#822: The Future of Live Selling: AI, Automation & Smarter Boutique Systems

Welcome to the Boutique Chat Podcast, where we're gonna help you build a profitable, sustainable business without you having to sacrifice your profitability, your family, or your sanity. Each week we're gonna dive into real conversations with retailers who have been exactly where you are and industry experts so you can learn and know exactly what to do next, all in community over competition. Whether you're just getting started or you're growing past an 8-figure business, you're in the right spot. So let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. This week I am so excited. Sierra, welcome back to the podcast.

Hi, thanks for having me back.

Oh my gosh, we have so much to talk about, but before we do, we just have to have a moment because I know that everyone who's listening— not everyone, but so many people who are listening, um, are just really balancing that stage of life where you're trying to run your business, do your job, manage, you know, family and all the chaos of kids' activities. And so as you and I were trying to schedule this podcast, we both were like, wait, tennis match, wait, graduation, wait, award ceremony, wait, oh my gosh, when do we have time to do this? It's so crazy. So I'm so glad that we put it together and we're able to be here today 'cause it's on brand for what we're gonna talk about.

I agree, yes. Thank you so much for having me. And, you know, always appreciate the flexibility with all of our crazy schedules while we're trying to Do everything for everyone is kind of what it feels like, right? It does.

It does. And it's funny because I think in years past, I'll just say, and I'm curious what you think about this, I think the tone of social media and what we talk about when it comes to trying to do it all has really shifted. You know, when I started in business, which is the same time you came on board with Comment Sold roughly, it was kind of this like you painted this picture of perfection. Like, of course I can do it all. And now I feel like people are so much more honest about, okay, listen, it's really freaking hard to do it all. I'm tired. I'm trying to balance all the things and it's not working, so something's got to give. Now how do I move forward? Would you agree with that? Absolutely.

I do think that that's something that, um, you know, even as a business owner myself pre-Common Sold, you know, we had to make it— we had— we were supposed to make it look easy, right? We're supposed to make it look fun and, "Oh, we're just going to market and we're buying cute stuff and we're having a photo shoot and my hair looks great." And I think there's definitely been a huge shift from that environment and that being something that the customer is drawn to, to a customer being drawn to the person and your real life and the, "Hey guys, I'm actually live but I didn't have time to put my makeup on today, so what you see is what you get." We see that a lot these days with live sellers being a lot more real and I think that's the Boutique Hunter industry in general. And just, I think social media in general.

I love it. I think it's such an opportunity, right? Because people want to do business with people at the end of the day, and that's what makes boutiques so great is because they have an opportunity to really be authentic and humanize the brand where big box stores can't do that. It's really hard for a big box store to feel authentic at all.

Absolutely. You would think it would be kind of odd, right, if Old Navy had a kid screaming in the background of their latest commercial. But first, but you know, we're lucky enough that in the boutique industry and like independent retail in general, no one even bats an eyelash at, you know, your dog playing in the background of something or, you know, you have to bring your kid with you to work. And so I do think that we're uniquely positioned to be relatable and be real, which has really said something about the rise of like influencer marketing in general. Like people are buying from people They're not buying from big corporations anymore. Um, you know, I'm not being influenced by the magazine ads that come out in the newspaper. I'm being influenced by the girl on TikTok who, you know, has the same body shape and the body style as me.

That's exactly right. Well, that's exactly why video, I think, has always been— I mean, not has always been, but has become just the number one source of building that relatability, building the trust, building community. Um, and so that's why I love our relationship with Comments Sold so much. I mean, pre-TikTok, pre-short-form video, all the way back to the origin story of, of just going live, because nothing humanizes your brand more than live video. So if anyone's listening, um, this is me like nudging you. If you're not going live, if you're not using video, if you're intimidated by putting yourself out there, like, Today's your day to say, you know what, I'm gonna change that. I'm gonna give this a go because it is to me the most important thing we could be doing in terms of content right now. So tell me, you know, like all the way back to the beginning, if, if someone's not familiar, um, tell me about the origin of CommentSold.

