#246: Strategies for Social Media Success with Shannon Gordon, Social Media Manager at The Boutique Hub

Time for episode number 246 with our very own Boutique Hub social media expert, my friend Shannon, who is an Instagram guru. Get ready. You're going to love her.

You guys.

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 inside 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.

So I'm sure as you guys have had experience growing your own teams in your business, I always find it so ironic how God works in mysterious ways and puts the right people in your path at the very right time. And that is certainly how my friend Shannon Gordon and I crossed paths and she came to work for us at the Boutique Hub. You see, a couple years ago actually when the Boutique Hub was very first starting, Shannon was one of the first boutiques that joined the Hub. She had a boutique in North Carolina and very successful boutique. Super cute social media, great clothes. I mean, just had such a unique style. And when we started to offer the Boutique Boot Camp program back when it was small group coaching, like one on one type format, Shannon signed up because she wanted to know more about operating her business and understanding the numbers and the inventory and the turn in her business. So she signed up, she went through Boutique Boot Camp, got to meet several other boutiques that were going through Boot Camp at the time, and was such an advocate for the Hub the entire time she was a member. Well, as life has it, changes happen. And Shannon and her husband moved from North Carolina to Colorado, which unfortunately was an opportunity for her to sell her boutique and to close that business. But fortunately for me, it was an opportunity to tell Shannon that we had a brand new position open in social media at the Boutique Hub. And I knew that she would be perfect. So fast forward to today. Shannon is our social media marketer at the Boutique Hub. She runs all of our Instagram channels, among several other channels. And you guys, if you follow us on Instagram at the Boutique Hub or Boutique Hub Business, the Boutique Boss Planner or the Boutique Summit. That's right, four counts. She runs all of them and she does a tremendous job. So today I thought it'd be perfect to sit down and talk to Shannon about her Instagram strategy. And coming from someone who is a boutique owner and now sees the industry from a completely different point of view. She's going to give you all the tips and inside tricks. And, you guys, not only do I adore Shannon's accent, but she is one of the nicest people I've ever met. And I could not be prouder to have someone like Shannon on our team at the Hub. So get ready to meet my friend, Shannon Gordon, our social media marketer here at the Boutique Hub.

We have a pretty special show this week, you guys. I'm so excited to have a friendly conversation with my girl, Shannon Gordon. If you have not met her yet, she's got a pretty cool story which we're going to unpack today. Currently, Shannon, you're our social media manager, our director of social media at the Boutique Hub, correct?

Yes.

And a former Boutique Hub member, which brings a whole nother layer to the conversation. So today we're going to talk about Cute closet Boutique, which is adorable. You were a former storefront boutique of the year in North Carolina last year and then moved across the country and sold the business. And then we luckily were able to scoop you up and bring you to the Boutique Hub.

Yes, it was quite the experience, but super exciting at the same time.

I'm so excited to talk about all the lessons and the insight and the things that you're going to be able to share. So why don't we start with this? As always, give me a little context first. We'll back up to starting Cute Closet. How did that all. All begin? How did you get into the boutique business?

Okay, so I started in 2013. I had just left previously before that. Well, let me back up. We should probably start. When I was 18 years old, I got pregnant. So that was, you know, it was college or baby. So of course it was baby. So college got put on the back burner, so I missed that whole realm. So I had my son when I was 19 and got married, did the whole courthouse wedding thing, went through all of that. By the time I was 24, I had two other children. So I had three children by the time I was 24. Ended up getting divorced at that same time to my first husband. And then I was kind of on my own. I was living at home with my mom and trying to work. I was working in. I was a preschool teacher at the time and love teaching, loved being in the preschool environment. My mom was a teacher. Both of my grandparents were teachers. This just was kind of in my blood and absolutely loved it, but it just didn't pay the bills. And it was just with three Small children at the time. It was a lot of work, but it's what I had to do to get by at the time. So I started taking classes at our local community college to try to further my education. My mother, thank God, she was a godsend, she would watch my children while I would go back to school at night. And during this time, when I was going through my divorce and everything, I had some girls in my class and they were like, come on, Shannon, you need to get out. You're going through a lot at this time. Keep in mind, having a baby at 18, I totally missed out on the whole bar scene, going out type thing. And they were like, come on, you need to come out. And I was so nervous. I was like, absolutely not gonna go out. I don't know how. I don't even. I didn't even know how to order a beer at the bar at the time. Bad it was. And they.

Were you saying that you've mastered that now?

