Best of Boutique Chat Season 4

Knock, knock. Are you there? Oh, my gosh, I've missed you. You guys. Welcome back to a new season of the Boutique chat podcast. It feels like it's been way too long and it's really only been a month that we've had a little bit of a break. I have been looking forward to kicking off this new season with you, to seeing you each and every week inside of my DMs, talking about where you listen to the podcast and how you listen to it, who you listen to it with and what you've learned and what you've implemented and what you're looking forward to doing in your life and in your business. Next, your guys's heartfelt messages on Instagram and in email and in the Boutique hub have absolutely meant the world to me. So I couldn't be more honored than to be right here back with you to launch a new season and be in your inbox each and every week talking about not only how to create the business that you love in this industry of retail, but but also how to live a life that you love along the way. Because we all know there's gotta be room for both. So to kick off this new season, I wanted to start by bringing you some of my favorite episodes from the past. A couple of highlights to get you jacked, to get you excited, and to get some of those biggest takeaways that I've seen along the way in your hands. So inside of this new season of our kickoff episode, you're gonna hear from Susan Bradley, the founder of the Social Sales Girls. Her and I talked about Facebook ads and funnels and how to get more people on your email list to convert each and every week you're going to hear from Carly Harris, one of my dear friends, who's going to talk about collections and how to launch collections in your e commerce business. Kate. All is going to be highlighted in this episode from Simplepin Media, talking all about Pinterest strategy. Jocelyn McClellan, one of my dear friends who's huge on Instagram, huge on YouTube, and has built a multi channel and multi product following, is going to talk about starting a boutique from the ground up and maximizing her massive audience. Shelby Loveless, who, oh my gosh, she is such a rock star, has built multiple streams of revenue from her business and she's going to tell you how. And finally, Megan Meadows, who is on Yellowstone, who happens to be helping design costumes on Yellowstone, you're going to hear some of her highlights from her episode as well. And finally, Dominique. Broadway was a huge hit this season talking about building not just income but, but building wealth. So you're going to hear from her this week also. I hope you love these highlights as we kick off this new season together. And I'll be back next week with all new guests and all new season and answering all of your questions. So if you have a topic you want to hear, shoot me a DM AJ Alderson on Instagram or at the Boutique Hub. And I will be here each and every week, all year long to grow your business and to help you live the life that you want to live together. See you guys soon. 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 strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. If you hear from someone saying, hey, I'm, I'm just struggling. I'm not getting the traction I want. I'm not growing how I want. People just aren't buying what I'm posting. What advice would you give them? Where would you say for them to start to focus?

Well, we're right back at their data.

Yeah.

Yep.

Right back at their numbers.

And so the number one reason that that people who are past that, what I call is the proof of concept stage. You know, once you have somebody buy your product that isn't your mom or your sister, your next door neighbor, once you have someone who you don't know purchase your product, you can, you are developing proof of concept. So, you know, what you have to offer is appealing to people and they're willing to pay for it. Once you're past that, the next challenge really is how do I start getting regular sales? Sales every day. And the number one barrier to doing that is traffic. If you don't have enough eyeballs on your site. That's why you're not getting the sales that you want every day because you already know your product's good, your pricing's okay. But most people think they're getting a lot of web visitors. But the truth is that, you know, with E Commerce conversion rates, it's so different than brick and mortar because there's so much less intent. And so E Commerce, it's very common to have a 1 or 2% conversion rate, which means one or two people in every hundred web visitors are likely to buy if they're the right people. And so your first job is to get your traffic to 100 web visitors a day. And most people that are, you know, we call it flopping around.

Yeah.

Wondering why they're not making sales. You know, generally they're saying, well, I'll just have to do something on my. My website. I'm gonna have to change it. That's not the problem. The problem is that you're not getting in front of enough people every day.

Yeah. I think that's so true. We always, through retail bootcamp, we talk a lot about the boutique traffic formula. And just working those numbers backwards. Right. I know you do something very similar where you're looking at, here's my sales goal. Okay. In order to hit that goal, what's my average order value? And how many. How many orders is that? And then with that conversion rate, how much traffic is that? Then? Then really, where does that traffic come from? So when you're planning out, what am I going to post on social media this week, what emails am I going run this week? How much traffic can I pull from each of those places? What does my app bring in? What's my website bring in organically? And then I find out I have just a smaller pool of traffic than I really need in order to hit this goal. Now I need to think about paid traffic. So if I'm at that stage, what type of paid traffic am I looking to start?

