#31 Why Text Message Marketing Can Change your Business, with Bo Cain VP of Sales at Sentext Solutions

You guys are in for a real strategy session. Get ready for episode number 31 with Bo Kane of Sentech Solutions as we dive into the ins and outs of using text message marketing for your business. Whether you are a retail boutique owner or your wholesale brand looking to learn how to reach your customer in a new way, text message marketing is definitely a strategy that you need to be implementing now. So get ready. 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. You know, when it comes to marketing for boutique owners, there is definitely, definitely some truth to the fact that social media could go away tomorrow. And when it does, and as it has in the past, when algorithm shifts happen and businesses crumble because they completely rely on someone else's network to communicate their message, the only thing that we have left at the end of the day is what we own. And that's always been traditionally our email list. We own our email list and can market with it. Well, as marketing changes and evolves. Today, there's really a new list that we also own along with emails, and that's our text message list.

Today.

Text message marketing has definitely become a stronghold of a marketing platform for today's retailer and wholesale brand and designer. And there's a really important reason why, you know, as email inboxes fill up, we are seeing open rates of email Messages drop below 20 and now below 15% as an industry average. And really some struggle to get a 10% open rate. But with text messages send, studies show that today almost 98% of text messages are read within the first five minutes. That's a pretty staggering number. So when it comes to communicating your message to your customers and building relationship with your brand, text marketing is a big player and a big tool in our toolbox. So today I want to introduce you to Bocain. Bocain is a VP with SendText Solutions, one of the leading text message marketing software companies in the United States. And Bo and I sit down to specifically talk about strategies that you can use no matter what text marketing service you use, to grow your list, to increase open rates, and to create campaigns that matter the most to your customers. So, guys, get ready to take notes on this One, there's a lot of strategy and idea sharing inside. And plus, don't forget, if you're a Boutique Hub member, Sentex and Bo have offered some special discounts just for you if you're using their service. So check that out in the show notes. Check them out on the Boutique Hub and our service provider platform. And if not, make sure you take notes and put these tips and ideas into use in your business right away. All right, guys, welcome back to the podcast. This week, I'm so excited to bring you a show that's all about strategy and how to this week. So welcome to the show.

Bo Kane, the VP of sales for Sentec Solutions. Hey, Bo.

Hey. How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Hey, just doing great. Just enjoying the 100 degree heat down here in Mississippi.

Oh, my gosh. I can't even handle it. Should I even tell you how warm it is in Wisconsin today?

What is it?

Oh, it's like mid-70s.

And actually, like on Thursday, it's not.

Even going to get above 75, like nowhere near the 80s this week. Pleasant.

I don't like. I don't like you anymore. Done with this.

But don't ask me that when it's January because I will want to come see you in Mississippi at that point. Are you pumped about today? I've been excited to have you on the podcast for some time because you and I have talked about strategy and marketing solutions and text marketing and what an opportunity this is for boutique owners and wholesale brands, I might add. We're going to talk about that today too, but we have a lot to share.

No, absolutely. I'm totally excited. I've been anticipating this for a while now and just, you know, the success that members of the hub have experience and just the different ways that a service like this can be used to your advantage when, you know, just communicating to the customers of those boutiques. For sure.

Yeah. So if anyone's listening and they aren't yet familiar with text marketing, can you tell us just kind of the premise of what it is and how it works?

Yep, absolutely. So what we do, Ashley, is we are a company that simply just connects the merchant itself, which would be the boutique owner, to the customer. We are just like a platform that partners with a customer and we work with, you know, thousands of businesses across the United States other than retail. But retail just so happens to be one of the biggest industry lanes that we work with because what's so cool about it is retail owners and business owners of the hub, they always have things to say, and they've always got new arrivals coming in, they've always got sales going on, They've always got live events and flash sales and having that ability to just communicate as people. What's so unique about texting is you and me, we communicate pretty much on a daily basis with families and friends about birthdays and barbecues and, hey, what are you doing for the weekend? And our concept is to take that simple translation of communication and just show business owners, whether it's a retail store, whether it's Chick Fil a, whether it's a church, or any type of business, and just show them how to engage, how to get permission of their customers. And what we do for the business is we create images with the merchants with their business name, with their logo, and we help them establish a word, which is called a keyword, where a merchant will see it whether they're inside the store or visiting a business's social media or maybe their website. And then that customer then just simply sees this image, or the customer can do their own image and they see it and it says, like, you know, for example, you know, with the hub, you know, text hub to a certain number and that that customer then gets a response message back to their phone. And given that business because they have to reply, yes, giving that particular business way to communicate. Not again, we're not the only way to communicate. We are just another way to communicate. So when that business has something to say, maybe they want to send out a picture, maybe they want to send out a link to a live event, maybe they want to send out just general information, maybe they're closing early. Regardless, whatever that owner, whatever that business owner wants to say, now they have permission to be able to send out a mass text to all of these people simultaneously at a certain day and time or instantly whenever they choose.

