#289: 7 Things You Must Do Before The End Of The Year with Ashley Alderson, CEO of The Boutique Hub

It's episode number 289 and it's you and me, babe. This week we are talking about an end of year checklist and seven things that you're going to want to start doing right now to make sure you're ready for the end of the year.

Let's go do this. 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.

Hey guys, welcome back to this week's show. I know you are in the heart of the Christmas hustle right now, all the holiday season hustle and you're selling gift cards and doing everything you can to get that last minute cash. But this week I want to thank friends, forward just a little bit. And I want to talk actually about the end of the year because sometimes it sneaks up on you. All those last minute to do's that feel like they fall in the middle of the holiday season when you're just wanting to slow down, take a break and spend some time with your family. So today I want to walk you through seven areas where you can actually do a little bit of review of your end of your checklist right now so that you're ready before the very last day of the year and you're not working on New Year's Eve. So. Sound good? Plus, if you hang around to the end, I've got some really exciting news that you're definitely going to want to hear because you bet we are going to be there with you every step of the way as we turn the new year over. So let's get into it. The first area we want to think about when it comes to end of year review. And I guess this is probably the most daunting for most of you, this is getting our accounting in order. Some of you are blessed with wonderful accountants who counsel you through this process and maybe some of you just have accountants that simply file your taxes. I'm here to tell you from personal experience, you guys, one of the best decisions we made was to actually switch accountants a couple of years ago and find a firm that we could meet with throughout the entire year who really did counsel us through this process and made sure it wasn't just Our accounting that was set up correctly, but it was all the legal that went with it too. So it made getting to the end of the year a lot easier because already back in July or August we were meeting, making some end of the year plans. But a couple of the things your cpa, your accounting firm is going to want to know, they're going to want to know. They're going to want to know what inventory you have on hand. So this is a great time to take physical inventory because usually our inventory levels are lower at the end of the year. And if you'd like more information specifically on that, we have a brand new blog post that just launched on taking end of year inventory. You can find that on the boutiquehub.com and we'll link it in the show notes today as well. So inventory on hand, cash on hand. Obviously your entire P and L for the year. So your income, your expenses, everything that went in and out of your business in your books in the last year. Also any accounts receivable that you might still have outstanding, any interest expenses, any accounts payable or liabilities, things that you still have to spend before the end of the year, any furniture, fixtures or actual physical assets that you have in your business, what you purchased and what you sold in the last year, and also gift cards. That's another thing that sometimes can get overlooked is what do you have outstanding and what have you sold for the year so we can actually actualize those numbers. Plus, when you're thinking about inventory, I want you to also think about what you donated this year or maybe when you took inventory, what shrinkage you had in the last year. So shrinkage means did you have some theft that occurred in your business in the last year and where are those numbers going to fall now? If you're already operating with a great point of sale system and QuickBooks, this shouldn't be tough for you to gather all of these numbers. Or if you're using QuickBooks Online, which is what we do, our accountant has a login to that information so they can look it all up in real time as well while we go throughout the year. But get those numbers in order and make sure to start the year right if you are not already having a great bookkeeping system in place. This is the time of year to start off fresh so you aren't scratching scrambling at the end of the year next year. All right. Second area I want you to think about when it comes to your end of the year checklist is finding your customer and sales data for the next year. So we always think about starting the year fresh with new visions and goal setting and who do I want to be in the new year? But another key thing to think about is really who's my customer in the new year? And by my reports and by my data, who was my customer this year? Who were they? Where are they from? Did they buy mainly online? Did they buy in store? Did they buy on desktop? Did they buy on mobile? Did they buy in your app? Did they buy on live sales? Or how exactly were they making purchases with you the most often? What were they buying? Right? What were their best selling categories? What were our best selling vendors? What was actually turning and making a profit in our business? And how are our customers most communicating with us? And where customers actually getting the traffic that's paying the bills in the business, meaning what traffic sources are really paying the bills? Is it