So I think two things. I think that the first thing you want to do is, again, get in front of more people. And so you'll want to build those audiences of engaged people and video view people. You'll want to get them. It's shocking, really, how big you have to get them, but I would say at least to 100,000 or more. And then you're going to retarget those people with ads that are their conversion ads. And we usually say, get people to view content. Use a pixel event that is view content, because that's looking at your products, and that's really what you want. You don't want a ton of people, you know, like coming from Pinterest or wherever they're coming. That's not high intent. We want to look for the people in that big pool of warm audience that you have that have high intent to look at your products. And so when you're at that stage, you have to focus on traffic. And you could use ads on Facebook and Instagram or even Google Shopping, but the goal of those ads is Viewing content, so conversion view content, and that'll get you some good quality traffic. The second thing you have to do is you have to retarget people who have already looked at your website. And so you have to start building a small pool of people that have looked at your products already and bring them back. Because here's the secret that nobody ever talks about, but it's this, it's that people who have visited your website before and are visiting for a second or a third or a fourth time, those people are more than two times more likely to make a purchase than a first time web visitor. And so where people are slipping through the cracks is we spend lots of time and money getting people to come the first time, but we don't follow up, we don't get them back a second and a third and a fourth time because that's when the conversions usually happen.

Yeah, it is so much more cost effective to bring back an existing customer, an existing viewer, even if they haven't been a customer yet, than to constantly trying to be acquiring new ones. So I think that really, really says a lot about our traffic strategy. Right. And that's not just paid traffic, it's not just ads, but it's also email marketing. It's building funnels that come back and speak to those people who've already been there or who have already purchased to get them to come back and purchase more and to purchase more often. That's great. What else would you say to someone who's just struggling with I'm not where I want to be or I'm not where she's at. I see someone else crushing it online. Where do I spend my focus every week?

Well, I think you track your data. There are three, those three key metrics and I think you mentioned them right at the beginning. So you could set yourself up a little spreadsheet for every week and you would track your traffic, your conversion rate every week, and your average order value. And those three, this is a numbers game when you get to this stage. And so those three metrics will determine what, how you control your sales. And you really do control your sales a lot more than you think. So the very first one is traffic. You really have to have at least 100 web visitors a day. So in a week, I guess you'd be looking for 700, bare minimum. But if you, you have that and your sales are stuck, you're going to want to start ramping up your traffic. The second is conversion rate. How do I get more of those people to buy the number One thing that will move the needle is get more of them to be returning visitors. So what we always recommend is 30% of your traffic should be returning visitors second or third or fourth. They don't have to be buyers, but they have to be returning visitors because they will get your conversion rate up. So you can look at this in Google Analytics. It's super easy to find. So you, you want to do that. And then the third thing is your average order value. So your average order value is actually the easiest metric to control. Do you have a cart bump? Can you look at all your products that are your best sellers and add $2 to them? You know, not your whole website, but just add a couple of dollars to those products that you sell all the time that'll get your average order value. Do you have like, do you have an upgraded shipping option? So if you ship priority, do you have a front of the line shipping option where you maybe add $2 and those orders get pulled and picked in first and so you could say it gets shipped day. That's a really good way to get your average order value up. And so those are the things you track and measure. So traffic conversion rate, average order value. And you do it every week and you focus on those things rather than the things that are running through your mind about all the things you're doing wrong. Yeah, focus on moving those metrics and that's how you're going to get the sales.

There is no one way to success. There is no one way to do things. And so there are so many boutiques who kill it, like making live selling online their main revenue source. There's others who brick and mortar is their source. There are others who E commerce is theirs. What I find really fascinating about you and how I think this has worked so well is you're owning your traffic by driving, you know, a true E commerce funnel. But I love how you are styling things in collections. And when I think about why, why has her business been successful, I think that is a huge piece of it. You have really mastered that art of filling your customers needs, understanding what her struggles are and being the true style educator and like putting all those pieces together. A collection where someone on a live sale might show how to style something and that's how they're building style education during that show. But you're doing that every single week. So talk to me about that process of building a collection and how you've made that such a central part of your strategy.

