#248: The 2020 Boutique Summit with Beth Leahy, Chief of Operations at The Boutique Hub

It's going to be a fun week, guys. Welcome to episode number 248. And I'm welcoming in Beth Leahy, our director of operations and our master of all things Boutique Summit related to Talk about the 2020 Boutique Summit today and give you a behind the scenes of not only what to expect in 2020, but some of our favorite moments from the past couple of years and all the stories that I know you've never heard before. So get ready for our fun, candid conversation and mind our accents. Let's go, huh? 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. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat. All right, guys, welcome back to the podcast this week. If there are a lot of northern people accents this week, it's because Beth and I are together and you are getting a behind the scenes look at the Boutique Summit and the A's and the O's are gonna be flying.

There we go. But you didn't start out with hey, guys like you usually do.

Oh, man. Only you, Beth, can speak honestly about the thing I struggle with the most. I don't know what to say besides, hey, guys like, I've fallen in this trap and I can't get out of it now. I'm super self conscious of it every time I say it.

No, it's good. You got your brand. It's your thing.

Hey, you people. Hey, everybody. There's this person I follow on YouTube sometimes, and if I give it away, if I did an impression, you might know who I'm talking about, so I won't do that. But they start it the same way every time and it involves a hey. And they, like, hold the note of the hey. And I find it to be super annoying. So I'm gonna just try to avoid the rut. I'm gonna find some new things. Maybe if you're listening to this, you could message me some new things to say. That'd be helpful.

Yeah, New languages. You can do it.

Hello.

In German.

Oh, guten tag. Yes, good idea. All right. You know, when we get together, my husband always tells me this, Beth, that we have a tendency to squirrel a lot. And I'm wondering if that's going to happen in this podcast as we talk about the Boutique Summit as well, or if we'll actually stay on track.

Well, we have an outline.

Oh, perfect. We'll follow the outline, we'll answer the questions on the outline and give you guys some valuable insight into what happens at the Boutique Summit. You ready?

I am so excited.

Okay. In case you guys don't know my friend Beth yet, Beth is our chief of operations here at the Hub and our do everything right hand woman. If you guys have read the book Rocket Fuel, actually, you really should read the book Rocket Fuel and you'll know that they talk about every business has the visionary and then the. What is the word that they use? I was going to say the implementer.

I was going to say executionary, but that's.

Well, you get the point. It's. There's the. There's the big picture, like dreamer, and then there's the doer, and Beth is the doer of the equation. And everybody, I firmly believe, needs a Beth in their business, except this. Beth's not for hire, so don't even think about it. She's ours, and she's been here since the very beginning. So I think you bring such cool perspective, Beth, because you've seen every single stage of growth we've ever had, every wild idea we've ever dreamt up. You've helped implement it. And so something like the Boutique Summit has really become your baby. Hasn't.

Has. And I'd like to point out that I like to change my job title depending on who I'm talking to. I create my own job titles. You know, best dancer, Ashley B.

Well, that's good. I didn't know that you did that.

Oh, we do this. Yeah. We talk of each other, but yeah, I'm excited. I. When we first started the Boutique Summit, I just. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I guess we're jumping right into it. So this was back in, what, 2017. That launched the first one. And I remember the beginning of the year, I was still working a second job as a accountant, and you had this idea, and I thought it was awesome, and I couldn't get enough of it. I remember any of the tasks that you needed done. I wanted to jump in, and I was so excited. And we talk about this now that if we had known how much work it was, we probably wouldn't have done it or we would have thought more about it, but we just had this idea. Well, I mean, you had the idea that we were going to create this event and it was going to happen and we were going to bring 300 boutique owners together. And we did it.

Isn't that funny? I remember, I mean, you and I had talked about this quite a bit. We wanted to create this space for boutique owners of all sizes and all types to come and find the most advanced strategies to grow their business. Right. No one had ever done that. There was never an event like this for boutique owners. So we thought, why not just, you know, create one? And our friend Amy Harper in Dallas, when I called her to pitch her this idea and to beg her to give us some space to use, she thought we were crazy. Like, do you know what you're getting yourself into? And we're like, yeah, we're gonna do it and we're gonna do it in June. And I think we had talked to her in, like, I don't know, February. It was so close and somehow it all came together. And you were part time at the time and Jesse Jarvis was part time at the time. I think I was the only full time employee in the company. It was just the three of us making it happen. And the year was really pretty awesome. Do you want to talk about what that first boutique summit was like?

