning who you were, or do you feel like because you went through these ups and downs, these challenges, you were able to step into that pretty quickly?
I was able to step into that really quickly. No matter my size. I had always been very confident and always loved to dress other people up, love to do their hair and makeup. I was also a makeup artist, and I still sometimes do that on the side. But I have always. I wanted to jump right in, and I don't know why. I've always been so confident. And, you know, I guess my parents always told me, you know, no matter what, you're beautiful, you're great. You know, all of those things that you want parents to say think that was one of the key things. And, you know, whenever I first was going to do a live sale, I was nervous. I was like. It was. There was a couple other boutiques doing live sales at the time. Not very many at the time, but there was a couple other ones. And I was nervous and I'm like, I am so different than these other boutiques. First off, I have a sailor's mouth, to say the least. If you've watched a lot, you know that I'm very inappropriate 95% of the time. And everyone said, don't do that, don't cuss, don't be inappropriate and do this. And I said, well, you know what? If me being me cussing, being inappropriate doesn't work, then I'm not going to do it at all. So I went in and no matter what they tell you, anybody tells you, I mean, obviously you have to be, especially when you're live, you do have to be careful the things you say, but still be yourself. And you want to make it fun. That's the whole thing is making it fun and making them. Making it a show. You have to make it a show because no one wants to watch someone hold up a shirt and go, I have a small, medium and large and it's $29. Nobody wants to watch that at all. They want to see a show, they want to see some craziness. Nobody watches the Kardashians because it's just a great show. They want to see the craziness, they want to see the fun of it. They want to see all of that. So. And we bring that in during the live sale. I think that's so important that you want your live to be a show and not just you're selling clothes. Because if they come for the show and they buy something, they're going to be a lot more likely to watch the next week than if they just come spend all their money and don't watch the next week. If that makes sense.
Absolutely. So how do you, you know, having that in mind, you're planning for a show and granted you're off the cuff and your ability just to roll with things is hysterical. And if anyone's watching that's watched your lives can agree. But do you sit down and you know, pre plan what's going to happen each week? Tell me about that preparation process.
I do not. I do not write down one thing that's going to happen that week. I don't know going in. The only thing I do know is we always do like a shared giveaway and we do giveaways and we decide how we're gonna do those giveaways ahead of time. Everything else I just say off the, you know, I just think of as I'm going and a lot of times people say stuff to me that'll make me think about it. And yeah, I was gonna say the peach story, but I don't know if that's appropriate or not. But if you've ever watched my life sell, I have a story about a peach festival. And it's funny, but we try to stick with what we are gonna do that night just for the giveaways and everything else is free. Like the giveaways the other night we did the people who won, we did inappropriate Pictionary. So I took a little whiteboard and I drew stuff that had dual meaning. So for instance, we drew a banana. You know, things like that. And I drew it and they guessed on the other end what I was drawing. And I'm a terrible artist. I cannot draw anything. Barely a stick figure. Well, then they guessed. Well, not only did that increase engagement, but they lost their minds guessing what this stuff was. They're dying, rolling, laughing, because they're guessing all this crazy stuff that it's not even. Because it's just a regular banana. But they loved it. And then whoever got it first is the one who won the prize for whatever that was. So like, we do inappropriate Pictionary for those things. We also do. We did inappropriate Pictionary and then we did. Where we pick the. Gosh, what would I even call that? Like movie. Like little quotes out of movies. And then they name the movie. And that was fun. So that's something more appropriate, obviously. Or they would guess the person. I would give them clues on little clue boards and they would guess the person and then they would win prizes. And I even have a little wheel that they can win. Wheel spins that has bath bombs and sunglasses.
That is amazing. Do you do it at the beginning of the video, middle of the video, or end of the video?
We save all of. Well, we do like deal of the day. We always do a deal of the day first, which. And that's another big thing people think live sales, everything has to be on sale. We are not trying to sell stuff for markdown. We do not want to mark down anything. My entire store turns over every 21 days. We very rarely. We do one markdown once a year, which was last week. Besides that, we do very, very few markdowns. But I buy things going in that. What we call deal of the day items. Those items I get for a good price because I've researched in LA everywhere. I'm going to buy this just for deal of the day. Like my $12 T shirts that everyone's like, how. How is she selling t shirts for $12? Well, I found a vendor that I can get those t shirts for $3. So you have to. You have to look for those things to know you're going to do that deal of the day and leave all of the rest of your items regular price. Because they want these items and they want them. They don't. I mean, obviously they want a better deal. But I only mark my. I don't mark my stuff up as much because I deal in volume more than I do in upper hiring. The price, I guess you would say.
Yes, but it's important to note that it doesn't always start that way, right?
No, absolutely not. You have to, you have to be getting, I always say, three times your money. Now, that may not mean you have an expensive duster you're going to mark up three times. That may mean you have a dress that you got an amazing deal on that you're going to mark up five times to make up for that other thing that you can only do two times on. So I think people think that every single item has to be marked up 3. If your customer is not going to buy it and you're going to have to clearance it out, don't do that. You have to. When you're buying, you have to make sure that you are buying stuff that's going to equal three plus across the board. Because by the time you pay for, people don't realize your employees are expensive. All of your overhead, you know, so that's very important. And there are a lot of these bargain boutiques that are coming up everywhere that are adding two or three dollars. But you just need to remind your customer that is not the way to go because those are going to be coming and going all the time. You want someone that's going to be here and going to be trustworthy, which is so important about getting your customers to post pictures of themselves wearing your stuff. Because then that customer, new customer knows, oh, look at all these people that got their mindy stuff. Got it quickly. Quickly is important to me. Also very important. So we normally ship out the next day.