Instagram? Is it our Facebook group? Is it paid advertising that you've run? Or where is that traffic coming from? I also want you to think about when it comes to your customers. We talked a little bit about what's actually selling. So list out what are the top 10 best selling items in your store and what do they have in common? What are they? Are they consistent? Is there a certain time of year they were selling? What was the cost, what was your margin and what was the quality of those items? You know, a lot can be said by actually looking at the data and asking why is something selling and why isn't something selling? And when we think about not just products, but then we also think about the vendors that those products come from, sometimes it can be surprising to us because we may have a vendor that we love to see in LA or that we love to see at market, but. But when we look at the raw data, maybe that vendor's products really aren't selling. But it comes down to do we want to have a crucial conversation with that vendor about why we aren't going to be reordering in the new year? So it's easy to think about relationships, and it's important to think about relationships when it comes to your vendors. But make sure that your numbers are backing up all the buying decisions that you're making in the new year and that you're also testing out alternatives as you go. You know, one thing I'll just say from my soapbox, I guess, in 2020, is that I feel like a lot of boutiques really started to look the same in 2020. And I don't know if you agree with me, and hopefully that doesn't upset you. But I feel like I was kind of teased about this in boot camp, that I don't want you to tell me that you're a trendy online affordable boutique. Right. Because I feel like I hear that theme all the time in boutiques or cute camp. Cute, comfy and casual boutiques. Right. There's nothing wrong if that's you. But just make sure that within your brand you're taking great photos and you're fully styling products and you're testing out product lines that maybe you just can't find everywhere else. Make sure you have a reason for what is actually setting you apart throughout the year. And you're testing out new lines and new vendors that you may not have otherwise to see what's going to sell in the new year. Now, the other thing I want you to think about when it comes to looking at your customers and your sales data for the year is also what trends did you see time wise? So what were your best selling months and why? What were your worst selling months and why? And if you're someone who had a boutique boss planner in the last year. One thing that we do as an exercise at the end of every month in the planner is we go into in depth review about what worked and what didn't. Was it the weather? Was it sales staff? Was it events? Was it March 2020 and a global pandemic broke out? I don't know, that maybe affected things both positive and negative for many of you. But what worked and what didn't and why? And make sure to take good notes on that as you're starting to plan out the new year. All right. Third thing to think about when it comes to your end of the year checklist is verifying contractors. Now I know this is not a fun or glamorous thing you're probably going to post about on the Gram tomorrow, but it's important nonetheless. And maybe you've got a great book keeper or an accountant or someone who can help you, a manager who can help go through this process with you, but just making sure anyone that you've hired in the last year that you've spent at least $600 with, that you're verifying their address so that you can get those 1099 mailed out to them. And you are not issuing 1099 for payments made for personal purposes. So just looking at who was actually a contractor who needs a 1099 and why getting their address, making sure we can get those out in a timely fashion so that contractors can actually file their taxes in a timely fashion in the new year. All right, piece number four to think about in your end of your checklist is all those fun year end meetings that it is really important to schedule. So this is, this is probably something that should have been number one, right? Get this on your to do list right away and that's scheduling meetings with your attorney. Right. Do we have everything trademarked that we need to have trademarked in the new year? And is our business structure still what's best? Are we currently an llc, are we an S corp or for tax purposes? After we meet with our accountant, where do we need to structure our business? Do we, did we have a great year this year? Do we need to invest in some property and open a second LLC for our property that we're going to invest in this year? Do we need to create a trust for our family? Do we have our wills in order? Have we thought long term about our investment strategy and also what's our long term plan with the business? Are we going to sell this business someday or, or what is that looking like so we can make sure we've got things set up right from the start. Something personal that happened to us in the last, gosh, it's been probably two and a half years. My husband Eric is the CFO of the boutique Hub and what really got him going down this rabbit hole was Tony Robbins book Unshakable and also the Tony Robbins book Money Master the Game. Those are some of his favorites. He's listened to both of them two or three times because there's so much good information in both. But it really got him thinking