#634: The Impact of Shopping Small First

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 I can't wait to chat. Hey guys, it's here. It's Pink Friday week. I could not be more excited. I have huge plans in my local community this week. My very own Pink Friday bus, which I've been doing for the last couple of years and getting an opportunity to take all of my friends around to some of my favorite boutiques in the area. And I know so many of you have plans too. Big plans, lots of collaborations, all the good things. So this week I just wanted to come to you real quick in a short podcast and remind you of the opportunity happening this week and make sure you're capitalizing on all of it. And maybe you're listening and you're like, wait, what are you even talking about? What is Pink Friday? Well, let me break it all down for you and make sure you are prepped to have one of the best weeks in your business this week. All right, let's back it up. Pink Friday has been around for several years and really came out of a collaboration of ideas here inside of the Boutique Hub. Our members were talking about how often they have open houses before the Black Friday chaos even begins. And now a lot of times, some of those open houses and events are even better than the Black Friday weekend. Now here's the thing. I love Black Friday. I love Small Business Saturday. I really love Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday, all the things. My only gripe about Small Business Saturday is that it comes after Black Friday. It's like it's an afterthought. Like once your customer has already went and spent all of her money at Target and all the big box stores, then you kind of get what's left over the next day once that guilt has already set in. Now, Small Business Saturday is still a huge day for so many people and you're all still celebrating it. And I hope you do. But in addition to Small Business Saturday, Pink Friday is all about shopping. Small first, before the big guys, before the big box stores. And so all of our members inside of the Boutique Hub several years ago were saying, how can we team up? You know, the Boutique Hubs motto is community over competition. So how do we all come together in community over competition and celebrate this idea to shop small first. So every year, annually, the Friday before Black Friday is what we call Pink Friday. It's a day for not just boutique owners, but retailers of all types. No matter what you sell. I know so many of you are collaborating with other local businesses. So maybe salons might be tire store might be a coffee shop. It might be your entire chamber of commerce, economic development or downtown association. Many of you have those relationships started. The point is, I just really want you to get out and tell your story first, to get out in front of your customers, tell them why you're in business and what's the economic impact of your business and encourage them to shop small first. So that's what Pink Friday is. But really, if you want to double down on making a big splash this year, I would love for you to do this simple calculation in your community. And again, it doesn't matter if you're a brick and mortar or if you run the business out of your home or if you have a warehouse. This still matters. Now before the boutique hub, I used to work in economic development. So what I'm about to tell you is a tool that I used to use with the local small businesses that I supported way back then. And that's just simply putting a dollar on the economic development, economic impact of your business. So if you could do this for me, I want you to look across your business and your numbers and just write down in the last year what is the total dollar amount that you will have spent on payroll, including paying yourself, so any take home money you have and what do you spend on payroll? Okay, so write that number down. Then I want you to look across your QuickBooks and I want you to write down and analyze how many local vendors in your community are you paying. So a local accountant, maybe a local attorn, you probably bought some supplies at the grocery store or other local businesses, maybe you collaborated with other local businesses and you spent some money there. But how much money are you spending with other local businesses? Write that number down. Now I want you to go in and I want you to look at how many donations have you made in the last year. Whether it's cash, whether it's free product, whether it's donating whatever you couldn't sell to a local women's shelter or to Goodwill. I want you to write that number down. Now I want you to take all those numbers that you just wrote down, add them up and times them by seven, times it by seven. Because the Idea is when you're calculating economic impact of a small business per year, they say that an average dollar turns in a local community seven times. So I've spent it at the local bank or I've spent it at a local attorney, or I've spent it with a local coffee shop. And then that coffee shop is spending it with their local accountant and that accountant is spending it with their local attorney and that local attorney is buying groceries and feeding a family and employing people with that money. The money keeps on turning. Don't forget about gas, right? Or vehicles you've bought in your local community. Add all those things up, times them by seven and that is your economic impact per year. So if you have an opportunity this week during Pink Friday to talk to the media, tell that story, talk about, it's not only you and your small business, but but every small business in the local community has this much economic impact and you're paying local taxes. Let's not forget that when it comes to economic impact. So you have this economic impact, it means something every single time a patron comes in and shops small first and supports a small business because it is literally impacting everything from the kids school to the parks and