#327: How to Master Email and Text Marketing

Hey, guys, if you have followed any of the trainings inside of the Boutique Hub for a period of time, you know how important it is to have a solid email list. The only list you own. Facebook could be gone tomorrow. Instagram could be gone tomorrow. TikTok could be gone tomorrow. But your list is something that you own. So it's time for episode number 327, and we're digging into all the ins and outs of maximizing your email strategy with my friend Jane Casper, the the founder of GLO Group, a media company that helps busy boutique owners like yourself maximize their strategy with email marketing. But not only that, Jane is actually a boutique owner herself, the founder of Rural Haze that has an incredible story of growth and becoming one of the number wear footwear dealers in the United States. Jane is as funny, as real, as genuine as they come. And this girl is smart. So you guys, please help me welcome my friend Jane Casper to the podcast. 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.

Foreign. Hey, guys.

Welcome back to this week's podcast. This week's podcast is both video and audio. And if you don't watch the video of this week's podcast, I'm just telling you right now, you're missing out because we have a very special guest today who happens to be one of my favorite boutique owners. She's not funny at all. She never cracks jokes or never does anything inappropriate. I'm just here to tell you. So buckle up for the next hour. You guys meet my friend Jane Casper, the founder of Rural Haze and Glow Group, and currently is a gorilla on this podcast. Jane, good to see you. You look like you are keeping warm for the winter.

Well, it's Covid, so you don't have to groom.

It's Covid, so you don't have to what?

It's so hot.

I really like your gorilla suit. You've been using that on your live sales lately.

I did it on one, but I actually got it because my. Our FedEx driver scared me. And you know what they all say? Revenge is a lady dressed in a gorilla suit. So.

You're the sexiest girl I've ever seen.

I'VE heard that before.

Oh, my God.

My mom had one growing up, and so when he scared me, I knew exactly what I mean to get.

Yeah, Paybacks.

Yeah.

Should come in the form of a gorilla suit. I like it.

It's very warm, though, so use sparingly.

I am so excited to have you on and to have you on video today, because truth be told, everyone listening, we've already tried to record this podcast once, and our software completely ate the episode. So we're back and better than ever. It. And honestly, it's going to be one podcast episode that you have to take notes in, because I know what we talked about last time, so I know it's coming, and it's really freaking good. So just buckle up and take some notes today. Sound good? Deal. Deal. Deal. All right, so let's start here because we have a lot to talk about. Let's talk about Rural Hayes first, because this is really like you in this industry, growing this business. You've had some ups and downs and some pretty crazy experiences building a really widely known retail brand, and now you help retailers kind of on the other side of their business, too. But let's start with Royal Hayes. Tell me about how you got into that side of the business.

Okay, so Royal Hayes has been in business since 2013. And we started as an Etsy shop, and we were Etsy from 2013 to 2017. We mostly just traveled around and just. We did mostly shows. We were obviously on Etsy. We also had a Shopify site, 2015, 2016, 2017. So we're kind of double dipping. We did mostly shows and online. We didn't have any brick and mortar. And then I moved to Idaho and I didn't know anybody, and I wanted to force my friendship on people. So I opened a brick and mortar. And then it was about. I think it was four or five days after we signed our lease, and I realized I was pregnant and we had just got married. I thought I had an ulcer, and turns out our birth control didn't work. So by the time we opened, I was. We opened April 17, and I had Billy on June 20. And what happened was I put on my baby weight, and then I kept on my baby weight, and then I think I even added a little bit after. And so I no longer wanted to sell clothing. Like, I didn't feel comfortable pitching myself in clothing. Clothing. Right. And so I started concentrating on footwear. And now 94% of our business is footwear.

And.

Yeah, it's. It's fun, but it. What it did was it presented its own marketing challenge, right? Because it's kind of like, okay, if you want footwear to be your jam, you better. It's a whole different beast, right? There's all kinds of different sizes, and it's. There's like, if someone orders a top and they don't love it, right? It doesn't fit right. You know, some people will send it back, some won't. They'll be like, I'm gonna wear it with a jacket instead, or I'm gonna lose some weight, or, you know, maybe with a sweater, I'll wear an undershirt. But if someone orders a piece of footwear and they wear it for a couple hours and it doesn't fit well, it hurts their feet, they're uncomfortable, they're cursing your name, they're cursing the brand name. So I think it's a much different challenge, for sure. But I love it and I wouldn't change it.

I remember, you know, Ed Olvera on our team, and he's worked for Nordstrom's and JCPenney and specifically been in the shoe industry for so long. And I remember him talking about when Zappos first got started and people saying, you'll never be able to sell shoes online. That's a terrible idea. You'll never be able to do it. And look what came of it, right? Zappos became this huge thing, was bought by Amazon. So I think about you going into footwear and probably being one of the largest footwear independent retailers in the country, I'm assuming, and you really built your business off of it. How did you start to analyze the numbers in a way that made it grow the way that it did and really double down? Because that's a big gamble with a lot of sizes and a lot of risk. How did you make it work for you?

So I think segmented marketing, right? And I think that's the key. And I'm not going to give away too many of my secrets here, but really think of, like, so often we blanket market, right? I'm going to tell all my new arrivals to all my people. I'm going to read, I'm going to on my Facebook ads. I'm going to mark everything to someone who hasn't been to my shop in 30 days. Right. Well, when we look at our conversion rates, yeah, there's bounce rate. Like people come to your site, maybe they're a brand new customer, and then they ditch. Right. But what's one of the biggest reasons people don't convert? And we love to think it's like, you know, when we talk about it, we're like, oh, photography or description or all these things. But what's the one hard line where someone won't convert? If you're a size 7 shoe and you come to a website and they don't have size 7 shoes, you're gone, right? Or if you. If you go to. If you go to three different products and your sizes, in any of those you ditch out with a sweater, you're like, oh, maybe it'll fit for me. I'm gonna. I'm gonna maybe go with, like a small instead. Well, if you're a seven, you're not gonna fudge into a six. And so that's. The whole thing is like, I have gorilla hair on my lips. Is knowing. Knowing your audience and making sure. And how do you know your audience? You have to make sure that, like, every single thing that you have is integrated, right? You're collecting every single piece of data at the end of every single month just because some of our systems don't integrate correctly. At the end of every month, I export every single order. And I sit there and I do like size 6, size 7, size 8, and I put them into different groups and I upload all those groups into different platforms. But it's worth it, right? And the customer satisfaction, like, how cool is it when you're shopping, you know, you're scrolling through Facebook and what shoe size are you, Ashley?

Yeah. Eight and a half.

Okay, so if you've ever purchased an eight and a half from us, if you've gone more than 30 days without purchasing from us, you're going to get an ad that says, hey, Ashley, have you seen our latest new rivals in your size? And it's only going to pitch eight and a half to you. And then that way, every single thing you click on, if you're not converting, it's because you didn't love it, right? It's not because your size isn't there. That's on you for not converting.