I have mastered that by this point after. Absolutely. But at the time, I had no experience in that realm. I was a mom, you know, it was all I had ever known. I had kind of given up that portion of my life to be a mother. And so they eventually talked me into it, and I was like, okay, I'll go. And I swear, that night, I was just so adamant. It was. It was in October, so it was around Halloween, when there was a lot of, like, haunted houses type stuff going on. And I begged them, I said, let's skip the bar, downtown Raleigh scene, and let's go to some haunted house. And they were like, no, girl, we gotta go. You gotta go do the club thing at least once in your life. And I was so nervous. So would they pull me by? You know, they just pull me right along and we go. And that night, just as the word, the one night that I ever go out in my whole entire life, I end up meeting my husband, my now husband, Matt. And it was just total fate. I don't know how it worked out, but I met him that night. And then, so Q. A few years later, we get engaged and we end up getting married. And he came into my life and totally changed it. And it's been amazing ever since. So that kind of parlays into how I got out of teaching preschool and got into staying at home with my babies. At the time, my youngest daughter was four months old when I met Matt, my husband. So he's been there from the beginning. But at that time, I decided to stay home with our youngest daughters. Because he worked in the oil field at the time. And so he would fly from North Carolina to Alaska to work for two weeks, and then he'd come home for a week. So just to have the stability, you know, the stability to be able to do to keep the kids and keep a rhythm, I decided to quit my job as a preschool teacher and stay at home. So a few months of doing that, I got bored. Like people do, I got bored. And so I was like, well, I need something to, like, fix my creative itch. So I have always been creative ever since I was a kid. Like, just creative juices have always flowed. And when I worked at the preschool, like, I was the art go to person. You needed a special project done, you went and saw Shannon. If you needed an idea for a bulletin board, you went and saw Shannon. Like, it was just. I was known as that person. And I've always enjoyed just creating and putting things together and standing out and being different. I have a story about that. When I was in eighth grade, and this is when I knew I was different. This is when I knew I had a different mindset than most people. When I was in eighth grade, our history teacher at the time was Christmas. He gave us all a white sheet of paper with Christmas tree on it. So, like, poster board size. And it was just a Christmas tree outline. And we were all supposed to go home as a little fun project. We were all supposed to go home and decorate the tree and add ornaments of what we were thankful for or something of that sort. So I go home and I blow this tree out of the water. I paint it, I add fake Christmas tree garland around the border of the Christmas tree. I put real Christmas tree lights on this paper poster. Like, I strung real Christmas lights on it. I had put like the little chenille stuff on there like it was to a te. And I. I did it. The project, if it was at 100, I did it to a million. I just loved it. So we go to school the next day, I bring my tree in. Everyone else is just colored with a crayon with some little round, you know, construction paper ornaments on it. And here I am with my Christmas tree with fake Christmas tree garland or outlining it and real Christmas lights on it. And that's when I knew that I just didn't think of things like other people did. So I've always just enjoyed being creative. So going back to 2013, when I decided to stay at home with my children and I got bored, like, sometimes do. I don't know how you get Bored with kids. But I did, I was like, oh, you know, during nap time, it's like I need to find something to do just to get that creative itch out. So I started making vinyl decals and started an Etsy store. And I just sold to all the girls and moms in the community. And there was another like little shop in our town where people would go. So I would take the stuff to the store in our downtown and the people would pick up from there. So I was able to build a relationship with that store owner and would go in and talk to her for hours at a time. Just about retail and downtown and our downtown, which was trying to grow at that time and just trying to bring life back to it. And this was the same town that I had lived in my entire life. So I grew up here and knew the town. And our downtown was so dead. Like it was just dead. There was nothing ever there. Like growing up, we never went downtown to shop or eat or anything. It was just a dead downtown. You always went to Raleigh or Fayetteville to do that in the small town that I'm from. So getting to know her, I kind of got to see the downtown life of our, in our community and how they were trying to grow it. And it just gave me a lot of ideas. And then my business on Etsy had grown so much because this was doing vinyl decals before everyone did vinyl decals. So I kind of had hit it at the right time and Etsy just blew up. I mean, I'll never forget that. That Christmas of 2013, my husband was in Saudi Arabia or somewhere at the time working and I would just sat there on my floor crying because I had so many orders that I had to get done in time for Christmas delivery and was just so overwhelmed. I remember I had to call my father in law to come and help because I was just like, I can't do this, but I've got to get them done. Because I knew customers like that was my number one priority. All these people needed their orders before Christmas, so I had to get them done. So we got them done. But that was kind of the point where I knew I was like, this is getting bigger than I ever expected it to be. It's becoming like a full time job. So my husband and me, we got married in August of 2014 and before this, talking with that other downtown merchant owner because I would always take my local pickups to her shop so everyone could go there. So it helped her business too because I was sending people to her business we only had one other little gift store in our town that carried clothes, but they were real high end. It was a true boutique is what I would like to call it. A true, like gift high end boutique. When I thought boutique, that's what I thought at that time of what a boutique was. Because this was back in 2013, 2014, where boutiques were not as known. This is when like online shopping boutiques were really getting big. And I remember I shopped from like shop Hopes and red dress and Philly flair. Like they were. That was it. There wasn't really a lot of smaller boutiques. It was these big. It was these. Those were the only options. And then most local boutiques were more gift than clothing at that time. So I saw a need in our community. There was no fast fashion option. There was no like, what would you call it? Affordable option. That was the word I was, affordable option. There was no affordable option in our town. So I saw the need and me being me, I had this wild hair idea of like, let's do this. I need to open a store. I have enough interest in what I do with my craft stuff that I could bring in clothes on the side and try to work it from there. And before I decided to do the storefront, I had kind of tested clothing out of my home, very small scale, just had ordered a few pieces that I could find. And at the time I had no idea where to order wholesale clothing from. I had just did like a Google search and whatever website popped up is what I went with. I don't even know if that website I ordered off, it still exists, but I just kind of went with it. And the interest was out the roof because there was no one else in our community who was doing this at the time. And I would sell out every time I would get something in. So I said, the opportunity is there. I need to jump now before I wait and then someone else sees it and does it before I get the chance to. So it was all about opportunity for me. I was able to see the opportunity and decided to just go for it. So we got married in August of 2014 and two months later after our wedding, so we had all this crazy wedding planning going on that year and it was just insane. Two months after we got married, we. We opened our storefront in November of 2014. And my husband, we were literally on the porch the other night talking about just our journey and everything that we had been through. And it was like, what the heck were we thanking. Doing it at the same time as planning a Wedding. I mean, we were so stretched so thin financially at that time. It was like all the wedding money that we had got dumped it right into the business. Didn't even save it, just dumped it. I said, we're opening the storefront, we gotta go. And I didn't even have the storefront location booked until after we got married. So it was like, got a storefront, now we gotta fix it and now we gotta open. Because I knew I wanted to open before holiday season of that year. And our first store location was like 17, 700 square feet a little. I mean, it was literally a closet, which is why I called it the Cute Closet, because it was tiny. I mean, it was a little, literally a hole in the wall. But it was perfect to start out in. I mean, it was absolutely perfect, but it was very small. And so I kind of just used to tell myself that, well, if I start small and this does not work and it fails, at least I'm not in some 4,000 square foot building that I have to fill. You know, I could feel my little closet. My craft business was called Crafty Cute Designs. So I took the cute from that and rolled it into my little closet store now. And that is where Cute Closet the name came from. So that's where. That's how that's where we started. And that's the whole journey from all of that. I mean, it was such a wild ride. But November 14, 2014, we finally opened.