Sure.

So we'll talk about Bailey. So in everyday Chic headquarters. Bailey's well known. So Bailey is. My mom was going to name me Bailey. That's how we came up with this name. But Bailey is our target customer. And so we talk all the time about Bailey. Like, Bailey, what is she doing? Like, where's Bailey going this month? Like, what? I even asked my customers in the live or like in polls, like, what do you guys have coming up? What's in the pipeline? Like, where are you headed? And so, like, what's Bailey doing? Is she going on vacation? Is she getting family photos? Is Bailey, like, going back to college? Like, what's Bailey have going on? And what needs does she need to have filled? And our big meeting happens in January. So the first Monday of every year is our vision board day. We close the store, we do a big like eight hour team meeting, team bonding, vision board thing. But then it's like, like, it's like a true, like, conference. Let's all sit down and like, let's talk about this. And it gets us on the same page, but it lets us know because we're all Bailey in some ways. Like, every person that works here has a touch of Bailey in her. And so what, what my college girl is doing versus me as a, as a mom is completely different. But we can still fill our needs the same. So we talk about Bailey. We map out our collections for the entire year that week. So our collections all the way up until the end of the year are already mapped out. So when I'm buying, I know, like, that's going in this collection. And so I don't know, like, oh, we're gonna hold on to that because that pant is going to elevate that basic and we're just going to sit on it for a second. So. And that's been a thing that didn't happen originally. Couldn't. Couldn't start out by sitting on inventory like that. But now we're to the point into the level where if I have to, to put some cash out and sit on it for a month to make that thing where it is a must have, and you don't even hesitate to, to purchase the item, it's completely worth it. So we kind of just meet about Bailey, then we create the collections, then I buy around the collections, and then we shoot. We only operate a week and a half in advance. We tried to get two and a half weeks in advance, but it honestly killed our vibe. Like, I was no longer excited about it two and a half weeks later. Like, I wanted it to still be fresh and still Be exciting. So we, we shoot every single Tuesday. It's my live day, so I wash my hair on Tuesdays. I wash my hair once a week. Tuesday's hair wash day. Customer knows that. So I wash my hair on Tuesdays and then we do photo shoots on Tuesdays. I, I do model. It's a way to keep me branded within the brand as well. And then it launches the following Thursday.

Okay.

Every single. So that's kind of our timeline of events there.

Yeah, that's really helpful. You. The last time I saw you at Market, I think your exact words were, I'm going to be lame, and I'm going to go back to my hotel room and I'm going to plan out my collection. Just go a little bit deeper in that. Like, planning out your collection and that calendar, like, again of how you map that out and then bringing it home and strategically being able to really increase your average order value every week. Because it's not just buy this top, but here's how it styled this top and all the different pieces I would show with it.

Oh, 100%. And I think Market is something that it is fun. Like, market's fun and it is fun and like, you're supposed to go and have fun. But I see so many people that ask me the same question of, like.

How do I do this?

I can't get ahead. I'm sure struggling. And I'm like, yeah, and you're out until 2 o' clock in the morning in Las Vegas, which I want to be out with you. But I'm like, I am spending real money here and this is real time for my family. And I have to, to delegate my brain and understand why I'm purchasing the things that I'm purchasing. Like, it's an investing trip. Like, you've said that a hundred times.

Yeah.

And so I do go back and I, I take photos of everything that I buy and then I go through, like, hey, should I got more than that? Because I had a pair of pants after that. Like, I should have went and did that. Like, and just little things of figuring out, like, what do I still need? I'll even get on, like, fashion go that night and be like, okay, who has a pair of pants that will go with this basic? Because I'm gonna go see them tomorrow. Like, I need to go see these pants in person or something like that. And then I. And it will change. When I got home, I was like, okay, this is what shipping when maybe we have to push that collection to July. And now we launched this in April. Like, we're gonna flip flop this a little bit. And it's always something. I always say, I have erasable pens. It's the best thing I ever had because I don't like pencils. So an erasable pen gets us through, but, like, that's what we do. It's not set in stone, but we, we. We don't ever miss a deadline either. So we're always there.