You ship out the next day. Tell me more about customer service. Is such a huge piece of this because it's not just the sale, but it's what happens after it. So besides shipping, what else do you train your team in terms of customer service to do differently than the majority of boutiques?
I tell everyone that comes to work for me on the very first day. How would you want a boutique to treat your sister or your best friend? How would you want them to treat your sister or your best friend if you would not want them, what you're doing done to your sister or your best friend, do not do it. If I see so many and I see these on the hub, I see post on everywhere. So and so tore this while she was in the or tried it on. Now she's trying to return it and she wants her $20 back. But I'm sticking to my guns and I'm not doing it. The thing is, that person, yes, she probably is devastated she tore it. We all know she Tore it. The thing is about that you're going to lose that customer over this 20 or $24 top just because you didn't make it right or right in her eyes. And you can't please everyone all the time. I'm not saying that. But that person is probably going to go tell every person on their Facebook page, every person they know, one bad experience, they estimate that they will tell 40 people bad about your business, whereas one good experience, they're going to tell five people that. What a great experience. So you are taking the chance over a $24 top or a $20 topper, $5 shipping to lose a customer. And it's not just about losing that customer. Like I said, they're going to tell 40 up to 40 of their friends if they don't tell every single person on their whole Facebook page, which is five hundred or a thousand people. So I tell every person that comes there, make it right, whatever we have to do, make the customer happy. And yes, I've had people do crazy stuff and say, I'm not sending the dresses back, but I want my money back. Obviously that doesn't work, but do the very best you can. And remember, they are screenshotting everything. So if you would not say that to your mom or your best friend or your sister, don't put it back to them because they are going to show that to everybody. And I tell all my girls that.
Oh, man, I need to just drop the mic like five times with everything you just said. It's so spot on. What's your return policy like? What do you have in writing? Because I think along everything you said and even the posts we see in the Hub, everyone's about sticking to their guns. But I think the return policy is a huge piece of that. And just setting the expectation with your customer up front that you are going to be different in that regard.
Well, and I created a Mindy's Buy, sell and Trade where they can buy, sell and trade a totally different group from me. I monitor it a little bit, but I put on there, hey, I'm not responsible for any of this stuff. But that has saved me so many returns, I cannot even tell you. We only allow one return per every other live sale. I sell 700 to 1,000 items every Thursday night. We might have two returns from a live sale and that's it. That's all we have. But I put it in writing if someone returns it and says I got the wrong size. And the problem with us is we sell out of everything that week. So when they know when they return something, they're not going to get a different size for that. It's just not going to happen. And we only do store credit. We do no cash back for any purchase unless it's something we messed up on, didn't have the right size on because of an inventory issue or, or something like that. I will give them their money back because that's on us, like trying to make it right, you know. But for everything else we do one return, they have seven days to get it back to us. If they're a normal customer, they ship it back in 14. I'll send them a message and say, hey, babe, you know, we only normally accept exchanges for seven days, but since you're a new customer and maybe didn't realize what our policy was, I'll return it for store credit this time. Thanks so much. Just wanted you to know for next time, I'm not going to fight with that customer over seven days. It's just not worth my time. And the. You're fighting so hard and paying so much money for good advertising that you do not want one bad advertisement out there when you don't need it. Because think about 40 people. How much you would have to spend to get 40 people to join your group where you could lose 40 people from one bad experience.
Oh, yeah, exactly. Well said. How did it, how long did it take when you started? Let's talk about the live sales, because that's the biggest driver, right? Did they start slow and just continue to build over time or how did you pick up that momentum as you went along?
Well, it was kind of crazy. And still to this day, we don't really know. So we had had our first lifestyle. We sold 50 items and I was like, holy heck, this is crazy. This is amazing. I think we had 50 viewers. Don't even know. It was just my friends and family. I literally told everybody I know, please get on there. I don't care if you buy anything, just get on there and comment to me so I have someone to talk to. And that's when you're first starting. That is so key. Call your mama's best friend, your grandmama's best friend, everybody you know, and tell them to get on there, even if they're just commenting. And you know, in the beginning, I would even have. I know Amanda had said this from Discount Divas too. I would have my friends go on there and say, oh, I definitely want one size large, you know, or whatever. I knew that they didn't want that, but it's it just would start a snowball reaction. My friends didn't have any money at the time to buy anything, but whenever they saw that, oh, this is legit, you know, then people started buying, and then it was just a snowball effect. And then one night we were on live. Still to this day, don't know, we were selling like 50 to 100 items, but we were putting like 200 and 300 items in, just thinking, well, one day we're going to sell all of these. Well, one night we were like, we're going to put 400 items in. Well, that night we went live somehow. Still to this day, don't know. This was back when lives were just getting started. I guess it's been about a year and a year and a month ago, maybe. Somehow our video, you know, like when you're watching a video on Facebook and it ends in the next video, automatically pops up. My live cell was that video.
Wow.
