#24 Boutique Hub Birthday: Ask Ashley Anything (Part 1)

Hey, guys. Welcome to a very special episode of Boutique Chat. Because this week it's all about Ask Ashley Anything. And I'm going to warn you, it could be the good, bad and the ugly. 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 insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen, happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat. All right, you guys, this week's episode and part number two coming in a future episode are going to be a little different than normal because in this episode of Ask, actually, in this episode of Boutique Chat, rather we are doing Ask Ashley Anything. And the reason that we're doing this is because in case you didn't know it yet, yet, the Boutique Hub is actually celebrating a big anniversary. We are just coming up on our five year anniversary in business. And I'm sure most of you know, five years is kind of that turning point for most business owners. Before five years, you're still trying to get your legs in business, figure out where you're going to go in the future and what's going to work and if that business is going to be there for the long haul. And after five years, you have a certain confidence about what works and what doesn't work and a more clear vision for what you want your future to look like. And guys, there was a lot of times that I didn't think we were going to make it to five years. There was a lot of ups and downs in this business along the way. And thank God and thank a group of very generous, very supportive, very big picture thinking business owners who saw the vision of the Boutique Hub long ago and latched onto it. Thank you guys for making this possible because truly it has taken a community to make this movement. Dick. And the movement is community over competition and creating a new day and age for boutique retail. You know, five years ago, we started under one business model and quickly shifted to become something a little bit different. And I'm so happy that we did. I'm so happy that so many people caught the vision and really latched on and helped build the Hub to what it is today. So we want to use these episodes kind of as a way to give back and to tell you this story and to celebrate what happens behind the scenes. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And I'm just going to tell you, I'm totally letting it all hang out in these episodes.

No joke.

But also to answer some of your very specific business questions as well, and some pretty random Will Ferrell questions, I might add, which happen to be my favorite, by the way. So I asked for some help for these two episodes that are going to be releasing from my dear friend Jesse Jarvis. Now, Jesse is a member of our team at the Boutique Hub and has been for a couple of years now. She's actually one of the very first people we hired. But the funny story is that actually I interviewed Jesse and actually hired someone else instead of her. I had to reject her and it didn't work out with the first person we hired. But after that happened, I went back and re offered the job to Jesse and thank God she took it and didn't think I was a total jerk in the process. And it turns out we became great friends along the way and have an awful lot in common. So I'm so thankful that we got to share this time together to laugh and to share this episode and we bring in some conversation about our other team members at the Boutique Hub that I think you're going to have a lot of fun with along the way too. So what happens is Jesse's asking me several of the questions that you guys submitted across Facebook, Instagram and via email to our team, and I'm going to shotgun and try to answer them as best as I can and tell you some fun stories along the way. So without further ado, I want to get started. But more than anything, you guys, thank you for being here, thank you for listening to this show, and thank you so much for being a part of our community at the Boutique Hub. I. I truly believe in the future of retail and where this community is going and in this mission of community over competition. And I know that when we work together like we are today, the future is going to be so much brighter for an awful lot of business owners, both in retail, wholesale and those of you who are service providers who have a hand in supporting these businesses in the industry. So thanks for being a part of it, catching the vision, and being here with us to celebrate five years in business. Enjoy the episode, you guys.

Hey guys, welcome back to a unique episode of Boutique Chat. This week we're celebrating the fact that the Hub is finally five years old, which is a big turning point, a big milestone in the business. And so you guys requested that we do a special episode that of Ask Ashley Anything which this could be interesting. I'm here to tell you. So to come along the journey and to ask Ashley anything, I brought in Jesse Jarvis from the Boutique Hub. So welcome, Jesse.

Hello. How's it going, everybody?

All the feedback that you can hear in the background. So good.

Oh, goodness gracious.

I figured if you and I were chatting back and forth, this episode could take a lot of twists and turns.

It can. I hope everybody prepares themselves accordingly for about what is about to come.

Now I have to have you tell them because you are a new mom and you've got little guy Jet at home. You've got to tell them what he's doing right now while we're recording this episode.

Well, I hired a babysitter to come over and I put him in his stroller and I sent them outside and I told them that they are not allowed to come back inside until I go get them. And I said, if Jet is bleeding, you can knock on the door.