So if someone wanted to see this, let's just give them an example in action. So if you're listening to this podcast right now, you could text the word boss B O ss to 57711 if you're a boutique owner. And you'd be added to our list of the boutique hub for boutique owners. Or if you are a service provider, you could text the word grow G R O W to the same number 57711. And then you would be on our list for service providers and brands to hear all about what's happening with the boutique hub and business tips, those types of things. So hopefully, if someone's listening, they can jump in and kind of see it in Action as we have this conversation.

And thank you for saying that. Because sometimes, you know, we just kind of, we don't understand things and knowledge is, you know, can be our enemy in some cases. But that right there can, when they text that, they'll see what their customers will experience whether they're, you know, joining for the first time or even if someone has already joined, you know. Cause I had already joined yours just to try it out to make sure everything was clear when we set all that stuff up. And you'll see that if you've already subscribed, it'll say, hey, you're already a member. And then that shows you the protection that we put in place for customers, you know, just in case someone tries to, you know, get another discount or, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the hubbies, they offer, you know, 15% off a purchase or maybe 20 or 25% off one item. And one of the questions they ask most of the time is, well, what if someone tries to rejoin? Well, we protect you because you are our customer. So we don't, we don't allow people to keep rejoining over and over and over to get that message back. Once they're in, they're in. And if they don't want the messages anymore, they can just opt out to unsubscribe.

I like that, I like that. I want to get into all the nitty gritty details of the strategy and all the questions that you get asked in just a second. But before we do, I want to back up a hair and ask about Centext as a company just a little bit more about where you guys are based out of how everybody works and how you got started in this business.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question. And you know, Sentex is based out of Milford, Connecticut, up there on the east coast. I live down on the coast of Mississippi. You may have heard of a town called Biloxi. I live right near there. Well known for its beautiful beaches and casinos down here. Company's been around. We started February 2011. Our President CEO was in the credit card processing industry back then and just decided to go into a different business. And a lot of companies, a lot of businesses, whether it's Main Street USA customers or just multi location businesses. What we found was not a lot of people use texting in a way that, you know, we're talking about today. And for the most part we've always just kind of, you know, okay, we've got our email here, we've got this over here and that over There. And the one thing that sticks out about texting is we all do it. I mean, we're all addicted. So when I saw it, Ashley, back in January 2012 is when I came on board and when I looked into it, I was, you know, I was like, this just makes sense. And I didn't have any background in marketing as far as advertising or degrees or anything, but found out quickly that most businesses that I talked to did not utilize it or didn't really understand how it works. And that's where a Syntex agent, someone like me, really has the value of being able to teach and kind of come alongside with that business owner and help them, you know, bring people back in, get that information out. Just another fishing pole in the water, so to speak. I mean, I like to fish down here and I know that if we take more, more than one pole fishing with us, we're going to catch fish and, you know, send out your emails, do all your other things. But having an ability to send out a text, people, people like that, I.

Like it because it breaks through the noise when email marketing rates, the open rates are so low and just continuing, continuing to drop over time. This is just another way. I like your analogy of fishing with another pole with another line. I like it. And also home of Brett Favre. Right. We need to add that in there. As you did your intro.

That's right, yes. I've had a chance to meet him a few times. He's a great guy.

I like it. So over a thousand clients you currently work with that are on the program, just in your portfolio alone.

I've always had a gift of gab. And when Sentex and I came together six and a half years ago, it was the perfect marriage, other than the one I have at the house with four beautiful children. But I'm a people person and I love working with people. I love helping people. I love, you know, giving them the ability to create revenue for their business is one of my passions. Is in different areas of my life too, within the church and all that stuff, I love helping people. And when I came across Centext, it just clicked for me. And obviously vice president of the company now, but just looking back, my passion, even now, so today, away from all the trainings that I do and all that stuff that comes with being a vp, my passion and what I still do today for many, many clients is just working with them. I mean, I really enjoy giving them ideas. I really enjoy seeing their numbers grow because I know what that means when their databases flourish. It Just means more people are going to be, you know, connected to that business via text.

I love that. And if anyone had a chance to meet you at the boutique summit or has been able to work with you in the past, they definitely know that you're a people person. It was so good to get to meet you at the summit in Dallas and get to see that firsthand. That's pretty cool. You've got a lot of raving fans.

Yeah, I was really nervous at the summit, I'll be honest with you. I was kind of out of place there. I felt a little intimidated. But as the morning went on, I got a little more comfortable. And it was really, I'll be honest with you, I loved it. I can't wait to the next one. It's really cool. And I know some people can relate to this, even yourself. Never meeting people, you know, just meeting you. Someone that we're working together and just meeting other people at that summit, you know, never. I'd never met Meredith with Makeup Junkie. I never met Jesse with Cheekies. I never met Laura Benson with Philly Flair. I'd never met any of those customers. And just seeing them put a name with a face is always really cool. Just love that.