I love that. So how long did you continue to do your vinyl crafts? Like, at what point did the boutique business actually overtake the Etsy business?

So we opened after we opened in November. It still was a main contributor up until about February of 2015. So only a short period of time because then the clothes really took over. We were so busy. It was in. We grew out of our space so fast. And I never thought that was going to happen. I never thought we would have that much interest in what we were doing to have to find another space so quickly. Which, when I look back at it, I wish we just would have stuck it out. But I was so like, I have to give the customers what they want. They want more, they want more clothes, they want more space. They want. You know, I had one fitting room in my little 700 square square foot location and I would have four people in line every day for the one fitting room. It just wasn't practical anymore. So we found a spot right in our downtown that was about 2,000 square foot of just floor space. So you're going from nothing to A lot. And that's. We decided. So we moved locations before we were even open for a full year. Which looking back was a mistake in my mind with where financially if we would have stuck it out in the smaller space longer, I would have been able to maybe save money, save more money and reinvest back into the business versus having to spend it all to open up an entire another location, having to repaint it. We redid the floor, we built dressing rooms. I mean it was a huge financial investment on our end to do that. And as soon as we moved locations. So we opened in November of 2014 and we moved locations that summer of 2015 and we were in our new location and had like a second grand opening September of 2015.

Man. So were you big on like being a cash based business before all of that? And do you think that sometimes, you know, in hindsight and now, you know, looking at the boutique world the way that you do that sometimes we just like our eyes are bigger than our stomachs and we just take on too much too soon or we where we really need to just stop and focus on being profitable for as long as we can before we make that expansion.

Absolutely, absolutely. Looking back, I wish I would have just stayed out of my house. I wish I would have just stayed longer out of my house and actually started the clothing portion more so out of my garage, per se. And you hear a lot of these really successful boutique owners who started that way out of their basement, out of their garage and they didn't have that overhead cost. And that killed me some months because you have to, you know, you can sell all this clothes, but if you can't make that over, you have to account for that overhead cost. And so starting with the overhead cost really hurt me where I wish I would have started the clothing portion of my business at home and able to save more money. Like I said, I felt like we were just, I mean we just dove for it because one, my background was not, was not business. Unfortunately I didn't go to school for business. You know, that's probably one of my biggest regrets is not having a more sense of what I was doing at the time. And I really didn't have any guidance. No one in my family had done a retail business before or my husband's family. So we were all just kind of flying by the seat of our pants and just saying, let's just do this, let's just go. But I didn't take the time to step back and think how is this going to affect me in the long term of always have starting with overhead and just the financial drain, the strain that that puts on you, having to pay a rent payment and lights and water and everything else, on top of trying to make an income to reinvest back into your business.

Absolutely. You made a big shift to go. I mean your storefront always was busy and that was your bread and butter. But you also made a big shift to go online. And I know that that business eventually grew for you quite a bit. Can you talk to me about that transition and what worked, what didn't work in running both an online storefront business together?