recreation in your community to sponsoring the ball teams to your tax dollars going back and creating a stronger police force or whatever your local community has for government. Right? All of those dollars continue to circulate. So tell your story right. It's here. It's time. Are you ready to start planning 2025? Well, you might have your own day planner, you might have a Google calendar, but let me tell you, I love planning with the official Boutique Boss Planner. The Boutique Boss Planner is a day planner that we created here at the Boutique Hub several years ago. Created by boutique owners for boutique owners. And it's more than a day planner. Inside of the Boutique Planner is not only your opportunity to operate with a normal day planner with your hours and your time blocks, but it's also a boutique owner's go to resource. Inside there's inventory tracking, social media tracking, monthly reminders and to do lists. All kinds of information on how to host a month in review to really track what worked and what didn't in your business this month. But also a planning sheet on how to get ready for the next month in your business. Even if you're going to market, even if you're getting ready for social media content, there's tools, tips and ideas and checklists to keep you on track and organized all year long inside of the Boutique Boss Planner. So check out the link in the show notes. For access to the 2025 Boutique Boss Planner or visit BoutiqueBoss store.com All right, so let's get it one step deeper. You've got this number. You're ready to celebrate. Let's just talk about how to maximize this week. All right, so first things first, if you are not already collaborating with other local business this week, you still have a couple days. Reach out, figure out how can you collaborate. Whether it's a giveaway across social media or it's an actual you're bringing somebody into your business or you're going in and doing a pop up in someone else's business. How can you collaborate this week if you haven't already reached out to your local chamber of commerce, economic development, Main street association, something like that, to tell them the story of Pink Friday, do that as well. Get them on board. Maybe they aren't ready for it this year. It's new this year to them. But get them ready and excited for next year so that they can bring even more people in your local community to collaborate. Collaborate and celebrate on Pink Friday. Now, if you have this event, get the word out, let your local media know. Get out to your local newspaper, radio station, TV station, women's magazine, anybody who has influence in your local community and is writing or speaking or otherwise telling the story, let them know your story this week, get that information and then build a relationship with those. This is simply called public relations. Right? Your opportunity to tell your story through public relations and solve a local media person's problems. Right? They're looking for good stories to, to tell 24 7. It's not just about Pink Friday and telling the story now, but when you build a relationship with them through public relations, you have an opportunity to come back and talk about, you know, hottest Christmas trends or best gifts for your significant other on Valentine's Day or the latest in spring fashion, whatever it might be, Use this as an opportunity to work with the media year round. All right, next step, if you haven't already. It's completely free. If you want some graphics, if you want to get on the Pink Friday map, if you want the tools that the Boutique Boutique Hub offers, I've got it linked up in today's show notes. So again, we've got this map@shopthebestboutiques.com Take the map, make sure you're on it and then share it. Okay? You have reach. Your business has reach all over the country, not just in your local community. And so this is also your day to Say, hey, you know what? I would love for you to come shop with me on Pink Friday, but if you aren't local to me and you can't make it here, or maybe you want to shop on my website, but you also want to shop with these other boutiques. Here's how you do it. Shopthebestboutiques.com and it'll have a map. It'll have all the boutiques information. So if you know someone in your customer base who wants to support other small businesses On Pink Friday, shopthebestboutiques.com is the way to do it. And again, all the graphics, how you get signed up for the map, all those things linked up in today's show notes. All right, finally, last thing, if you haven't already, save the date for next year, the Friday before Black Friday. Be thinking about it now. Maximize, take notes on what works, what doesn't. What could you do different? What do you want to remember for next year? It's just as important to post call an event that we have as it is to pre call and make sure we're planned up for it. So don't forget to take notes this week once Pink Friday is over so you can start to plan for next year. All right, that's it. I told you it was going to be short and sweet and to the point this week because you're busy, right? We got to get out there, we got to celebrate. We got to tell our story about Pink Friday and what it means to shop small first with a small business, calculate that economic impact, you guys and I would love to see your number. I think it would be an incredible experience to see your number. So send it to me at the Boutique Hub on Instagram or AJ Alderson on Instagram. We're going to be making a post calculating that local economic impact with you this week. So when you see that post, drop your number down below and we're going to calculate globally what economic impact boutiques can have in their local community. All right, have a great week. Happy Pink Friday. I will see you guys so soon. Thanks for listening to the podcast, you guys and I, and again, have an awesome week. 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 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.