Oh, I just let. The podcast is over. Just drop a microphone. Just walk away. In case you didn't take anything away from this. Just take that away and you're golden. I talk a lot about, I call them Discount Debbies and how every business has Discount Debbie that just comes in and wants a sale. And I think it's the exact same thing you're saying you need 100 true fans, right? Not 1,000 followers. When you target everyone, you reach no one. You got to really hone in on who your people are. And I think about shoe size, like discount Debbie. If you know that she only looks for a sale, then you only market that to her versus the gals who are going to pay full price. Or if you are overrun in small tops, right, you're only going to market to small top same type of thing. So I love that same thing with.

Text or email, right? And we always pitch them on text and email first because email is going to be your cheapest form of revenue, right? You're like fractions of cent. Text message is going to be $0.03 and then Facebook is always going to be more expensive. So start like make those rules. Be, you know, I'm going to send you a size 8 and a half email. If you haven't purchased in 15 days, I'm going to send you a size 8 and a half text message. If you haven't purchased in 30 days, I'm going to send you a Facebook ad if you haven't purchased in 45 days. Like make that and keep that triangle of profitability in mind, right? And then what happens is so often, like if you look at the, the peak life of clothing or new arrivals or anything, right, you pitch those new arrivals and usually your highest sales are going to be in that first week that you pitch them, right? Because you're telling everybody about them. Well, what if you're able to consistently round back to them, right? So make sure that they're, they're midlife. Make sure you still, you're still marketing that midlife. But you can't do it with the same hype, the same style of hype you do new arrivals, right? Then at this point with new arrivals, you're like, oh, so exciting. Look what just happened, right? But the middle lifecycle of those products, you're like, hey, Ashley, I've been paying attention to everything you've been doing and I put together this collection I think is going to be great for you. Check it out.

Yeah, exactly.

And then the whole goal is to get to where you're not discounting, right? We don't have a sales section on our site right now and we have it for a year.

I love that. What is your like when you analyze those products, all the gorilla hair. If you guys aren't watching this on video and you're just listening to audio this week, I'm telling you, go watch the video. Tell me about that life cycle, though. How do you. So I'm always feeling like I'm preaching running aging reports. Tell me about, like in the first seven days, what actions you're taking versus the first 14 to 30 days. And, like, what you start to do when a product is hitting 45 days, like, how are you running those reports weekly and assigning actions that you're taking throughout that cycle?

Okay, so we treat them as different beasts. We have footwear that's $39. We have footwear that's almost $1,000. Right. The difference is anything that's kind of under $150, we give a different cycle. So we do, obviously, in the beginning, we do our. We'll kind of launch everything on the live on Wednesday night. We have hump day happy hour. And then we launched on email, and then we launched on text, and then we'll also put it on Facebook, you know, but on our lives, we be sure to mix in, you know, Maybe we'll do 30 items on a live, and every five items will mix in something older. Right? And then also we reshoot. We love to reshoot. So if something gets to the point where maybe it's six months past, like, okay, I'm gonna either put it on sale, or if there's more than three sizes in stock, I'm gonna reshoot it. And so I reshoot it and I relaunch it through those same exact channels. But at the same time, you got to remember that I still have targeted ads running to, like, if I have eight and a half and all I have left is the eight and a half and, like, world's cutest booty, I'm not gonna market it to everyone. That's a waste of my time. Because what is worse than you going, like, you clicking on the cutest top, going to the website and, like, it's in your size. You love it, right? But then all of a sudden, the collection that it's in is everything, right? And it's adorable white top, but your favorite color is royal blue. And you have a hard time finding royal blue top. And you're like, oh, it also comes from royal blue because it's listed right next to it. Oh, but it's not in your size. So then all of a sudden you feel like you're settling for the white. So then you don't buy the white. So, yeah, I think it's making sure, like, you're really pitching to people what you want. Right? It's the same thing, you know, Facebook does, like, if you're conservative, you're getting served conservative ads or conservative articles. And then, so we do two sales a year. There are semi annual sales. And if something is truly past season and we have Low inventory. We'll put it at the sale. It takes quite a bit for us to do a sale or size six and size six and a half do not sell well for us. So what I'll do is every four months I'll send an email to my six and six and a half customers and say, hey, we have a sale today. Buy two, get three free, right? I want those out the door. Also, I'm not willing to do that on my core sizes. Know your size distributions, know. And when you run those numbers, don't run them for sale. Right? Evaluate all of your full price product. Like I can tell you right now, I can look at my note and I can tell you, let's see, size five is a one and a half percent of my business. Size five and a half is 1.4. Size six is 3.7. Right. Those are my low. But then all of a sudden I get to 8 and a half. 13.6%, 8, 15.3%. So I look at those numbers. I'm not willing to put something on sale because I know that 15% of my customers are a size 8. What that means is not. Not that it's not a good product, it's that I'm not marketing that product the way that I should. Right? But that also tells me I'm willing to put a size six on sale before eight and a half. When it comes to more contemporary pieces like those are seasonal, right? You're going to have the same exact sneaker for six years in a row. It's not uncommon. When we started the Red Myra from Old Gringo, we were selling that. Today we are still selling the Red Mira from Roll Gringo with our higher end brands. Some of those boots just never go right. Times we'll put those on sale is maybe like Black Friday, but we only do 10% off. And instead of doing, we all have like our VIP groups, right? Or our customers. So we have different tiers of customers. We have silver, gold and platinum. And so instead of always discounting those people because is that customer a really good customer because they're getting discounts or is it because they're getting discounts that they're a good customer? Right. It's like this vicious circle. So how do we add value to them? Instead of doing discounts, we give them exclusivity. Like hey, as a silver member, our new arrivals are launching today for you. Or Black Friday, right. On Tuesday to our platinum customer, like, hey, as you know, our sale starts on Friday. It's 10% off. But since you're platinum. You get access to it two days early.

Nice.

That's money, right? That's the difference between me drinking cooks on a Sunday mums or Boo Cliquot. And you know what? I want the vu.

Perfect analogy. How are you assigning your customers to those levels? Are they paying to be at that level? Or when you stop a certain amount.