Isn't that crazy? I try to describe that to people. Like, you have these. I call them Internet pen pals 24 7, who you talk to on a regular basis. But it's weird when you finally meet them in person. Like, do you shake their hand? Do you give them a hug? What do you do? Because it's the first time you're actually meeting them.

Yeah, I agree 100%. It's always really cool. We don't have to meet in person to be successful business partners, you know? You know, but it's cool. It's cool to see them that first time. It's like you don't look like anything you sound like on the phone, you know, and it's just really cool to put that name with the face.

So true. So with all these clients that you work with, I'm sure that you see a lot of commonality between those who are successful using text marketing. Can you talk about, you know, some of those common traits among your most successful clients?

Yeah, absolutely. Especially what we're talking about today, which is retail. One of the factors that I believe can create traffic in a business, whether it's online or a physical location, is being careful not to overdo it. I believe that's where some other sources, you can kind of lose traction. And look, I understand how things work in algorithms and open ratios. But I think somewhat what differentiates maybe text versus those other ways is you don't have to do it 47 times a day to be effective. I'm a big fan of once a week, maybe twice a week. All right. During the holidays I will always encourage boutique owners to take advantage of the season and customers don't mind. And I got a lot of clients that really hammered hard through early Thanksgiving time frame and then up into Christmas, 12 days of Christmas and all that. But normally the best practices regarding texting is you want to keep them engaged, you want to keep them involved and you can create surveys, you can send out surveys and links and take them to certain pages and ask them questions. And sending images believe is huge, especially, especially in the retail space because a picture is worth a thousand words. And sending out and showing that outfit that someone is looking at, it just speaks to them. And you don't have to make it overly complicated. It's just like, here's this new thing here or click this link and go there, right? And just keeping them engage with messaging that would keep you engaged. And that one of the things I teach the owners is look what excites you. Because remember, as you're sending out your different ways of communication, think about yourself. What would entice you to look at this or what would entice you to go to this website and use this code today? What excites the person that stops? And one of the stats that still blows my mind today, Ashley, is 99% and this was published by Forbes magazine, 99% of all text messages are read within five minutes.

Wow.

I mean, it's crazy. You know, and friends, family, all these things. You know, we communicate this way as people. You know, we just, we don't even pick the phone up anymore. I mean, you know, we just don't. And because we're always busy, we're always on the go, we're always doing different things, kids, you know, all kind of crazy stuff going on. This is the same principle again. Keep all the fishing poles you got in the water. There's just another pole that you can do that everybody likes to fish with and it works, you know, and be specific, be specific in your targeting. You know, understand that you don't have to send out a text at 7:00am or 9:00 clock at night. You know, when you send out a text, you know, make sure that your doors are open or if it's going to be a flash sale. I see a lot of text messages come across Predominantly for online stores that do live sales. And I think that's huge. You know, 30 minutes before the live sale kicks off, send that baby out and do, you know, do your other stuff. Email, Facebook, all that stuff. But having that text when these people are on the go and they're at the house and that phone, ding, ding. They read it, they just, they pick it. We can't. Average person looks at their phone over a hundred times a day. I mean, we. We're addicted to our cell phones.

I was just thinking, I was looking at our text messages as you were just speaking there. And do you advise people too? I mean, not just to sell kind of like the Gary Vee philosophy. Jab, jab, jab, right hook. Like, don't just sell all the time, but how else do you add value? I think you alluded to this. We just sent out a text to our list this morning that said something like, don't forget you're awesome today. Just like a feel good thing that keeps you top of mind and connects to people, but isn't always selling something to kind of touch on that as well.

Yeah, I love that because I obviously get your Yalls messages as well. And I thought that's really creative. And, you know, I see that. I don't see that as often as I'd like to. And as a business owner, we can kind of get in the routine rut of, well, you know, let me send this out and let me, let me send this text out. And all of a sudden it just becomes this routine and look, we're all guilty. This just routine. All right, well, I've got. I just got this shipment in today. You don't always have to sell something, you know, you don't always have to put a discount code. Well, whatever you say, don't be afraid to change it up. Don't always think that you've got to say something about the shipment that just came in. Just want to say thank you for your business. You know, we really appreciate you coming in. And I see customers, you know, sometimes it's outside of the retail space that they just appreciate and send out cool little things like you did, which I love that because even though maybe they get in the habit of expecting maybe a little coupon, which is fine, or maybe expecting to hear that Tuesday night reveal just saying we appreciate you. And kind of building that rapport another way is going to speak volumes for later on down the line in roi because you know, people. There's a statement that I love by someone I read often, John Maxwell, you know, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

That's so good. So good and so true. I was thinking to myself, just that engagement factor, you know, it speaks volumes for who you are as a person, letting your character shine like that to your customers. But just keeping people engaged, whether it's that or even you and I were quoting Cousin Eddie talking about families riding in RVs all summer, even just something kind of funny that's different and helps you to stand out. All those are such valid points, whether it's text or any type of marketing, right?