Yes. I first want to talk about a few things leading up to the event that are so cool for me to reflect on. First of all, I can go back to the email in 2017 where I get introduced to this gal named Meredith with makeup junkie bags, and she wants to sponsor the boutique summit. And I start to look her up and I have no idea who she is or what really makes this product all that cool, but I'm like, well, she sounds awesome, so let's. Yeah, we'd love for her to sponsor. Well, it ended up being that she sold out all of her bags and opened I don't even know how many accounts at the summit. And I remember when I met her and talked to her and heard her story, I was. I knew that she was going to be in my life for a while. And now we are friends. I don't think she's got a podcast out, but we're gonna have her on the podcast. If you don't know Meredith with makeup junkie bags, once you know her, you'll love her. So that's one fun thing that I like to reflect back on. And the second is, and Ashley, you can talk about this a little more, but you got a email from someone a couple of weeks before summit that said he wanted to sponsor. And I said, well, I mean, signage is done. Everything's done. Like, does he know that he's not really going to have anything, you know, to be part of this as a sponsor? He's not going to have a booth. And you said, no, he just wants to come. Do you remember who that is? Yes.

Oh, my gosh. That. And that was the very beginning of comment sold. I think. I mean, Brandon had. Brandon had emailed me, and at that point he was only building comments sold for Amanda and Discount Divas. I mean, it was brand, brand new. So that was really cool. I remember meeting him for the first time. And isn't that funny, Beth? Like, I think about Meredith's story at that time. She and her husband, we were making the bags at their kitchen table. They were doing live sales, selling them from their kitchen table at night. And I do remember she brought several totes of bags and sold out of them in the first couple hours of the event, which was unreal. And shortly after that went on Shark Tank and her business just completely exploded. And the same with Comet sold. And Brandon, I mean, shortly after the Boutique Summit, he spoke the next year. And in the meantime, their business completely exploded. And I think that's what's so cool about the summit is, you know, the Hub was built on community over competition and the fact that we all can lift one another up and we create these great relationships with one another. And. And it's kind of like having these online pen pals that you talk to every day, but you don't really see them in real life. But when you do at the summit, there's such value to it and such an opportunity to make these lifelong friendships. And those are two people that I am so fond of because they've been there since the beginning of our journey and we've been there since the beginning of theirs. And so we just feel like we have that thing in common, that roller coaster of growth in common that no one will ever be able to take away from us. I think that's really special.

We've grown together. I can just remember Brandon, I feel like, didn't even go to half of the event, and I remember him calling me or texting me like, I'm trying to get into Dallas Market Center. Can you come, like, make sure? Because last minute, and I didn't have his name on the attendee list. And I'm like, I don't know who this guy is, but sure, yep, come on in. But so funny.

So do you remember what registration was like, Beth? We welcomed 300 people. We sold out. And I think at that time so it was the very first event. We sold out in nine days for the boutique summit. We had probably 20 speakers at that first event. Do you think?

Yeah, that Sounds right.

About 20 speakers. And we were like, okay, like 300 people, we've got this. But we did not know what it was like to run registration for 300 people. And there was a line. If you've ever been in Dallas Market center, there was a line of people all the way around the building, like literally all the way around. And we had to do everything. We had some help from Janzen, if you follow Janzen with denim and velvet and Katie Jade at the time. And, and they were there helping as well. But like we would run from everyone working at the registration desk to everyone being at the door to all of us spoke to me doing the MC job, which was like a lot of talking for two days. And we did it. And the whole event honestly went off without a hitch. The only funny story we can tell about what did not work well at the very first Boutique Summit was our ER trip. Do you want to talk about our ER trip?

Yes. So I think that Ashley, Jesse and I bonded more than any other co workers have bonded before. It was also my first time meeting Jesse in person. But we were so working at a hotel and trying to get things done, all working on our computer. And then our plan was to go to Fort Worth and meet up with Jansen and Katie Jade. Well, we're working and all of us, we ride up, go up to the elevator to get changed and we're kind of like, I don't really feel well. And someone else was saying, no, I don't feel well as feel well either. And there had been construction at the hotel. So kind of in the back of our mind are thinking, is this like carbon monoxide poisoning? We didn't know. Well, we get in the cab to go from Dallas area to Fort Worth, which is about 30 minute drive depending on traffic. And we're all sitting in the back and we are all about to fall asleep because carbon monoxide makes you sleepy and it just makes you kind of have a stomach ache and just feel sleepy and not good.