You'Re putting them in that based on how much. So I have flows put in place. So on email and text, I have flows put in place where, you know, all of a sudden, they hit $10,000, right? Then they've become like a platinum customer. It's like, hey, are you excited as I am? They get. They do get a discount off their next order. Okay, so they do get a discount. They also get. They get a. Do I have one in here? Because we're super classy. We also have, like, custom koozies. So they get like a real haze koozie, and it's like glitter. And on the back it says platinum customer. Our top hundred customers, each year, they get a commemorative cup. This was ours this year in the mail. And it's not with orders. It's just as a gift. So it says real haze on the front and on the back it says, see the light in each other. Be the light for each other. Thank you for being part of our top 100 in 2020. Xoxo. The royal haze gals. And they get this with a box of our favorite chocolates. And it's not like there's no upsell in it, right? We love to do upsells. Every time we give something, ask them for something. Well, what if we're just giving them something to give them something? Right. What if we're just actually telling him, like, I appreciate you, and that's it. Just thank you. That's it. Like, we. Tomorrow we're stopping by a local chocolate shop for some chocolate egg. Like, fancy painted chocolate eggs. Anyone who has over. Because our average order value is like $182. So if someone has over 25 orders with us, that's pretty great, right? Yeah. So anyone coming through next week who places an order that has over 25 orders with us is also going to get a chocolate egg. And we're not marketing it. It's just. Thank you. Right. We put a little special treat for you. Anybody who is platinum during the Christmas season, holiday season, everything that we send them is wrapped in Christmas paper.

I love that. Do you have affiliates that you use or brand reps or anything like that? Or is it just like your customers, you do such a great job of making them feel important that they want to invite other people organically to shop with real haze.

We have done affiliates in the past. I don't know if you know Jesse Jarvis. Have you met Jesse?

I don't think I know who Jesse Jarvis is.

No. Found her on the gram. Anyway, we did do Black Friday one year. We did, like, there was a special booth that she launched, and that was super fun. I loved that. But we're pretty picky with our people. And I knew Jesse personally. We did shoots with her, so those shoots were done with our aesthetic, and we weren't really controlling about. She wore clothing from another boutique, which we're totally fine with because we do sell clothing, but our jam is footwear. And we also want people to see, like, how would I style that with my closet? Right. Yeah. And so I did some stuff with her. But we. We don't really do affiliates too much. We. I don't know, we just. We have fun. There's. There's so many other things in life that you can make more money at with less time. Right. And so if you don't love what you're doing, go do something else. Growing up, I wanted to be a zookeeper or one of the checkers at Albertsons. And I did, like, I just loved the beeping. And so when I opened my storefront, like, it was perfect because I was having a baby. So I was going to be a zookeeper, and then I got to scan things.

Yeah, you got the ding of the Shopify app. A zookeeper. You really are a zookeeper these days. Take me back to when you were just talking a minute ago about the percentage of your customers by size. I'm sure there was some people going, how did you figure that out? Or what report did she run to get that? And I know you're super analytical, and this is what I love about you. Talk to me about what reports are your jam and what reports you don't have. So you have to make up yourself.

Okay. I don't actually have reports that. So it's two different ways. There's automated. Obviously, my jam is like Klaviyo and Postscript. I use those reporting systems also.

Okay.

But you can go in and you can run. You know, you could run a report in Shopify and then search it for size 8. You can also just go into Shopify itself, type in 8.0, and it'll pull up everything. But in Klaviyo, I'll go in, and I'll build a segment, right? Because a list is everybody. So you're like, your list is shopify. A list is an entity, right? And a segment is what someone did. So I will put like when someone has or has not done ordered product and then add the filter variant size is 8.0. And then I'll put is not suppressed or is suppressed. So for instance, if I'm running it just to do emails, I'm going to put also is not suppressed, right? Because I only want to send to people who are unsubscribed or sorry, who are subscribed if I'm using my Facebook integration. Because Klaviyo integrates with Facebook. Sorry. To build an audience, right? Like my middle of funnel is all sized. I don't do, I don't do branded. Because for instance, like if it's like, oh, Ashley has purchased old Gringo, so I'm gonna pitch her old Gringo, right? But what's even better than that is if Ashley has pitched bottle gringo and 8.5, I'm gonna serve her Western style footwear in an eight and a half. So I have it all like, so that one is, you know, someone has bought an 8 and a half and the brand is, you know, Old Gringo, Lane Corral, Liberty Black. Then I'm going to put you in that segment. And because I want to market to everybody in that, not just the people who have subscribed to my email. Because one of the whole points of why you pay so much for Facebook advertising is because you can market to everyone, right? So even if you've unsubscribed from my list, good luck getting away from me because I will find you. And so I'm gonna put on that one is suppressed or is not suppressed. And so I just took those numbers and I looked at how many people were in each segment and I have them listed as like size 8 Western and then in parentheses like Facebook only. So I'm not trying to send to my unsubscribe. So that's how I love Klaviyo. Just for the easy reporting.

Yeah, man, that's really, really helpful because I think so many times we're trying to run just, just these basic reports in Shopify and we don't get a lot of that. So let's talk more about Klaviyo. So you have real haze, which we've been talking about, but then your business had a big change, which we'll come back to and kind of talk about that in a little bit. But this really led you down the path of helping other people because you're so analytical when it comes to email and text. So talk to me about Klaviyo and what you do with Glow Group. And just if someone's like, what's a flow? What's an automation? How do I old Aunt Flo, she keeps showing up.

Get out of here.

Give me the basic version first. Where do we start? And then we'll get more technical with which flows are most important other than your answer.

So Klaviyo's email marketing. There's a lot of platforms out there and if you are just wanting to send campaigns, there are some. There's other platforms, right. They all kind of work. Klaviyo is essentially like Omnisend or mailchimp on steroids, like for the way that we use it. Shopify lost its integration with mailchimp a few years ago. And after that you have to download an extra app in order to kind of bridge the gap. And it doesn't always bridge. So I like Klaviyo number one, because I capture all the data. Number two, because the reporting and number three, because of the automation. Right. I want to know that if I take an entire Sunday off and someone comes to my website and all they do is look at something that they get an email, like introducing our brand and following up to see if they have any questions. Right? Like just like the simple stuff. So. And also it integrates with everything. Klaviyo integrates with Facebook. I can advertise on Facebook with my groups that are automatically built on Klaviyo. My middle of funnel size segment I have not touched in three years and they still perform every single day. But they're automated because as soon as you purchase the eight and a half, you're going to be added to my Klaviyo list, that Klaviyo list is going to segment it to my Facebook list. Also, Klaviyo integrates with PostScript. So now you can go into your little filters and you can say, like, turn on the filter for Western size eight and a half. And then all of a sudden I have my list, all my people in postscript because it syncs with Shopify. So anybody who is in my eight and a half list that is subscribed to postscript and I'm going to send them a text with a gif of my six favorite boots in their size and it's going to say, hey, Ashley, I know how hard it is to find your favorite boot and your favorite size or your perfect size. And then Here, you know, here's a link to my favorites and I could give you a link to all of them in eight and a half. But what I'm going to do is, is I'm going to give you a link to all my western boots in size eight and a half. So you just like you're taking that person because maybe they unsubscribe from email, right? Or maybe they don't open their email or maybe it's an old email address. But people change their emails more frequently than they change their phone number.

Yeah.

I mean if you're not on either of those, they're still going to get you.

I will hunt you down and I will find you. So if, talk to me about like the most basic flows. If you are brand new to getting started, what flows are most important for every single business to have?