I have a client that she puts jokes in her text pretty much every day when she sends out a text and it's funny. And I get tens of thousands of texts pretty much, I think every day I have them on the little moon thing on my phone because if I just had it on, it would go off non stop. But when I do see her text, it's really interesting. She finds funny quotes or jokes to put inside of her message. She'll still say something, you know, about what's going on her store, but it's always like these really quirky kind of messages that just kind of make you smile, you know. And she still gets her point across as well.

I love that. Let's talk about some other creative ways that you see your customers, these boutique owners, using text. Can we talk about birthday clubs or other kind of incentives similar to that?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the, especially in the retail space, one way to really engage someone, like you just touched on being the birthday club. And this is just a kind of a bonus feature for everybody. It comes with the plan. It's just really cool. And what happens is when these customers join, they get that initial incentive, that initial hook to get them to join. Whether it's percentage off or something like that, or whatever, dollar amount off. But then what happens is 60 seconds later, the customer will get a message, hey, would you like to join? You know, blah, blah, blah, you know, birthday club? And then they respond back right there on their phone with their birthday. And then all of a sudden the system will recognize that date. And on that particular day and time or whenever it is that later that year, an automatic message will go out to that person on their birthday. It's just, it's really actually just a way for, you know, people love to feel special on their birthday. And the birthday club is just a really cool way that you can kind of touch someone without really the owner doing anything. It's an automatic message. And we set it up in the beginning so it gives them the option to join the birthday club. And a lot of owners will put some type of little incentive, you know, come on in this week or come on in this month or whatever they want to do. It's up to them. But that is just a way right there to generate floor traffic or online. You know, birthday clubs are very, very popular. But there's other things you can do. You know, you can create, you know, reviews, you know, again, the system, the platform that syntext is just the communication channel from business to merchant or from merchant to customer. So inside that text, you can do scenarios where you're running a contest where they can, you know, enter for a chance to win something. Maybe you're wanting to run a survey, you know, maybe you want to ask some questions. And we can have a data collection type survey. You know, even I've seen some with a landing page set up on a separate entity that do some type of, like, text to donate. I mean, there's. There's so many ways to use it.

I'm sure even recurring notices, like say someone has a subscription box and you want reminders to go out the same day and time every month. There has to be just endless opportunities to push those specific messages.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can inside. Inside our platform, you can set up a recurring message. You can set up a message subscription box or say every Friday is a flash sale Friday, they can actually set up a text ahead of time. And we have a calendar feature inside the platform where they can. You can always send out your message instantly. That's really easy login, type your message, bam, it's gone. But if you're someone that prepares ahead of time, not like me, that does things on the fly, but if you have a calendar and you want certain messages to go out on certain days and certain times, and you set these up prior to. You could set this up for months and months and months in advance if you'd like. Absolutely.

I wanted to share this tip. I'm just thinking about these scenarios and these ideas that you're sharing. One way we use text marketing a little bit creatively. A few years ago, we ran a big. And this is more not on the. Targeted toward retailers, but targeted toward shoppers and those who would come into the boutiques. We had a big ad in a magazine we did at the National Finals Rodeo a couple of years ago, and it was giveaway. So it was text this word to enter this giveaway. And we wanted to build our email list simultaneously so These shoppers that were reading this ad in the magazine, of course they can't enter their email address there because it's kind of a hassle for them to go to their computer and enter it. So they text the word, they got an automatic reply when they text to text back their email address. And then we collected that data, that email data, and then ran a giveaway off of that. Now we could market to those people in two different ways just by running that one single giveaway. It works so well for us. So if anyone's listening, there's another little tip and takeaway they can use themselves.

You said an interesting point there because I've seen clients do this where they have a marketing outlet that they use like a magazine, but they don't really know or they can't really pinpoint the effect of it. And you know, it's costing them x amount of money. Maybe it's a billboard, maybe it's some type of whatever. You know, what I've seen merchants do from time to time is they will actually create a separate keyword because with us you can have unlimited keywords. And again, a keyword is just a way for a customer to join. A lot of our clients, especially inside the hub, have retail. Some of them are wholesale as well. Some of them have online stores and brick and mortar. So they can have different databases working simultaneously that they can communicate separately or combine them on a certain message. But my point was, you know, sometimes we really don't know how effective maybe another advertising vehicle may be. So I've seen merchants from time to time create a keyword or ask me to create a keyword for them or our company and we will put that together and then they will put that keyword in that source. And then just by telling the effect of. All right, well, how many people opted in tells me how many people actually saw that ad and responded and they'll put together a really good offer. You know, maybe it's something crazy like hey, you know, join this and you know, get 50% off one item or something crazy, right? And just by the volume of that particular, you know, wherever they have it, whether it's in something or like I said a magazine or whatever, they can tell just how many people are seeing that by the amount of opt ins people view it.