Yeah, felt like the room was spinning.

Oh yes, that was it felt like the building was spinning when we were still in the hotel. And I called my mom and she said, well, ask Ashley if it was one of her kids, would she go to the doctor? And Ashley's like, yep. My mom said, okay, you guys need to go to the doctor just to get checked out. Well, we ended up going to like a little urgent care thing. They said they couldn't treat us. So then we had to go to the Fort Worth ER and all of us in one room and they asked us all if we were pregnant.

And it was actually they took us out of the room one by one just to ask if we were pregnant and then brought us back into the.

Same room and that. Yeah, and we're all wearing like our fun outfits to, to go to Fort Worth. And they just, they thought we were insane, but we weren't.

They did.

We weren't. And I tried to get a doctor's note to give to my boss to be off of work, but apparently that didn't work.

Do you remember when that doctor came in and he's like, yeah, you should take it easy the next couple of days, like haha, you know, tell your boss. And the three of us just started laughing because we're like, seriously, we have 300 people coming to Dallas tomorrow morning to host this event and they're going to be staying in this hotel that we got sick in. And so then we had to go back and talk to the hotel and make sure like they knew what had happened to us and that everything was safe. And they had people come in and like test the hotel. And yeah, that was quite the experience. Beth.

It was looking back, we laugh, but it was stressful. My other fun, my other fun similar event the first year is. So as you know, that summit takes place the two, two days before a market. So we had the event for the two days and then on that Wednesday, Ashley and Jesse were gonna go to market and visit members visit brands. And I was gonna take care of making sure everything got tear down, you know, tear down and any shipping. Well, we did not realize how much was involved with shipping and tear down. And so I am at the hotel that does not have any FedEx facility at all. And I had to take it to a FedEx facility to get it home and also do all that before my flight that was leaving in the afternoon. I ended up getting like the shuttles that go between DMC and the hotels. One of the shuttle drivers, so sweet, helped me load up a huge luggage cart full of boxes into a shuttle. Shuttles me over to the Hilton Anatole. Then I get a luggage cart there and go through the Hilton Anatole to FedEx only to then get a free FedEx worker that was just new like starting like an intern. And it took him, I think an hour and a half to ship all of the boxes out. So I mean Fun stuff, no? Yeah, yeah. Boxes and shipping boxes. Make sure you allocate enough time for that. But we did it. And we did it. I don't know how we did it, but 300 people turned into 500 people.

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Oh, my gosh. So the first year, we had 300 people. The second year, we were back in Dallas and there was 500 people. And last year, we made the move to Atlanta, and we had between, like, 750 and 800 people. And I think the coolest part, you know, just like, reflecting on these last couple of years, number one, is the relationships that I've seen so many boutique owners make with one another. Beth, don't you remember how we would screenshot people's posts and be like, oh, my gosh, did you see this? When it would be like, one boutique owner saying, okay, I've made this boutique bestie online. I've never met them in person. We're meeting at the airport, but we're gonna spend the next, like, three days together in a hotel and just pray for me that they're not a serial killer.

Yes. I hope they aren't either.

But just to see people build those relationships in person has been so cool. And then just to get to hear the stories from our industry as well, we've had kind of a combination of both outside experts that have come to speak at the summit, but also just stories from, you know, boots on the ground boutique owners that are a part of the hub, sharing what works best for them. So I'm curious, Beth, talk to me about who have been some of your favorite speakers from the past couple of years?

Yes. Well, one that just kind of stuck out in my brain right here as we were talking is Kelsey Darby. And she told us after the fact. So she came and spoke at her first year, and after the fact, she told us, you know, Ashley, I was closing up shop. I was closing my. I think she closed her store. And she was getting ready to just throw in the towel. And Ashley asked her to speak, and she said, okay, you know, yep, sure, I can do it. And then looking back, you know, a week later, she thought, I don't know if. If I can do this. I'm. I feel like kind of a hypocrite going and talking when I'm closing everything up. But she said, you know, I made this agreement, so I'm going to do it. So she came and she spoke. She said she was so nervous. I remember, I could tell she was not comfortable there. Well, she attended our sessions, and Got. I'd like to, you know, kick in the butt. She got her fuel in the fire and just revamped her entire business over the next year. Ended up winning Boutique Global Boutique of the year the following year. And we were able to give her that award at our 2017 summit. Do you remember that?

