#608 The Impact of Attending The Boutique Summit

Foreign. Business can be a lonely game. But it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and and I can't wait to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. This week I am so happy it's just you and me, but actually I have a special guest who's not being interviewed today but is going to be in the background of our podcast recording. Do you want to wave if you can't see or if you're not listening or watching on YouTube today? My daughter Jade is with us today. She joined me at work. She was not feeling good, didn't go to school and so I said hey, I've got to record a podcast, do you want to join me? And so she's what are you even doing? Playing on the computer in the background. So she's going to be joining us, hanging out. But I thought this was fitting because here's the topic I really want to dig into today. As a retailer and no matter what you sell retail, wholesale, you sell, I don't know, car parts, doesn't matter, you're a business owner. One of the biggest struggles that we have as business owners, it is, it is so easy to get lost in the day to day operations of our business and we get so caught up in the weeds of working in the business that sometimes it's really hard for us when we're pulled in so many different directions to take a step back and to have the vantage point to work on the business. So 10 years in, almost 11 years in now of running the Boutique Hub, this has definitely been a series of traps I found myself in where, you know, as a mom and as a business owner, I've been hustling and just trying to sometimes not only just get through and thrive on days, but really just to survive on a lot of days. And I'm sure you can relate to that as well. We're trying to just get through that to do list and meet those sales numbers and just get the basics done. And when you're in that mode, it's really hard to take yourself out of that mode and to say, you know what, I need to take a little bit of time off, take a clarity break, take a step back and get reignited and re inspired and find some new strategies to bring back and to pour like gasoline on the wildfire that can be my business and its potential. And as I look back at some of the most pivotal moments in my own business, it's the times where I did just that, even though I didn't feel like I had time to step away. And honestly, we don't live near any family, so there's absolutely no child care. So it's hard for us to step away. But it was the times when Eric and I made that really tough choice and we begged some family friends to help us out with our kids and so that we could get out and look at our business from the outside in. We went to business conferences, we looked at opportunities to have mentors or just to get around like minded people who were also business owners so that we could find some new inspiration for what we were going to do to grow our business to the next level. And each of those times we have come back and been able to implement some massive changes and frankly just implement some new massive energy into our business where it really needed it most. You know, one of those times I remember so, you know dearly and it was a while ago now, pre Covid was an opportunity. We had to go to a Brendan Burchard event and we've been to several of them now, been a part of his mastermind. But some of the people that we met at that event were still such great friends with and they have massively changed our lives and our business. You know, getting to know Justin Prince at those events, Eric and I randomly met him. It was back in the Rachel and Dave Hollis Day speaking at that event and sitting in the row with them. It was getting to meet Natalie Ellis before Boss Babe really was anything like it is now. And attending that event with her and being a part of a group of 10 of us, I was the only American in that group attending the event. So so many of those memories, not only was it the people that I was able to surround myself with, but then the relationships I was able to take away later and say, wow, look how, look how big thinking all of these people are. Look at what's possible for them and their business. This is also possible for me and mine. That paired with all of the strategies I was able to implement immediately. So I can't stress enough to you how important it is. Even when you think you don't have the time or you don't have the money or you don't have the energy and you can't step away to find a Way to step away. Even if it's you and your team getting away to, you know, a hotel for a night, just getting out of your house, or you guys getting to the next town over or just taking a little bit of time off to really think and strategize about where you want your business to go next. Or maybe it's you and your team also considering joining us this year at the Boutique Summit. Because from all of our experience of going to these other business conferences, we thought, man, why doesn't our industry have this? Why don't we have a summit and a business conference for retailers and for boutique owners? Whether you sell home and gift, you're a children's store, you're a specialty store, you're an apparel store, whether you're brick and mortar, you're online, or you're a live seller. Use Comments sold It really doesn't matter. We wanted to build something that had an opportunity to help every single one of you really grow, be surrounded by the right energy and the right people and find the strategies that are going to put your put your business really where it needs to go for the future. So that is my personal just plea an invitation to you that if you haven't thought about stepping out of your comfort zone and getting into some sort of energy and space where there's an opportunity to network and to learn and to grow like the Boutique Summit, please take the opportunity to do it, whether it's with the Summit or not. But I do want to tell you a little bit more today about this year's Boutique Summit. Because I tell you what, when I think about what's happening in the world today and in our economy today and in our industry today, I really feel like there has never been a more important time than now to lean into some new strategies and some new ideas. Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and again and expecting a different result. Right? And I think that that is happening when I see people saying, well, the economy's down and people are buying different, and I'm competing with Sheen and I'm competing with temu, and you know, what used to work for me isn't working any longer. Those things are all true. So my question back to you then is what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do that's different? What are you going to do to challenge the status quo? What are you going to do that's going to make your business feel different to your customer? So your customer therefore has a different reaction to you and your business in the next 12 months. So that's really a lot of the theme for this year's Boutique Summit. A lot of the topics that we're going to be digging into is trying to unlock just that. How is your business going to be different in 12 months? Because your customers are different in this 12 months. So our overall theme for this year's Boutique Summit is the Rising Phoenix. And guys, our industry's going through a Rising Phoenix moment right now, right? It's okay to have that rising Phoenix Phoenix moment. In order to sustain in business for any period of time, nobody is going to have a straight, you know, solid upward projection in growth. The, the trajectory does not happen like that. It is not realistic. It is not sustainable. Whatever Instagram quote you saw this on where people were sharing their stats and it was just month over month growth. Well, it's not realistic and it's probably a lie because if you've been in business for any period of time, you know, it's a series of highs and lows. And the real question is, what do you do in the highs to prepare your business to sustain the lows? Because both will be there and both are going to come. So here's what we're going to cover a couple of our I won't give you all the topics, you can find those on the website, but I want to hit on some of the topics we're going to cover this year at the summit. Again, whether you can join us in person in Dallas June 9th and 10th, or you grab a digital ticket and you can watch the summit online. Here's some of the most important topics I think we're going to cover. Number one, I'm so excited about this topic and these speakers because this is a huge question I get how do I help my brick and mortar thrive online? I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of retailers ask this question. Specialty retailers, gift retailers, apparel retailers, and two of my very dear friends are going to come and answer this question because they're living proof of how this works. And one of them does this on a daily basis for a living. So my friend Josh Orr of Capital Commerce and Becca Pollock of Hale House are going to be joining us and talking about how did Becca take an amazing brick and mortar that she built in Fort Worth, Texas, bring it online and scale to a million dollars online in her first year. She's going to show you exactly how she's done it. How did Josh help her do that? And what does it mean to operate an e commerce platform if you're already a brick and mortar and and I'm telling you, I shop with Becca. I've been in Becca's warehouse. I've seen the behind the scenes of her business. You guys are really going to love this session. It's a huge opportunity and a learning moment for sure. Have you decided to attend the Boutique Summit yet, you guys, this is our industry's biggest business conference and in person gathering for you to learn from all of the top industry experts, top retailers in home and gift, top retailers in e commerce stores in apparel, and all kinds of industry experts. I hope you join us June 9th and 10th in Dallas, Texas for the boutique summit. Plus plus you guys, John acoff, he is our keynote speaker this year and he's one of my all time favorite authors and he's gonna be doing deep dives on leadership just for you. You guys, I wanna get you something special. So here is a $50 off per ticket at checkout coupon that you can use just for listening to the podcast. Use summitcast at checkout when you're purchasing a ticket to the Boutique Summit and get $50 off per ticket. I've got those links linked up to you in the show notes, so let me know if you've got any questions. But I can't wa at this year's boutique summit June 9th and 10th in Dallas, Texas, another session I'm excited about is our merchandising moments. And this is going to be with Sarah Burks, our director of education here at the Hub, and our dear friend Jessica Throneberg, who is a boutique owner out of North Carolina. Both are so passionate about merchandising, whether it's physical merchandising in your brick and mortar space or the very apparent need for merchandising in your photo shoots, in your live sales and then your e commerce website. No matter what you sell, you sell what you show. So if you're somebody who's just, you know, taking a picture of a vignette display and tossing it up on social media or taking a picture, a stock photo of this graphic tee that you've got and you're throwing it up on social or you've got slat wall and you're just hanging some kind of outrigging with just some tops and bottoms on the bottom and that's it, you are leaving money on the table. You sell what you show. And so the more you can figure out how to merchandise in a way that solves people's problems and tell a story and help put your customers in the space they want to be in in the version of themselves they want to be. That's what merchandising does. You're going to really maximize your potential. So Sarah and Jessica are going to do a great job of covering that. Two other quick sessions, our cash flow resilience session with Christine Gray of she Profits Now. She is incredible when it comes to managing your money in a tough economy. And she's going to give you best in class examples of what people are doing right now to lean up their business but to sustain their cash flow again, so that in the high times, you're prepared for the low times and in the low times you're lean enough that it's not going to completely take you out of business. She will give you real examples and it'll be like a game of Monopoly that you're going to play with Christine in that