7 Ways to Grow in 2021 with Ashley Alderson, CEO of The Boutique Hub

We're back. You're back, we're here. It's episode number 300, and we are kicking off season three together. So buckle up, you guys. It's gonna be a ton of fun. 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 strateg that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat. You're back, you're here, I'm back. And oh my gosh, it feels so good to be back. You guys. Thanks for tuning in to season three as we kick off a new year and a new season of Boutique Chat. I have to tell you, as I think about my business, my life, your business, your life, how important it is just to sometimes take a minute and step away and see the forest through the trees and work on the business, not in the business. And the clarity that can come in that process is just so inspiring and gratifying. So thanks for taking a break for just a couple weeks here while we regrouped, refocused, and got you feedback on what you want to see on season three. I promise you, you are in for some really exciting stuff in the next couple of months that we already have recorded or already have planned for the podcast that I hope really do inspire you and breathe some new life into your business. So I am pumped for all the feedback that you guys sent us on guests that you've loved on the show so far, and some new guests that you'd love to see, interviews with, but also content, the types of content you want to hear, the length of content you want to hear, and really what matters the most to you to help you move the the needle forward in your business. If you guys have been here for any period of time or if you've been a member of the Hub, you guys know that I am not about the fluff. I'm about the meat and the potatoes and getting you. It's actually going to work. So we're going to talk about what's coming in that department in just a minute. I'm going to share with you exactly what's coming this season. I also want to take some time today to get to know each other better, so you can look forward to that. Plus, I do have some really cool things to give away at the end of today's show for. So make sure you're checking the show notes and make sure you hang out till the end because I have some freebies and some goodies that I think you're gonna love. But first, here's what I wanna do to kick off the show and the season with you today, because it's always value first. And I wanna talk about the last year of our life that we spent together. And you know, at the beginning of when the pandemic hit, I can remember repeating and repeating, is this happening to you or is this happening for you? I don't know if you remember day one, when the world shut down and what that felt like. I feel like it brings me back to the time of 9, 11, you know, and everyone knew where they were the day the world stopped turning. And the pandemic really felt the same. And I can remember their feeling the feeling of so much fear in people and how is this going to impact me and my life and my business? And are we going to be able to survive this? And we've never been through something like this before. But. But again, I kept going back to that idea, is this happening to us or is this happening for us? And I kept trying to dig in and find nuggets of opportunity that I could bring back to people. And so now, a year later, looking back and seeing what so many of you were able to build and renew and grow in the last year is so, so inspiring. You know, I think about 2020 is really a hamster wheel. And it was the year that the hamster wheel stopped turning and we all fell off of it, right? We kind of got hit smack dab in the nose when that hamster wheel stopped. And while that felt scary and uncomfortable, what a beautiful season it was for us to slow down and all of a sudden to be forced home with, I won't say nothing to do, because I know there was a lot of us that were trying to figure out homeschooling and keeping our team employed and keeping our business afloat. It certainly wasn't just a slowdown, but it was all of a sudden a new arrangement of priorities in our life where so in focus to us in terms of what was important and what we were able to let go. And suddenly that excuse that we all started to use, you know, the excuse of, well, it's always been done this way, or this is how it's comfortable, or this is how it's worked in the past, those excuses weren't relevant anymore. All of a Sudden, we all had to become scrappy and find new ways of doing things and new ways of connecting. And one of the most beautiful things that came out of that season was the way I saw so many in this industry connect with their customers on an entirely new level, whether that was those of you doing cooking shows at night or wine pairings at night, or maybe it was morning workout routines because no one could go to the gym. Maybe it was tips from those of you that are teachers and boutique owners on how to homeschool your kids and some hacks that you can find online to make your life easier. And you know what else it was? It was those moments of breakdown where you got incredibly real with the moment that you were facing and the emotions that came with it, with the audience that you shared it with. And I know myself had one of those very moments where I came into our Facebook group. I had just been bawling my eyes out because I think I had dropped every bit of profanity. I knew because I was so frustrated with trying to keep up with it all and trying to help the kids figure out online school and, you know, figuring out the PPP and trying to make sure the employees felt comfortable that they weren't going to lose their jobs and plus, keep up with 6,000 business owners and make sure that their futures were secure as well. And that was the best feedback I got, was in that moment of vulnerability that, you know what, We've been there, too, and we hear you. And because of those moments that so many of us shared, relationships grew to a level that we never thought possible inside of 2020. So, yes, there was hurt and there was heartache, and there was fear and there was frustration and there was loss. There was a lot in 2020, but there was so much