Yeah. I think Kelsey's story was so good because it was so raw. She said she's like, I was too embarrassed to tell you what I was going through because she was really struggling at that time. And you're right, Beth, because she came and she was reignited. I think part of it is, like, you come for the strategy. Right. But part of it is the immersion experience of being in the presence of others who are inspired around you and just like, feeling that literal physical energy around you is so inspiring and so powerful. And she used that to fuel her fire. And a year later, her business was completely different. And she was hitting goals that she had never dreamt of hitting before. So that definitely was a highlight. For sure.

Absolutely.

Are there?

Yeah. I. I mean, I also loved your friend Nick Pigeon, who I've also gotten to meet a couple of times afterwards. She spoke the first year at her banquet. And I mean, the second year, Tico at her. Our banquet. She was amazing. And you know Natalie from Boss Babe. See, well, of course we had James. Our.

We loved James's was really good. James Hepburn. We always. I won't even repeat the quote that he said in his talk, but we always, like, repeat it internally. But he talked about the power of story and the power of your words, and I thought that was really well done.

Absolutely. And let's see, who else did we have the second year? I think that was kind of the main ones that we loved. We always get kind of our fan favorite. And one of our favorites is Laura Benson. I think she's kind of been involved almost every year. The first year she spoke last year, I think she was on a panel or 17. She was on a panel. I'm not sure about last year. And then she's going to be there again this year.

Yeah, she is another one just to watch. Her growth has been unbelievable, and she's so real and raw and honest and genuine. I think she's one that everybody gets really inspired by as well. One that I had last year, Beth, that was one of my favorites was Justin Prince. And for anyone that was in the room, I don't know if you were in the room through that whole time, but, man, there was tears in the room. And he just talked about you know, your potential, your human potential, and your mindset and the opportunities that you have. Because I think mindset, we do a lot of business strategy. I mean, we talk about everything from inventory management and turn and accounting and markdown strategies and Facebook ads and photography and every single topic under the sun that can benefit your business. But if your mindset isn't in order first, none of that matters. If you aren't tapping into your true human potential first, none of the rest of it is going to come for you. And his talk was really helpful. And he also. I wish I could remember the story, Beth, but do you remember that story about the. Was it the buffalo who killed the buffalo? Do you remember that? And there was, like, this pack of wolves surrounding the buffalo. And he talked about how these buffalo kind of went off one by one, and one by one, these wolves killed the buffalo. And he said at the end of it, he's like, who killed. You know, whose fault was this? Who killed the buffalo? And most people would say, well, the wolves did, because obviously, one by one, the wolves killed the buffalo.

And.

And he said, no, I'm totally going to butcher this story. But he said, no, it's actually the buffalo killed the buffalo. Because when buffalo feel threatened, they. They back up into each other, right? Like, they put their butts together. Like they're all in a circle and they're facing out. They lean on each other and they protect one another. And it's the power of the herd, right, that protects one another. But as the wolves, one by one, pick off each individual buffalo, the buffaloes start to turn on each other. And he said, the buffalo killed the buffalo. Maybe it was another animal. If I butchered that. Oh, my gosh. Hopefully Justin Prissy Prince is not listening. But the point of the story is that you have to have a community, right? And you can't turn on one another. And the strength of the community lies in the community.

Absolutely. And that's what I've loved seeing grow over the past years is just the community. I mean, both of us talk about how we never really had a whole lot of girlfriends growing up. You know, both of us have talked about this before. We liked just having guy friends because it was a little easier to deal with. And I mean, just over the past few years, especially at the summit, and seeing people in person and seeing those relationships. I mean, I love our community. I couldn't be any happier with the friends that I've made, even though I don't own a boutique, that the friends that I've Made and the people I've, I've seen, it's. Yes. Comes back to that community this year. Absolutely. Because. Because I don't know if you know it. I don't get to hear most of the talks because I am running around, but I have made it. My intention for this year, I will move the schedule around. How I need it to is that I will be there the whole time to listen to Jesse Itzler. I am so excited for him. So if you haven't heard that Jesse is speaking at our event. Jesse Itzler is a entrepreneur. He has started I don't know how many different businesses. He's married to Sarah Blakely, founder of Spanx. But beyond that, he's got a whole repertoire to his resume. You should look him up, look up his videos and, and I'm reading his book right now and he actually has two books out in the one. I'm reading the first one when he hired a Navy SEAL to come live with him for a month and train him and just push him past anything he needs to do. A lot of vulgarity. I told the team today, a lot of vulgarity. So I like it.