session. Short form video is another big topic we're going to be covering. Whether that's YouTube shorts, Pinterest tips, TikTok reels. You need to use short form video today. Whether whether or not you're online or off, it doesn't matter. Short form video humanizes your brand. It builds relationships and it builds community. And so we're going to talk about all the apps and tools to help you do that. Oh, this is going to be a good session. Unlocking Sheen's supply chain secrets and what you can learn to maximize from this, too. Wow. No more complaining about Sheen and Timu. How about let's take a page out of their book what can we learn and how can we use that to make our business stronger? That's the mindset that I want to be in and I'm sure you want to be in as well. Jeff Fenn on our team, you guys know, is a master when it comes to Facebook ads and digital strategy. I believe he has two different sessions happening on Facebook Ads and Mastering digital traffic in 2024. Our team's also covering a trend forecasting and building collections session. We do seasonal trend reports here at the Hub that are backed by multiple sources. So you guys know that this trend forecasting is really, really good. And we're going to be walking through how to use that in your business and how to put it into place right away. We're also going to be having this really cool session. We ran a giveaway to fill the speaker of the session. Multiple people applied. Many, many people applied. We watched all kinds of videos to choose the winner of this session. But it's all about overcoming the odds. A real boutique owner's journey to overcoming and finding success and how you can overcome the odds in your business too. So I'm so excited for our winners from that giveaway who are going to be joining me on stage. It's a boutique called Blush Out West. It's a mother daughter duo and we're going to be talking about their trials over the years and what they've done to really help their business grow and succeed. All right, couple more sessions. I've got to tell you about our baby boomer to Gen Alpha session and how to market to every generation. In between, we're going to talk about all the digital marketing strategies and the in person marketing strategies that speak from generation to generation. Our team that is covering that session is so smart when it comes to these topics. They do it every single day, so I know that one's going to be gold for sure. And then another session I'm really excited about two more actually. My friend Jordan from Flourish and Frills is going to be joining us. She's incredible. She has an incredible boutique. She is an influencer. She man has just built an incredible business for herself. She's coming in to talk real Shopify strategy and how she uses Shopify on a daily basis to maximize it, how you can too and then finally how to work less and get more done using the latest AI tools. So again, no matter the age of your business, how, how new or how old your business, we just want to help you be able to really maximize what's going on on a daily basis. So each and every day there's going to be keynotes, there's going to be breakout sessions. Our main keynote speaker this year is my friend, John Acuff. I don't know if you guys follow John. He's got the best dad jokes on the Internet. I'm positive of it. You're going to laugh, you're going to be entertained, but more importantly, you're going to learn a ton when it comes to building yourself and to be a leader for your company. John's written several incredible books including All It Takes is a Goal. My personal favorite that I read when I was first founding the boutique hub was a book called Start. And I just love the way John puts things into perspective. So I think you're gonna really love what John Acuff has to share as well. So again, June 9th and 10th, you guys, it's in person. You can join us in person. We have a mini trade show. Many wonderful brands are going to be there with cash and carry and of course it's Right before Dallas markets apparel market. So come in person or if you can't make it in person and you want to grab a digital ticket, we do offer a digital ticket as well that's linked up in the show notes for you today. But let me tell you this one last thing. If you come in person, there is one thing that I know boutique owners do better than anyone else. You know what it is? It's they throw a theme party. Theme parties, right. Who doesn't like theme parties? Last year we had an 80s party theme party with an amazing 80s cover band that I will truly never forget. And this year, to go along with our theme of Rising Phoenix, we have a red themed party called Ignite the Night. And so if you're coming, get ready. We've got a dj, we've got entertainment, But I want you to come wearing red and I want you to show up as if you are on fire for your business. Because that's what we all need. That's what community over competition is all about. That's what the boutique is stands for. But it's how can we band together and allow a rising tide to lift all ships for our industry to learn from one another, to be inspired by one another, to celebrate one another and just to be surrounded by like minded people who, who aren't looking at you for who you were or who they think you are, but for who you know you're meant to be. And that's the power of being in person at these types of events. So you guys, I hope you have an opportunity to join us June 9th and 10th in Dallas, Texas for this year's Boutique Summit. We've been doing this for, I think seven years now. This is just one of the most incredible events that our industry has the opportunity to host. And so I hope I'm going to get to meet you there, see you in person, and get to celebrate all of your wins and talk about where your business is going to go next. So that's it, guys. Thanks for listening to the podcast this week. Jade, thanks for doing such a good job hanging out in the background. I love it. Real world right here. Shout out to all of you guys who are juggling running a business, having a family and doing all the amazing things that you do. Keep it up. You're doing a great job. See you guys. Thanks for listening, guys. I hope you took away all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.