Man, that's so smart. That's a great idea.

It just helps you track. You can actually track this. That's what's so cool about it. No, not internally, because we're not tied to a pos. We're not inside your software, but if you simply say show this text or mention this text or put this code at time of purchase, you can actually track how that text or how that worked for that particular sale or item.

I like it. How else can you or how else. Have you seen people segment their list? So you've got your list. You, you know, of course you've got giveaways and contests. Have you seen people get creative with those who have purchased, those who have not purchased, those who are in store shoppers versus online shoppers or what type of segmentation do you. Do you see the most?

If you want a keyword just for in store traffic, let's do it. If you want a special database just for online traffic, let's do it. If you want one just for email customers or a lot of these clients I see now they have a VIP Facebook, VIP group. If you want a special list for that, a special keyword, we can set that up. If you have wholesale, we can set that up. And it doesn't cost you anything. I mean, those are just keywords. It doesn't cost you anything extra for that. But what it does is it can break it down as deep as you want to. Like, I work with a lot of churches as well and they will break it down, you know, from their membership down to the staff, down to the worship team, down to the parking lot people, you know, and you can have it. You could even have a word, literally, you could have a word just for your employees. I mean, you could, I mean, if you had a lot of employees or whatever, if you had 10, you know, whatever. It's just the keyword does nothing more than separate the databases. And how you expose it, how you expose it is where you're going to get people to join. And you can expose it in so many ways.

Do you have many people who retarget their list? Like say, you know, if I was doing email marketing and I have a daily email that goes out, then at the end of the day I would usually retarget my list to anyone who has not opened my morning email. Do you see anyone doing that with text or. Because like you said, I guess you had a stat earlier. If 99% of texts are read, is there a need for that?

There's things inside the platform that you actually get to see when you log in. It shows the delivered and the different components of deliverable and vice versa. We don't really separate them to that extent. Not saying that you couldn't do that, but there's really in this Lane, no reason not to because if they don't want your messages, they're just gonna unsubscribe. You know, it's, it's rarely over 200 characters. It's really such a short 15 second read that doesn't cause someone to have to open up something and sift through anything and scroll down. It's just instant, it's fast and it's simple to read and people just want the open ratios are what they are.

Is there any like industry stats that you could share? You know what is a typical say opt out rate or what other stats do you look at in terms of gauging success?

Yeah, absolutely. Obviously frequency is going to determine that. I mean I've had clients before that send out daily messages that have, you know, a 30 to 40% opt out rate. What we base our company on historical stats, Historical numbers is a business, regardless of what they sell, that sends out one to two messages a week. Now that is just, that is not set in stone. You can actually go up to four messages a week within the TCPA laws and all that fun stuff. But the businesses that send one to two messages a week see about a 4 to 5% out opt out ratio. And sometimes Ashley, that is just, that is just customers that are passing through. You know, sometimes we just have those one time customers, sometimes we just have those people that are not from your area and they just sign up because they get a small percentage off. But what I speak to that is, you know, just because that might happen every now and then, don't really worry over that because you're going to have people that just stop in your store once or just visit your website one time that see this and all of a sudden they're going to join because you incentivize them at some level. And then all of a sudden you have potential clientele that doesn't even frequent your business. But yet on a Tuesday afternoon, get this random text while they're at their office about some new product or something you got going on. And it's got your website link in there, your Facebook link or whatever you're doing. And all of a sudden they see it and it's like, oh my God, I totally forgot about this birthday I have got coming up. Let me see what's going on there. I know this for a fact. Every one of your customers has a cell phone with them 24 7. If it's not in their pocket or purse, it's out in the chart, out in the car, church, at home, right? Every one of Your customers text you as a business have things to say periodically, whether it's about a sale, whether it's about a shipment, whether it's just, hey, thanks for doing business. So what we're going to do is we're going to just base that information that everybody is addicted to their phones and everybody text. And the fact that you got things to say that if you send out a text and I just, I just asked the question, I said if we sent out a text, you and me, to 300, 400, 500, 1000 of your customers, would we sell more purses or more outfits or shoes or whatever? Would we sell more of that if we did that versus we didn't. And again, when you populate the databases, the way that we teach, which is, you know, having a cool sign at the counter, you know, sitting right there when someone checks out, you know, just, it doesn't have to be nothing crazy. We can develop it, we help the merchants develop it, or they can do their own. You got something sitting on the counter. Or maybe you put that same image in an email, right? Maybe you put that same image on a background on Facebook or a square on Instagram or maybe you do a Facebook Live and put a pop up on your website. Make sure you have a really good pop up on there that tells them that you have this club. If you want to collect an email address, put it on there too. But only thing I say to that is, you know, let's understand that our emails and this is not to promote. I'm just going to give you the facts. Emails have such a low open ratio nowadays that most people don't read it. And a social media post has such low algorithms now that most people don't even see it. This is where that other fishing pole just comes in. Again, do all the things we've been doing and let's just, let's just catch as many fish as we can catch and get the word out any way we can to let people know we got something going on.