Perfect. It hits home like Gary Vee.

Yeah. The next book is. Then he goes to live with monks. So I'm excited to read, read or listen to that audiobook before he comes. But I'm so excited. He's going to be our last keynote. Just end the day, end the conference with a huge bang. So I will be there if anyone needs me during that time. Don't bother me. I'll be listening to Jeff.

There will be no fires to put out.

Yes, absolutely. And some of the other keynotes. Should we talk about some of the other keynotes for this year?

Yeah, absolutely.

So one of your favorites kind of on your bucket list was Jasmine Star. So Ashley, tell us a little bit more about Jasmine.

Yeah, Social media is such a huge part of all of our day to day lives and I really wanted to get someone this year who was a guru.

Right.

That spoke on other guru stages as well. And Jasmine's definitely that person. She's kind of the go to gal at Social Media Marketing World and all these major conferences about social media marketing, especially when it comes to Instagram and also I would say the power of video. So Jasmine has a social curator program where she teaches social media marketing to thousands and thousands of people every single day. She is a photographer by trade and actually started to use that skill then to start to educate other people on how to have, you know, professional photographer like photos just by using their iPhone, and then how to maximize Instagram using those photos. So she's always up on the latest tips and strategies, especially with IGTV and Instagram stories, and then just how to maximize your personal brand. So I think she's going to be an awesome keynote speaker this year.

Absolutely.

Are there a couple other speakers that you want to highlight too, Beth?

Well, of course. The Ashley Alderson.

Oh my gosh, be quiet right now. You'd have to see my old mugshot up there and I'll probably have to tell a few stories. Okay, well, other than Ashley Alderson.

Bereal right now. If you haven't heard Ashley speak before in person, you. You need to. She brings so much energy and it's infectious. And you have to listen to her. I mean, I don't have to listen to her, but I.

You get paid to listen to me, so that's not fair.

I, I do anyways, because she just is so passionate about what she's talking about. Whether it's talking about Jade and TikTok or I don't even know some of the stories that you tell. I just shake my head in the audience sometimes. But Ashley Alderson will be speaking. And then another one that I want to make sure that I am in the room for, and especially at the end of her talk is Alison with Allison's brand schooler, the Allison Show. So if you haven't seen or heard of her before, make sure you look her up. She is all I can explain her as if you don't know her is she is like a colorful rainbow that exploded on you. Just fun. And she ends her talk with dancing. And if you don't know that I love to dance, well, you better come to the summit to see me dance because I always, I can't get up on the stage to talk because that would be a mess, but I can get up on the stage to dance.

So in case anybody doesn't know, last year we sometimes we like to do random things at the summit. Like it's all about education and getting you the latest in strategy, but we have to have a heck of a lot of fun while we do it. So we had some like streaking dinosaurs last year and one of our members of our community. Who should we name her name on this podcast? I don't know. You probably know her. Yeah, she's amazing. Came to us with this idea that she was gonna bring this blow up dinosaur costume and then she's like, oh, and I happen to have two of them. So Beth's like, hello, sign me up. So they had a dino dance off during one of the sessions last year. Just, like, out of the blue, these dinosaurs come running into the room and had a dance off, which was hilarious. I think you won the dance off.

Did you? I did.

Fanny pack on your dinosaur.

Yes, I did. I did. I don't want it. But don't take life too seriously. That's the main thing. But Allison is going to be great because she's going to kick off our event with so much energy, and she's going to just talk about how you remain true to your brand, true to yourself. How do you don't. Even if you have someone across the street that starts carrying the same lines as you, it doesn't matter. You're gonna stay true to yourself, and you're. You are the only one that can be you, and you just go for it and dance party. So maybe I should have added to our contract that Beth gets to go on the stage for the dance party at the end.

I think we can make that happen. I'm pretty sure.

All right. Our fifth keynote.

Yeah. Can I talk about this one?