Yeah, absolutely. We were a brand built on boutique burnout, like to be completely transparent. Uh, so, uh, CommentSold was actually founded by the, at the time, boyfriend of a small business owner, now very large business owner, but small business owner at the time, who was working a full-time job, which I feel like a lot of us when we were first starting out fully relate to. She was an ER nurse, and in her free time that she had, her side hustle was selling boutique clothing on through Facebook. And so her, you know, little community grew and grew and grew, and everybody loved you know, the offering that she had and the price point that she sold it at. And I remember I was, you know, around in the early days and would literally go pick up my package from my sweet friend Amanda at Starbucks across the street from the hospital when she got out of work every day. And, you know, so as her business grew, she was manually invoicing on PayPal. And there are probably people listening to this podcast right now who still do that, who still send manual invoices for things. And because she had grown so much, she was, you know, working 10-hour days after she would get off work at the hospital sending PayPal invoices. And thankfully for all of us here and everyone out there listening, her boyfriend happened to be a genius— now husband and father of their two kids— but happened to be a genius and was like, you know what, I think I can actually just like automate all of that for you so that you don't have to do any of that work. So that's really how CommentSold got its start, was automating the invoicing from someone commenting the word sold. Very, you know, obviously well-thought-out brand name, but it's It's catchy. Commenting the word sold on a Facebook post in a Facebook group. And so we were truly built on solving for how do you make more money with less time investment? And we've kind of kept that as one of our guiding light pillars throughout the last 7.5, 8 years, is because our goal is for boutique owners, side hustle boutique owners, full-time boutique owners, it doesn't matter, to be able to spend less time on the monotonous things in their business and more time selling or more time with their family.

It's so true. I love that. And shout out back to the origin story. Um, all of this, I feel like I got a front row seat to right inside of the Boutique Hub. I mean, at the very first Boutique Summit, I can remember Brandon standing up and being like, hi, I'm the guy who's building the solution to everyone's problem. And the whole room was just like, boof, like, who is this person? I need to talk to him right now. Uh, because everyone was really, I mean, staying up, going live and then staying up for hours and hours. Manually invoicing people. Um, so what a breath of fresh air for our entire industry and a gift that we all got to witness. And the same is true today. I mean, I know you guys are going through so many changes, adding so many new features, because it's still about solving the problem and saving time.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's the thing that makes us tick, is like, how do we make boutique life easier for people? And so, you know, every feature that we release, every, you know, time investment that we make into providing something new all goes back to how do I make the boutique owner's life easier and how do I make it where they can make it to the tennis match, they can make it to their kid's basketball game, they can, you know, make sure that the uniform got washed on Monday night so that it's ready for the Tuesday ball game. I know that— Overwhelmingly, a lot of us are moms and we feel the burnout and the stress and the strain probably even more so than a lot of other people out there as we're trying to juggle all the things. And so we've really been, especially I would say in the last 6 months, heads down on features that are going to bring you more money with a little, like a smaller time commitment, or things that can run on autopilot for you. For you so you can kind of set it and forget it, and you can be the bookkeeper at the volleyball game if you want to. Um, and so I think that that is what sets us apart, is because that was how we got our start. But it's also like, we're not a big corporation that doesn't care about our business owners anymore. You know, we still text them and we still call them on the phone, and, you know, we still remember their kids' birthdays and stuff like that. And it's because it is something that's built on relationships, because all we wanna do is solve your problems.

Truly. Hey, you're invited to join us as a member of the Boutique Hub. I love that you follow the podcast and all of our content here at the Hub, but more importantly, let's get you inside. As a member of the Boutique Hub, you have access to 4 key areas to grow your business. Number 1, we're gonna surround you with an amazing community of retailers just like you who get it. At your size, at your business type, we wanna get you connected with the people who can help you through all of the good and the bad that it takes to to be a business owner. The second thing, we want to get you expert education, live trainings every single week, instant AI answers with our personally trained bot, and a full training library on every single area of your business. Next, exclusive savings. Hub members save money, whether it's on wholesale brands that you're shopping with at market or the apps and the tools you're using on a daily basis. Hub members have massive savings. And finally, it's all about networking and relationships with wholesale brands. So if you are looking for the best vetted proven wholesale products for your business, we partner with over 1,000 brands inside of the Boutique Hub to get you instant access and the best savings. So come and join us as a member of the Boutique Hub. I can't wait to see you inside. Well, let's get into it, Sierra. I'm so excited because these features, like you said, it's very on brand for what's happening in, I would say in small business in general today, not just our industry, but how do you do more with less? How do you automate?, how to use AI and all the cool things that are rolling out so that we can seriously have the best of both worlds. Um, so what feature do you wanna start with? We have a whole list to go through.

