#713: What You Never Knew About 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 I can't wait to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. It's you and me this week and I don't know about you, but I thought it would be fun to take a little walk down memory lane together and show you guys a point of view of the Boutique Hub that I don't think you've probably seen before. At least not here on the podcast. And that is, I want to take you behind the scenes of what it's been like to build the Boutique Summit. So many of you are familiar with the Boutique Summit. This is our industry's largest and oldest business business conference. It is the biggest time of the year for our industry. No matter what you sell, apparel, home and gift, kids stores, toys stores, kite stores. We've had so many different types of retailers join us at the Boutique Summit and it's the one time of year that our industry gets together. We learn from the best in the business, industry experts both inside and outside our industry, some of the top retailers in our industry, and we kind of get the lay of the land of what's working and what's not and where do we go from here. And over the years, I tell you what, this was a big dream for me many years ago. I've always wanted to create a business conference for the boutique industry ever since the beginning of the Hub, all the way back to 2013. This was an idea that had always kind of been there. And I've got to take you through the highs and the lows of the Boutique Summit. What worked and what didn't. And from a financial and business standpoint, what worked and what didn't, what you could learn and take away for your own business. But also some of my favorite moments. And those of you who have been to the Summit before, you'll probably remember a lot of these moments. So I want to kind of give you a tour of those and then also at the end, kind of take a look forward at what's to come this year during the Boutique Summit and how we're switching things up. What's new, what's exciting and what's fresh this year? So going back all the way to the beginning, you guys, to give you a bit of the origin story. This is so funny. I always had this idea, like I mentioned, to do the conference, and I was just desperate for some market to kind of take me up on the offer. And I randomly, I don't even know how I got in touch with her. My friend Amy Harper at Dallas Market Center, I think I found her on their website or their directory. And I just started calling. I just started calling until I got ahold of Amy and I pitched her this idea way back in. It was probably late 2016. And I said, hey, I am looking for a place to host a conference for boutique owners, and I'm just wondering if you would host us. Like, do you have space there? Could I bring you people? And Amy was kind of like, okay, you know, who's this girl? What is the Boutique Hub? I've never heard of this before. And she kind of jokingly asked me, she was like, well, how many people do you think would come? Like, how many people do you think you'd bring to the building? And I was like, I don't know, you know, probably 300. And she was shocked. And she was like, are you kidding me? You know, any market would be thrilled to bring 10 new retailers, let alone 300. And so she was like, okay, sure, I'll take a chance on this. And she worked with me. You know, she never belittled my idea. She was always very supportive and very helpful. She found us a space that actually now. Oh, gosh, what was it? It was on the 10th floor and now it's all showrooms. They've like rebuilt over this entire space. It's not even there anymore. But it was kind of a corner of the building. And she found me this space and we checked it out. And I tell you what, I had never hosted an event like this. I didn't know anything about putting on business conferences, but I thought, well, I'll figure it out, right? What can there really be that we need? And luckily, you know, they've got their main man Mike in the building that does av and he helped me get the microphone set up. And my friend Jansen was just building denim and velvet at the time. And she was like, I'll help build you a stage backdrop. And we literally only had two part time employees at the Hub. It was myself and then Beth, who's still with us today, was just working part time, newly working part time for us, and Jesse Jarvis was working part time for Us as well. So we put this whole idea together. We launched tickets. I don't even remember how we sold them. Like, what was the mechanism we sold them with? And we sold out within 48 hours. 300 tickets. And we're blown away. We were like, oh, okay. People really want to get together in person. You know, this community, the boutique up was so new. And so we put all of this together and decide we're coming to Dallas when we get there. This is the craziest story that I don't think you've ever heard is we get there and we have a host hotel. And I won't tell you what Dallas hotel it is because many of you probably stay there. It's one of the smaller ones. It's not Renaissance or Anatole. But we get there, and Beth and Jesse and I are putting all the finishing touches together. We're probably there a week ahead of time because again, we've never done this before. We don't know what to expect. We're literally stuffing the swag bags. We're literally taking the registration, closing the doors, and then running around the back, coming inside and high fiving people on the way in. And then I, like, grab a microphone and I emcee the entire thing. And I do, like, three speeches. And I mean, it was like a whole thing. We did everything ourselves. But in coming in before the summit started, we were working in this little room at the hotel, like a little conference room. And the hotel at the time was going through construction. They were redoing