Okay. So you can kind of look at that two different ways from a branding perspective. Your subscriber flow, right. Welcome to came to your website. They wanted something, they wanted product, but they also wanted knowledge, they wanted a relationship. Tell them who you are, right? And don't just be, don't have it. Be like, sign up for our list for 10% off and then like, hey, thanks so much, we're happy to have you. Like give them that code immediately. Yeah, right. Have it like if it's a pop up, give them that code. Don't make them go through their email because then they go on their email for the code and then their boss email them or their mom email them or your kids school. Right? Like, oh, all of a sudden, different direction. Yeah. So make sure, make sure it's easy because you know how much of a pain it is to like, you got your phone, you're trying to copy the code and then you're trying to, you're like, do I have a copy? And then you get to the end checkout, make it simple and make it single use so people aren't going to abuse it. Right. So make sure it's on that pop up. But then all of a sudden they get an email and it's like, hey, it's Jane. Thank you so much for signing up for our list. Here's what you can expect, right? We're going to send you a new arrival every, every week. We're also going to send you some catered emails, right. We're going to make sure that you're aware of like your favorite styles and your size based on your buying history. And you know, be sure to like put your personality in it. And then there's definitely not chocolate on here. Not that I was eating it, but it might be on the face. And then. And then follow up again and just make that one, like, real short and concise. Just, like, real simple. Right? You know how when you get a text message, everyone's in that family group text, and you're like, oh, I got a text. You open it up and it's like two paragraphs. You're like, I'm gonna read that later. I'm not gonna read that now. Don't make sure that your emails are between 24 sentences. You want at least 2, because then it gives just a little bit of enough to have a relationship or to start a conversation. Anything over than four, that's really committal. Even if you're doing a blog, put snippets of that there and then have them click through to the blog. Right?

Yeah.

You want to make sure that the email is simple. And then in your second one, like, hey, it's Jane. I just want to follow up, but only send the rest of them if they have it first purchased. So, like, you know, two days later, if they haven't ordered, you know, hey, Jane. Just following up. I wanted to make sure that you knew that we also have social media. And then maybe a little bit of like, this is how we started. Read about us. Click here, it'll read about us button. And then on that third one, you know, start your discount. So branding number one, subscriber flow revenue. There's three abandoned browse, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout. The apps that we use love to call abandoned checkout. Abandoned cart. Right. People will be like, I had 600 abandoned carts, but I had only sent 200 abandoned checkout emails. And it's like. And it's like, no, no, it only set 200 abandoned cart emails. It's like, no, you had 200 checkouts, abandoned checkout. So it set 200 abandoned checkout email. Most platforms have the ability to do abandoned checkout. They don't have the ability for abandoned cart or abandoned browse. You need to install tracking if someone viewed a product and tracking if all someone did is add to cart. Because guess what? If they never hit checkout, they didn't give you any information. How are you gonna contact them? Cooking. Everybody loves cooking. So those are really important. Because if you look at it. So, okay, hold on. I'm gonna break down. Can I break down numbers real quick?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. Don't get all judgy on my conversion rate. Like, oh, she has a 2%. I have four I'm gonna pull it up because I want to give an example of. Capability. Okay, so say, for instance, you have 500 people that come to your site, right? 500 of those people. Unless they literally went to the homepage, like RuralHayes.com, they probably clicked on a post, they went to a product. So 500 people, probably 490 of them, went through a product page, right? So those 490 people, if I haven't cookied, I can send an email saying, hey, Ashley, I saw you poking around the site. Someone asked if you had any questions, right? Simple. Don't offer a discount. Maybe she got distracted. Maybe her dog started barking, her kid was drawing on the walls, Someone called, the light turned green. Don't give people a discount right out the gate. That is one of the worst things we can do, because you know what we do? We train them. Yes, I will abandon a cart just to see what happens. But if I get two emails and someone hasn't offered me a discount, I'll just buy the damn thing, right? Like, I don't have time to sit around and wait for your email. So, for instance, like those 500 people, you can do an abandoned browse, right? Well, then all of a sudden, 50 people added to cartoon. So those 50 people, I can send an abandoned cart, but Maybe only, only 24 people reach checkout. So on any platform, you can, you can email those 24 people. But what if you can email the other 425 of them?

Yeah.

Boom. Right? Your conversion rates gonna be higher on your band and checkout flow every day of the week. But your abandoned cart and your abandoned browse may very well do more revenue because your earnings per email, even though it's lower, there's way more emails going out. So those are really important. And also to make sure that it's not a one size fits. All right, your abandoned browse, you need to have less emails in your abandoned browser versus your abandoned cart because you want to match their commitment. They came to your website, they were just cruising around. So you want to be passive, right? You want to be welcoming. You want your emails to be spaced a little farther apart. With the abandoned cart, they got a little bit farther down the road, right? They showed a little bit more commitment. So we can put those a little bit closer together and maybe give that one five parts abandoned checkout. It's like, yo, I saw what you were doing. I need you to come back and buy that, right? You can get like a little bit closer again. And that one's Also going to have five pieces.

Yeah.

But make sure you have knockout pieces. Like if I come to your website and I end up at email flow and I'm on my, you know, the second email I convert and then the next day I get another email saying, hey, save 10%. You better bet that I'm gonna email you and be like, hey, I got this email. I want you to refund me. Right. How many times have we gotten those? And it's because there is not a checkout or there's not a kick out in there. You need to make sure that if that person, if that person purchases it, kicks them out.

Yeah.

Also stop doing percentage discount as thank yous. Right. Make them up their game. You know they're going to commit. You already showed them what a great boutique you are, how cute your packaging is and your customer service. If your average order value is 182 for their next order, be like, hey, I just want to say thank you. I know you're going to look killer in those boots. But if you want a top to match it, here's a discount code for 20 bucks off your next order of $200 or more. Right. Get into commit.

Yeah, make it big. So what else do you put in your purchase? Follow up emails.

So my first one is just like, hey, thanks a lot. You need to make sure that they're different if it's someone's first time or if it's their second or more time. Right. If it's their first time, welcome them, give them a little bit of details. Be sure to put your story in there just a little bit because they might not have been in your subscriber flow. Right. Maybe they purchased on their first visit. Give them a little bit of context. And then depending on your. People love to do, oh, seven days after they purchased another one. Well, maybe they haven't even gotten their package. Right. 14 days after, well, they probably got it, but maybe they didn't wear it, or maybe they only Wore it once. 21 days is my sweet spot. We have AB tested about 290 different flows, different flow variations. 21 days wins out every time. My theory is, obviously I can't email these people and be like, hey, why would you, Why'd you convert on this one if you wouldn't convert at 14. Right. My theory is not only has that person got a chance to wear it once, they've gotten a chance to wear it once, maybe twice. And they've gotten a chance to really enjoy like the texture or they've washed it and they Love the way that it washed. And they're like, this girl is a really good eye for quality. Right. They're getting an idea of how you procure products.