I love that. So you've got them planned and you're. And you're able to be nimble by those arrival dates. So they come. You shoot a week and a half in advance. You launch them on Thursdays. Tell me the rest of your funnel. So, so how many pieces are you launching a week? And they go live on the website first, and then do you push them out in text, email, social? Like, what does the rest of that funnel look like?

Okay, so we launch them every single Thursday night. Anywhere between, like, 100, 150. We've had 200 items before. It just depends on, like, there's no huge plan there. It's a matter of, like, what our inventory looks like. And I'll be like, oh, we don't have anything for new arrivals next. Like, we need to pull this back. Like, one of the girls that helps me style, Bria, she's actually like my web operations manager. She's. She's my lead stylist, too. For the collections. I'll be like, brian, we got to pull it back. Like, you can't have that. That's for this collection. That's for this. And so we all kind of work together to build these outfits. And then once they're live, they go live at 7 o'. Clock. When they go live, we tell our customer via text. We use postscript for our texting. So we tell them via text. Text. We have five to six emails that go out. We do, like, campaigns. Five to six email campaigns a week. So we're emailing you about every day, not including our flows. And then we do. I think she hits them again on Sunday. If they didn't purchase from Thursday to Sunday, we hit them again Sunday with another postscript to, like, be like, hey, you need to see this. And then I'll put stuff in the live on Tuesday that showed on Thursday, and then we'll see. I mean, and I buy deep, so I'm a little different too. I don't buy super. I buy wide. I buy wide and D. Because another huge thing that we do is Facebook ads. And Facebook ads aren't worth the Money. I don't, in my personal, in my experience, I'm like, if you're not going to buy deep in these items, there's no reason running a Facebook ad on them. You're just wasting money. So I buy pretty deep when I know I'm going to run ads around certain things. And ads are a huge part of what scaled my business.

I think there's more that we can do in our industry anyway as boutique owners to educate our customers about how, how positive of a place Pinterest really is and then how we can maximize that in our own businesses. Can you talk about like the outcomes from Pinterest and how we see that different than other social media? Like other social media to me is such an instant gratification platform as a business owner. But Pinterest is a long term game. How does that work?

Yeah, so one, it's really frustrating because we do come from that environment where we want the quick wins, we want the dopamine hits. And when it comes to Pinterest, it is this long game with marketing. You're investing in order to get in front of those people who are searching and getting ready to buy. So a typical buying habit on Pinterest is three months before somebody makes a purchase, they're going to do a bunch of searching and then they're going to go back to their boards and then make a decision two weeks before, before. So in that sense you have to be thinking about hitting the person well in advance. So Pinterest will say pin 45 days in advance of a holiday. So if we're going into something like Mother's Day and you know that's your time to shine with jewelry or something like that. You want to start marketing all the way back in March to start to get prepared for people who are searching. So that's another big thing you have to be thinking about is just this doesn't necessarily feel good, which is kind of frustrating a little bit because we are so used to those likes and engagement metrics. But when it comes to Pinterest, you're really looking at clicks and then you're really looking at saves and then you're also looking at cart conversions and checkouts and all of those different metrics that you're not going to pay attention to on Instagram or Facebook. But I agree, a lot of people are leaving Facebook, they're looking for another place to go to be entertained. And Pinterest is the, it's just different. So there is some elements, I will say that Pinterest is trying to get into this short form video game. Like they see the Tiktoks and the Instagrams kind of having all the fun and they're like, but wait a minute, we want to keep people on the platform longer. So they're making a big push for that and a big push for shopping integrations.

Yeah, as. As long as we're on that topic, let's go there. Talk to me about. And then we'll go back to. For those of you that want more, like, okay, get me started. How do I use it? Maximize it. We'll come back to that. But. But there is a lot that's changed. This is not Pinterest of a year ago or of two years ago. It's really grown. They've added a ton of new features. Talk me through some of your favorite new features and what's to come.