about what's the future of the Hub and how do we need to structure our led him to a company that we use today. Feel free to message me if you'd like the information. But it's a company that really looks at your investments holistically. They look at investments in retirement and legal and your business structures and like all the things, all the assets to your name. Right. To make sure long term we are creatively planning for the future that, that we want to have financially. And so that was an undertaking that took about a year to structure, but really is something that I think will be a huge long term payback. So if you're someone who's listening and you did have a really big year in 2020 or you had a solid year and you're still working towards your, toward your end of the year, end of the business goals in terms of wanting to sell your business someday or whatever that looks like so you can retire. Definitely think about those two books and meeting with your investment person, your attorney and your accountant and making sure they're all on the same page. Now, the last meeting I want to mention that you should definitely set up is your insurance agent, right? If you've got payroll, obviously you're going to do your, your audit with your workman's comp insurance. But also think about where there are purchases that you made in the last year that you definitely need to have insured and also that you're adjusting your inventory levels and your insurance agent knows what those are as well. There's always loose ends that can easily be missed and we don't know until it's too late what we're going to need with our insurance policies. All right, one more thing I want to mention when it comes to your end of year meetings is if you are set up as an S Corp or any type of corporation, make sure you're thinking about checking with your Secretary of State, making sure your bylaws are in order, you're in good standing with the government, and if you need to, make sure your operation agreement is also reviewed so that your legal structure is still in place for the new year. All right, number five, this is something we are actually in the process of as I'm recording this podcast. They have a meeting with our accountant tomorrow and that is to set up our budget for the new year. So as you're thinking about your budget for the new year, what is, what's the goals that you're going to set for yourself? Right? What's your projected sales, what's your projected expenses? How can you further forecast things? Make sure you've got someone holding you accountable and really talking you through those numbers in detail after you've already run all those reports that we mentioned under number one and number two in this series, number six, I already mentioned this, but checking with your Secretary of State to make sure all of your reports are filed. But I want to take this a step further as we're thinking about operation agreements. This is such an important time of year to sit down with your manager, if you have one, with your partner, and think about how is my operation agreement working in our operating docs, also our employee handbooks, how did they work in the last year? Were there things that worked, things that didn't work, things that were missing, things that have changed? Are there new platforms that we're using that we want to add into our operations doc, new passwords that need to be added in there? If you're someone who's taken retail boot camp, this is something we talk a lot about in terms of operations is the truck rule. Right. And that is, if you were hit by a truck tomorrow, what would happen to your business? Would anyone know how to run it? Would anyone know where anything is? Right. There's two documents that really help us maintain process in our business. The first is our employee handbook, and that's your policies, your procedures. Right. What are the guidelines you're operating your team by? Well, the second is the operation doc, and that's something that you maybe keep for yourself. Part of it might be yourself, your spouse, your partner, your manager. And then there may be parts of your operational doc that are shared with, say, a marketing team or inventory team, depending on your size. But this is really the truck rule document. If something happened to me tomorrow, where could my team go to figure out all the details of the business? Right. What are the platforms that we use and why do we use them? What, who helps us on different projects? Who's the contact for, say, our insurance? Or where is our accounts at, like, what bank are we using? All these different details that it's easy to think, well, I've got that, or I'm never going to need that. But truly, let's just say you went out with COVID or you lost a family member and you had to, you know, be gone and someone wanted to keep the lights on for you, where would they go to find that information? And that's your operational doc. So definitely something to review and update this time of year. And going back to your employee handbook too, I want to mention this. If you do have team, this is a good time of year just to ask them questions. Hey, do you want to look through the employee handbook? Are there, Are there things that you think we should update this year? Give your employees some ownership and a say in how they think things are working and then go back and make some of those changes and decisions. All right, finally, piece number seven, and you guys, I'm keeping this super