No clue how that happened. Never. It's never happened again. We added, I think 800 members to the group that night. Oh, my gosh, it just changed from there. And that night we sold all 400 items and there was two of us, so. And we had no shipping system whatsoever. We were printing them off of a printer when they paid with PayPal. We had no invoicing system. We had nothing. So we stayed up for three days straight, sleeping like three hours a night, because then we were so scared. We did not want to lose that customer that we were lucky enough to get and got every one of the 400 items shipped that day, that next day, and then the next week it went down a little bit. We sold about 200 items, and then it just started to grow. Every week we would sell 20 or 30 more items, and so we would add another hundred items. And now. And it just added over time and the more your customer has to share that video. And I know this is very controversial thing, the. Whether your group is private or public. My thing is if you are wanting to grow your business, I just can't imagine why you would want it to be private, especially with as much as the. The groups are doing right now. I mean, I know private's great for your VIPs, and I know that maybe some people's. But my page isn't working right now. I'm still using it and. But it just isn't working like my group. I mean, not even close. I can go live on my page and I can go live on my group at the exact same time. My page will have 30 viewers and my group will have 190 viewers. And it's just the way Facebook's doing right now. And that's the biggest thing, is we have to change with Facebook.
Well, that's hustle, right? And that's. That's the future of the business and that's the future of marketing. Anytime you get used to something, it's gonna change. And if you're not prepared for that, you know, like a lot of boutiques, let's go back to the time around the very first big algorithm change. A lot of boutiques went out of business because of that, because they didn't know what to do next. All their eggs were in that basket. But if you're ready to hustle and I mean, you're willing to jump to Instagram and even to YouTube or going live wherever else, you're going to be okay. And it's also important to note, like, as. As you've done, you've built a tribe and you've built a following. It's never going to be a platform that saves you. I'm on a soapbox here, Mindy. It's never going to be a platform that saves you. Right? Like, go build yourself an app. Right? But if you don't have a following in a tribe, the app is going to do jack squat for your business because they're there to follow you. The platform doesn't matter.
And that's the thing. I know Brandon had mentioned this with comments. Sold is comments sold is not going to bring you the sales. It's going to help you make manage once you have the sales. If you do not have sales, it doesn't matter what app you bring in. It doesn't matter what you bring in. You have to get the sales first because you can build the biggest app in the world. If nobody's buying, it doesn't matter. And everyone asked me, you know, I don't have a website right now. Everyone says, why are you not doing website? Well, to be honest with you, me and my five employees, we can't keep up with what we're doing. So we just don't have. It is coming eventually. Once we get the app, we will be doing a website. But. And you have to train your girls to own, to want to follow you to the end of the earth. My girls, I had people fly in from Wisconsin to come to the store the other day. I had. She's like, yes, I had people come in from Colorado the other day and bring me diet Dr. Pepper because it's my thing. And I was shocked. And felt so super blessed. And I'm like, I have got to keep going. And another thing I wanted to say too was don't just show your best face on your group or on your page. Don't just show when you're decked out in makeup and you look gorgeous. People can't relate to that because that is not everyday life. Yes. On Thursdays, I'm in front of that big light and I get myself all dressed up and I do an hour's worth of hair and makeup on myself. I don't have, like, people that kind of sounded like, I do not have that. I'm like, on myself when I ran out from pricing everything to get ready real quick. But I also want to show them, hey, this is me on a normal day when I didn't comb my hair because I'm so busy being a mom and working the boutique and, you know, all of these things. I feel like people want to see that they don't want and they want to hear your crazy stories about the craziness that happened. Like when I went to market and ripped my earring out and got rear ended. And, you know, everything that happens in a normal day for everybody else, they want to see that you're just not. You look beautiful every day and everything's great and you're on vacation all the time. Because nobody wants to see that. Because that's not true. That's your Facebook life as opposed to reality. So I think for sure, boutique owners and pages should put a little more reality back into it and say, yeah, look crazy today. I just did a post while ago, I was like, yeah, I asked her to make sure nobody was going to see me because I haven't combed my hair today.
Right. It goes back to that confidence, don't you think? I mean, if you're a boutique owner, part of, I mean, most of the boutique owners we know, anyway, part of their mission is to help build other women up. So that comes with you having to have a certain level of self confidence in order to take that step, step on your own and make it okay for them, your customer, to follow you and do the same. Would you say like, you, you got to be right with yourself first?
Yes. And you've got to be real with them. Like, I haven't posted it yet, but I took an actual bathing suit picture at the beach that I'm going to be posting on my page because I had four girls last week come in and tell me I bought a bathing suit for the first time in years because of your bathing suit post and because of talking about your kids, do not care what you look like in that bathing suit. As long as you went to the beach or you went to the water park with them or you were playing with them and hanging out with them, they don't care. They're going to remember that way more than they're going to care about what your bathing suit looked like while you were on the beach.
Oh, preach. That's so good. So good.
I mean it. And it really is. And so whenever I, I said, well, when I go to the beach, I'm going to take a bathing suit pick and I'm posting it that I mean. And I posted one about going to the lake and I said things to worry about at the lake. Sunscreen, a cute hat, cute sunglasses. Not what I look like in a bathing suit, not what anybody thinks about me in a bathing suit. And you know, not just feel good about myself and go have fun with my children there.
Oh man, we could go down this road for a long time. I think that's so spot on. So spot on. I want to shift gears a little bit, actually. Two things I got to remember to ask you. The first is the fact that you're selling clothes for curves. They're hard to find, right?
Yes.
How have you managed that obstacle? Because it's hard to find the cute pieces for those sizes and something drastic has to change in our industry so that the manufacturers are catering more to those sizes. 69% is staggering. And when you go to market, for anyone who hasn't been to a market, it Dang sure ain't 69% of the clothing. There is four plus.