good that I think is going to shape us moving forward. So as I look forward to the new year coming down the road, here's where I'm at. My motto for the year is slow down to speed up. And this is a motto that those of you that understand the world of rodeo, right? My family rodeos. We have horses. It's been a tradition of ours. It's been a lifestyle of ours since I was a kid. And I always repeat to the kids when they're working with their horses that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Imagine if you had a horse that you were working the barrels on, right? If you're gonna have to Google this, if you don't know rodeo, you're gonna have to Google this, right? That's a Part of being my friend right now is you gotta Google this. So in the barrel racing, if we're gonna work a horse, we're not gonna run every single time. Imagine making a horse run at full speed in the same pattern every single time in order to practice. What we would call it in the industry is you would blow the horse up, right? The horse would become sour. They wouldn't want to go in the arena, they wouldn't want to compete. They would hate their job. Because no one wants to run at full speed all the time. We have to slow down. We've got to elope some circles. We've got to work the kinks out. We've got to figure out how to operate at this pace in order to add some speed and be smooth at the next pace. So that's really where this idea of slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow down to speed up comes from inside of 2021, and I want to invite you to explore what does that mean for you. Here's a couple of key areas that I feel like it really hits home for me in my life. And the first is definitely relationships. When we all face so much fear inside of 2020 of loss, right? What if my family gets the virus? What if I get the virus? What if a kid gets a virus? You know, what if someone I love is taken from me? We all began to refocus on really what was important, and that's the relationships that we carry. So focusing on those relationships inside of a new year, when you're back at your business, what does that look like? Does it mean just being intentional with the time you're spending with family or getting on the phone with family, or taking more video and photo with family? Or maybe it's avoiding the fluff conversations that we often have with family and actually getting to the meat and potatoes of how are you really doing? What do you really think about the year that we're in? How can we really survive this together? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be remembered for? What do you think about mindset? What do you think about health? What do you think about the future and how we can make the most of it together? I also think about relationships with friends, and I'll just let you in on this kind of little thing that we've got going on in our household, which you're going to hear more about this in a couple of weeks. But Eric and I set a new goal for ourselves this year, and that's intentional friendships. When the pandemic happened in the world shut down for us. You know, we found ourselves at our kitchen table going, man, it's just us. Who do we want to share this experience with? And I think, like most people, you kind of found, like, that one couple that was kind of quarantining like you were, that you felt comfortable with, and they found themselves at your kitchen table, and you found yourselves at theirs, and your circle really didn't expand beyond that, you know, during that initial moment of fear. And. And it was during that time that we thought, man, who do we want to spend the rest of our lives with if we grow old and we move to, you know, Arizona or Texas? Who do we want to live with down there? What community do we want to live in? And what company do we want to keep? So we made a list of about 12 friends and couples that we thank the world of that we really want to be mindful of staying in contact with and getting on the phone with and going on vacations with and just being an intentional friend. There is no reason. Reason to have the excuse, I don't have any friends or no one understands me, or I'm in this alone anymore. Because you can choose to make the growth friendships and the lasting friendships that you want to have in your life a major, major priority. So intentional friendships and focusing on relationships definitely number one, slowing down to speed up. Number two is in health and wellness. I mean, after all, we are in a global pandemic. So I figure what better time than now to focus on taking care of ourselves, Whether that's getting more sleep or getting back to working out. You guys, quarantine is not an excuse to not work out, like, whether or not you're comfortable going to the gym. I guess the point is we still have to take care of ourselves somehow, right? So what are you doing at home to hold yourself accountable, to becoming stronger in health than how you entered this year? All right, tip number three. An area of focus number three is really mindset. And I know you've heard this. I know I've heard this. But so many experts are warning that we are facing a mental health crisis, not just in our country, but in our world today. The fear that we have been exposed to is such a cancer to our minds. And so what are we going to do to move forward, working on our mindset in a way that is opening the doors of opportunity for us? Is it creating new daily routines? Is it books? Is it just seeking help, finding an expert that you can talk to and really exploring why we do some of the things that we do. One of the best investments I've made so far this year is in a new coach that I'm working with that has really helped me explore. I'll just give you an example. I'll tell you. I'm an enneagram 3. The 3 is an overachiever. My enneagram 3 feels like she has to run at the next goal, full tilt 24 7. And I feel like I'm not worth anything until I achieve that next thing. Which is bs, right? I know it's bs. You know it's BS if you're three. You're like, I feel this to my core. So I hired this coach and the first question I asked her was, I'm a three. I struggle with worthiness and connect worthiness