I really like that. That makes a lot of sense. And are you asking them to leave a review at that point?

I don't, because I think we have to be really careful with too many asks. Right? Because at what point are you asking for more than they're asking for you? So I do have like an automated review that goes out. It's at 30 days and it's real short. It's just like, hey, I want to get your feedback on this. It helps us to, you know, it helps us to source our products, right? And then. And I don't say like, hey, share with your friends all that stuff because. Because I think what it does and it almost brings inorganic, right? Yeah. Like, we want reviews for two reasons. Reviews are great, right? They validate other people. People are able to look at it. But we should also selfishly want those reviews to know, like, how are we doing? Right. I want you to actually tell me, how are we doing?

That's such a good point. Because I think we often look at it kind of as a vanity metric in a way. But to your point, it should help us source our product. Nobody wants the crap that falls apart after one wash, even though it's cheap. But people are so focused on cheap and affordable versus I can wash it and wear it 100 times and it's quality. But yeah, I paid 100 bucks versus 50 for it. Big difference.

And I think too, like, that the honesty metric, right? Like, even though I know it's like a tangible metric, but I think it exists. And if you're trying to be like, oh, cutesy and stuff, right. People love to know the business, right. If not, they'd be shopping with Macy's, but they're shopping with us because of us. Don't tell them, like, this is how I'm going to use this review. Right. Or better yet, like, if you are using it for algorithms, just be like, hey, in this crazy world of social media where so much depends on metrics, a review is one of the ways that really help us to get in front of people. You know, if you'd be willing to take the time to give us a review, we would really appreciate it.

So genuine.

I know.

So genuine. You're good with words.

That's.

It's exactly right. Most people struggle and it comes across so salesy and ingenuine meaty, but I really like that. What do you think is a really common struggle people have with email that you, you see the back end of their flows and you're just like, oh, just do this one thing and it would help you so fast.

But you see it as it's not really. And this goes not just to flows, it goes everywhere else. How many people, how many times have you seen like I send an email twice a week and nobody gets it. They don't do anything. Right. Well, how often have you cleaned your list like that? That's huge. Just like there's an algorithm to Facebook, there's an algorithm to email. Right. Google, Hotmail and Yahoo, they decide who goes to the inbox based on your open rate. So manage your open rate. It's kind of like ads. You could have the cutest ad in the world, right?

Yeah.

Best copy, best photos. If you're sending it to someone who doesn't speak English. Right. Your ads in English or like you're. What matters even more than your copy is your audience.

Yeah.

Hands down that there's a reason why we don't advertise on the radio or on television. Right. Because we know that we need our audience.

Yeah.

So but if it's not getting to our audience, it doesn't matter. If we don't have above a 15% open rate, it's not getting to our audience and it's based on platform. So like if you're at a 15%, you're like people still aren't getting it. Well, maybe, maybe your Gmails at 13. So they're going to spam. Maybe your AOL is at 17. Maybe they're going to the inbox. Right. And then your Yahoo is it. So it's based on domain. So maybe some of them are going to the inbox, some are going to promotions, some are going to spam. Right. You need to really make sure they're about 15. So there's a few ways we can do that. We can, you know, only send it to people who've opened last 120 days. Maybe really manage your number. Right. So if you're opening last 120 has a 40% open rate and your master list. So everyone you're eligible to send you has a 12. Maybe, you know, send to the Open in 120 and then send to the master and then open in 120 send to master. Or if it's even more drastic, send two emails to the open in 120 and then your next one to master. Or maybe only reserve your master for like, you know, Black Friday or big event. Also segment and sending will really help with your. Your. With your open rate, right? Because if I'm sending to eight and a half, and in my email, in my title, it says like, cheers to the size eight and a half, though. You're like, I'm gonna open that. That's. That's for me. That's my email. Right? And also your open rate's higher, but therefore, so is your conversion rate. So all of a sudden, once you. Once you get your open rate high enough, you can send whatever you want. People are gonna open it. Not even they'll open it, though, but you know what I mean? They'll see it, right? And then the choice is theirs because we want the choice to be there whether they're gonna open it or not. There's so much time where I see people analyzing their emails and they're like, oh, people didn't open it because of the. Because of the content that was in it, right? I need to change this. It's like, no, they didn't even see that. Yeah, they get the choice to open it, right? It's like you have all these ladies who follow you on Facebook and they want to see your posts, but they don't even. They don't realize that they have the option, Right? You just kind of fall off their feed. You want to put the decision back in their hands.

Yeah, I like that. Tell me, when you were talking about cleaning your list, can you and Klaviyo analyze and like, list clean by domain or how can you take that?

We just go a little bit more broad. So we just go through and we say, like, anyone who has received over 30 email and has opened 0 emails in the last 180 days and has not spread, and we'll run that list and usually that'll help your open rate too, right?

Yeah.

Well, number one, your cost is going down because you aren't paying to send those people. And number two, you aren't seeing those people, period.

So are you automatically deleting them or are you giving them, like, a last call or I'm going to clean you from my list kind of an email.

Nope. Bandaid band aid. It hurts. It sucks. I don't like it. I hate it just as much as the next person because at the end of the day, like, okay, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna send all those people an email, right? Say your average open rate right now is 17%. You're barely above it. And then you're gonna take that whole list of people who haven't opened in 180 days and you're gonna send them an email just them and you know that they're not gonna open, right? Maybe 2% of them are gonna open it. And so all of a sudden you've taken your 17% and you brought it down to a 13 and then everybody's in spam for the next month or two until you segment, segment, segment and get yourself back up. One of the absolute worst things you can do, send a non openers. So you send your new arrival email on Monday people open it and on Wednesday everyone's like you need to send it to the people who didn't open. Okay, I'm gonna do that, right? I had a 20% open rate on my first one and then I'm sending my non openers, I'm gonna get 3% and then none of my emails are gonna go in the inbox because I've never thought about it that way.

Yeah, I've never thought about it that way. I always am sending emails to people who don't open the email. Like I always do a last call get back campaign and then if it's like a really important email I'll resegment and send it to people who didn't open the first email because I was looking at it through the lens of like well what lift could I get in my conversion? Because now these other people are seeing.

It or I mean if you want to send a non openers send to non openers who are also active. Right. So run request for people who did not open your new arrival email for Monday but have opened emails in the last 180 days.

Yeah, we have an ongoing so I know all email systems are different and we're on something called activecampaign which is not like E commerce is not our main jam.

Right.

We have membership but in our system of tagging we have an automation or a flow that tags people as active interactive. So if they've opened so many emails the automation reads how much they've opened and then it applies an active tag so we know who's active or inactive and then we could segment that way versus like segmenting every single email and running a report and then deciding to resend it. So I don't know if that's possible in Klaviyo. I'm assuming it is.

Yeah, you can.

Okay, got it. Man, this is insightful. The list cleaning, that's really helpful.