all of their elevator shafts. And we're sitting there, we're working, and all of a sudden, I think it was Beth first who was like, you guys, I don't feel very good. I have a headache. Like, are you okay? And we're like, yeah, yeah, we're okay. And pretty soon Jesse's like, guys, I don't feel good. I have a headache, too. Beth, what is going on? Like, we better. We better get out of here. Like, let's go for a walk or whatever. And I'm like, okay. And all of a sudden, as we go to leave, I'm feeling nauseous and I'm getting a headache. And I'm like, man, me too. And we all go up to our room, we go through the elevator, go up to our room. We lay there. The room is, like, spinning. And we had decided we were going to meet some friends in Fort Worth for dinner. And so we get in an Uber and we're still all feeling nauseous and woozy. And the Room's spinning. And so we're all calling, like, our aunts, who are nurses, and that's calling her mom. And we're talking to different people on the phone and telling them our symptoms. And everyone's like, guys, I think you have carbon monoxide poisoning. And the Uber driver is listening to this whole story, and he's like, do you guys want me to take you to the er? And we're like, yeah, we should probably go to the er so we're in Fort Worth first. He takes us to an urgent care, and we walk in and we tell him our symptoms. And they're like, guys, no, you have to go right to the Fort Worth er. We do not deal with carbon monoxide poisoning here. And so we have to get another Uber. And we Uber from that urgent care down to the main hospital in Fort Worth to the er, and there's, like, gunshot wounds coming in and, like, all this crazy stuff. And here's these three girls, and we all, like, share a room together. And the doctor comes in and asks us all about our symptoms. And then he, like, individually pulls us into the hallway and asks us all if we're pregnant, and then comes back and says, yeah, you have carbon monoxide poisoning. But it's now been, like, an hour and a half, and there's nothing we can do about it. Like, you're fine. But the tipping point was this. He said, do you guys want a note for your employer so you don't have to work tomorrow? And we all bust out laughing because we're like, dude, there's 300 women flying in here tomorrow to go to this conference we're putting on, and we got work to do. Like, we better get back to it. So we go back to the hotel, tell the hotel what had happened, confirm, like, yes, we went to the er. There's carbon monoxide in the building. They end up calling the fire department. They come in, and they, like, detect the whole building, make sure the building's safe. And then, of course, everyone flies in the next day, and we host this conference. We didn't say a word because we knew the building, like, had been checked and it was safe. But we didn't want to scare anybody, so we just, like, gutted it out. And I don't think it was, like, maybe for a year or two years that we then finally started to tell people about this. So it was so crazy. It was such an insane way to launch our very first boutique summit. But so many of you came, and so many of you still come to this day. After that very first summit. So it's amazing to see the friendships and relationships that were built at that one. In fact, at that very first Boutique Summit, I'm still going to go down all the memory lanes here for you guys. But Brandon with comments Sold was there. And Brandon, at that time, it wasn't really even comments sold. He was there with Discount Divas. He was there with Amanda, and he had just built the framework of what Comet Sold was going to be. That's when he met Mindy. And Mindy is going to be speaking from Mindy's Boutique this year at the Boutique Summit. And gosh, who? Kelsey Darby and Liz Ross. And gosh, so many amazing retailers. We also, I think, went and had a private event at Buddy Love that year. We just had all these fun things going on, and so many of the people who are still a part of the boutique hub today. So that was year number one. That was Dallas in 2017. We came back to Dallas in 2018, and to our surprise, we were like, okay, we better increase the seats. Let's bump it up to 500 people. And that was the max. Like, we could not fit any more people in that corner space in Dallas Market Center. And we opened tickets, and for 500 people, they sold out in 24 hours. It was wild. In 24 hours, 500 tickets were gone. And everyone was so excited to get there and to meet each other in person. And we had some pretty awesome speakers that year. We had Natalie Ellis, the founder of Boss Babe, who was brand new. Her and I had met at a business conference the year before, and she came and spoke. And her taking over Boss Babe was still pretty new at that time. Meredith from Makeup Junkie Bags spoke. That was right around the Shark Tank time. And it was just, again, insane to build those great relationships and see the growth of that event. And then in 2019, we took a chance and we moved to Atlanta. And Atlanta was so gracious. We'd always had the idea, like, we wanted to move it around the country. And so Atlanta was like, hey, hands up. We want to host you. So we went to Atlanta in 2019. This, I think to this date was probably one of our largest ever summits. I think we had 800 people at that event. And one of the most memorable speakers. I know many of you still have this. Tell me. You got to, like, message me on Instagram if you still have your cockroach. If you came to Atlanta in 2019, Diana from the Red dress spoke and she handed everybody a cockroach, and she told the story about how cockroaches never die. And she walked through all the highs and the lows of business and building this great big brand that she had and talked about just how resilient you have to be in this business and how everyone can do it just