Oh my gosh, we have so many, so many. Uh, probably let's start with like the one that is like out there, everybody's obsessed with it. Cuz I have a lot of like sneak peeky and maybe by the time this actually airs, the all, yeah, probably all of these features will be launched to be fair. But, um, start with like the, the sneak peeky ones or start with the ones that are ready to go and then we'll, we'll get into sneak peeky ones, but a feature that we've launched recently that has really changed the game for a lot of our shops is the ability with our newer product screens to schedule everything in advance. So if you've been a Comet Sold OG, as we say, and been around for a minute, you guys definitely know the days of Black Friday or the days of Cyber Monday where sales start at midnight Somebody has to get up, they have to like press go on the collection, they have to add all the badges to the app or to the website. And so it was a very manual process that a human being had to do. And over the last, I would say this feature launched about 6 months ago, but there's still plenty of people who aren't leveraging it to its fullest capacity. We've now added scheduling features where you can schedule products to add to a collection. So if you're having a sale, you can schedule, I want these to add to that collection at midnight, and I also want the collection to be published on my app and my website at midnight, and I want there to be a badge that says like flash sale or doorbuster or Black Friday to kinda call attention to it, and scheduling all of that out in advance, which has been just like so helpful. We launched this feature a little bit before Black Friday last year, And it is one of the features that some of our biggest shops have given us such amazing feedback about because like, it may not have been the owner getting up at midnight, right, at that point because they're bigger businesses, but they were paying someone to get up at midnight to do all of the things to make sure that everything ran smoothly. And now they can schedule it weeks and even months in advance and kind of set it and forget it. And so that has been such a great time saver for a lot of our shops is the ability to schedule badges, schedule products to drop to collections, schedule collection launches out in advance instead of having to do it manually.

I think that's huge. I love that because it just goes along with, you know, batch creating all of your content, setting everything on Monday, having a plan for the week so that the rest of the week you can seriously just monitor your numbers. Okay, what's working, what's not, and now what do I need to do in my playbook to adjust? So if you have to add something new, it's easy to jump in there and do that. So that's a great feature, I love it.

Yeah, I love it too. And kind of alongside that, we launched something called the Unit Sold Counter. It kind of offers this amazing social proof that you used to really get in the days of like Facebook purchasing, but now it's offered on like your mobile app and your website. And so it's, you're able to also set that and forget it. So you can say, hey, you know what, in my business, if something gets to, let's say, 75 of these items have sold, that's a big deal. Maybe you're a smaller business, like 75 is a lot, right? Or, you know, maybe you're a bigger business and the answer is if you've sold over 1,000 of something, this is like a hit. Um, you can actually set a threshold across your business that says, hey, you should highlight how many units have sold once it's past that threshold, which is really awesome. That's available to everybody, but Once you're on that newer product screen, you can actually even customize it based off of the product. Uh, so it really adds that social validation and social proof that is kind of missing from most websites and mobile apps. Um, and it's again one of those features that you just turn it on, set it, forget it, and it adds that extra layer of social proof to your product display pages. Um, on both platforms, which I think is really helpful and we've gotten a lot of great feedback from shops about that because it helps. You can say bestseller all you want, right? You can put a bestseller badge on something, but seeing, you know, 1,500 units of this shirt have sold to people, like that is social proof like no other and is really validating for that consumer who may be like waffling back and forth on whether they wanna purchase something.

I can remember back in the early days of Comet Sold, like literally just getting in there and seeing, like it's a game. If I just commented sold, like, would I be in there fast enough to actually get one of the products? Because the comments were just like, brrr. So I can totally understand that as women, we're herd animals and we wanna be validated in what we're buying. So that's a great feature.

Yeah, it's just like when you're trying to find a new restaurant, right? And you ask Facebook for new restaurant recommendations. If, you know, 15 people say this specific restaurant, you're probably gonna go check it out or at least be even more curious. Um, versus the things that only get 1 or 2 comments. And so it's just one of those extra, like, social validation pieces. Love it.

All right, what's next on your feature list?