No, absolutely not. That is still to this day the number one hardest thing that I have found. And I have been to la, I have been to, I'm talking in and out of stores that people wouldn't even walk down that street trying to find places, especially if you can find. I have several vendors and it was just hard work and lots of looking. If you can find the same stuff, size small to 3x and you are wanting to jump into plus, that is where you start. Don't just buy six of two things in plus size. And I tell people if you want to get into plus, you have to jump all in. It is an investment. You have to have a buyer that goes with you that is plus size. You cannot be a size four or six and go shop for plus size because there's so many things that a plus size person can go, I will never wear that. That's not going to work. And a lot of times whenever I see these, these purges and stuff, they're like, plus didn't work for me. Well, a lot of times, plus, for the most part, I would say plus size ladies, if they can't wear a bra, they're not getting it, period. That's it. So if you can't wear a regular bra with it, you can't buy it. You know, things like that. If it's sheer, they're not going to sell. A lot of stuff like that is so important. So you almost have to bring someone plus size with you. And you've got to hit the pavement. You need to go on fashion, go orange, shine anywhere you want to go and put in plus size and then find the vendors that are plus small through 3x, because like I said, that is where it's at. Even sometimes because you want to have. You don't want to separate your plus either. I think that's very important. When I go into a boutique, I do not want them to go plus sizes in the back corner over there. And I have four things. Yeah, I want. So we do, like on our racks, everything. So that one outfit that I have, or the I put it on it, like a little thing sticking out, you know, And I have small to 3x in this whole outfit and every single piece of this outfit. So they shop with the small, medium girls. There's no segregation, I guess you would call it.
Yes.
There's no separation. And I know that's very difficult, believe me. Do I know. But even if you start small like that and you have it in both, it will be easier. And if you start with two or three pieces, I tell people this too. If you only start with two or three plus size pieces, would any small, medium, large person come back if you only had two or three small, medium, large pieces in your entire store, they would not shop with you because you have two or three pieces for them. So of course they're not buying because they feel like there's only two or three pieces in this whole store that fit me. I'm not coming back here. So of course it's not going to sell. And don't do pre orders on plus because that just doesn't work. Pre orders in general are really difficult because you never know what the manufacturer is going to do. And plus, you could get it and it'd be juniors plus. That's very important to watch for. If you get into plus, you don't want juniors plus. No one that is a size large wants to buy a 2X because it's juniors plus size.
Well, I think it all goes back to the importance of going to market and trying things on, seeing them in person and then plus, I mean, maybe once you know a brand you can do more of that on fashion go. But I think you can't replace that in person experience in la.
If you can make it to LA to sh. Actually shop in la, I prefer that over market. I know a lot of people vary about this. I prefer going to LA and having it right away because I know there's been lots of issues with market lately. We. I had one week that $37,000 came in the first week after market. Some of it was supposed to be two and three months out. They went back and charged my card from eight months ago that I had given them, which I didn't even know that was a thing that could happen.
Oh, man, this is a whole nother conversation.
But you learn as you go.
This is, this is having your own drafted P.O. right where you, you have a firm cancel date and all these pieces. Man, if Sarah Burks is on the podcast right now, she would flip because that's right up her alley to talk about those things.
Yes. And I'm getting better about it.
That's a boot camp question right there.
Exactly. I'm very creative and I can sell us to an Eskimo. But the numbers, the book side, I'm like, oh, gotta hire that out because I don't know nothing about all that mess.
But the fact that you know that though, and that you're willing to take action on it, that's a big piece. Because some people think out of sight, out of mind. But boy, that's also called out of business if you don't take care of it. Yeah. So question. I know you don't have a website yet, but I'm curious your thoughts on would you segregate plus on your website or will you plan to do that in the future to make it easier for online shopping? What's your thoughts there?
I feel like if I, you know, I'm not real sure. I do know that if I have. And the problem with that too is everything fits so different now. You know, like we have a dress that we carry that's a size large, that fits a 3x. So that's really difficult. So I almost feel like on a website I would not separate plus I would say, you know, we have all of this because I'm trying my very best. And we're actually, I'm designing right now too, to Start carrying every single piece that I carry in a small to a 3x. Because the vendors are out there. I mean, they are out there that are doing it and killing it. We've got four vendors in Dallas that are like set up all the time that are on Harry Hines. I know if you haven't been there, it's kind of crazy, but that's my go to. They. They have small to 3x, and I want to get away from carrying anything that I don't have, all sizes. So everybody can click on that picture and know that I'm gonna have that small to a 3x at least, if not extra small to 6x, which we're also working on. Because I was so shocked at how many people found out we carried plus and messaged me and said I need 4x and 5x even. I haven't left my house in how long. And I would love to shop. Oh, man, it's heartbreaking to me. And I mean, obviously everyone can't cater to everyone because that's just impossible. But my T shirt line that I just did, we're doing extra smalls and forexs in every single order. So that way we're trying not to leave anybody out. Because the feeling of being left out when I went into some of those stores was I was devastated. I just could not. I was in shock. And then when I saw the numbers, I was like, whoa, I'm really in shock.
Do you think it'll always be called plus, or do you think there's a more appropriate term that the industry will begin to use in the future?
I think it'll stay plus. And, you know, the thing is, I, like, I tell my girls, no matter what we're called, whether it's plus or curvy or queen size or whatever it is, don't worry about that. Don't. And I have preached and preached and preached, and I need to go back on this topic. I used to be way more on it. Do not worry about tag size, period. Don't. If it fits well, I will cut the tags out for people if I know it's going to fit them well. But they not wear that because it's a certain size. I'll just cut them right out for them before they get here. For my, you know, my good customers that I know, because I know this great customer will look amazing in this dress. But she's a large. She'll have to wear the 1x in this one dress. But people still have tag. I don't even know what you would call it but like a phobia. Yeah. They won't even try it on their body, even though it will make them look 10 times thinner than if they didn't if they wore the other size.