like she did. And I know that resonated with so many people, and so many people hold onto that little rubber cockroach that she gave out. We also had Mike Michalowicz that year, who was the author, who is the author of Profit First. And we had Ashley Lemieux, who is a huge influencer. And then one of my personal favorite speakers ever was Justin Prince. I love Justin Prince. And he's built some incredible things in the multi level marketing industry. He's incredibly resilient. He's gone through a lot of adversity in his life. And he's also a best selling author. And so he was very motivating and inspiring. Now, the craziest part about Atlanta was this. I will never forget. It was during the opening, like day one session, we had a panel on stage and it was the girls from Glamour Farms. Oh my gosh, Mindy Switzer was on that panel. Who else was on that panel? There was a couple more. Holly McClanahan, I think was on that panel. Just some amazing retailers, big boutique owners on that panel. And the fire alarm went off. And I've never had that happen since, knock on wood. But the fire alarm went off like through that whole panel again, first session of the day. And so we had to like scatter around to figure out what the building was gonna do. Finally the fire alarms went off and we didn't have to evacuate. We could keep going on. But it was really crazy. And the key takeaway for us was, you know, no matter what you're doing, sometimes the bigger you get, the bigger the problems. But you just gotta keep going. You just gotta keep going. That was also the first year, I think about this in terms of hosting events and lessons I've learned along the way in hosting events. And that is that food is expensive. You know, we'd always, in the years past, you know, had box lunches or like we provided some kind of food, whatever. We got to Atlanta and we hosted the Boutique Awards and in like a big gala, everyone wore fancy prom dresses. We had this big plated meal and there was 800 people. And I'll never forget looking around the room knowing that that meal alone cost about $120,000. And I remember looking around the room going, whoa, what does it look like to spend 120,000 bucks in a under an hour with really, like, it's food. You don't have anything to show for it. Like, you want the experience and the ambiance and the vibe and all the things, but you're like, man, it's food. And so we really had to rethink from a financial standpoint because it's great to sell all those tickets, but the expenses for that many people are just so much higher that we had to rethink how to operate the back end of the Boutique Summit to make it make more sense in 2020. I will say this was another huge financial lesson for us. You know, 2020 was a crazy year all around and we'd already sold out for going back to Atlanta. We were going to have the biggest event. I think we were at 900 is what we were going to welcome. And then the world shut down. And so we had to make the hard decision in 2020 to cancel the event. Many of our expenses were deposits and they were non refundable because of the world. Some of our speaker deposits, unfortunately, some people took those and ran with them. And that also hit a refund. The ticket sales of the largest event we were ever going to have. And it was brutal. And so it took us financially a minute to figure out how to make that work and cash flow. But it came back. We hosted a virtual event instead. And the excitement behind the virtual event was unbelievable. Our community showed up, our speaker showed up. Everyone was so hungry not only to learn for themselves, but to support and share what's working. Because the whole world was hurting so much that we all were like, okay, let's all put our heads together, what's working for you and what's working for you and let's share that with everybody. And that was a huge takeaway and the virtual event was amazing that year. Hey, can we meet up in person? It is one of my favorite things to do here at the Boutique Hub, to get to meet you face to face, to hear your personal business story and your journey and what you're working on. But also to put you in contact with and to build friendships with some of the most amazing business owners from around the world. Boutique owners, wholesale brands, industry service providers and experts. All of us together in one room. And that's what we do at our annual Boutique Summit event this year. I would love for you to come to Dallas, Texas, of course, on June 8th and 9th for our annual Boutique Summit. Our theme this year is the summit and your business completely reimagined and I think it's time for that theme to take effect. Right. We have been through some crazy highs and lows in this industry and I think going into 2025 we are all ready to reimagine what's possible in this industry and in your business personally. So get ready for detailed hands on workshops. Not just you listening to speakers, but you actually getting things done. Pulling out your Facebook ads account and building some ads together or planning out an entire quarter of content, maybe doing some social media audits with some of our most well listened to experts in the room, along with fellow boutique owners. It's time to dig deeper into your business and that's what we're going to do together at the Boutique Summit in Dallas, Texas June 8th and 9th. I hope to see you there. It is our biggest and best and favorite event of the year. And it's time to take your business to the next level. Let's do it together. Back in 2021, we went back to Atlanta. One of my very favorite speakers of all time was there. And that's Ezra Firestone. If you do not follow Ezra Firestone, he's one of the most brilliant minds in E commerce. He's absolutely incredible. He has a number of brands I nerded out on a very large scale listening to him. Also my personal