Oh, let's see, let's go with some good stuff. Um, AI product descriptions. I know AI is like all the buzz in every industry across the board, mine included. Um, but AI product descriptions is a feature that is also out, um, in beta right now. And by the time this podcast launches, everybody will probably have it. Um, but we have had that out for a couple of days now, and the response has been absolutely overwhelming. Um, it's so easy. It's not just product descriptions, it's also like the title and the variants all auto-populate. So all you do is you upload as many photos as you want of the item, and CommentSold will write your title, write your description, categorize it, pull out the names of all of the different colors for you, and do so much of the work of product input because I hear that a lot from a lot of people that inputting product is the biggest time suck that they have. And so we have sped that up so much and people are like, "Yeah, I can create a product in like 60 seconds when it used to take me like 3 or 4 minutes. It's so easy now." And so everybody's really ranting and raving about that one. Especially those smaller businesses where you don't have a team, you're not hiring a VA, like you're doing it yourself. It's gonna save a ton of time even before people were using, you know, ChatGPT, right? Or Gemini, and they were using that to write their product descriptions. But this is in product, you don't have to copy and paste, you don't have to toggle between systems. And then the additional adding of like the variants and the categories and things is just another huge, huge time saver. Um, and so we're really excited about that one because we have a lot of AI features coming, but that's like our first one that we've just kind of like put out there to the world. Um, and everyone is absolutely obsessed with it.

I think it's so good because even just the copy and paste, like, yes, it saves you time from writing it, but you still have the manual back and forth. And I know a lot of people who have full-time VAs just doing this in their business. So for it all to manually or to auto-populate, I do think that's really, really helpful.

Yes, 1,000%. We've gotten a lot of really good feedback from shops who were either writing every single product description themselves or doing a copy and paste with, you know, ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude. And they were saying, you know, even just the 4 or 5 extra, like 4 or 5 less clicks of the copy and the paste of, you know, not having to upload the photos into ChatGPT and then also upload them into CommentSold, right? That's time savings that you don't necessarily think about, but it is 30 seconds here, 30 seconds there, and it really does add up if you're adding 50, 100 products a day.

Totally. I love that. All right, what's your next feature?

Oh my goodness, I could go for days. I know, it's gonna be like this and this and this and this. Yes, I'll talk about another one that is almost ready to go and will be ready by the time you guys are listening into this too, so I'm super pumped about this one. And it's what we call it Clips Import Engine. And so what a lot of people love about CommonSold is we are kind of a video-first platform. So not only did we really get our start with live video and we have a lot of live sellers, but we also have a lot of short-form video integrated straight into the platform. So we were one of the first mobile apps that provided like a clips feed. It's basically like a TikTok feed or an Instagram feed, Reels feed in the middle of your mobile app and it is also on your website. So not only do you get those videos of the fit videos and things like that on your product display pages, but there's like true dedicated feeds for these short-form content videos because everybody's attention span is of a fruit fly right now, right? And so you want to be able to meet them where they are. And if they don't want to watch an hour-long live because maybe they are not in your community and wanting to like have that conversation with you, but you want to pique their interest with video because What people don't realize about video is a great product listing is all cool, fine, and dandy, but like, if I don't know like what the back looks like or how it moves when you walk, or you're not selling me on the thing, I'm probably not going to be the one to buy it. So video is so important. With our clips import engine, previously the way you would have to upload clips into your mobile app or into your website was, you know, you would create the content, you would post it on TikTok, you would post it on Instagram, and then you'd also have to come come into CommentSold and you have to upload that video and tag the products and write the little description. So with this, you're actually gonna be able to sync your Instagram and your TikTok videos with like one click directly into CommentSold and say, oh yeah, I wanna add this one, that one, and this one, and these are the products that I'm selling. It'll pull in your description, your caption of your videos for you, and you can publish them. So we're talking about cutting huge time savings out of your day when you're having that content creation day and you're trying to post everything. It's one less place that you're gonna have to sit there and wait for the videos to upload and write your caption, write your description, right? It pulls all that stuff in there for you directly from social media and saves you so much time. And then the other piece of that is the ability to take like a URL. So say you have a customer who posted a great review or an unboxing video or they're so excited they got their package and they're showing their outfit of the day. Previously you'd have to be like, "Hey girl, can you send me that video? Do you mind if I use it?" Or you know, you'd have to use a third-party app to try to like download and scrape the video from social media. Now you're able to take the URL of the TikTok or the Instagram and pop it in the import engine and say, "Hey, I want to add this to my mobile app," or "I want to add this to my website." Wow. And you can take that UGC, which is, I mean, social validation. Yeah. Uh, in just a couple of seconds instead of the runaround that you would have to do previously to add a video like that. Um, so I think it's going to really bring that UGC content directly to your app and to your website, uh, in such an easier way. Um, I feel like people were not leveraging that as much as they should have probably leveraged it in the past because it was time-consuming and a pain and A lot of manual work. So we're taking that manual work out of it now.