I love it. I think that's spot on. And I want to piggyback on something you said a little bit ago. You were asking about or customers are asking you about conversion rates specifically. And I think you've demonstrated well that you're getting the message out there to the people who are going to respond. But whether it's this or working with a blogger or any marketing strategy that any business owner uses, period, it's your job to connect to the customers, but it's still their job to make the sale Right. So they can't be looking at you to play devil's advocate, in your corner. They can't be looking at you to close the sale. That's where their merchandise and their business practices and their relatability via text message really comes in to be important.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm like the old treadmill in the garage. You know, if you jump on, we're going to get work done, but if you never use it, it doesn't work, you know, so it's not the treadmill's fault, you know? You know, if you know what I'm saying. I mean, it's. Don't blame the treadmill. It's the person that has to get on. Because, Ashley, look, I deal with a lot of clients, and some of them, I just say, this is going to be awesome. This is going to be great. But we never get on the treadmill.

Yep.

And we have to have that conversation. Well, I mean, it is. I mean, I'm sorry. You know, the treadmill, you got to turn it on. And then there's others that do it that, like, you've seen in the posts. I mean, again, you know, she put it out there. You know, Meredith with makeup junkie. I mean, she. She sent out a text and just ridiculously, basically paid for her service for a very long time and sold a bunch of bags. And again, we just have to understand that unless we do something or unless we put something out there and we can't really rely on. Well, I don't know if this is going to work or I don't know how people are going to respond. Look, this isn't 1985. Every person walking through your store has a phone. And if you don't believe me, just. I'll give you one better. Go to your Facebook page, go to your VIP group, and just ask your customers, hey, I'm thinking about starting this VIP text club where I periodically let you know about texts or we send out discounts every now and then. Would y' all be interested in that? And just let your customers respond. Don't take my word for it. Just ask your customers.

I think I'm gonna use this entire analogy that you just shared for the Boutique hub as well. Is that okay? Is that fair? This treadmill, I love it.

You have my permission. It's just. I use it all. I love. I love using it. It's just. It's hilarious. It's just like. Well, you know.

So true, so true. So, quick question. We're talking about list strategies before we got on this you know, use it or lose it. You've got to actually go and do the work and convert the sale. Let's go back to list strategy again because I think there's a point. I'm sure you could ask this question, do people ask, do I have to give a discount in order for someone to sign up for my text list?

Every conversation, every conversation. And I'm always going to guide them properly. And I just flipped the page back over and I say, look, if you and I were at dinner tonight and we saw this customer that had a texting program that said, hey, sign up to hear about our updates. It's not real exciting. It's really not exciting. I'm not saying that some people won't, but then the same, the next table over has sign up and get a free cheese dip. So my answer to that is the better the offer, the better the response. Especially on the opt in, you know, if we just kind of, eh, you know, 10%. I mean, will it work? Yeah. You know, but I have to ask myself, and I say this to the owners, does it excite you? This if you went somewhere and they said, hey, get 10% off for doing this. Does it excite you? Does it cause you to react? You know, or would 15% off or would 20 or 25% off one item, you know, we again, you know, we go to the treadmill again. If we just went on the treadmill and barefooted, our feet would hurt. But if we put on running shoes, we could go a lot further. So why are we going to start a texting program? Why are we going to go with BO and use texting if we're not going to build a database? Because again, at the end of the day, you know, we will. But we've been doing this thing for three months and we got seven people signed up. Well, let's push rewind and see why. We didn't give anything away. We didn't put a pop up. We don't have anything on our counter. The biggest lists that we have at the company have a great offer attached. I'm not saying you got to give away the farm. I'm not saying put yourself out of business. But just ask yourself, does my offer excite me? Would I sign up for this myself? And that will give you engagement and you don't have to do it forever. You don't, you know, build this big old list up of customers. Look, we're at the end of July. I cannot believe it's already the end of July. You have an opportunity to build massive lists. And the holidays will be here before you know it. It gives you that one on one connection during those most vital parts. And after the holidays and all that, you know, blinking lights and snow and all that goes away, you've got a big database to reach out maybe in the slower months at the beginning of the year.

Absolutely. Let's switch gears from retail and chat wholesale for a minute. Can you talk about successful strategies your wholesale clients have been using with text?