I love it because I feel like, you know, as they get older, like as Jet gets older, I think you're gonna find this is what I do with my kids anyway, because I work from home a lot. They have to read sign language. So if they try to come to my office and I'm on the phone, I have like a series of signs that I will get them. They. It doesn't include the middle finger, by the way. Oh, gosh. They know they cannot come in. Oh, man.

My issue is I can't scare my babysitters off because I've only got like 2 to choose from in the 10 mile radius around my house. So I need to be like, I've got to treat them very kindly.

Got to keep your crap together, Jarvis.

Yeah, I can't run them off in the first year of his life.

Perfect. Oh, my gosh. Well, shall we get to this before Jett starts crying or bleeding?

Yes, let's get. Let's rock and roll.

All right, so we posted about this on social media and on our groups, and we had a ton of people respond with questions. So you've got all these questions, right, and you're just going to shotgun them at me?

That is correct. So I hope you're ready.

It's like 9am and I don't have any wine. So we're just going to get through this. I've got coffee. We'll be good.

Okey doke. So the first question, can you give us a little bit of background about the Hub and why you started it and what all of that is about?

Softballs softballs. I got it. Okay. So the boutique hub started. Like all great stories start out of a need, right? All great businesses start that way. But mine was kind of like a failure trying to fill a need that turned into something wonderful. So I'm originally from North Dakota, AKA kind of the middle of nowhere when it comes to fashion. And there wasn't much for boutiques when I grew up and when I moved back after getting married, all those things. So there was a time in my life, rodeo was a huge part of my life. I traveled quite a bit with a sport of rodeo. It was Miss Rodeo America at one point and was on the road for 320 days that year. It was in 2007. And when I traveled, I loved discovering boutiques all around the world. Whether it was, you know, a western boutique that was set up at a rodeo that really had the style and the unique pieces that I loved, or. Or if we were in big cities, you know, all the great, more higher end boutiques that I would discover. So when I got done with that opportunity and moved back to North Dakota and married Eric and started working there, I really wanted to have that same opportunity to discover great stores, but online, since there weren't any near me. So that's when the idea for the hub really began, is how do I fill this need? And I really wanted to build this online shopping mall of boutiques, but it was something that took the back burner. You know, that was the beginning of social media. It was the beginning of Facebook. Facebook was still a college network at that point. You had to be invited to join. And so instead I started working in economic development and small business development, ran a small business development center, a chamber of commerce and an EDC for our county and four cities. And I loved that. I did that for about seven or eight years before Eric. And I then decided after my dad passed away to move to Wisconsin. When we made that move and I had to leave the career that I loved, that's when I finally had that time and that freedom to go, okay, I now I'm going to try to put this together. And trust me, I knew less than nothing about coding and building websites and starting a tech company. Like, it was so foreign to me. And luckily I got in contact with some great people. Actually found our CTO today, Ben Holman. Found him five years ago when we moved here and found some other designers to help start to build the initial version of the hub, which at that point was the online shopping mall of boutiques. And when we started to build it that way. And all these boutique owners started to come together and the intent was for them to reach shoppers. Really what they needed more than anything was each other and they needed that community and they needed someone to help provide them information that wasn't available online. Surprising enough. So because my background was in business development and I loved coaching business owners for the past eight years and writing business plans and marketing strategy and I was already doing Facebook advertising way back then. It became a real natural fit to develop the business side of our platform. And so it just kind of just snowballed from there, both the style side of what we do and the business side of what we do. But I would call it like an accidental success because it kind of started on the style side. But the business is really what makes the hub go round today.

Okay.

I love it.

That's probably one of my favorite business stories, like from the ground up and why it started.

But we have gotten a lot of.

Oh, go ahead.

Let me add this one thing. I think it's a good lesson in that, you know, some people will start a business and they think that they have to develop the product perfectly before they launch it. You know, like you have to have this perfect plan and the website has to be perfect and you think that everything's gonna just come together as you imagined it. But really most businesses that succeed any great startup today, it doesn't work like that. You start with an idea and like that mvp, the minimum viable product and then you iterate from there and you just try to find the thing that sticks. But if you start, you know, investing in this elaborate business model only to find that it fails later on, you're out. And that happened to me. So I wish I would have known that, like reverse engineering of the business from the get go and just to start smaller and to find something that works and then run with it.