to achievement. How can I fix this? And she's like, great, let's, let's dig in and let's see. And we started to really go deep into what my thought patterns are and why I believe the things I believe and why I'm attracted to the achievements I'm attracted to. And how can I really up my self worth in other areas and heal the unhealthy relationship that I have with achievement so I can find peace no matter what moment I'm in and be happy and find joy no matter what moment I'm in. Whatever that means for you, I just explore and I invite you to find someone who can help you, that can be a sounding board, that can be a resource for you. But your mental health matters and your mindset is the key to whatever it is you want to do in your business and in the next year. All right, piece number four. Systems slowing down to speed up for me in a huge way means building systems, building processes. These are the super unsexy things that nobody talks about on social media. When you think about growing your business, you think about, I'm gonna go to market, I'm gonna build all these pretty things. I'm gonna be on TikTok. You know, it's the photography, it's a fashion, it's the people, it's the clothes. But rarely do we slow down and go, you know what? It's the sops that I created last week. It's the systems, it's the processes, it's the onboarding, it's the handbooks, it's the operations manuals. Oh, don't you just get excited thinking about it? Slowing down? Speed up means putting systems in place. So these things are out of your mind, off of your shoulders and into a process that someone else can manage outside of you. This is you truly becoming a CEO and not an entrepreneur. All right, next tip number five is building your brand in the most authentic way possible. As I mentioned, I think one of the most beautiful things that came out of the last year was the opportunity to just get real and authentic and build these really cool relationships with our customers. Things that big box stores could never dream of doing. And that's why the shop small movement is what it is right now. Because people all of a sudden truly understand shopping small is not a tagline. It's a way of life. It's not one Saturday in November. It's every freaking day of the year. And why it happened to be that way is because so many of you got on Facebook Live, you got on Instagram Live, you got in your Insta stories and you shared no holds bar, real deal. This is what it's like to be a business owner and this is who I am. And when you did that, your customers started to see themselves in you and they were like, dang, I like her. I want to shop with her. I want to spend more time with her. She inspires me, she motivates me, she makes me laugh. She teaches me about fashion. She helps me feel confident, beautiful, real, okay? To be myself. All the things that we are meant to do beyond selling widgets and clothes. So build your authentic brand. Tip number six, Unique fashion is back. You know, whether it was a supply chain issue or just the fact that we all lived in tie dye jogger sets in 2020, we're all sick of it and we're ready to bring fashion back. So while everyone really did start to look just like the next boutique down the street in the last year, kind of out of necessity and demand, what I look for inside of the new year is the unique pieces of fashion coming back. We're sick of wearing sneakers 24 7, although it's still going to become a staple of the year. But we're ready to bring back some heels and wedges and booties and denim, right? We're ready to bring back some cute tops and some flowy dresses and start to dress up and wear makeup again when we didn't always have to in the last year of our life. And finally the last, the seventh area that I think we can slow down to speed up is our relationship with our numbers. There's always an excuse when it comes to not knowing your numbers, isn't there? I'm too busy. I don't understand it. I don't have time to dig into it. I don't know those reports mean. So I'm just going to come back another day and shut it and pretend like I never saw it in the first place. But now is the time in order to slow down, to speed up. It means becoming a retail scientist and choosing just like you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, choosing one number, one metric, one report at a time. So to really dig into and let it speak to you, you know, when we dig into our sales data and we go, okay, what vendor turned for us or you know, what sizes are really selling through or who's our top customers or what's getting wait listed or what are people searching for and they're not finding, Every time we dig into one of those reports or metrics, it tells us a story and it leads us on a journey of, okay, what if I optimized in the next month? And because, you know, this certain vendor, certain category did so well, I'm going to lean deeper and wider in that direction and I'm going to eliminate some of the fluff over here that's really growing old on my floor or growing old in my warehouse. And we just started with one metric to really iterate on and grow from. Imagine the retail scientist. You could become one metric at a time. So be comfortable slowing down, which is going to help you speed up in the long run. Guys, as we think about the next season of life that we're going to spend together on the podcast, I want to give you a couple more things to look forward to. You know, those seven keys I think are going to be so critical to all of us in the next year. But I want to make sure that we are also having some fun besides delivering that value to each and every week on the podcast. So three big things I want you to look forward to on the podcast this year. First, I love people and I love telling their story, but I also love the meat and potatoes. So my promise to you is to get to the guts, right? Some shows get a little long and some stories get a little rambly, but I promise with some new formatting that I'm bringing this season, I want to get you guys the things that matter the most first. And I want to get you on an even playing field so you know who the guests are, where they're coming from. And you know, I heard this