Okay, take it struggle because like if your open rate isn't high enough, your flows aren't and flows are a great way because flows are relevant to something someone did and that means that they were on your website recently. Right. So your open rates on your flows should be at least 50%. So that's a great way to bring up your average open rate. But we have people who come to us with like 2, 3, 4% open rate and a lot of times we'll just have them change their email address and start fresh and hope that it's not trapped together because it is so difficult to get people out of the hole after they've been in it for so long. And that's one of the biggest mistakes. Like if you hire someone to manage your campaigns, if they don't have a good open rate, that's a serious conversation you need to have with them.

Man, that's so helpful. Tell me about the like the amount of flows people are getting versus how many campaigns you're you're sending every single week and what content should be in them. So you aren't just selling to everybody.

We have to remember a flow is only relative to something that someone has done. Right?

Right.

So we use seven flows. A subscriber flow. Welcome new flow. If it's our first brand purchasing, welcome back if it's their second or more abandoned browse. If they looked at them. Abandoned cart, Abandoned cart, Abandoned checkout. Abandoned checkout. Make sure people aren't in more than one flow to tag. That's not really respectful to their inbox. Right. So like for instance, if someone abandons a checkout, make sure that it kicks them out of abandoned cart and it kicks them out of abandoned route. And then your win back. Look at your average customer lifetime journey, right? And see the average amount of time between emails. You're not going to try to pitch them a win back if they might organically come back in the middle. Right. Because we don't want them getting a win back email every single time. So maybe the average customer is 62 days between orders. We're going to send them an email on day 70. Be like, hey, Ashley, I just want to check in. Make sure you're loving your last order. Have you seen our latest new arrival on text? Remember, if you're doing text, make sure your flows are shorter. Right? Because with email you're not interrupting someone's day with text message. You are so kind of get to the point on that. And then campaigns, it really just depends on your launch schedule. And so people who launch every day send a campaign every day, but don't blast it to everybody. Right? You can Send every single day, but make sure your open rate is still good. We have customers who send three times a day. I don't recommend it. You have to be really, really diligent in the way that you manage it. But I will tell you that she has the highest ROI of any other customer that we have. She has like 174x ROI. But you also, you end up only preaching essentially your VIPs, because everyone else is going to unsubscribe. Right. Or you're not sending everything to everyone. But make sure you also have time in there for segmented send. Right. Maybe you're getting a whole new shipment of Judy Booze. You're going to send that to your Judy Boo customers first and say like, hey, we got a new arrival. Judy Blues in. They technically aren't on the site. Like, maybe they're not in your new arrival section. But you create a collection and you're like, you. Since you are such a great customer of ours and I know how much you love Judy Blues. Yeah. Click below for first access.

Such a big deal. Oh, my gosh. Think about how important people feel when they know that. Right. They know that you know that because.

It'S frustrating as a customer. Like, you go to a website and they carry your favorite stuff and your size isn't in stock or your brand isn't in stock. You know what I mean?

Yep. How do you let's. I could talk about this all day long because I'm fascinated and like, love. I know you've got gorilla things to go do. Tell me. Let's flip the switch and talk about text and about your text flows and how they should be integrated and what flows people should have on text.

So the only platform we work with is Shopify. It's driving me nuts. I can see this. Got it. We use postscript. We love it because the way it integrates with Shopify. Also because of how diligent they are. TCPA compliance. I think it's really important for people to know if you send someone a text message at 9pm at night, that's illegal. You can't do that. There's a set of laws called the TCPA Compliance Act. Yeah. And it's TCPA compliance because it's Telephone Consumer Protection act, but it was put into place when Ronald Reagan was in office for telemarketing. And there are people out there who get pop. There are trolls out there who just wait and they will sign up for your list. And the second that you haven't, you know, maybe you don't include your shop name, or maybe you don't include your unsubscribe link or anything like that.

Yes.

$500 per person that you text. And we've had people in the hub who have gotten popped. And those people will usually negotiate. Like, they usually won't turn you in. They'll say like, hey, I got this.

Blackmail.

Yeah. You need 5,000 bucks.

Yeah.

And usually you can negotiate them down. Like, how about a hundred?

So I sense a blog post coming on from jane on the bootycup.com about TC, TCPA compliance for this very reason.

Oh, you do? Yeah.

I'm pitching it to you right now over there.

Are you writing it or no?

No, I'm asking you to write it. Everyone's gonna be, like, googling this when this is all over. All right, so what else is important?

I can also send you a great link to share in the show. Notes. Yeah. Okay. So we use it because it integrates. One of the. One of my favorite things is it's like serve people where they want to be served, right? If someone's shopping on desktop, give them the email pop up. People who shop on desktop are most likely to convert on email. Okay. When they shop on mobile, give them the text pop up. People who shop on mobile are more likely to convert on text. So we always joke around that short codes are so 2019, right? Subscribing by short code. Like, there's nothing worse than if you go to a really cute little website, and it's like, text, you know, Ashley's boutique to 4, 5, 8, 9, 2. But usually it's not like Ashley's Boutique, right? It's like, text, 4, 9, 6. And so you're like, okay. So then you go to another screen. Then you go to your thing, and you're like, four, nine. And then you go back to Safari, and you're like, eight, six. And you go back here, and you're like, eight, six, two. And then you're like, what's this code? Right? Or like, that's kind of cumbersome, right? Or you go to the website, it's like, subscribe to our text list. Get 10% off. Click to get 10% off. It populates in your message. Boom, done. Yeah, you don't need text code. Or there's landing page. Almost every single service provider for texting has a landing page, right? So if my keyword is Ashley's Boutique, click the banner at the top. You know, it says Ashley's Boutique. Click it. And then you just type in your phone number, right? And you're good to go. And that's so much easier than typing in the short code, typing in the other code, and then making sure that you get it. So we love the integration on that side. We love that, you know, the abandoned checkout is integrated. Purchases are integrated. So like our welcome flow, our win backflow, they're all automatic. We just set those up and it's automatic. I love the segments so you could go through. And so often we text everybody. It's like email, right? Texting doesn't. There isn't like an open rate algorithm, but there sure as hell is an ROI algorithm, right? Like, if I'm not bringing at least a 25x on my text messaging, there's something going wrong. So your bottom, your. Like if your email and your. Your text are at 20x, something's missing. 20 extra lower. Right? Something's not connected, something's not being pushed. Ideally, you want those both to be between a 35 and a 40X.

How are you? Wait, maybe my brain is not working as I'm thinking about asking you this question. So I understand tracking, like your conversions that are coming from emails. How are you tracking your conversions that are coming from your text? Oh, I guess they're specific links you're putting in your text.