So when we moved into our bigger storefront, that was September of 2015 and then January of 2016 was my goal to get online because this is when online boutiques were really booming. It was kind of like right in that transition period before the algorithm changed on Facebook. That's like when you could do a Facebook giveaway and you would get like a million shares or likes or whatever. Like, it was huge. And so I was like, I gotta go online. And so I found a web designer to set up my website. But because I had that background on Etsy, I unfortunately fell into that mentality of, oh, if you have a website, they'll just come, they'll just find it wrong. You're a standalone website is not like Etsy at all. Etsy, it's, it's is its own community. Where you have Etsy is getting the shoppers basically for you, you know, Etsy is the platform they had grown it to where they were getting the shoppers basically to find your business on there where a standalone website, I was gonna have to be the Etsy of my business. You know, I have to reach out there and find the shoppers. And I just, you know, I guess if it was just being naive and thinking, oh, as soon as we launch this website, my business is gonna go from a hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars overnight. No, it doesn't work like that because you have to have the strategies in place to be able to get people to your website, which is easier said than done. You know, it's a lot of work to get customers to go to your website. And I made the mistake of starting a website. I bought double inventory. I had inventory for my storefront. And then I thought that the online portion would grow so quickly it needed its own own entire separate inventory, which starting out, no, girl, it doesn't work like that. Like, eventually when you have your customer base and your website is out there and it's grown enough to where people are on it, you know, and it's not brand new to the Internet, then maybe you can get to that point where you have separate inventory. But I made the mistake of investing in double inventory and then website launch, and then it's a snail pace. And then I'm stuck with all this inventory that I just can't push in store because Instead of a six, you know, six pieces, I now have 12 pieces. And I couldn't quite push because I had my shoppers that would come in store and they would buy, and I kept it separate for too long, that by the time I tried to push that inventory back into the store to get rid of it, they were already over it. Like, those pieces had already been sold out. You know, they didn't want that inventory again, or the interest was lost in those pieces. They were just like, well, that, you know, I moved on because, you know, gaining that attention for a new arrival is very short. And if you take too long for a restock, your customers will move on to whatever's next. If it's something that's not closet staple for, say.

Yeah, one thing that I know you did so well and you think, thankfully, you pulled this over to the hub now that you're on our team, but, man, your branding was always so on point. You're. I can only imagine. I never got to visit your storefront, but it had to be beautiful, had to be merchandised, amazingly, knowing you. But your online branding, like your photography and obviously your Instagram, all those things were just so consistent and fun and bright and cheery and just really made you feel good looking at them. Talk to me about that strategy. And if you think that there's boutique owners listening that maybe struggle with photography and branding, where could they start to build the consistency that you had?

Yes. So that was, like I said, going back to my 8th grade revolution of when I knew that I was different in that regard and being creative and always wanting to stand out and do things differently, that absolutely was my favorite part of owning a storefront. The window displays, the merchandising, the photography, the branding, like that was my bread and butter, and that is what I loved. So I always knew shopping, these bigger boutiques, you know, they were not using stock photos. You know, they were doing their own photography, and they inspired me to reach out. I'm not a photographer, and I would never claim to be one because there's so much skill that goes into that. I've gotten better over time on my own, but when I was running my business, I Just knew that I had to hire someone for that because it was not something that I felt comfortable. I tried, Lord knows I tried in the beginning. I tried to take my own, my own pictures of girls that my employees at the time, I would just say, hey, throw this on. Let's go in the back alley, take a picture. And I look back at those pictures and I was like, oh, those were, those were not so great. So I found a local. Two local photographers at the time, one had reached out to me because she did like senior photography. So she wanted to like rope in her, like make it a perk for her senior high schooler reps that it was a part of. If they were a rep for her, they also got to model for us. So we kind of collaborated and worked that way. So. So where I didn't have to pay her, but then she got a discount on clothing and then it was an, an incentive for her to find reps for her senior photography business. So that worked out so well because I didn't have to physically like pay her for say. But then we, she was so busy shooting and we had grown. She had grown. She was so busy at the time where she was not able, because I needed photo shoots every week and she just was not able to commit to that because she was so busy doing her own, you know, senior pictures and family pictures and stuff like that. So then I reached out and found another local photographer in our community and I just kind of talked to her and, you know, we had set up a price that I would pay her per hour when she would come. It was really reasonable. And then of course, I gave her a discount on clothing as well, which is always a great option to be able to kind of barter and trade, you know, within the community. Which is really helpful when you're watching like your budget. Because I didn't have thousands of dollars to spend, you know, each week on a photo shoot. So I had to just try to make it work for me. So then I found her and it was a game changer. Having professional pictures is to me, and I know I've said this like in our team meetings with the Hub and everything, like, it is such a. It's a must. It is an absolute must. You will only get so far with stock photos. You would. I really think that you're just only going to get so far because it says nothing about who you are as a boutique. It says nothing about your brand, it has nothing to do with your store. You know, this is a picture that someone took in La of some model that does not relate to some boutique in North Carolina in the middle, you know, in a small town, it just doesn't. Just doesn't relate. So. And I was very particular with my photos. You know, I love that we did most of our photo shoots outdoors there at the end, we did a few indoors. And I was really. I just love the lifestyle because I feel like people connect with those and they get people's attention. You know, stock photos aren't going to get someone's attention, which kind of rolls into the whole Instagram strategies and like what I do now for the hub, like you are competing for people's attention, whether a business to business or business to customer, like you have, you're trying to get these people's attention. And a stock photo is not going to do that. So branding to me was. It was what I was good at. It was what I was best at. And some people aren't creative in that realm and they aren't good at merchandising or they just don't think that way. Maybe they're more analytical and they're good or better at financials. Then you need to hire someone that is creative to do that for your business. Where I had to hire someone to help do my financials because I sucked. Had. I just hated it. I didn't understand it. And when I was going through boot camp with you, Ashley, like, it was such an eye opener. I didn't realize I was doing things wrong. You know, I didn't realize that I wasn't tracking, you know, this stuff I was supposed to be tracking and, you know, your return rate and your conversion rate and all this stuff. Stuff, you know, numbers that I didn't understand. And that's when I knew, I said, I have to hire someone to do this because it's not me. And the same goes for branding. If you're not creative or if you don't enjoy that aspect of your business or you think it could be better, find someone that is creative. You know, get that girl that, you know, that loves to decorate her house, is always beautiful and have her come do your window and, you know, give her a discount on clothing in return or, you know, hire her, you know, find some sort of way to make it work for your business. And I just absolutely love the branding and it did do a lot for my business, you know, as far as trying to get consistent with pictures and our model team and the girls that we used. And my only regret is that I didn't get in front of the camera. I Should have done that, but it was just because I was so more in the back. No, I was. I was there directing the pictures that I never took time to get in front of the picture, which I. Which I wish I would have done, but I just wasn't comfortable in my skin at the time. And. And that also kind of affected my business, too, because I was very self conscious and, you know, didn't have a lot of self confidence. And here I was trying to sell that to people, and yet I wasn't that myself, which I did.