Yeah. I was leading.

Okay. Because. Thanks.

I'm so.

I'm like, who's gonna ask the questions in this podcast? Like, I don't even know what to do right now. The last one that I'm excited about and she's been on the podcast, so if you've listened to her episode, is Dana Spinola. The founder of Fabric and Fabric has a chain of over 50 stores in the United States. She actually. Her story is so cool. She actually founded the company during the Great Recession in 2009 and really jumped into retail when so many people were jumping out and created this unbelievable user experience and the idea of wow. Customer service. And so she has an unbelievable story from A business sense and how she scaled the business like she did and trained managers and systems and operations. And again, the wow. Customer service is such a huge part of that. But beyond the traditional business sense, she also is a wife and a mom and dealt with a significant period of burnout. And so she's very real. She actually wrote a book about that topic and is going to be coming to us on all fronts, kind of talking about the business and the strategy, but more importantly, how to take care of yourself as you build this business and go through this crazy journey we're all on. So she's going to be amazing. These other keynotes are going to be amazing, but we also have some really awesome breakout sessions planned. This year because we're expecting another great turnout at the summit, which will probably sell out again. Last year, we sold out in 22 hours. We expect to do the same this year just because you guys have been so receptive to this event that we're going to actually have five breakout sessions running simultaneously. So you can catch as many breakout sessions as possible. And we've already announced one speaker that's coming back from last year. And last year, her breakout session was so popular, there was women fighting to get through the door to get a seat. So we're giving her a bigger space this year. So there's, you know, there's no leg wrestling at the door. You're just gonna get in. And that's our friend Angela with Hot Mess Consulting. So she's going way past having a pretty website and having a pretty homepage and talking about why that's just a bunch of fluff. But more importantly, why you need to have great conversions and how you can really up your online conversion strategy. But, Beth, let's talk about this. I think so many times, a piece of feedback that you and I often get when we go through surveys is sometimes people feel like, oh, man, this summit, it had a lot of online speakers, or it had a lot of brick and mortar speakers, or it was for new businesses, or it was for big businesses. And I think a lot of confusion comes from breakout session titles. And so something we did different this year is we're actually labeling every single breakout session to who it's for. Exactly.

Right.

So brick and mortar store.

Right? Even if it doesn't say, this is for brick and mortars, you know, in the title, or online boutiques or children's or wholesale. We'll label and we'll tell you this is applicable to you. And, you know, Ashley, we've talked about this a bit, but part of it also is you and how you. Your. Your mindset and how you approach the breakout session. Again, unless someone is saying brick and mortar, you might not think, oh, this is applicable to me. Well, it is. There's so much of our content that is applicable to not. I mean, not even boutique owners, but it could be applicable to, you know, sports shops or craft gift shops. So I think it's just coming into it saying, this is going to be applicable for me. How do I make it applicable for me? And how do I use these tools to help my individual business? And one way that I have even seen myself be able to do this is, you know, there is a lot of content. Books, audiobooks, podcasts, about small businesses and being an entrepreneur and how you can grow your business. And I'm not an entrepreneur, but I have been with Boutique Hub, a small business, a startup business. Seen the growth over the past six years and, you know, it feels like it's also my baby. I'm that invested in it and I want to see it grow. So even though I am not an entrepreneur, I can listen to different podcasts, read content and see, okay, how can I make this applicable for me as number two, you know, as on a manager side and help grow the business? So I'm how can a boutique owner listen to something and think, okay, how does this apply to me as a children's store or even if you bring your manager, how does this apply to me and how I can help support the boot, you know, the owner and just how can we do it and apply things? I'm kind of rambling now, so take it back, boss.