mentor at the time, Bo Eason was a speaker. He is a huge speaker in terms of storytelling, being able to storytell and use that on video. And gosh, we just, we had some incredible experiences there. If you guys were there, maybe you remember the money bathtub we had? We had a bathtub filled with dollar bills and a cash machine. It wasn't, they weren't real dollar bills, they were fake. But we had money guns, like where you would sit in the bathtub and like shoot this money gun. And it was so fun. And I just remember like those are some of my favorite like photos and videos and things that came from that event. And my takeaway from that event was coming out of the pandemic. Of course people were concerned about what it was going to be like in Atlanta and Atlanta changed a lot starting in 2021. But our community craves community. And that was so clear in Atlanta. We were all so happy to see one another and to catch up and to see what life was like on the other side of the pandemic together. And you guys showed up in a major way in Atlanta and that was, that was just an incredible experience for all of us. Fast forward to 2022. That was another like Life lesson for us, running an event. We went back to Dallas in 2022, and I was so excited to welcome back Jesse Itzler, because Jesse Itzler, we had booked to speak for us in 2020 when we had to cancel the event. And if you don't follow Jesse Itzler, he is the husband of Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. Jesse, in his own right, is an incredible entrepreneur. He's had a private jet company. He's had Zico Water, which is a coconut water company. He is part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. And he's just in all kinds of. He's at a running business now. He's super into health and wellness. And this was such a crazy experience. So Jesse was supposed to speak the closing speaker of day two, and the morning of day one, we get a phone call and Jesse's father had passed away. And so he had to cancel. And so we had under 24 hours to find a new speaker. And I'm telling you what, you guys, that was so crazy because booking a big name keynote speaker is wildly expensive. Again, I'm talking like 50 grand, if you can believe that, to book somebody like that. And so we were like, okay, call everyone, you know, find out if they know a celebrity, anyone in the business space. We had tried to hire Shaq that year because he was like doing these crazy, like, investments and shoe deals, whatever. We tried Magic Johnson. We tried just a number of big name public speakers and couldn't quite find anyone. And then a friend of ours recommended Marcus Luttrell. And if you don't know Marcus Luttrell's story, maybe you've watched the Mark Wahlberg movie the Lone Survivor. And the Lone Survivor is the true story of Marcus Luttrell and his. His troop of Marines in Afghanistan and how he survived and was hidden by. They went under attack. He basically broke all these bones in his body, rolled down this hill, was taken in by a family in Afghanistan who hid him from the enemy. And he stayed there until he was well enough to escape, basically. It's an incredible story, just very patriotic. An incredible Marine had such an uplifting message. And I had the opportunity to introduce and to interview Marcus Luttrell. And I'll never forget, it was so hard to know how to deliver this news because everyone was so excited for Jesse Itzler. And I came out on stage and shared that Marcus or that Jesse was no longer able to make it, which I know was a disappointment. I was so excited. But then when I introduced him, Marcus Luttrell was Going to speak, you could definitely see in the audience who was from a military family and then who maybe had no idea who he was, and it was split. But those who came from a military family, I get chills thinking about it because they instantly were on their feet. They instantly. Some of them were taking pictures to send to their husbands. Some of them were crying. Some of them were, like, screaming. The people who knew the gravity of what Marcus had gone through and what it meant to the United States was really incredible. And so he came out on stage, and again, we did this interview, and he spoke a lot about, you know, when we would say things like, thank you for your service, and he would just say, no, thank you for sending me. It's the biggest honor of my life to serve my country. And, I don't know, just his leadership. And he had a lot of messages about how to raise young men and the importance of discipline for young men and what happens to an untrained mind and what he saw in our enemies at that time. So it was very motivational, very exciting. But, man, you know, again, from a backend standpoint, you guys probably had no idea what was all going on, but it was kind of like a pivot as fast as you can to make things happen and try to find someone who is still incredible and motivating, just like Marcus was. In 2023, we welcomed Jenna Kutcher to the Boutique Summit in Dallas. Jenna was a huge hit. We had so many people love getting to hear from Jenna. We talked a ton about Pinterest and Instagram and business strategy, and Jenna was so awesome. And this was also the year in 2023. If you were there, you might remember after lunch, one of the days these two jokers showed up on stage, and they were wearing jeans and black turtlenecks with nerdy glasses on. And most of you had no idea who we were, but it was myself and Jeff. Ben. Again, you had no idea it was even me because I looked like a dude. But we showed up dressed as Steve Jobs. Like, you know when Apple does a rollout and Steve Jobs comes out and, like, does this whole product rollout? Well, we did it because we were launching Boutique of Black. It was the very first concept. We had nobody inside of Boutique of Black yet. Jeff and I had built it and