Yeah, you know, wholesale, you know, again, it's another way. Again, these wholesale groups and wholesale companies, they, they have, they're targeting more specific, you know, business owners and this allows them, and there's some inside the hub that use it really, really frequently and on top of it. And some of the owners are inside these different groups and stuff like that where they're, they're letting them know when they're going live, you know, or when they're putting stuff out there, or I see, you know, most of them send out pictures of this new shirt or this new this or that. And what it's allowing them to do is just engage their buyers a different way. You know, again, everybody puts stuff everywhere, all the time. But what it's just doing is, it's just, again, it's allowing that one on one in a sense. Now it's a mass text. So we're post, you know, we're sending out mass text. When you send out a text that goes out to everybody simultaneously, or you can have separate groups if you need to. But the bottom line is actually, again, it's just sending out information that they feel vital to their business. Whether it's, hey, don't forget to get your order in before the deadline, or hey, did you know about this? Or hey, we just launched this, we got this new website going up. Hey, we're going live here in 30 minutes. And it just gives them the same way a business would just speak to retail customers. Now we're just talking to buyers that, you know, buy from that particular business.

I like it. There's so many good takeaways in this episode. I hope everyone who's listening is taking lots of notes because my mind is racing with lots of ideas at the moment. So thank you for these both.

No, you're absolutely welcome.

I, I want to kind of get close to the end of the podcast here and wrap up with a couple questions back to you personally because I know anyone that comes on the show, you know, whether they're a boutique owner or brand owner or service provider, everyone here is pretty Darn driven and successful, which, I mean, obviously, just hearing you speak, and, I mean, maybe it was the treadmill analogy or maybe it was more than that, but you've got so many insightful things to say. So I'd love to know, you know, you as a man successful in business, where do you go for your motivation, your education, your inspiration? Is it books or podcasts or what is it that you're reading or listening to to keep yourself up?

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan, number one. I love listening to Dave Ramsey's podcast, of course, the Boutique Hub podcast. Little plug there. I love those. You know, and I think one of the things that has really helped my growth in business is honestly, you know, my growth spiritually. And I've dove into some books. Ashley. You know, one that's really helped me understand a lot of things is, you know, the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Just a great. A great book. And, you know, basically anything that John Maxwell writes is super, super effective. And I just finished up one here recently. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. And it's just those. Those things, you know, those. Again, we can just get stuck in the rut and, you know, four children and all these things going on all the time, and, you know, next thing, you know, soccer practice every night of the week. And then all of a sudden, you're just like, how can I be more effective? How can I be a better business person? You know, how can I speak differently, you know, to customers and just to people that I have influence over? And I just. I'm a driven person because, I mean, didn't come from a lot, but I want to create a lot. I want to provide a lot. I want to have the ability to do things. And I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about freedom. Forget the money aspect for life. And I don't measure it like that. What I measure is, is the ability to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. And there's a. For all you football fans, Ashley's gonna drop Brett Favre's name. There's another really successful guy from Mississippi. You might have heard of him. His name is Jerry Rice, and he has this quote that I love. And he says, you know, today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can do what others can't. They told him he'd never be successful. He wasn't fast enough. You know, you're from Mississippi Valley State, some tiny college in the Delta, and who Is he just probably the greatest receiver of all time because he understood what it took? And I know because I talk to a lot of my owners a lot, and they texted me late at night, stuff like that. I mean, it's hard work, you know, and it's. It's really hard work to. To do what the. The owners do and the boutique owners do. And I admire everything they do. And I just. I feel that, you know, you've got to surround yourself with successful people and dive into things that people have already kind of laid that groundwork and dig in and see. All right, so this is what I'm doing right now. Am I happy? Am I happy with where I am now? Have I reached a level of complacency? Because that's where you really start to get in a scary place. And I've always tried to never let myself get complacent or comfortable, because that's where things are really. Can get kind of scary when you think that you've got this I have arrived mentality. And that's where your business can start to suffer and other relationships can start to suffer when you feel that you've got there. Because this is. It's just another day. I mean, this is a long journey we're on here. And if you're not growing, I mean, you got to check that. You got to look at yourself internally, because that can start to affect many areas of your life.

Boy, there's a lot of truth to what you just said. I mean, so spot on. So spot on. You alluded to your kids and being successful not just in business, but at home, too. So I want to ask you this question, because I think this is kind of a move that's happening in society today. And typically, we have a lot of women on this show, so there's this ongoing question for women. How do you balance it all? Assuming that the wife has to do, you know, the family thing and take care of the home plus now all these women with successful businesses. But it's just as important to ask the man that question. So, you know, you as a guy who your kids were along when you came to the summit, I'd love to know how your family approaches. Approaches this idea of balance between work and home life. Got any tips?