No, you're on the right track, Beth. And I, I'm really glad that you brought this up because, oh, I'm going to get on a soapbox for just a second. But I think so often we feel like there has to be a golden ticket to life or to business or to the challenge we're facing right now, or someone should hand us on a silver platter all the answers we're looking for for our specific business type. And the fact is, it just doesn't work like that. It doesn't exist. And so I think how you put it to make sure that your mindset is prepared, is really important to know that even if someone is speaking to brick and mortar boutiques, that it's very likely that the message they're sharing is still applicable to you. An online boutique, or if it's, you know, too advanced for you, there's still nuggets to glean from that. Or if it's too basic for you, there's still nuggets to glean from that. But no matter what conference we go to or what training we take, I mean, all of us, as I'm going to say entrepreneurs, should be able to go to a construction conference, World of Concrete, which is in Vegas during WWD Magic, we should be able to go to World of Concrete and still find some kind of nugget that we can take away and apply to our business. But I think being a successful entrepreneur is being a lifelong learner and you're just always looking for new answers or new strategies or new angles. If there was answers somewhere, the golden ticket on a silver platter Everyone would be doing it and everyone would be the same. But what's so beautiful about life and about business is that we have the opportunity to totally do it our own way, to rewrite the script and make it work for us. And what makes you unique and different is really your superpower. So even if you feel like, gosh, I don't know if this is 100% applicable to me, chances are there is still a lot of meat and a lot of nugget for you to take away.

Absolutely. And we're also working on how we can, you know, best distinguish on your name tags if you're online or brick and mortar. So you can have those conversations at lunch. So say you go to a session in the morning and it's about staff and it seems like it's more brick and mortar tailored. Then you go to lunch and you talk to fellow online boutique owners and you kind of brainstorm. So if Sarah's talking about staff and having a weekly staff meeting, then you can go to the table and say, hey, just like the Boutique hub does. We have a weekly staff meeting on online video chat. We use zoom. We have our team meeting. We're still able to communicate and have fun. We're just not physically together. So kind of how you can bounce those ideas off with other people that are like you, we're hoping to add that value as well. Even though there's a thousand people you can see, still find, you know, your besties, I think, still think that there's so many opportunities to find a new bestie.

Absolutely. So a little bit about the schedule. The Boutique Summit is June 7th through the 9th in Atlanta. We will welcome our VIPs if you have a VIP ticket on Sunday night for our welcome party, cocktail party, round tables. We've got some exciting things planned for our VIPs through the entire event and actually through the market following the event as well. And then we start the actual full Boutique Summit all day Monday, most of the day Tuesday. We wrap up a little bit early Tuesday afternoon because then we go into our Boutique Boss Banquet, which this year we're so excited about. The Boutique Boss Banquet celebrates all of the 2019 Boutique Awards winners and gives them recognition that they deserve. On stage. It's a fancy, you know, formal, you get to wear a fancy dress party. But we're going to have some awesome entertainment this year, some live entertainment. So it's going to be an all night dance party for you and for the girlfriends that you come with. But I also want to mention, and we get this Question a lot. Can your husband come or are men welcome? Because it is, you know, kind of a female branded event, I would say because a lot of our customers and members at the Boutique up are female, but we bring a lot of men to the event. Lots of husbands come. Lots of husbands are business partners, spouses, significant others, staff members. We've had some babies at the Boutique Summit as well. But whoever's involved in your business, all are welcome to come and be a part of the Boutique Summit. Anything else you want to hit on Beth with?

The schedule is a time to celebrate you. That's the main thing. We want to make sure it's a time that you can celebrate you and what you have accomplished and who has helped you get there, whether it's a spouse or a business partner or whomever.

Absolutely.

On that note, you're talking about the schedule and the different things that we have. I want to note a few things that we have added this year or changed that make it even better than the previous years. So one is our VIP experience. So you touched on it a little bit. And they have a VIP lounge this year. And this lounge is going to be larger than last year. It's going to be even cooler. It is going to be more exclusive. Exclusive. And actually, after the Summit, this VIP lounge will be transformed into a lounge for all Hub members during market. So if there is a time where you need to kind of just chillax or you want to meet up with a boutique bestie and you don't know where, tell them meet up at the Hub Lounge and we'll have that space exclusive for you during market. So I'm really excited about that. The other VIP perk that I am just dying over is that our VIPs get to have meet and greet photo ops with our keynote speakers. So those five keynote speakers we just spoke about, you are the ones and only you that get to take pictures and meet them. So that I think the value is value enough. I'll buy a ticket. Oh, wait, I don't need to buy a ticket. But.

You get to put up with all the fun things ahead of time so you don't have to buy a ticket. Plus, one thing to mention too is the swag that everyone receives. The swag is worth the ticket alone, in my opinion. It's pretty impressive. And also the private trade show that we host with all of our partner brands during the Boutique Summit. So this year we're rearranging our layout quite a bit. It's going to be significantly different than last year and so all of our education is going to take place in one area, and then our trade show is going to take place on another floor with our lunch area. And these brands, there's lots of brands that you might already know and love. They might be favorites of yours. And there's going to be some brands that are going to be new that you might not know. And these brands usually have specials for those of you that are there. You get lots of perks. I know some brands have talked about having some cash and carry as well. So there's going to be lots of opportunity to not just learn about your business on every level, from new to advanced, but also to stock your business as well and to find some new products to bring home with you.