talked about what we wanted it to do and how we wanted it to serve people. It still was a little different than how Boutique of Black operates today, but we rolled that out. And it was hilarious to see those of you who are so confused and then Those of you who were so excited, and there was a little bit of both. So it was a fun memory for us for sure. And then finally last year, going back to memory lane, we had an incredible, incredible session with Lynne Graft and Dominique Broadway and John Acuff, who I love John Acuff. And it was just a very good event. We had so many positive things. I think probably our best run event we ever had, probably the most positive feedback we ever had. The most people coming to us say, I will never miss a Boutique Summit after last year's event. So it was so positive all the way around. Something you did not know about last year's Boutique Summit and this was an operational whoops. I know I'm talking about money a lot on the operations side, but just to give you a scope of what it takes to put on an event like that. Our stage last year was the most beautiful stage we ever had. Beautiful. And there was this huge section of the stage that was filled with feather boas. And somehow there was miscommunication in what the feather boas were going to cost and we were given a quote. But when we received the bill, we had $8,000 worth of feather boas on the stage. Eight grand. And so I remember Eric and I like, kind of like throwing up on our coffee. Like What? We spent $8,000 on feather boas? That was crazy. So look for a more economical experience this year at the Boutique Summit, but nevertheless a very impactful experience. So this year we are rolling out the Boutique Summit reimagined, where we are updating and rethinking and reimagining how, how we deliver content. You're gonna find the room layout is gonna be totally different. You're gonna find that the workshop layout is totally different. We are doing not just breakout sessions where speakers talk to you, but we are doing hands on training workshops where for two hours or an hour and a half at a crack, you're in a room with your computer actually doing the work so that you aren't leaving with a massive to do list. You're leaving with a massive to done list. So some of our speakers this year, of course, myself, Jeff Benn, Sarah Burks from our team, Samantha Connor. But I am so excited for two amazing speakers, one being Laura Benson. Laura Benson spoke at the very first Boutique Summit. She built a massive empire with Philly flair. And now if you follow Laura, she stepped away, she sold the business and is building another business. And she is the greatest example of running a business with grace, humility. Her personal Faith and conviction and wanting to be a wife and a mother all at the same time. And so her story, I know, is going to be so captivating and inspiring. And I'm also so honored that we are going to have one of my very best friends on this planet, Jesse Jarvis, my very first employee who is going to be with us speaking about building a highly engaged online audience. Jessie built an influencing career before she had started with the Hub and throughout her time at the Hub, which led to her founding an amazing company called of the west, which is a jobs platform for the agriculture and western industry and her savvy with digital marketing. Building an online brand, building an influencing brand is incredible. And she's going to be able to share all of that knowledge with you. I am also excited several of our Mastermind members are going to be on the stage to speak, including Mishko, Gretchen Hilly from Rolling Ranch, Crystal from Festivities, and Envy Styles Ashley Donnell, who's an amazing member of our community. And then of course, something I can't wait for is our brand new MC and year, who you may already know, and that's my friend Kelly Helfman, who was the president of Magic, recently retired from that position and she's going to be back with us in in the flesh. So if you don't already have a ticket, you guys, of course I'm going to invite you come to Dallas. I would love to see you there, of course, June 8th and 9th for our boutique Summit experience. And my hope for you genuinely is this. This has been the biggest blessing for us to get to put this event together. I can't tell you how much I have learned, how much we have grown personally from this event just in experience and understanding and learning strategies. And I guarantee every time I come to the Boutique Summit and I listen to other speakers, I take away pages and pages of notes. There's something about being an in person experience, being immersed with other people who are having the same high energy level you are about your business, eager to learn. And then the opportunities that you find at breakfast and at coffee breaks and at lunch and at the after party. We're having a disco ball after party where you come dressed up in your shiniest sequence. Those experiences to make lifelong friends and to discover different ways of running your business. And all, of course the strategies, the massive trade show that we host inside of the Boutique Summit building are all huge opportunities. So if you haven't snagged a ticket, tickets will be closing very soon. It will be our last chance to grab an in person ticket so grab one of those. Or if you can't make it this year in person, of course we do have digital tickets as well. So I hope you love this little behind the scenes rendezvous with me from all of the Boutique Summits of the past. And I genuinely hope I get to see you in person this year at the Boutique Summit. Thanks for listening you guys. Let me know, tell me your Boutique Summit history, your favorite moments. Shoot me a message over on Instagram @aj Alderson. 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.