Yeah.
And so I am trying to work on that and tell every customer, tag, size does not matter. And when I tell them, whenever we come in, we carry a lot of one size stuff and people don't believe me and they say, no, that's not a thing. You can't have someone that's an extra small wear the same thing as a 4X. But there is certain fabrics you absolutely can. If you have not tried a crazy train duster or on one of your customers, you are missing out. That crazy train duster will fit a size small all the way to a 4X. And we do it every week. We sell 100 almost every single week.
What's the best piece of business advice that someone's given you along the way?
Absolutely. To treat your customers like you would want your sister or your best friend to be treated and to make it right. Right. Do not let a customer leave with a bad taste in their mouth. Do not do it. No matter what, don't do it because that is your name and that is all really. If everything goes away tomorrow that you have in your store and you get all new like I just did this week, that's all you have is your name. And they are trusting that name to find them the best deals, to get them the stuff the fastest, you know, and to be good to them and remember them. And it is hard having, you know, selling that much on a Thursday night. To try and remember, we have six sets of people that have the same exact name. We have a Jamie Tears and a Jamie Tears and Amanda Perez and Amirinda Perez. That got very difficult before comments sold too. But it's so important to say, oh, how did you like your whatever you got last week? And it's difficult, but sometimes I'll have mom while I'm live, just look up something that they got so I can be that personal with them even though it's difficult. So that is definitely my number one piece of advice is to. You got to make. You cannot let anybody leave with a bad taste in their mouth about you or your business.
How have you grown your team? You said, is there five or six on your team now?
There's six, including me. And we have two part timers.
What's that been like to grow your team?
Very difficult. My. The person that I started with. No, I wouldn't say started With. I brought her in when I couldn't do it anymore by myself. It just got overwhelming when we were selling like, 40 items in the live sale. She was the one that was with me whenever we had the big overnight. 400 items, and she ended up stealing 10,000 in cash and 9,000 in merchandise. During the transition of going from a small business to a big business. And don't. I feel like you can love people, but you don't always need to trust people, no matter who that person is, because when people change, when they see success, they really do. And there's. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about that. So keep them close and love them. But you still have to watch your books. You still have to watch your numbers. I was devastated and heartbroken. I mean, seriously devastated and heartbroken. So you have to watch all that. And we've had a couple more still along the way. And a lot of times it's the ones that you think are not doing it, or in my case, are the ones that were. They were the people that we weren't even watching, I guess you could say. So that was definitely a learning curve, because I never even thought that would ever be an issue. So that and training people and what the biggest blessing for me was. My main. One of my main things getting into this business was eventually someday being able to hire my mother to manage my company. She had been at her job for 28 years. She hated it, and I wanted to be able to pay her enough to leave there. And I was able to, last August, pay her to quit her job full time and come manage Miss Mindy's, which has been my number one blessing for sure.
Man, that's amazing.
It was amazing. Yeah.
How do you balance that? You know, there's a lot on your plate with a successful business and, you know, number of employees, but also, you're a mom. How do you manage that daily struggle and grind while you're trying to get all these things done?
Well, I was laughing the other day. I've cried more since I opened this business than I believe in my entire lifetime. Like, some days. And I know I'm not a crier. Never been a crier. I probably cried six times that. For me, I never cry. So six times in a year is a lot for me. But I'm very fortunate in that my kids are both 17. My boys are 17, so they can take care of theirselves for the most part. They can help me. I can't even imagine having little kids because I don't know how Y' all do it. I'm not gonna lie. I can't even imagine having little ones right now, but just with them and bringing them in to help because they ship, they pack, they put up, they do everything. Even though they're men, I want them to see the entrepreneurial side, the business side, you know, and show, hey, look what mom's done. And it's possible. Yeah, anything is possible if I can go from being in a wheelchair and on disability. And when me and my husband got together, we literally had to count change to eat 12 years ago and had nothing to where we're at now. It's like you can see in front of you that anybody can do anything in opening my dream business at 37.
Years old, man, do your boys have, you know, do they tell you that this is something they want to do as they get out into the workforce? Do they have their own entrepreneurial spirit seeing yours?
Well, yes. And what's funny is one of my sons loves to fish and he's a comedian. Good lord. Sometimes not appropriate. Gets that from his mother, but he is absolutely like, what If I got GoPros and started filming me and my friend fishing and putting on YouTube? I'm like, there you go, right there. That's it. I mean, seriously. And my other son is really into gaming, like Xbox, so He started a YouTube and some other kind of account, live streaming. So the live cell has kind of went to live streaming. And if we had time right now, and somebody out there is probably going to get rich off this, but y' all go ahead. We just don't have time. If there was a man doing a man's live sale right now, they would blow it out of the water. A funny guy doing fishing lures, fishing stuff, hunting stuff. I'm telling you right now, it would blow out of the water right now. We've talked about it and there's just no time. But it would blow it out of the water because live sale is right there in front of so many people and just share it all. Also, I wanted to tell everybody, start now. Everyone says, how do I get more people organically? I have never paid $1 for a Facebook ad. Not saying that people shouldn't. I'm just saying when you're starting out and you don't have $1, there are other ways. Like, I know you don't want to make your brand look bad by posting in the garage sales and the buy selling trades, but there are like mom Mondays on certain pages. I would post there. I'd put it out cute outfit together that I have say, look at this outfit. How cute is this? This shirt's only such and such dollars. I posted it on everything. I posted on every bus, on trade, every local place that would let me. I posted about my boutique. I posted. I still to this day post about my live sales on a thing called let's sell it and in my area. And it gets 26,000 views on that. 26,000 views showing that. Now it doesn't always translate, but even if I get five customers that week off of that, that was five customers I didn't have to pay for. So that's so important is post it everywhere you can because that's free. Because. And if they take it off or delete it, they took it off or delete it. What did 10 people saw it before they did? I mean, don't do it when it's not allowed. But some of them, you don't really know what's allowed. There's 10,000 of them, you know.