feedback a lot. You guys said an awful lot. Boy, I want to hear from more types of stores. Maybe not just apparel, maybe not just super successful boutiques, but even brand new boutiques. I want the shows to be a little bit shorter, but I want more juicy details from these diverse, different types of stores. So whether it's someone new or it's someone that's super experienced, I want to bring you back to some of the key metrics that I think all of us are going to have in common that you're going to be able to learn from and grow from in every single episode. Episode. So from newbies to experts, that's piece number two. Inside of the industry to outside of the industry, wholesale and retail, we're going to cover a wide variety of topics. And then piece number three, we're going to cover again, the shows may be a little bit shorter, but look for some more quick tips from whether it's our guests or my own solo episodes or even digging deeper with our team. If you haven't had the opportunity to meet some of our team at the Boutique Hub yet, man, it's like I Got Steel Team 6 over here in the retail industry that is absolutely filled with butt kickers that have so much knowledge and that their number one goal is to see you guys succeed. So look for them to be on the show more often. All right, here's my next promise for you is I just want to take it all beyond the show. Can we agree to do that in season number three? I want to first ask you this. Please subscribe and leave a review wherever you're at. Spotify, itunes, wherever you're getting your podcast, please hit the subscribe button and leave us a review. Your feedback matters. And we've also got a little bit of a giveaway happening today to kick off this season with you. We're giving away a free annual membership to the Boutique Hub. So whether you're new to the Hub or you're an existing member and we refund your membership, we're giving away a free membership. So make sure you subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back in a week to announce a winner. But second, I want to invite you to take this off the show with me onto the gram, if we aren't already friends on Instagram. That's where I ask for feedback and I talk about the show and I go a little bit deeper with some of the guests and run some giveaways with some of the guests that we're going to have this season. So be there or be a square. It is a. J. Alderson on Instagram, AJ Alderson. Make sure you come hang out with me on the grammar. And my third ask for you after the show is I know a lot of you want to get to know the guests on the show and get to ask them your own personal questions. So we've got some cool plans coming. We have an after the show feature that we cannot wait to launch with you that's going to be living both on our Instagram lives and also on Clubhouse. If you guys are on Clubhouse and you're loving it, we're going to bring you some after the show features where you get to do some Q and A with some of the awesome guests that we've had on the podcast this season and some of our favorites from past seasons as well. And finally, I want to take it off the show by offering you this. I know some of you are new here, maybe you've listened to a couple of episodes and maybe you're still deciding if you want to continue to listen to some episodes. I mean, no judgment, but I'm super grateful you're here and I would love to get to know you better, but maybe you want to get to know me better too. So in case we haven't met yet, I want to give you a little bit of backstory as to how we got here in the first place. So my name is Ashley, of course, Alderson. I'm the founder at the Boutique Hub, and if you're not a member, it's the boutiquehub.com it's a place where our industry connects boutique owners, wholesale brands, industry experts for every single tool you could possibly need to grow your business, every resource, every wholesale opportunity, cost savings, expert training, supportive daily community, inventory exchange, all the things are together on the boutiquehub.com but I'm going to tell you, just like any business, it doesn't always start out the way that you had planned it. You know, Today the Boutique Hub has grown into quite a community and quite a place, which I'm super thankful for and I'm grateful to have you guys in there with me. But I just want to be real with you that no matter where you're at in business today, I just want you to be grounded in the sense that there's so much more opportunity for you out there. And if business isn't what you want it to be today, I want you to be okay with that, too. Because the Hub did not start out with the thing that it is right now. I'll say the backstory is this. I'm originally from North Dakota. It's a fashion mecca, in case you didn't know that, I teased. But actually, I'm from A super small town in North Dakota. About 1600 people, no stoplights, no fast food, no Walmart. It was about three hours of a drive to get anywhere with a mall. And from that small town experience. I grew up on a ranch and I've always loved fashion, just always naturally loved it. But boutiques just were never a thing in North Dakota when I grew up. Starting at the age of 14, I worked in this super cute little flower shop, coffee shop, it was called the Flower Nook. And actually, fun fact, I drove a little station wagon delivering flowers. It was purple and it was called the nookie wagon. I don't think they knew what nookie wagon meant at the time or that a 14 year old drive again maybe was super inappropriate. But I mean, I leaned into it hard and no, my God, the puns that are coming right now to my mind, I am so sorry. Guard your ears. It was quite a learning experience, but it made me fall in love with unique little gifts and trinkets and what really is becoming a boutique today. But also it made me fall in love with small business and the strategy and the opportunity in just retail in general. So fast forward, I went to college and really dug deep into small business, into marketing and into pr, and then landed a job back in my community for about seven or eight years. I was there in economic development. Now this was the heart of the oil boom back in those days.