short and sweet this week, but piece number seven in our end of your checklist is reviewing contracts. Again, we already talked with operations doc, but here, where you have a lease, right, that you could definitely look at and negotiate service providers, email platforms. You may need to review and clean your list to make sure you're not overpaying for the list size that you have. Web hosting, telephone. Is your telephone fee even applicable anymore? Like, are you paying for a landline that you don't use? And you could get Google Phone or where can you adjust your cell phone rates? All kinds of things there, your Internet provider, your insurance policies, where can you renegotiate to save some expense in your business? And the other thing I'll mention when it comes to this is when we're looking at these numbers as a whole for our year, right, Our income and our expenses, it's easy to get a little bit freaked out by what we spent on things in the last year. But I just want to remind you as you go through this process to think about things through two lenses. And that's what is the lens of investments I made in my business this year or expenses I made in my business this year, because there's definitely a difference. So payroll, for example, is not an expense, it's an investment because you're leveraging time and money to make more time and money. Or let's just say I'll use a hub, for example, right? An investment in a membership at the hub. Is that an expense or is an investment? Well, my goal for you is that it's an investment. And then when you're a member, you 10x your investment every single month, you should easily make 10 times back what you pay in your hub fee every month because of the benefit you receive for it. So are there other things that are expenses that we can negotiate, which is what I'm talking about when it comes to lease or service providers, email, telephone, Internet insurance, all that or their investments that maybe we need to go deeper into. So just things to think about. I know Facebook ads, that's definitely another one that comes up this time of year in terms of what's my roas, right? What's the return on ad spend that I'm making and then what's my fee that I'm paying? And does that all even out in the wash? Am I still coming out money ahead with each of those investments that I'm making in my business? So guys, that was super quick and easy. I hope you got a couple of notes, but seven end of year to do's that I don't want you to miss out on. And if you want this in written form, I actually have a couple of different end of year checklists that I want to share with you. All of them can be found in our December bundle for all of our hub members. It's in our training library inside of the boutique hub. I believe it's in the operations module and there's tons more in there for this time of year. But I want to kind of bend your ear on this just for a Second, so every year we have a tradition at the boutique hub and it's called the Best Year Yet Challenge. And we've done it for, I think this will be our fourth or fifth year that we've done it now, but it's our way to kick off the year together, right? It's to start our best year yet together. And as we do that, I just want to invite you to join me this year inside of the Best Year Yet Challenge. I won't give you all the details today. Those are going to be coming in about a week, so I'll share the information here when I have it. But it's going to be one week starting on January 4, and an opportunity for us to work together every day for a week to really dive into planning your year. Right? And this is not like basic goal setting 101. This is not just like a cookie cutter. Here's what you need to do to set your goals and make a plan. But we're really going to deep dive into what does it mean for a boutique owner, a retailer, a wholesale or a product maker to actually set your year up for success. And we're pulling strategies and things that we use in our one on one coaching at the Hub or Inside of Retail Bootcamp, or we're actually pulling kind of a theme that we've used from the year inside of our holiday marketing masterclass, which is profit and peace. And we're going to bring that into our best area Challenge and ask, how can you create more profit and more peace in 2021? Because I think those are two things that all of us are longing for, peace especially. So please keep your eyes peeled, your ears open to find that information as that comes available. But mark your calendars now. It is absolutely free to take part in the Best Year yet challenge marker calendars for January 4th. That information is going to be coming in hot. So, guys, as always, take a picture, take a screenshot, make a video, whatever it is, let me know what you're doing while you're listening to this podcast and shoot it to me over on Instagram. It's AJ Alderson on the gram. I'm just wrapping up my 12 days of giveaways on the Gram. So thank you to everyone who participated in that and everyone who donated prizes. I still have some winners to pick. You're going to catch that happening over there soon. But you guys, thanks for listening to the podcast. Thank you for making 2021 so special and creating a much needed community in this industry inside of 2021. It's been amazing to watch all of you stick together and just support one another this year, and I cannot wait to kick off a new year together with you as well. So hang out.

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