I think that makes so much sense, especially when it comes to what you said about. I mean, you have to be willing to, to let your business go where it needs to go. Had you started with the style side, but you did. And then if that's what you'd only focused on, the hub would be something completely different. You kind of have to let your business take wings and take the reins and you know, take it where it needs to go versus where you want it to go.

Yeah. Don't let your pride get in the way. When you think you're going to build one thing and it turns out to be something totally different, that's okay. That's what's meant to happen.

Okay, well, that. That makes a lot of sense. And I know we always get the question of, you started the Hub, but you're not a boutique. Own anything else that you need to. That you want to add to that? I guess.

Yeah, I appreciate that question, and I think it's a really valuable question to ask because it kind of does sound like an oxymoron. But I will say this. Even though, you know, boutiques, fashion boutiques, like we know them now, weren't huge in North Dakota, I did work in retail from the age of 14, which you can get a driver's license, by the way, at the age of 14 in North Dakota. So I worked at a home decor and flower shop boutique and worked there quite a bit through high school. And then I worked at the Buckle, which was our closest thing to a boutique in the Dakotas, all through college. So I've always had that experience. And then, you know, going to school for marketing and PR and then working in business development, I feel like I've been in a boutique owner's industry my whole life, but I just haven't had my name on the door, so to speak. So I think the one thing I will say is I feel like it's given me a great ability to see the forest through the trees and to be able to see a high level and help people see their business from that same point of view. And I think about the analogy like this. When I played high school basketball, our varsity coach was a college basketball player himself. But to be really honest, God, I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast. I'm sure he won't. He wasn't a very good coach. You know, he had that experience of playing at the high level, but he really struggled as a coach. No one could connect to him, and he ended up losing his job because of it. Now, our JV coach, he played high school basketball, but in college, he only played intramural. He didn't get picked up by a college team. But honestly, he was an amazing coach. I mean, top notch. Everybody loved him. He could teach so well, and everyone played a lot harder for him. Now, this is just an example that sometimes there's people who do and there's people who teach. And I think it's important for all of us, no matter what we're doing in life, to know where our strengths are and just to try to run with those. So, yeah, I didn't own a boutique, but I've been in every single piece of this industry, and I feel like Since I've started coaching boutique owners and working, I mean, we've. We've built a lot of great things that have worked really well for people. So I just try to build on that experience, and I look at it as a positive more than a negative. For sure.

Awesome. I. Gosh, you are just killing these answers.

Shut up. Are you. Are you asking for a raise? Is that what you're doing? Are you buttering me up?

So the next question.

Who's your favorite employee? Beth, of course. Dang.

That Beth. She doesn't snore.

We have to tell the story about the snoring. Can we do that?

Yes, we can.

Where? I don't remember where we were, but it was you and I and Beth were staying in a hotel room somewhere together at a market first summit.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. So the very first boutique summit, and we rolled out of bed that morning, and Beth is, like, the funniest person. She's got the driest sense of humor. I just love that about her. And how did that happen? We rolled out of bed, and we're like, good morning, Beth. And I think you guys shared a bed. Yeah, we did.

We had to share bed. And she looked. Turns around, looks at me, and do you know you snore in the driest, most, like, halfway rude if you didn't know Beth kind of voice.

You. And I just lost it. Like, there was no, good morning, how are you? It was just, you snore. So it will forever be an inside joke at the Hub. I love that.

Okay, well, let's. Now that we've divulged that, the fact that I snore, let's get down to the nitty gritty questions that were asked. Okay, so Trista wants to know, what are the top one to three things you've seen boutiques do that has the biggest, most positive impact on their sales?

Ooh, good question. Okay, number one, I would say maximizing video. Maximizing video and live sales. And I know there's a lot of fear that surrounds that for some people, but honestly, the people who have really stepped into that and owned it and run with it. I think of Angie with the pink pig in Iowa, who is a boot camp, a client of ours. She just freaking kills it with live sales. Mindy. Mindy's boutique kills it with live sales. There's so much potential there, but you really have to own it and be comfortable with who you are and just.