Oh, it's just amazing to watch. You know, I know that if you still would have this door now, there's, you know, no doubt that you would be in that position to be in front of the camera, because you're adorable and obviously your personality is so bright and fun. The people just love to get to know you. I love to just talk to you like this. Right. Because, you know, you're just so easy to relate to.

Yes, go ahead.

Oh, you go ahead.

Yeah. And I was just. I mean, it's just. It's easy to view things now, you know, like we talked about, like, you know, in hindsight and all the mistakes that I made along the way and a lot of the things that I did right as well, too. I made a lot of mistakes, but I did a lot of things right at the same time. And now I really enjoy the fact that I get to help, you know, Hub members not make those same type of mistakes that I made that I wish I didn't. So it's a lot of fun.

So talk to me about what it was like to go from owning a boutique and you moved across the country. Husband, new job. Right. And then you came to work at the Hub. What is the perspective like working for the Hub versus being a boutique owner?

So we. The whole. In the. The whole process of ending my store and how all that happened was we had decided to move. My husband was in training to be a highway patrolman, and at the time, we had decided, you know, I was one of those people that was always stuck in the same town. I never got to travel. I never got to get out. I never went to college. I never got to get away because I had children so young. I never got to ghost. So he had the opportunity to move within North Carolina at the time. So we moved to the mountains, and that is when I left my business back in my hometown and we moved about. We were about three hours away. So I had to try to transition my store from me being there every day. To now putting it in the hands of my manager and the floor sale associates that we had at the time. And I just remember before that, just trying to think of the process of how am I going to do this from afar, how is this going to work? And luckily, at the time, my manager, we had worked together for a long time. So I had gotten to know her very well, she knew me, we worked well together and we communicated very well. So we moved to the Asheville area in North Carolina. And that is kind of when my business started to evolve and change just naturally because I wasn't there every day anymore. And looking back now, that was the beginning of the end of my business. Moving away. Some people can make it work. I know other boutique owners who do not live where their storefront is, but for me, it just didn't work. Work. So we had moved that time. And then like a year or two later, my husband gets another job offer that moves him to Colorado. So then we have to move across the country. So that was definitely like the nail in the coffin. And I kind of knew it, and I think my employees kind of knew it as well, that that was just going to be it. It was. The dynamic had totally shifted and changed. I think they were kind of tired. I was tired. We were all tired, just worn out. You know, they had gotten kind of monotonous. I had lost the love for it. Sales were down, sales were not good, and it just wasn't what I enjoyed anymore. And so we moved. He came out this past, it was September of last year, and I had to live by myself with my three children in the Asheville mountains with no family around back in North Carolina for like four months by myself. And that really took a toll on me mentally and it was really hard. And then so this past Christmas, we finally were able to move across the country and be together as a family. And that was just kind of a whirlwind in and of itself, having to move. You know, I had never left North Carolina in that since I never lived that far away from home and my family and stuff. So it was a huge life changing event for not only myself, but my kids. And at that time I just knew that it was getting to the point where it wasn't going to work anymore. Not for me and not for my staff. They, I think they kind of felt like it was. They were there every day, they were doing everything. Why couldn't they do it on their own? So we, in January and February, we tried to make it work. We just tried to get through the holiday season, getting through the returns after Christmas. And then I had a conversation with my manager, and she was ready to move on. I was ready to move on. They wanted to do their own thing, rightfully so, because they were there doing it all anyways. But during this whole experience, I never gave up social media. I never gave it up because it's what I loved and it was what I was good at. So I always did our Facebook group, I always did our Instagram. I never let that. I never gave that to anyone else because it is where I connected with the customer and it was the way I stayed involved. So, yes, they were there running the storefront day to day, but I was still the voice online for my business. And that is something as an owner, I just could never give up. Some people can give it up, but I just couldn't because it was just what I enjoyed and loved. So we. I had that conversation with my manager, and they were ready to do their own thing and kind of take it over. So we just kind of split. Split it even.

She.