Yeah. Oh man. That goes back to hustle, right? And doing what other people are not willing to do.
And I funny story real quick, but I whenever I was making custom jewelry, right before I got into this, I had a lady come in and say, man, I wish you had plus size dresses. I was in a teeny tiny little building when I was making the jewelry. This is whenever I had gained the weight I was because I could only sit and I was making a couple jewelry. She came in and said, hey, I wish you had some dresses in my size I could look at while I was waiting for the jewelry. So hauled my butt over to Dallas. I bought eight dresses. Those dresses were gone in four days. And I'd made more money on those dresses than I did on all the damn custom jewelry I was working my hands to death on. And I was like, no, I'm getting dresses. So I started in 150 square feet. My first, my boutique was in 150 square foot. And I would have people that would wait in their cars to get in for other people to get to leave to get into shop. And we had no fitting room. So they would just undress in front of all the other people. I'm not even joking. It was that small and that crazy. And people still talk about it and laugh about it today that they shopped in what we call now the live sale room. The whole building is just for the live sale where I video the live sale. But they're like, remember when we used to shop in the live sale room? I'm like, yeah, didn't even have a fitting room, and everybody still tried it on.
That. That's a testament, though, to the community that you've built and what it means to do business with people. I mean, those. Those things you cannot teach, you cannot train. You just have to have that. You've got to be able to build that connection.
And you know what was crazy, too, is even plus size ladies at first were like, oh, I can't try it on. And so I just tried on for them. Just take my top off right there and try it on for them. Be like, look how great it looks. And they're like, I can't believe you just did that. And then next. Next time they come in, they would do the same thing. And I really think it changed the way they looked at their bodies too. And if you. During my life sales, I'll even run off and change and I'll say something about, here, let me pull the sleeves down so my bat wings don't show. Or these shorts are for chub rub or whatever. Real life stuff.
Yes. Oh, my gosh. I hope they left you a tip the first time they shopped with you and you took your shirt off.
I'm telling you, some of the things I look back, I'm like, did that really work? How did that work? I love it. I love it.
So when you, you know, there's a lot of things going in your favor. You got so much momentum. But when you're at a down point, where do you go? Like, what's a quote, a movie, a podcast, or a mentor? Where do you go to fill your cup so you feel inspired for the next day?
Well, I will tell you, I did read girl, wash your face, and it was good. It was really good, and I loved that. I know everybody says that, but, you know, I just will go lay. Actually. This is so funny. I'll lay in my bed and I'll go to Pinterest and look on my phone and think, there's gotta be another way. My brain never really shuts off. I think that's a lot of. For a lot of us boutique owners. And so I will go to Pinterest or I will go just start googling stuff on my phone, try and figure out something new when it's overwhelming, and then I gotta go. Finding something new for me is very uplifting, if that makes sense. Like, coming up with something new is what puts me in a happy place. I know that sounds strange and weird, but I just love.
I don't know, I think a new.
Idea or a new thing or a new T shirt design. And that's another thing that I was going to say really quickly, if at all possible, design as much of your own stuff as possible. Even if you meet with a local T shirt person that does screen print and you just put your T shirt and your name on a T shirt, you want as much about you and your brand as possible. I think that's so important.
So important. Making it your own. You often say the quote, which is a favorite, that well behaved women rarely make history. Do you think that's been kind of like your mantra along the way?
Absolutely. I mean that is definitely my mantra. And the reason I say that is I'm not trying to do what everybody else is trying to do. And I know a lot of people watch the live sales to get inspiration and ideas and all of that. And that is all great. You just have to be careful because you can catch yourself. And this is why I don't watch. If I watch a lifestyle of somebody else's, I watch about five minutes or I'll watch a tiny bit of the replay and fast forward through it. And the reason I say that it is very easy to mimic what they say. If you're watching somebody's lifestyle. It is very easy to. Because your brain is going what do I do on camera? So it automatically goes back to what you saw someone else do. So if you don't want people going oh, so and so copied my life cell or whatever because I know that's a thing now I guess apparently because people send me videos all the time and go so and so was copying you. I'm like, I, I don't care. They can copy me all day. The copy thing, it's irrelevant to me because I'm trying to stay ahead of the curve and I'm trying to do stuff differently than they do. And you know, I think that you have to be careful of that, the copying thing, but always do you. The well behaved women rarely make history because if you think about it, the people that are most successful thought outside of the box. They didn't do what everybody else was doing. 99% of the time people told them they were crazy. They didn't know what they were talking about. It would never work. Just like me saying I'm going to be inappropriate and I'm going to still cuss. And people love it. They feel that I'm real. They feel that I'm, you know, talking about my bat wings or whatever. They love that part of it. They love the she's normal. She's a real person. You know, she's a little crazy, but she is different. And I always want to be different. So I think that's why that is my mantra, for sure. Because the more you do what everybody else is doing, obviously, if it's working, do it. I'm like, if it's working, do it. I mean, somebody came up with the live cell and it wasn't me, and I said, oh, that's working. Let's do it. Doesn't mean I'm necessarily copying them. That's just a great idea.