Right. And what a fun way to do it when you have a drink in your hand at our Sip and Shop and you're at a fun event.

Absolutely. All right, Beth, what has been the most meaningful or impactful thing you've learned or appreciated or enjoyed through this process of building the Boutique Summit?

A few things. One is that I never knew that my favorite time of the year would also be the most exhausting, physically mentally draining time of the year. But I am serious when it is my favorite time of the year. The second thing is just how I can grow and how we can do things that I had never planned events before. I didn't even really plan birthday parties before, But I've been able to grow. And we've talked about this a little bit over the past week. I just like that you trust me now. You trust that this is my baby and I'll get it done. And we've worked so well over the past four years polishing this up that every year we're able to change things and. And grow and make things better and just create an even more successful event.

Man. And you've done such a good job with it, I think. You know, kind of. On that note, the one thing we definitely learned together was what it took to build an event. And. And I'll say build it. But then also, we've been so intentional about the ticket prices and making sure that it's affordable because we know. We know what it's like to be a small business owner. We know what you guys are going through every single day.

And.

And you're not just coming to the event, but you' coming to buy for the next season. So you're making huge investments. And, I mean, it's easy, I think sometimes when you go to events to go, oh, my gosh, okay, There's X number of people in the room and they spent X number of dollars on a ticket and wow, it must be so lucrative to put on events. And that couldn't be further from the truth because you're looking at like a half a million dollar investment just to put something like that together. Speakers and food and AV and the things that we had no idea what cost, what they cost, but thank God we just dipped our toe in the water that first year and it came together and we've been able to figure it out and make it work along the way. I give you so much credit, Beth, for building this the way that you have and taking ownership of it because it's turned out to be such a beautiful event and you've done such an awesome job with it.

Well, thank you. And I've also learned that I can't take things personally, so. Same thing with boutique owners is if someone has a comment that they don't like your stuff, well, they're just not person for you. We've had, you know, the good and the bad, and we learn from the bad, but I just, I can't take it personally, man.

There's a lot of truth, you know, everything. We're on the same page. We all, you know, everyone does customer surveys and takes feedback, and it's hard sometimes because you're trying to please so many people, but that's not possible. At the end of the day, you've got to do what you know is right for the majority of the community and what you think serves everyone to the best of your ability and then roll on and enjoy every moment from that point forward.

Absolutely. And I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do.

Absolutely. Well, shout out to you, Beth, for all of your hard work and shout out to everyone who has come to a Boutique Summit event in the past to make this possible. We're so excited about this year and I think, like we mentioned earlier, one of the things that, that I love the most about this is just the opportunity for relationship building. You know, it's one thing to build online friends and to learn online, but it's a whole nother thing to just be surrounded by people that are as hungry for life and business as you are and to get these opportunities to learn from people face to face. So if you're planning on joining us this year, tickets go on sale March 10th. Mark your calendar and we'll have all the links in the show notes. You can sign up to be the first to know. Like we said, it'll sell out Last year it sold out in about 22 hours. So we actually post a release schedule where we release to usually our retail bootcamp students first and our Boutique Awards winners and then our early sign up, like first to know email list people next and then to all of our members and then a couple hours later to the general public. So you'll get that release schedule. You'll have an opportunity to grab a ticket. Tickets are discounted for Boutique Hub members, so know that you get that perk for sure. And if you're bringing staff or team or spouse, your second ticket for that family member or or a business partner is discounted for you as well.

It's like Black Friday for boutique owners. Boutique Summit ticket, launch day. It's my Black Friday.

It really is. It's crazy like Black Friday. All right, well, you guys, if you have any questions, please message us anytime. Bethattheboutiquehub.com ashleyboutiquehub.com or shoot us a DM on Instagram boutiquehubbusiness or ajalderson and let us know what you're doing while you listen to this podcast, as always, and if you're going to be joining us at the 2020 Boutique Summit. So Beth, thank you so much for joining me today.

Foreign.

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