I just decided to sell my business outright. So I just liquidated everything and they helped me close. Close it down. And then my manager came in and she bought some of my inventory and racks and that whole type thing, and she took over the lease on our building, and they started their own boutique. And I think they're doing fabulous and they're doing a good job and they're doing what they always had been doing. And then I totally got to break free from it. And then, I swear, not a week later, I was working for the Hub.

And I was so excited. I mean, not that I wanted to see you have to sell your business. And I know that's such a big life transition, but I was like, oh, scooping her up. Like, there is not a person I could imagine that would be better to come and do social media for us than you. So thank you for that.

Yes, of course. And like I said, and. And I realized, like, never get. Because the social media is just what I enjoyed and it was what I was good at, and that's why I never gave it up, because it was. The one part of my business was that customer relationship was most important to me, and it was what I loved. And I'll never forget, it was around Christmas time, and I had a customer that was upset. You know, she had went to one of our events that we held at our storefront, and she felt like my staff was rude or they weren't as inviting as she wanted them to be. You know, that whole type thing. So she sent me a message on Facebook. She said, can I call you? And I said, absolutely. Here's my number. Call. And I didn't know what she was calling for. She was just a customer. I thought maybe something was wrong with her order or something. And so she called me. And I remember sitting there, and she was like, I just want to let you know, I went to the event today, and it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. She was really, you know, the. The girl was rude. And I thought, you should know since you're not there. You know how they're. You know, how they came across and how it made me feel. And, you know, how I can take my business to the boutique down the road. And, you know, I just thought, you should know. And that really struck me in a way, because, you know, she felt. She was so hurt that she felt she needed to call me. Not even a Facebook message about it. She felt she needed to speak to me in person about the experience that she had. And my heart was just broken because my whole. The number one thing that I was always so particular about was that customer experience had to be number one. Number one. No, there was no number two or number three. It was customer experience was number one. Which is why I, you know, returns. We had a real solid return policy, and it was real flexible for our customers because our customers was our business. Without them, we wouldn't have a business. And so I feel like sometimes people in retail forget that. They forget that their customer is their business, and you have to work with them, and you have to be flexible, and you have to listen to what they want, you know, what they expect out of their store. So when she called me and she was telling me this, and, you know, right there at the end, she goes, shannon, I shopped with you because of you. You know, I shop with you because of what you bring to the table. You know, and that's because she was connecting with me on social media, in our Facebook group, on Instagram. You know, I'd always comment back, never leave a comment unreplied to. That was always my goal, you know, to never drop the ball on that, and I never did. And it was. She said, I shop with you because it's you. I enjoy shopping with you because of you. You know, I don't know if I can continue to shop here with the way that I was left feeling today. And she said, it's not you. It's just the way that I was treated at the store. And that's kind of when I knew that the transition had already kind of happened, that the store wasn't me anymore. I had lost that aspect of it. But the online portion was. And so I just remember her saying that. And it really struck me, struck me in a way that I was like, this is why I need, you know, to move on and to do something else and just kind of, you know, start over. But I think, you know, people in retail, they get upset with their customers and they don't understand. You always have to remember that they, they are your business. And if you can't keep them happy, you're not going to have business because they are, you know, and the customers are always number one. And that was always my thing. And, you know, coming into their. Their experience was the most important thing, that if they took anything away from anything that I ever did, you know, I wanted to make sure that when they came into my store that they were treated right, they were treated in a friendly fashion and that they felt welcome. Because we all know, I think I don't know a woman alive. And if. And if someone hasn't experienced this, then they are just blessed. Because I think every woman has experienced walking into a store, not being greeted, and it just leaves that awful feeling in your stomach that, is something wrong with me? You know, do I look wrong? You know, is, am I not good enough to shop here? You know, and that is the absolute worst feeling. And I've been in several stores where that has personally happened to me. And I always say to myself, when I said, I'll never go back, I'll never go back. And so that was why it was so important that. And I think to women who do have a storefront now, that needs to be your number one priority is making sure you roll out the red carpet for every single customer that walks in that door.

I love that. I think that's so spot on online offline. It's got to be seamless and total red carpet. I want to transition a little bit and talk about specifically Instagram, because I know you mentioned the customers knew it was you. Like, it was such a personal experience. And since you've taken over our Instagram, specifically our business Instagram, you've created that experience for everyone who follows us there. Ootika business, if you're not already following us there, but talk to me, right? Talk to me through that strategy that you go through every day because you've grown our Instagram significantly. But it's just so. It's fun and cheerful and Very, very alive.