No. Absolutely. And it's something that I have to work on constantly because I'm pulled in a lot of directions, not only from having so many customers, but my responsibilities as VP of the company and all that that comes with and the trainings and all those things. But what I'VE done is I had a problem in the beginning when I came on with the company, and I never shut it down, and I never shut it off. And so what I did, I sat down one night and I said, there's a certain point during the day that it has to stop, because if not, you start really running things over. And I know that a lot of boutique owners and stuff, you know, a lot of stuff is done on the weekends and things like that. But I believe in order to be healthy, you know, we have to have different balances of different things going into our body. And I think that you. You have to have a healthy balance of when I'm at work, you know, I'm at work unless we got something going on. But then when I come home, I'm home, I'm home. I'm not going to sit there when I could be playing a game with the kids, when we could be fishing in the pond, when we could be outside throwing the football. I'm not going to allow myself to take away that time. And it's hard. It's really hard. And, And. And look, we all live on these phones and. And they're like mini computers and emails and texts and chats and groups, and there's. So. I don't know how we. I don't know how we made it, Ashley, before all this came along, I don't know what we actually had conversations, you know, but, you know, we just got to be diligent and we've got to be, you know, we have to have that mindset of, you know, while I'm here, I'm here. And look, I can take a phone call and we can talk and all that stuff and do FaceTimes and all that, but when Daddy comes home, Daddy's home. Not only just for Daddy, but for Mommy, because I could go home and just continue to work, but then I'm doing her and them a disservice. Or I can go home and put the phone on silent and spend time with them and interact and help dinner and dishes and just build that relationship. I'm such a family guy. We have such a small window of time in our lives to have the impact we can on our children, their influence in so many different ways from outside sources. And if you don't create those foundations early on, somebody's going to. And work can be something that we fall into this trap because we're so worried about being successful, and we're so worried about, did this person get this deal? Did I get this shipment out that we miss the greatest gift that we've ever been given, which is our children.

So good. So good. Amen. Well, before we wrap up today, last piece. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, they want to learn more. I know you have a special link for Boutique hub members to get special perks working with you. I'd love if you could share that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean they. Look, I'm a text guy. You can email me if you want to. You can, you can text me if you want to. Obviously it's real easy. My email address is B as in boy Cain C A I N. So B Cain at and then Syntex Solutions. It's kind of long, but it's just S E N t e x tsolutions.com you're welcome to comment on all the posts on the, on the, on the, on the hub and I can always tag me in those and I can, I can see it and I'll send out information and you can text me or call me if you want. And my direct number, My cell is 228-861-6088. And if you just want to see how things work, just, you're welcome to Visit our website sentechsolutions.com we have a how it works section right there. You can click a little video and walk through it and if it sounds like something you want to try, give it a go. We've got some special pricing for hub members and you all get the first three months free on your program to get it going other than the small registration fee we get you going with. And we got a great referral program as well where if you refer other businesses, it doesn't have to be necessarily in the hub but if you want to refer other businesses to us, whether it's local to you or anywhere in the United States, you receive perks where when four of them sign up, you will actually get your service free on the monthly fee. The only time you would ever pay is if you go over your messages for that particular program.

Pretty awesome. Coffee shops, flower shops, restaurants, bars, you name it.

Possibilities, they're endless because we all have cell phones with us and we all text and every business out there has things to say from now and then for every now and then.

Absolutely. So if you guys also want to join the boutique hubs text list again, you can text BOSS B O S S to 57711 if you're a boutique owner or you can text GROW to 57711 if you are a brand, a wholesale brand or a service provider and you guys are listening. So Bo, thanks so much. This conversation hasn't only marketing, right? But just the person that you are and your thoughts on the family and how we live and how we do business and really what matters the most in this world. So I appreciate you all the way around. Thank you for spending time with me today.

Hey guys, are you excited about this marketing strategy as much as I am? I tell you what, we have implemented text marketing for our community at the Boutique Hub and I feel like it's added a whole other layer of communication for us with our members. So make sure that you check out the download numbers and the opt in numbers in the show notes of this episode. So whether you are someone who just wants to follow along with what's happening with boutiques and trends and style, or if you want to learn the latest in terms of boutique marketing and hub updates, we've got got those numbers for you to opt into our text list in the show notes, so click there to check them out. I hope that you've enjoyed this episode and you've learned a ton. And if you haven't already, please join us by subscribing and leaving a rating and review for the show. And I want to give a very special thank you because we've had a ton of new subscribers, downloads and reviews this week. In fact, we've hit over 60,000 downloads of the show which is just, just like mind blowing to me. So thank you guys so much for being here. I do Want to thank InStyle Auctions if you followed this boutique look, I have for a long time. They are such an awesome retailer and I'm so excited that they're members of the Hub and they just left us this great review. That said, amazing. This show is essential for new boutique owners and those of us who have been around for years. Very uplifting and inspiring in every episode. So InStyle Auctions, thanks. Thanks so much for being a member of the Hub and thanks for leaving a review. You guys will be back next week with more great content. Another great episode and I've got a lot of Pinterest inspiration coming your way very soon, so watch out for that. In the meantime, guys, I hope you have a great week and I can't wait to catch up with you soon. Message me anytime over on Instagram J. Alderson and let me know what you're doing while you're listening to the show. Have a great week you guys. 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.