Well, and I think that kind of falls into community over competition, don't you think? Like, being in community with someone, somebody that's supporting one another, cheering for one another. I mean, I want to just stop right here and just commend you for a second, because the stuff that you have shared in this podcast is gold. Like, such good stuff. And you so openly share because you know that it's community. Someone can do their thing, but they can't do you. Right. They can never be you. So there's a big difference in living in community and fearing competition.
Exactly. And I've even had people say, I can't believe you told these people this is or whatever it was. I can't believe you're saying that on there or telling other people to do a live sale. I'm not worried about anybody else taking my customer. If I keep my customer happy, my customer isn't leaving. So it doesn't end. You know, I had people, and the bigger you get, the more people you have do shady stuff to you. That's just what it is. I mean, everything that you think, I know you've went through this too. Everything you think what I mean, I had someone write down the names of every person on my live sale that bought something and their size and send them pictures and of stuff that I had, went and bought it in their size and said, I'll give you. Because Mindy was sold out, I'll give it to you for $10 cheaper if you come be my customer.
Oh, that is every person.
Well, all of a sudden, I start getting a hundred messages. Oh, my God, look at this. They didn't think my customers were gonna message all that to me. Like, of course they were. They're like, oh, no, she ain't doing this to Mindy. You know, not that I did anything in retaliation or anything. And I don't do. I will mention, hey, please do not accept a friend request from this person. Or please be careful of this. I'M super sorry that's happening. I will never go off on another boutique owner. I will never confront another boutique owner. I will say, please don't do this or whatever. I will never be ugly. None of that, because it gets you nowhere but into hot water, because it does zero good. Because if they, like you said, they're ballsy enough to message that to every one of your customers from your live sale, which is they messaged it to over 400 people from that night that bought something. They had a lot of time on their hands, and they're obviously not selling very much because, I mean, whoa. That's a lot of time that you just went through for that.
Yeah. I think what you've said, though, is just perfect about worrying about your customer first. And as long as you're taking care of your people, they will always take care of you in return. So as we kind of go into the last question, I want to ask you again, I do want to stop and commend you and thank you for agreeing to come on the show. You were at the Boutique Summit. You were a VIP at the Boutique Summit, and you even shared openly with people there. And, I mean, next year, we're definitely getting you on the stage because you've got such an incredible story and such valuable information to share, and you're real, and we appreciate that about you. So as we go into this last question, and this is kind of my last question for everybody, and that is, you know, 20 years down the road, the boutique is sold or your family's taking it over or whatever happens to the future of Mindy's. You know, your boys are grown, you're a grandma, and you're sitting on your front porch with those grandbabies in your lap, and we're talking about your life in the store and what it meant to them. What is the legacy that you really want to leave behind and the thing that you want those grandbabies to know about you, who you are, and about the business that you created.
Absolutely. I want them to know that they can do anything that they put their mind to that no matter how low the low was, that you can bounce back and be successful. I mean, because if you would have told me when I was sitting in a wheelchair account and changed to eat that I would be a successful business owner, I just closed on my house. I just closed on a new warehouse right now, within two years, I would not have believed you. So that is the legacy I want them to know is, no matter what, if you work hard enough and know your weaknesses. If you know, like, I know I'm not good at the money part and I know I'm not good at the books part, hire somebody that is because. And make sure you don't think you're too smart for your own good. I guess you would say so if you got to hire that out or whatever you have to do, do that. I want them to know that no matter what, they can be successful with what God gave them. They can do anything in life that they want to do. That is my number one thing. And I hope that they also see that hard work and dedication pays off. I hope that is obviously the number one thing that if you bust your butt, you can really get things to work, man.
Mindy, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. This has been amazing. I'm so proud of you and it's such an honor to get to watch your journey and to share your story. Thanks for being with us.
Well, thank you so much and I appreciate it more than you know. And the boutique hub is doing amazing things. I can't wait till next year. The summit is always amazing. I went the first year and then this year was even better. And I am so excited for you and thank you for this because there was when I was first starting, I had nowhere to go. I mean, I was six months in. I still had so many questions. Still to this day, I post questions. No matter how big you are, you always need someone to have your back that understands. And I feel like the hub is that and I love that. So thank you so much.