Yes. So being able to do a business to business Instagram now is interesting because I was so focused on business to consumer, so, you know, selling in doing that. So when I first took over the business Instagram, I kind of had to switch gears with how I approached it, but also realizing that the person on the other end is a person, you know, they like to have fun, they like funny things, you know. And the one problem that I see with business Instagrams that are business to business is they're so boring and they're so cold, you know, they're so just cut and dry, black and white. This is what we offer, you know, this is how we can help your business. This is what we can do. And it does not get attention. I am a very big Gary Vee fan. If you don't know who Gary Vee is, if you're listening, you have to to look him up and listen to his podcast and follow his YouTube channel, because he will light a fire under you every day. And so I took a lot of his advice that he gave on just how to approach social media as a whole. And his big thing is always about attention. You have like seconds, nanoseconds, to get someone's attention as they scroll their Instagram feed. That was important to me. Like, how do I do that for a business to business account versus business to consumer? But the thing that sets the hub apart from other business to business companies is that we are still, to me, like a family. Like, it's. It's a community. And that's what makes the hub so special, is that it's not some black and white girl, like, cold, boring platform. You know, we are a vibrant community of all these different women and businesses all across the country, you know, that are just so diverse in what they sell and what they bring to the table. And so I get the awesome opportunity to kind of celebrate that every single day on our business platform while helping people not make the mistakes that I made. So it's awesome and I really enjoy it. I love engaging and talking with the boutiques on there now. I think most people will know it's probably me now that they're talking with if they DM the business Instagram, it's me. But I just love offering that help. And I will say that, you know, we do like questions of the day on our Instagram stories, and I can say that there are big boutiques who respond, who still ask questions, and there are newbies that ask questions. So you're never too big to stop learning And I think some people think that. I think they think, oh, well, I've got to this point, I don't need the hub and what they offer anymore. No, you, you do, you do. You definitely do. You know, it's just, you need something different than maybe the newbie boutique needs. So I try to offer that too on our Instagram to let you know, people know that there's different what we offer. There's different spectrums. It's not just always for newbies. You can, you know, you can always.

Learn new levels, new devils. There's always something else happening. Right? Yes.

You, for, for a boutique owner who's.

Listening and they're like, man, I just struggle with my Instagram. A couple things that, you know, you do so well, Shannon, are you make everyone feel important. Like you just talked about, like everyone is included. You have question of the day, you repost people's pictures. Like, you just really bring people into the conversation and make them feel so welcome. But just the way you engage to talk to me a little bit about your strategy, like when you post something, how you're engaging with every con comment, how you engage with other accounts, like these are all things that every boutique owner listening could be doing on their own channel.

Yes, absolutely. Like I said, my rule of thumb is never leave a comment unreplied to. Or unlike even on Instagram, you need to reply. Even if it's just replying with some hearts or some emojis, like if there's nothing really to say, but just recognizing that someone took time to physically, whether it's seconds or, you know, a minute or two, they took the time to respond to what you were wanting someone to respond to. And you have to respect that. You have to respect people who do that. And that is how you engage with your customers. Or in my case now boutique owners, you know, I have to respect their time and you have to respect your customers time. And you have to. If someone takes time to comment, you have to respond or simply like their comment or go to their Facebook page or go to their Instagram and go through their profile, if they have a public profile and like their pictures and say, girl, you're looking cute today. You know, just take that time. If you want people to engage with you, you have to engage with other people. It's as simple as that. You cannot expect everyone to give you all the love and you give no love back. It just doesn't work like that. Yes. And Instagram, it's all about that. That's what it's about. The likes, the follows, the love, the pictures. You know, people want to see what's going on with your business. I can tell you right now, if all you're doing is selling product on Instagram, this is for sale. New arrival, new arrival. New arrival. New arrival is boring. You know, your customers don't just see what's new. They want to see you in your back room unboxing a thousand boxes, being swamped, you know, breaking a sweat while your toddler is clutching onto your leg. That's the type of content that people want to see. They want to see. They want to see what makes you real and what makes you relatable, you know, so you have to. You can't just sell all the time because people will scroll right past that. You have to give them something that stops and makes it relatable. Maybe you went on a date night with your husband and you're wearing one of your new arrivals for the week. Post that, you know, and Instagram stories I love. I just love them because you can have fun there. It doesn't have to be professional. It doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't have. It can be total random fun. And that's what I try to do with the Hub as well. I try to make it fun and just random. You know, I do the, the this or that every Friday night. And it's just really random, fun things, you know, about just general life stuff. It has absolutely nothing to do with business at all. But it makes it fun. People enjoy that, you know, and it gets those doing fun things like that. There's always, you know, a perk to it on the business side of things. It gets your click through rates higher. You know, the more you can get someone to click through your Instagram story, the more it will show up first when they plug into their Instagram. You know, your circle will show up first if they've engaged with your stories. So that's why I'm constantly reposting, like if you answer, you know, if you respond to the question of the day on the Hub page, I'm gonna go to your feed, pull a picture, and plug your answer on there and I'm gonna tag you in it and it'll get you to click through there and the more stories you can post, you can never post too many stories ever. And it just gets people to click through it and it gets engaging content and then you'll start showing up more and then you are able to be seen.

Yeah.

So I love it.

You kill it. So if Anyone is not following again, you got to check out what Shannon's doing on the gram. And we're back and forth on there a lot. Shannon's answering your questions. I know you forward me things a lot, too, like when there's Ashley specific questions that I answer. So I. I love that we collaborate on that, for sure.

Yeah. And I do. I get everyone's input. You know, we started. I started recently doing, like, a tip Tuesday where they're able to just drop a topic. I usually send those to Sarah, and I'm like, sarah, can you just give me a quick, you know, tip on this topic that someone has dropped in there? And I could probably do that with our entire Hub team as well. You know, there's always enough knowledge to go around. But my number one advice on Instagram, if you're really struggling with it, is to look at your feedback, see what it looks like. Ask people what they think of your Instagram, your family. This is like, here, you know, show it to your husband. Like, what do you. What does this say to you when you look at this? If they're like, it doesn't say anything or it's boring, or it doesn't catch my attention, then you need to reevaluate what you're doing and try to change. And you can always change Instagram. That's the one thing I love about it. You can. You don't have to keep doing the same thing you're doing. You can always, you know, change up what you're doing and just start something fresh every day.