That's a really big deal, honestly, because we, that's a big part of our strategy here at The Hub. But it takes so much time to get it, download it, re-upload it, get the permission, like all the pieces. So I think that's great and it's wonderful validation.

Yes, I agree. Awesome.

I love that feature.

I love, I love a website. I love, you know, I'm an online shopper, avid online shopper. But I mean, I am absolutely sucked into TikTok shop and, you know, shopping on Instagram and shopping from that short-form creator live because it's like, oh, this isn't their shirt that they're selling me. So obviously if it's their shirt, they've got to sell it really well, but they just really like it and they're sharing about it. So there's nothing like the social validation of that user-generated content. And now we're able to harness that power on your website and your mobile app too, not just on social platforms. That's huge. That's huge.

Okay, what's your next one?

You want more? I have more.

Keep going. These are all good. I love it. It's saving everybody time who's listening. So let's roll.

Um, so the next one is one that I think everybody who is a live seller is probably gonna like fall out of their seats and be super excited about. Um, so if you're driving, come to a complete stop, whatever it is. Uh, we are going to be bringing you guys pre-recorded live sales.

Um, yeah, I'm clapping for all of you because I know you're cheering right now when you hear this.

Pre-recorded live sales, we are so pumped about pre-recorded live sales.

You can have your night back with your family. Like, that is amazing.

Vacation and actually unplug. Um, you know, Comet Sold has— I will say we have made it so easy and we've made it where you can go live on vacation vacation, right? Like, you can take a break, but you know, for various reasons, you know, your income might take a little bit of a hit. Like, you go on vacation and you don't go live as much, and well, you're probably not making as much money. Or you're having a guest live seller who is probably great, awesome, and wonderful, but your customers want to shop with you because you're their person. And so now you're actually going to be able to go in and do a pre-recorded live video that has you scan everything just like you would, the overlay updates, it's basically just doing it all in advance. So that then all you have to do is you can either schedule it or you can manually like say press go on it. And so while you're on vacation or while you're keeping book at the ballgame or at that softball tournament with terrible service in the middle of nowhere or whatever the answer might be, you aren't losing out on money, you're not losing out on sales. It's gonna be great. I see this working really well, especially for the super busy like solopreneurs, but all the way up through, you know, our friends at some of the bigger businesses where some of their live sellers are having babies, which is so exciting and incredible, right? But then it's like your bet, your favorite best live sellers are not going live for quite some time while they recover. You can sprinkle those prerecorded live sales in there. And you know, I have a lot of friends who their kids They've always gone live on Thursday night, right? Forever, for years and years and years. Well, now all of a sudden that's basketball practice, and, or, you know, their kid made the high school basketball team and they have games on Thursday, and so they have to choose, do I go live or do I go to my kid's basketball game? And obviously we want to make, facilitate it so that the answer is you don't have to miss any time out with your family to continue to generate income. And I think that pre-recorded lives are going be so fun, and I think it's gonna be something that is going to make the live seller, make the boutique owner's life so much less complicated and give you so much time back. Because you talk about batch content, you'll be able to batch live sale content, which is just crazy amazing. And so you can sprinkle all of those throughout the times when you need a little boost or you need a little vacation or a little rest. And we have a lot of shops who are incredibly excited for this one to launch. We've been trying some hacky workarounds in the past just to prove out the concept, but now we're gonna have a beautiful end product polished way to have a pre-recorded live sale.

How does that, I have a question on that. So how does that work? I'm only familiar with this concept from the webinar industry, right? Which is more like BoutiqueHub industry. How does it work, like, does someone, are they able to go live in the comments or how do you give people the feeling that you're live when you're not actually live?

Yeah, so all the comments work the same so you can actually assign a moderator so you can have a customer service person who is there or a friend who is answering questions for you. So you'll have somebody online who can moderate, which is optional, you can choose not to and you can just be transparent and be like, hey girls, I got— this is probably Aaron because I got baseball and I just wanted to be able to like actually show you things. Um, so there is some optional transparency built into that, but if you want to truly feel like that same live sale environment, the comments happen just the same. Your moderator or your friends can comment back to people and answer questions. Um, you know, you can still have a great little discussion, uh, it's just not live. So we've, um, seen some shops do this in the past and try it, like I said, with our workaround, and were obsessed with it and loved it, but it was a little clunky because it was a workaround. And so now it's gonna be beautiful and polished and in the product and easy to do.