Yeah, so number one for shopping, they did add this part called a verified merchant program. So it easily integrates with Shopify, that's really like their main partner. But there's other ways that you can upload a catalog to Pinterest to make your products accurate in real time. So one of the things that sellers have told us for a long time is that what happens when one of my products goes out of stock, I've pinned it onto Pinterest and somebody else has pinned it, which is the beautiful thing about Pinterest is this snowball effect. And then they're like, everybody's coming to my page and it's sold out. Well, these product pins now update every single day. So if you no longer have it in stock, it's no longer going on to Pinterest or if you change the price, it's updated. So that's a feature that I think is really smart for them is to get really great about this integration. Now we have heard that Pinterest has said, hey, we're not going to be a point of sale platform, but we think they might be doing something in the background with that. But for now, they do encourage the purchase to happen on your website. So that's really a big push from this last year. Number two is idea pins. So these are very much like stories on Instagram, but they live forever and they're very much focused on just that, the idea. So they're not really focused on like the TikTok dancing or like what you would talk about your day. It's an angle of your product or a five step process that you would walk them through. But the weird part is they don't link, so they Direct people back to your Pinterest profile. So you have to do a little bit of kind of leading the person back to your website. However, they did just add product tagging. So this is really great for sellers because that's kind of the way around the link. So if I am just a content creator and I just want people to go to my podcast or my blog, there's really no option. But if you're a product seller and your catalog is connected, then you can say, tap twice to go buy this product. So that's a new feature which is also great. With these idea pins, there's some mixed reviews on them. You know, if you're Pinterest purist, you kind of want it to go back to 2018 and just be one pin and that's good to go. But Pinterest is like, hey, we need to keep people on the platform longer and we know that Pinterest users buy a lot of stuff, so we need to make it easier for them to buy.

I love that. So definitely a change. How else could we maximize video? I know we're just on so many different platforms today and we're just creating content like till we're blue in the face. Is there a great strategy for reusing content both, you know, photography but also video?

Yeah. So number one, you can do a regular video pin and we recommend those less than a minute 30.

Okay.

If you can do somewhere between 15 and 45 seconds, that's also great too, especially if you're showing the dimensions of your product. These short, poppy videos are fantastic and they do link, so if you click on them, people can go to your website and purchase. Now, with the idea pins, Pinterest has been very clear to say we want some short form video in there. So they call them slides and you can have anywhere from 5 to 20 slides in your idea pin. They recommend adding video in there, so that's another way to repurpose it. So you could do video in a video pin. You could do video in an idea pin. It's a great way to repurpose it and then just add it onto Pinterest if you've already been using it on other platforms.

You started a boutique after collaborating with boutiques and now you still collaborate with boutiques. And I, however, you just said it a minute ago, like, you can rock all my basic pieces, but I'm still going to send you to all these other stores for all these other things. To me, that is such a community over competition mindset. And that's what the hub is all about. Walk me through what that means to you. Because I think sometimes there's people that are intimidated by, like, like that philosophy, right? Like, can you really have a boutique and collaborate with another boutique owner and send traffic both ways? Tell me how you view that whole motto of community over competition for your businesses.

Well, going back to the trusting.

Yeah.

If I have a boutique and then all of a sudden I'm only wearing my boutique's clothes and nothing else. But probably, maybe when I go out with my girlfriends, I hurry and slide on a top from somewhere else that I already had in my closet. You can't keep only wearing your stuff. Like, let's be real here. A Lularoe chick. Does she wear Lularoe clothes?

And that's all she wears.

If you know what Lularoe is. But you. If. If the trust is instilled within your boutique and within yourself. If I have a girl that is selling a top that I know I like and I'm not selling it, and I know my people want it, how are they going to trust me any longer that I'm like, oh, you know what?

It's old.

It's old. Like, no, I'll go tell her where she got it. Somebody has to be supported.

Why?

Like, they want it. I don't have it, and I can't get it for him, so why not support the person that does? I think it's. I think your people are only going to love you more myself, but that's just me.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I. I always use this analogy. I think about when you go to the grocery store and you walk down the bread aisle. Have you done that recently? And you're like, who buys all this? Like, there are so many different loaves of bread and brands. And then you could go over to the bakery and you could get something else completely different over there. Like, there's so much to choose from. And bread has a shelf life. Like, we all know bread molds, but clearly there's enough people buying all these different types to support all of them. And I think our businesses are the same way. There's a gazillion boutiques out there today. And it's only. We're only getting more, right? Because of this economy that we're in. There's so many new entrepreneurs today. But even with that, there is more than enough to go around because we're all slightly different, right? We all bring something different to the table.