The people are clicking in cookies, right? They're integrated because it's integrated with Shopify, but there's a report every month and it says like, here's your open rate, here's your percentage that came from both platforms, right? Yeah, whatever percent came from text, whatever percent came from email. And here's your roi and it breaks down your. Because your ROI is so important, right? We all get used to, like on Facebook, we're like, oh, four. 5x ROI is great, right? Well, in my mind, there's like this pyramid of profitability. At the bottom is like your live sales. You really don't cost anything for marketing, right? So that's like infinity roi. And then your next block in that triangle is your text in your email. 20x20 to 40x, right? And then your next block at the top is advertising, paid advertising. You want that to be between like a 4 and 5 or that's. These are the metrics I use ours against. Excuse me. I get really excited and I run out of breath. Okay, so. But it's amazing. Like, I think everyone should build from the bottom up, right? Make sure you have all of your basic stuff done well at the bottom, make sure you have your live sales, active Instagram, active Facebook, and then your flows next. Because what Happens if you have Facebook advertising and your organic stuff and this middle section is missing, right? So you have your Facebook advertising, you're driving people to your website, they're hitting your website. Maybe they sign up for email and they get, you know, the coupon. Or maybe they get like a one piece flow. Like, hey, I'm so excited you're here. I'm Jane. I have this boutique. But if you have those flows in place and then like, that's it, that's the end of your relationship if they don't come back and pray, purchase, right? But then you have that flow in place and they go from here to here and it's like, hey, if you guys are listening to the podcast, I'm doing like the cutest triangle ever with my fingers.

Watch the video.

Yeah, I wiped my teeth this morning for you guys. See, so, but then what happens is they come to your website and they, they hit one of your flows, right? And it's like, hey, like, chances are they probably looked at a product and so it's like, hey, Ashley, I saw you on the website. I just want to check in, see if you have any questions. Right, right. I'm Jane, I'm the owner. And then so they get that one. They're like, ah, I'm not really ready to convert. And they get it again, like, hey, it's Jane here. I just want to follow up again. We've been in business since 2013 and here are my main passions. And always have that item below that they were looking at. And then so all of a sudden they have that relationship where if there wasn't that flow, they'd be like, oh, I went to the queue to shop online. Right? They have a lot of leopard. I love leopard. But then if you have the flow, then you're talking to your friends like, I'm the cutest shop online. The owner's name is Ashley. She's actually based out of the Midwest. She's been in business for quite a few years. So I feel like I trust her. Right? They have super cute cheetah and. But then they give a little more context, right?

Yeah.

Because if you go to say, for instance, you see a girlfriend store in the Q's top, she's like, where'd you get that? She's like, oh, I got it at Macy's. Right? But if they got it at a boutique, like, oh, I got it at Ashley's boutique. I went in there. They're super helpful. That gets a story. Give them the context for people. They love stories, right? Give Them what they want. And then also make sure that you're designed for left and right brain. Right. Make sure people who are left brain, they love a little collage, and they like to have $10 off an order of $100 or more. People who are right brain, they want it. If you're gonna say, I'm gonna give you my new arrival, I want my new arrivals in a grid. I want them in order of newest to oldest, and I want a percentage discount because that's more efficient. So make sure you have marketing for both types of people in your flows.

Oh, my gosh. That's so helpful. I could just sit here and listen to you pick your brain on this all day.

I think everyone else's information, I market it as my own and I look super smart.

I love it. Oh, my gosh. All right, Jane, we've been at this for a little bit, and I want to be your circle of your time and people's time really quick. Just to mention, where can people find you? You're in the hub. I'll link all of this up in the show notes, but I know people are going to want to continue to listen to you.

Oh, you can find me on Facebook or sitting in this chair. I'm in this chair like six hours a day. This is exactly what my butt looks like when I go to town. Everybody knows type of office chair I have. This is like molded perfectly. I have for Rural Haze, obviously, like oral haze. Www.ruralhaze.com. and then for a glow group, email is the best. I live and die by my email. If you Facebook message me, you just have to accept it's going to be like a month or a couple weeks till I get back to you. The way I use my, like, I take care of my email, and then I'm like, oh, if I got a little extra time, I'll go to my Facebook messages, right? You tag me. It'll be a couple days. It's funny. Even people will tag me on boutique up and then I'll have current customers or past customers. They're like, oh, girl, you need to email her. Wow, I am really bad at this, aren't I? But yeah, just shoot us the email. We also have. We did a Covid training. If you go, I think, to the boutique hub group and look up glow group, there are. We do two. Yeah. And. And I feel like those are a great place to start because even if you. There's even people who reach out and they're like, hey. And they maybe they're super Tech savvy and they want to do it on their own and we'll be like, here's the seven flows we do. I'm obviously not going to give you like our copy or our timelines or anything, but I'll say like subscriber flow. Four pieces. Welcome. New two pieces. Right? And those will give you really good bones because as Mary Morris says, the bones are good.

If Mary Morris says it, it's gospel. So go to the Boutique of Training library. It's under email marketing and we did a Covid five day workshop is what it was called. So you're definitely all over that. One last question, actually. I mean, there's more than one last question I want to ask you, but I do want to go back to ROHS for a second. So obviously everyone's listening to you and they're amazed by your brain and they've learned all this stuff and they've taken so many notes today. But I just want to go back to the story for a second because this has not always been like a smooth journey for you. You have had some bumps and battles and ups and downs and things that have happened. And I know you can't go into a lot of detail, but can you give us kind of some high points of how you've kind of survived the last couple of years and built your business back from a hurdle that you overcame?