I love that. All right, Shannon, we have. We've gabbed for a while today, but we've covered so many amazing, amazing topics. If anyone wants to connect with you again, DM her over on Boutique Hub business on the gram or shannonboutiquehub.com Last question for you. You know, kind of going back, we touched on this a little bit earlier, but I want to go deeper. What is, you know, looking at the industry from where you sit now and for working at the Hub, if anyone's listening, what advice would you give them on how to best maximize the Hub? Like, what should they be doing on the Hub to get the most value out of it? Things you wish you would have known when you still had your store?

I would definitely say the number one. When I first joined the Hub, I remember being so scared to post a question because I was scared of what other people would think about my question. I was scared that it wouldn't be a valid question, that someone would think it was Dumb. And I was also scared that the boutiques me would see it and then either laugh at me because I was struggling or take what I was doing and use it on their own. And my number one thing is, you can't be scared. You just need to put your blinders on, get in there, get the help you need, and ask the questions that you want to ask. It does not matter what Becky down the street is doing. Be able to have confidence in yourself to ask those questions and know that you're not alone in your struggles. You know, I used to think that I was alone until I got into the Hub and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is. That's probably the most beneficial thing I ever took out of being a member of the Hub was that I wasn't alone in my struggles. I wasn't the only one making the mistakes that I was making. So now that I'm on the other side of the Hub, definitely. You have to get into the training library. There is so much information there. I actually do. I input all the stuff into the training library now. And I had my first task working for the Hub was to, like, redo the whole training library. And I had to enter in every single piece of content into the training library and get all that cleaned up. And so I got to go through the entire training library. And I remember going through it saying, where was this when I needed it? Why didn't I know it was here? So you have to, even if it's an hour or two on your Sunday nights, get in there, take an hour or two, go through a few of the modules, and just knock it out. It doesn't matter where you are in your business, there's something you don't know, and you could always get better at what you're doing. So diving into that training library and utilizing the groups, asking questions, and then engaging with other people's questions, like, if you know the answer, don't be scared, because it's the boutique down the street and you don't want to help her out, like, just help her. Just. We're all in this together. And that's my favorite thing about the Hub in general.

I love that. I love that. So much to be said about that right there. It is truly community over competition. And I just think that you get out of it what you put into it always.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, Shannon, you're such a gem. Thank you so much for joining me today on the show, for sharing your story about the store, all of your experiences, and I love, love, love having you on the team. Honestly, I feel like everybody on our team, God, kind of like picked them up and plucked them out and put them into our life for a reason. So I'm so glad that you're here.

And I'm happy to be here, too. It's such a fun job. I just love the community and I'm happy to help anyone with any questions they have with business or Instagram or just keep this community alive and growing. It's fun.

Awesome.

Hey, guys, thanks again for listening to today's episode. Hey, I have two really quick announcements I want to share with you guys that I made so excited about. Number one, it is literally our favorite time of year because we are gearing up for the boutique summit coming June 7th through the 9th. We're going to be back this year in Atlanta, Georgia, right ahead of the Atlanta apparel market. And we are just starting to announce all of our speakers for the 2020 Boutique Summit. You guys, this is the only conference for boutique owners in the whole world, and it is a massive gathering of boutique bosses of all types, of all sizes, of all ages, of all experiences. And we bring in over 40 expert speakers from around the industry and outside of the industry. Already this year, we've announced two major speakers coming to the summit. One of my favorite Instagram gurus. Speaking of Instagram gurus, Jasmine Star. And also you guys, if you know me, you know Sarah Blakely is my complete idol and my favorite entrepreneur of all time. And we have her awesome husband, who's also a successful entrepreneur and author and motivational speaker, Jesse Itzler. If you guys would love more information about the Boutique Summit, please be sure to check out our Facebook event, the BoutiqueSummit.com or the links that we have for you today in the show notes. The second announcement I wanted to make with you guys today is I get messages so often on my Instagram @aj Alderson. From those of you who are brand new to business. Like, maybe you're just thinking about starting your store or you've just started to dabble in how to start your store, or you're inside of year one and you're like, ashley, how am I going to pay myself? Tell me more about how to grow this business inside of year one. And you've asked me about all these tips and tricks for beginning boutique owners. So we took all that information and we finally put it into a program just for you. And it's called Boutique Owner Basics, or BOB for short, which also lovingly happened to be the name of my dad. So Bob definitely has a special place in my heart just for you guys as well. Now you're probably familiar with Boutique Owner, I'm sorry, Retail Boot Camp, which is our big end to end program which boutiques of all sizes have gone through million dollar stores, multi million dollar stores. Well, we paired that down into a bite size 5 module program. Again, just focused on the very basics and very beginning steps of your business. So you feel really confident that you're starting your business and you're growing it inside of year one, Right? So you can check out more about Boutique Owner Basics in the show notes or at boutique owner basics.com. 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.

Sam.