And you might, like, you might realize that when you share those other names, their best friend might be around that corner, you know, like that owner that you just gave to them that might become their best friend. And they're going to be super appreciative for you for having the guts that even though that was your competition, quote unquote, that you still trust them. And you trust yourself enough that no, you know what? I'm going to do her a solid that at the end of the day, like, why God wants us here is to love each other. And I just, I think it speaks volumes about yourself.

Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. I want to go back to a couple minutes ago when I was totally word vomiting on myself and nothing made any sense. Sense. I'm going to try that one more time because I think the point that I was wanting to make something that I think you do well and ties into this conversation is this whole idea of multiple revenue streams. It's not just about being an influencer or being in direct sales or having a boutique, but you do all of the things. And I hear this question from boutique owners a lot, now more than ever is how could I build a personal brand to go along with my business business? Is there something else I could do online that really supports this business? From your perspective, someone who's big on Instagram and YouTube, I mean, you're, you're all over the place. How can entrepreneurs do a better job in 2022 and going forward, really diversifying those revenue streams? What are different, you know, products or different companies or different collaborations that boutique owners could explore so they aren't just relying on selling a boutique product alone.

I think the whole taking the pushiness fill out of it and it again is going to circle back to the trust. So I know a lot of companies that are out there that even direct sale companies that they'll allow you to sell their, their goods in your boutique. And when they see the love that is surrounding the product, when your, your consumers, they're way more likely to trust you. But now let's say, for example, I'm gonna sell laundry detergent, okay? They can't smell the laundry detergent, but they can get a vibe that you give them. And so when you're being you, when people say, I'm too scared to put it out there. So you're, are you, are you putting too much pressure on yourself that you have to present in a specific way? Honey, I'll put curlers in my hair and no makeup on and in a robe. And if I'm putting a load of laundry in, then I'm, I'm real with people, you know, and that's gonna do the job because they are like, dude.

Did you just see that she has.

Her hair in curlers and no makeup on and she's just doing her laundry, talking to us and like you can only smell this. Yeah, she's where she's rocking that moomoo like people want real. I was telling Ashley earlier that when I first started this I thought the only way I was going to be successful was having my nails done, buying new clothes every week, showing my new clothes every week. You'll never get guess what I just got in this package. And guess what? If you can't see me now, my left hand has fingernail polish on it and there's no nails any longer and my right hand has nothing. And it's because I'm at the point now it's like you get me for me. And we, we always scare ourselves that we're not going to be good enough. But the people who are following you, there are definitely key tricks that we could go on for days that allow people to see you more like face a window, face good light when you are recording stuff as much as possible. That's a huge tip because people can actually see you better but, and they can make that connection with you better. I can give you so many tips as far as photography goes, but you'll get it, you'll figure it out and the people will love you more for it than just trying to sell. Be the friend.

You've got such a good vantage point. I've seen some of the work you do with boutiques right with our industry and so you definitely know what's working, what's not working, how to optimize a store no matter if they're brand new or if it's a multi million dollar store. So with our time together today, I would love to just walk through, you know, it's a new year, what's working, what's not working and really how to optimize your site in 2022. Let's start front end and talk about just like some of the basics when you land on the front end of someone's website, what are some like common opportunities that you see that store owners could take advantage of right away?

I think starting on the homepage is a good place to start naturally. So whenever I visit a new website, I'm trying to answer three questions from the homepage. Who are you, what do you sell and why should I buy from you? You want to be building that trust immediately from that first visit. We all know we have a very short attention span and so you want to capture them as quickly as possible. That means having very strong imagery on your site. That means having like unique copy. So it's not just the same copy that everybody else is using. Put a spin to it, put your own, your own voice into that. Like, you know, if I, if I want to become friends with you, that's, that's going to make me want to buy from you as well and support you. So starting to build that relationship from the very beginning, from the outset on that, on that homepage is really important in the boutique space. I see one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of merchants make is they, depending on how frequently you're restocking or introducing new products, if you have a new arrival section on your homepage, but those are the same products you've had in for a month, two months, there's nothing new about it. And so I would rather you focus on what are your best bestsellers, what is everyone else interested in right now, what's in season and really focus on that and make that homepage your landing page for any, any jump off point, depending on who I'm shopping for, if it's for myself or for a friend.