Yeah, so our Highest year was 2018, I believe. 2018. And I always say like the other day or last year, you know, it's like not 2018. And we had a supplier we worked really closely with and our quality just kind of got a little funky anyway, so I didn't manage it correctly and ended up putting. Putting us in a really tough position. We had to sell our house. We a lot of you who actually know me in like a regular relationship apart from the boutique, you probably have no idea that we did that, but trick ya anyway, it was really hard. And for summer I drove Lyft and the way that we had to shut off all advertising, like we had to shut our warehouse. We had four warehouses. The previous year we'd done 5 million. And I think the year after that we did under one. And we, I laid off our whole warehouse, which if you think that that is such a hard. That was. There was a lot of. I had more tears in my body than I even knew were possible during those first few months. But anyway, I was, I was listening to different podcasts and you know, you hear all these numbers people would throw out with email marketing, but it wasn't really that present in the boutique world. Right. Because a lot of email marketing is built out for tech industry where they're going to try, you know, every time they launch a new product or a new charger or a new version of an iPhone, you know, they market it and they try to get everyone to get it. Well, boutiques, ideally, we want our people to purchase with us every single week, right? So how do we make sure that our clothes are reflective of the aggressive product turnover that we want to have and much more relationship driven. So, yeah, I just, I was like, I listen to these podcasts, I'm like, they can do it. I. I have to figure out, like, I was not willing to give up my business. And sometimes I look back and I'm like, maybe I. You know, I sacrificed a lot. I sacrificed family, I sacrificed finance, I sacrificed everything. A lot of people had said, like, just file bankruptcy. But this is my baby and I'm so glad every day that I didn't. But my husband, like, we went to the office and we talked to them on my son's second birthday, which is very humbling experience. And we both left and Peter said, what do you want to do? And I said, I don't want to file. Then we won't file. And we just stuck our heads down sometimes in the sand in like a persevering way. But anyway, so we just a B tested, pardon my French, but the shit out of email flows. And slowly we found ones that worked for us and not only like the timeline of the structures, but you know, what to put in them and the verbiage and how early to offer a discount and evaluated like unsubscribe rates and all stuff. And then a girlfriend of mine, her name is Brooke, she actually has Boot Boutique. She was talking to me about her program and I was like, oh, I just built mine out. I can help you. And so on Zoom for like two weeks. Just that night, we would drink wine and filled out floats. And then it was like a friend's friend, a friend's friend's friend. And then she. I'll never forget, I was driving Lyft one day and she sent me this text and she's like, you're probably gonna kill me. And she sent a link she had posted in the Hub. And I remember thinking like, ashley's gonna kill me. I'm not a service provider. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a business name. And. Yeah, and it just kind of blew up. And we have we have a little over a thousand boutiques that are clients of ours, and I love it, but I love the fact that I felt like I was missing that middle of the triangle. Right. Like, we would do lives every night, and we were so active on our social media, and we were aggressive with our Facebook advertising, which at that point was turned off. And so I had to put something else in place to bring people back. And I had this email list at the time, I had 210,000 people on my email list. And I was just. When I get sent out, I send it to everyone, right? And I'm like, why isn't it working? I have all these people, but my open rate was terrible. And so we just started diving in. And then there's also training programs with both PostScript and Klaviyo. And so Klaviyo, there's different tiers, and we're actually part of. It's called Platinum Elite. And I think 2% of service providers are Platinum Elite. And so. But it's amazing because the. The training that is there. Right. But it's. There's. Yeah. How to filter it. Because in the beginning, I can't tell you how many videos and how much time I didn't necessarily waste, but it took forever to dive into, like, okay, that's great information, but that's not applicable to the boutique industry at all. Right. So trying to figure out where those came into play. And so Glow Group came out of desperation, absolute desperation. And now we're back. And it was, ironically, one of the best things that's ever happened. There's two of us, and we have high school girl that comes in and helps us shift. But last time we were doing this much in sales, we had 22 people. Now it's two of us, and we're closed on the weekend. We're only open 10 to 6. We drink a lot of coffee, eat a lot of ice cream. Fat and happy over here. Oh, man.

I remember during that time talking to you, we had a phone call and then just kind of knowing behind the scenes what was happening. But then to watch you build your way back out of this and to see where you're at now. Not only see where you're at now, but to see how many people you've helped, like, through your desperation, how many people you helped through their desperation. I just think everything in life happens for a reason, right? And something good comes from every bad situation. So your story is so inspiring to me. So it brings me so much joy to get to share it with people today. Because I love you because you say crazy shit. But I just think your story is even better. So we.

I always think, like, obviously when you're in something like that.

Yeah.

It's. It's like, why me? Like, what did I do? Like, this is. You're like, I was mad. For a long time. I was mad. And. And then there's also like litigation that occurred. Right? There's just.

Yeah.

And. But then it was interesting because GLOW Group had kind of gotten its feet and then Covid hit and I was like, I have, like, I went through my. Maybe this is why I went through my 2019. Right. Is to get help. Like, not like I single handedly got anyone through 2020, but you know what I mean? Like, maybe make their ads more efficient because they have flows or maybe bring in whatever. And I remember when Covid hit, I messaged you and I was like, I want to do something. Like, it can I. Is there, like, people, you know, that we could build out their flows for free or like, because we went through that shit, you know, And. And yeah. And then you were like, oh, we're doing these trainings. And that's kind of how we got more prevalent in hub. But yeah, at the time I felt very victimized and I wallowed in it. Like, I did not take the high road, to be honest. And I was mad. But, you know, it ended up being, we have a healthier business than we ever have. And also, I've met some really cool people. Yeah, thanks for having the hub, because that's. I know without. Without that, like, we wouldn't be where we were in either place. As soon as it hit the fan, like, Ashley and I had talked a little bit. I think I served on a panel, but it wasn't until, like, you know, the boutique industry is tough and when things get really hard, it's a weird thing because you. If you turn to other people, a lot of times you're a competition. Or we were footwear. So we were a little bit unique in what we were doing, doing. And it was funny. Like, it was just immediately, you know, like, when you have a really bad day, you're like, I want to call my mom. And really, she dance. Like, I'm gonna call Ashley. I was like, hi, Ashley. I don't know if you actually remember me. I'm Jane. Can you help me build a Facebook ad? That's what you did. She's like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's awkward. When someone's crying, you can't say no, right? Like, you can't Hang up. So that's. Yeah, that's. You guys. If you really want something to happen, just bring some tears.

Bring some tears and call Ashley. She can't say no. Oh, man. No, it's. I. I don't even know what to say to that. I don't even have a good response to that. I'm just trying to think of how to segment Even out of that conversation. But I'm. I'm humbled by that, and I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to help, because that's what this is all about. Like, everyone sells stuff. You sell boots, you sell fidget spinners, you sell me memberships to the boutique. Like, everyone sells something, but really what you're selling is relationships, trust, changing the world around you, doing good for other people. Like, it's just assigning a dollar value to something, but it's. It's not about the dollar. It's about the actual value. And they're.

I even like, do you ever feel guilty for charging people for things?

Yes. Ever.

Like, I'm not allowed on our sales floor. Anytime I work the sales floor, we'll have a deficit day because someone's like, oh, my dog died. I'm like, take these here.

Yes, exactly.

I feel more comfortable having the computer between us. I'm like, I'll try to do anything I want over here, but, like, if I see you in person. Yeah. Yes. Very true.

Well, Jane, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing this, all of this knowledge that you dropped, the times that you speak at the Boutique Summit or Western Summit or the panels that we've done anywhere and everywhere. You're always so willing to lend a hand, and that really does go a long way and mean a lot. So thank you. I can't wait to do this again with you soon. And I'm so excited for everyone to now get to see you in person. The gorilla herself.

The first podcast we did was not in person. No. And so you kind of tricked me there.

I. Yeah. You had no idea you were going.

To be on camera.

That's why you were a gorilla. And now everyone got an upsell out of it, so. So if you're listening to the audio version of this, you better watch the live video version of this.

Well, thank you for having me. It was. It was fun. I know the things that got us through, and I feel like that's something that should be in everybody's toolbox. Whether you hire someone to build them out, you build them out yourself. It's, you know, essentially you're. You've already done the work to bring those people in, right? Keep them there. Like every single email, every single phone number that has a dollar value. You worked hard to get those people.

I love it. Jane, thanks so much for your time today.

All right. Have a good day.

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