Thanks, girl. Hey, guys. I hope you love that episode of Boutique Chat. Isn't Mindy awesome? I feel like her and I probably could have chatted for hours because first of all, she's so real. But second, because literally her advice was was bomb.com. and I hope that you are able to take a ton of notes and make some plans in how you're going to implement these tips and strategies this week. Because she's got so much truth behind what she's saying and this whole idea of people want to do business with people and you've got to treat your people better than anyone else ever could. So please send her a quick thank you. Mindy at Mindy's Boutique did an awesome job. Now, last week on the show, I asked you this question. I said, what's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received? And message me over on Instagram @aj Alderson and let me know. Well, this week's best business advice comes from Kayla Broom of Edna and Millie Boutique in Mount Holly, North Carolina. Kayla says that the best advice she received was when it feels scary to jump, that's exactly when you do it, because otherwise you would stay in the same place forever. Isn't that the truth? Fear is kind of a liar, isn't it? And it likes to hold us back into the shadows of where we are now. But it's up to us to snuff fear out and take that opportunity to jump and to build something better than we ever could have imagined. Hey Kayla, thanks so much for sharing that advice with us. And if you guys have the best piece of business advice that you've ever received, let me know over on Instagram and I'd love to reshare it on the podcast. All right, guys, that's it for this week. I hope that you've had the opportunity to subscribe, rate and review the podcast that helps us to bring even more guests to the show. I appreciate you guys listening and can't wait to share with you what's coming next week. Plus, there's tons of updates happening inside of the Boutique Hub this week from talk about insurance coverage for our membership, Talk about the 2018 Boutique Summit videos finally being released, and they should be in your inbox this week. Plus, even more exciting is next week is the launch of the 2018 Boutique Awards, celebrating the best boutiques in the world. So watch the groups, watch your email for details and we'll see you back here next week. Hey guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope that you loved it. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review down below for a chance to be one of our featured listeners each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and how to access complete show notes and bonus downloads from our guests, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week. The first time they shopped with you and you took your shirt off.
I'm telling you, some of the things I look back, I'm like, did that really work? How did that work?
I love it.
I love it.
So when you, you know, there's a lot of things going in your favor. You got so much momentum, but when you're at a down point, where do you go? Like, what's a quote, a movie, a podcast, or a mentor? Where do you go to fill your cup so you feel inspired for the next day?
Well, I will tell you, I did read Girl Wash Your face. And it was good. It was really good. And I loved that. I know everybody says that, but you know, I just will go lay, actually, this is so funny. I'll lay in my bed and I'll go to Pinterest and look on my phone and think, there's gotta be another way. My brain never really shuts off. I think that's a lot of. For a lot of us boutique owners. And so I will go to Pinterest or I will go just start googling stuff on my phone, try and figure out something new when it's overwhelming and then I gotta go. Finding something new for me is very uplifting, if that makes sense. Like coming up with something new is what puts me in a happy place. I know that sounds strange and weird, but I just love to idea or a new thing or a new T shirt design. And that's another thing that I was gonna say really quickly, if at all possible. If you design as much of your own stuff as possible, Even if you meet with a local T shirt person that does screen print and you just put your T shirt and your name on a T shirt, you want as much about you and your brand as possible. I think that's so important, so important.
Making it your own. You often say the quote, which is a favorite, that well behaved women rarely make history. Do you think that's been kind of like your mantra along the way?
Absolutely. I mean that is definitely my mantra. And the reason I say that is I'm not trying to do what everybody else is trying to do. And I know a lot of people watch the live sales to get inspiration and ideas and all of that. And that is all great. You just have to be careful because you can catch yourself. And this is why I don't watch. If I watch a live cell of somebody else's, I watch about five minutes or, or I'll watch a tiny bit of the replay and fast forward through it. And the reason I say that it is very easy to mimic what they say. If you're watching somebody's life sell, it is very easy to. Because your brain is going, what do I do on camera? So it automatically goes back to what you saw someone else do. So if you don't want people going, oh, so and so copied my lifestyle or whatever because I know that's a thing now, I guess apparently because people send me videos all the time and go, so and so was copying you. I'm like, I, I don't care. They can copy me all they. The copy thing, it's Irrelevant to me because I'm trying to stay ahead of the curve and I'm trying to do stuff differently than they do. And you know, I think that you have to be careful of that, the copying thing, but always do you. The well behaved women rarely make history because if you think about it, the people that are most successful thought outside of the box. They didn't do what everybody else was doing. 99% of the time, people told them they were crazy. They didn't know what they were talking about. It would never work. Just like me saying, I'm going to be inappropriate and I'm going to still cuss. And people love it. They feel that I'm real, they feel that I'm, you know, talking about my bat wings or whatever. They love that part of it. They love the, she's normal, she's a real person, you know, she's a little crazy, but she is different. And I always want to be different. So I think that's why that is my mantra for sure. Because the more you do what everybody else is doing, obviously if it's working, do it. I'm like, if it's working, do it. I mean, somebody came up with the live cell and it wasn't me. And I said, oh, that's working, let's do it. Doesn't mean I'm necessarily copying them. That's just a great idea.
Well, and I think that kind of falls into community over competition, don't you think? Like being in community with somebody that's supporting one another, cheering for one another. I mean, I want to just stop right here and just commend you for a second because the stuff that you have shared in this podcast is gold. Like such good stuff. And you so openly share because you know that it's community. Someone can do their thing, but they can't do you. Right? They can never be you. So there's a big difference in living in community and fearing competition.
Exactly. And I've even had people say, I can't believe you told these people this or whatever it was. I can't believe you're saying that on there or telling other people to do a live sale. I'm not worried about anybody else taking my customer. If I keep my customer happy, my customer isn't leaving. So it doesn't end. You know, I had people and the bigger you get, the more people you have do shady stuff to you. That's just what it is. I mean, everything that you think, I know you've went through this too. Everything you think what I mean I had someone write down the names of every person on my live sale that bought something and their size and send them pictures and of stuff that I had, went and bought it in their size and said, I'll give you. Because Mindy was sold out. I'll give it to you for $10 cheaper if you come be my customer.
Oh, that is every person.
Well, all of a sudden, I start getting a hundred messages. Oh, my God, look at this. They didn't think my customers were going to message all that to me. Like, of course they were. They're like, oh, no, she ain't doing this to Mindy. You know, not.