Yeah, that's so good. I often equate it to, you know, when you think about a boutique, like a storefront boutique, you know, you drive by and you see their newly merchandised window and that's the first thing that grabs your attention and says, oh, I want to go in there. That store looks like me. And so often people will create a homepage on their website that's kind of just like set it and forget it and they don't come back and re merchandise it. And you're right, not only does that homepage like Hero and all the imagery on that homepage need to answer the questions, which I love those questions, by the way. But the collections and making sure those collections you're featuring and the best sellers that you're featuring really answer those questions as well. Just like you would merchandise the window of your website or the window of your store.

Exactly. And you also notice when you go visit a storefront, you generally don't see empty space there. You're filling it with something on your website that means don't put sold out products on your storefront. Yes, don't put them on the homepage. I can't express the number of websites I've visited on the homepage that all five featured products at the top are sold out. I'm like, oh, this store must not have anything, so I'm going to leave.

Yeah, that's so true. All right, walk me through the rest of the homepage. Do you feel like there's certain sections that are like a do or die must have on most boutique homepages?

Absolutely. So the hero is definitely a necessity. It's a good eye grabbing moment, especially if you can incorporate video into it. Just like something fun, no audio. Keep it short and don't make it jarring either. So make it very like a nice natural flow to it. Then I get into the introductory text and that's where you start entering or answering those questions. Who are you? What do you sell and why should I buy from you? That's your first touch point to actually building a relationship instead of jumping right into products. Tell me who you are, tell me why I should be here. And it's just like, you know, a few sentences, nothing more than that. So keep it short. Then you get into your featured products. So maybe if you have new arrivals constantly, a new arrivals collection would be great. Or go straight into seasonality. Go into, you know, we're in the holiday season as we're recording this right now, so I would focus on more of like what do I want to wear to all my holiday parties this, this season in put that first and foremost. You also want to include testimonials and I think there are two different kinds of testimonials. You have your product reviews pretty standard. I go to, you know, I buy this dress and I get it and I love it and I write a review about it. But you also need these store level reviews. So why should I buy from you as a whole? Like you have a lot of really great things. It's not just this dress that I bought. Maybe your customer service is amazing. Maybe you have a really solid like returns policy. Maybe your in store shopping experience combined with online like buy online pick up in store is really awesome. Highlight those things on your homepage. These are all trust builders and that includes like make sure especially you have access to your shipping and returns policy. Especially if you, you do something like super cool that is trust building, like the free returns or free shipping returns both ways kind of situation. From there then you start getting into more products and then once you get down to the footer or email sign up, definitely please have an email sign up. You need to be sending a newsletter. They're very important. They're really good for trust building and for community building and for relationship building. But once you get to the footer One of the biggest mistakes I see a lot is people don't include links to continue shopping once you get to the bottom of the page. So you include your links, like about us and FAQs. I can go on a whole 30 minute podcast episode about why you need FAQs. So we'll get to that one and like contact us. But if you don't have links to actually keep on shopping, like new arrivals or top collections or just tops, bottoms, dresses, whatever you want to do, you have to scroll all the way back to the top of the page to continue shopping. So the goal is no matter where you are on the page, there's a link somewhere to continue shopping.

Talk to me about your Instagram game. Because you, you have mastered the art of, I would say, styling. And a lot of times I feel like when I talk to boutique owners, like one thing that's always missing is they're posting clothes. Like they're posting a piece, but you're posting a style. And there's such a huge difference. And I feel like people are really buying the vibe of what you're selling. How did you, how did you kind of orchestrate that? How did you really build styling into being core of your brand and who you are and what does styling really mean to you?

So I'm sure for everyone out there, women wise, Pinterest is a huge thing, right? We love getting on Pinterest and scrolling. That's kind of where I start. You know, I'll find a picture that I'm like, I kind of want to base a photo shoot off of this. Right. And I feel like it just shows your customers, hey, you can style this piece this way or we can go casual with it. I feel like it just makes them more confident to buy those pieces is if you show them how to style it. And I think that's huge, you know, for so many reasons.