This is so helpful because, I mean, A, I love the option of saying, hey girls, like I prerecorded this just for you, or being able to just call out, you know, you can still call out names in the comments like, oh hey Sarah, hey Tiff, hey whoever. But to have somebody there live making people feel seen and like, hey, my team is here in the chat, you know, and actually answering those questions live is so helpful. So congrats, that's a really big deal. That's a huge one.

Yeah, we're excited about that one and everyone else is really pumped about that one too. I think they're already planning their post-launch vacations around that feature, so.

So good. All right, Sierra, we probably have time for one more feature. What's, what do you wanna—

What if I have two?

Do, do two. You need to get this in.

Okay, I'll do 'em really quick. I'll do 'em really quick. Okay. The next feature that I wanna talk about that's coming soon is subscriptions. Everybody's been asking for subscriptions for like ever.

Recurring revenue.

I have wanted subscriptions.

It's the 8th wonder of the world.

Yes, I have wanted subscriptions for forever, finally getting my wish because there's nothing that says like relieving burnout like waking up and like thousands of dollars have sold from recurring revenue and you didn't do a thing. And then the same for your customer, right? Like they're buying consumables from you a lot, right? You're selling your butte or you're selling your twine or You have certain jewelry subscription, we have, you know, by Alex and Rae, they do a beautiful jewelry box every month with us. And now all of that's gonna be automated, so instead of your customers having to go in and make that purchase every single month or every 6 weeks or every 4 weeks or 3 weeks, however they wanna do it, they can set that subscription and automatically recurring revenue. So you can take a little bit of stress off your plate knowing that, oh well, subscriptions run, next week and I'm already going to have $10,000 that's just going to automatically charge, which is just a breath of fresh air. And so we're really excited about that one. That's huge. And then I'll throw and sneak the last one in there because I actually right after this doing an internal all-hands demo of it and I'm really pumped about it. And it's— it— I think it can definitely help save time. It's 1000% work smarter, not harder, because it's kind of marrying two activities that people are probably doing on different platforms into one platform. And so auctions, auctions are coming to CommonSold. So you'll be able to do auctions on your website and your mobile app to get rid of some of that old aged inventory without having to go sell it on a different platform. You know, previously, you know, if you wanted to do auctions Whatnot was kind of the answer, right? And so there are a lot of people who tried to juggle managing both things. They were selling stuff on Whatnot. They were also selling stuff on their website, on their Shopify, or on their CommentSold. You know, they were kind of like leaders in the industry. There are obviously other things, like people were selling their unsold inventory on Poshmark. But again, it's like you're having to upload it twice. You're having to write the descriptions twice. You're gonna have to update the listings twice. Instead, now you'll be able to take any product that's in your CommentSold catalog and auction it at any time during any live. And so we are super close to launching that. Like I said, we're doing like a big internal all-hands demo and testing session in like 2 hours, so I'm pumped about that one. But the time save that's gonna happen from being able to do that where you're already comfortable, 'cause I think that's something that people kind of forget about CommonSold is we're not just a mobile app, we're not just a website, we're everything. We're an end-to-end platform, and so part of that burnout is all of the technology pieces that you have to stitch together to make your business work. In CommentSold, you don't have to stitch anything together. Our goal is to be able to be from start to finish, if that's what works best for your business, you can truly use CommentSold from everything from bringing your inventory in to shipping it out. And so we wanna continue to iterate on how do we make your life easier, how do we make it so that you can do the things that you want to do with your inventory in the way that you wanna do it, on our platform without having to add a bunch of different plugins, a bunch of different apps, a bunch of different inventory syncs. So super pumped about auctions coming soon. And again, by the time this airs, you guys will probably be able to go do your auction on your Comet Sold app or your website.

That's awesome. That's so exciting because that also is a ton of time and labor to move all of that over. Sierra, these are, these are exciting. These are all really exciting. Oh my gosh, it's so much. It's so much.

I'm so sorry. I think I just like gave you the longest laundry list of stuff that's launching the last 6 weeks. If you don't know why I have been super busy, this is why I've been super busy.

But it's all about working smarter and not harder. And, um, you and I were chatting about this before we started to record. So those of you who are listening, driving, walking, all the things you're doing while you listen, um, I just want you guys to know, like, we see you. Comet Sold sees you. Sierra and I were just comparing notes about the number of conversations we have with people right now who are just You know, if, if they aren't currently burnt out, they were burnt out, or they've been in fear of burning out, they're just working through how do I do more with less? How do I get my life back? How do I love my business again? Um, because it just requires so much of us and the landscape is changing so fast. So this, I mean, kudos to your team, Sierra. This is like answering all those questions. Like truly.

Yes. We're so excited to bring this to people because at the end of the day, like we're around because of boutique owners and like our number one goal is to to be your partner and serve you in the way that you need to be served. And I think that we have definitely been focusing and heads down on like, how do we make your life easier? 'Cause that's the problem we're looking to solve. I love it.

All right, so if anyone is wanting to catch up with you, obviously we'll have all of your information in the show notes today, but in person, we're gonna be seeing you at Summit. Last year you guys were the hit of the trade show at the Boutique Summit because you had a Dirty Soda Bar and everyone was like, refill, refill. Keeping coming back.

I think we saw everybody at least 4 or 5 times, and it was the most caffeinated boutique summit you've probably ever had. Everybody was wide awake.

So good. Okay, do you want to give us a sneak peek of what you're doing this year?

Yeah, absolutely. We're sticking with like personalization and customizing because everybody's boutique journey is different. So we have some really unique personalized swag that you guys can stop by our booth and pick and choose the symbols and images that match your personality, your boutique personality, commemorate your event. You know, there'll be some like Dallas-specific ones, some Western-specific ones, um, and create your own, um, beautiful— we have like some makeup bags and a couple of other options, um, but really like a memory that you want to hold on to. I know a lot of people get a lot of swag at market and they're like, well, is this going to take up room in my suitcase or is it not? And our goal is to always bring people stuff that they're excited about and they'll cherish and they'll keep pulling out, something highly customized. And then I have a session with Jenna from Generation about live selling and how to overcome your fear of live selling. So if you're listening to this and you still by August, hopefully by August you have done a live sale. But if you haven't, definitely come and check out our main stage session about how to overcome the 7 different fears that people have of why they don't live sell. Because Jenna is such a pro, so it's not only just my expertise from the software side and from the Comet Sold side, but also like Jenna, who is the most bubbly, fun, outgoing personality in real life, and it translates so incredibly well on camera. And so we're gonna be talking through that, and we can't wait to get even more people live selling after August.

You will for sure. You guys seriously go to that session. Jenna is, I mean, she's an OG and just has built an incredible business and she is so generous. She's a part of our mastermind, been a hub since the very beginning as well, and just so generous with her time and knowledge and just so encouraging to anyone who, who has a question. So that's going to be wonderful. I can't wait to listen.

I know I'm excited for it. I always love any opportunity to come to Summit because like you said, we've kind of, we were kind of born there too, right? That was y'all's first big event, but it was also Comet Sold's first big event. And so we're excited to be that, that top tier sponsor this time and even sponsoring the, the party, the end party. So it's going to be a fun time also. And we're really excited that everything is coinciding with WESA this year. And so all of our Western friends will be there. So we're pumped about that. I'm going to get all of my cowboy boots lined up.

There's going to be a lot of cowboy boots at Summit. I'm just going to warn all y'all that are listening, like, be prepared because it is the theme, really. Dallas Days, Fort Worth Nights. Um, it's all about the crossover between the two industries and how much we can learn and support one another. And really the values that are founded in the Western industry are so prevalent in our boutique industry today. So we're gonna be talking about all that for sure.

We're excited. I cannot wait.

All right, Sierra, as always, I'm so thankful for your friendship and your partnership. Thanks for being on the podcast today and dropping all these surprises for us. I can't wait for everyone to get to listen.

Yeah, you're— Ashley is actually the first person to hear this laundry list outside of our, uh, our employees. So she just has to keep it a secret until this podcast comes out.

So my lips are sealed, my lips are sealed for a while, for a while, for a little bit. Oh my gosh. All right, Sierra, thank you so much. Good to see you. You look beautiful, and we will be seeing you soon.

Okay, bye.

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you found it helpful, please share it with a friend or feel free to subscribe, and I would always love it if you would leave a rating and review. Hey, if you want more tools, education, and just support, head on over to theboutiquehub.com, or if you have feedback or episode ideas, DM me personally, @ashleyalderson, on Instagram. Thanks so much for being here and listening to this week's episode. I'll see you next week.