Yeah. Do you have a lot of people who come and just say, okay, I want the whole outfit? Like, do you feel like it's a huge average order value lift probably because they're seeing how to wear something?

Yes, absolutely, 100%. I'll see, you know, we'll post an outfit or something and I'll see orders come through with the exact outfit that I had on and I'm like, oh, I love it.

Yeah, yeah. How are you when you're like planning all of your buying, right? If you're going to market or you're buying online, whatever you're doing, talk to me about the process in your brain of making sure. You're buying in collection or, you know, you're buying pieces that are going to style well together. What's that process look like?

Yeah, so we basically actually pick a theme for the collection first. And for me, that's easier to buy because you know what to stick to.

Right.

You don't have a bunch of random pieces that you're trying to throw in and, you know, make fit. And so that's how we start. Start with the collection and then we just build from there. So we always try to have basics. Basics for that collection that will go with, let's say a blazer that you have on or etc. And so we just build from that collection.

Okay, perfect. And then how often are you dropping collections? What's that cadence? Like?

We've actually moved to every Friday, which is kind of a rat race. Yeah. But such as life. So, yeah, we are doing that. And we actually have a kind of side brand quote unquote, that's coming soon that has to do with blazers. And so that will be once a month. So we have a lot going on. But I'm excited about it.

Cool.

I want to hear more about that. Is that some manufacturing you're doing on the side? Yes. Kind of. Awesome. Awesome. I'll leave it at that. So you're dropping collections every Friday. How many pieces are normally in a collection?

Anywhere from 20 to 50. Kind of depends. And I'm kind of watching the buying trends. So, like, we'll see. Since it is every Friday, you know your staple buyers aren't going to come back every single Friday. Right. And so we'll drop a smaller collection one Friday and then a bigger one the following Friday.

Okay.

So that's kind of our cadence with that.

Yeah. And then when you're thinking about, like, what's being pushed every week in social media and emails, I'm assuming it's a lot of hype. Right. I've seen the hype on Instagram of new collections that are going to be dropping sneak peeks. What about unsold inventory? What about the things that didn't sell last week? How are you working them into your marketing plan for the upcoming week?

Yeah. So we actually will restyle things three times before we put it on sale. And I love, I've seen this that you've posted a couple times or mentioned a couple times on trainings and whatnot is why did you buy that piece originally? Let's go back to that. And hey, this isn't something that you weren't excited about. So find that prior excitement about the that piece and restyle it with something completely different, you know, because maybe you need to try to reach a different customer base. And so that's what we do if we're still stuck with it. Flash sale. Hey, this is on sale. Hurry, hurry. Yeah, and that's kind of how we move that.

Perfect. When you think about, like, those photo shoots, you have photo shoots that go along with all those collections, and your photo shoots are all, like, they're different. It's not that you're doing the same thing every single week. And you said you're finding some of those ideas on Pinterest. What else goes into that process of setting up the shoot?

So, of course, trying to find models. And we always try to, like I said, with the theme thing, once we have a theme that we go off of, then we will pick location. And now that we have a studio, it's making it a lot easier if you do have somewhere in your space to set up, you know, a backdrop. Those are so easy to change out, right? Even a sheet that you can steam, you can put all sorts of fun stuff on there. And so I encourage people try something new because it's actually might spark something, you know, creativity in you that will make you appreciate those clothes that much more, you know, because you'll have fun with them. So, yeah, I encourage people to just try something different one time when you.

Do have that stream of revenue. And even if it's small, I want to just, like, reiterate, like, you don't have to have a million dollars to start investing in something. So how can you start, like, you've got your one stream of revenue, big or small, how do I start taking that one little piece and understanding what it means to either invest it in the stock market, invest it in real estate, or creatively make a plan for me to build wealth for the future where I'm not having to hustle for.

Every dollar I'm trying to make, for sure.

And that's where we should be thinking, how can we grow what we have? Right? So, as I told you guys, like, I started investing at 16. I had about 50 bucks. So I put $25 in Jones soda and $25 in Apple. The Jones soda didn't pan out. Not gonna lie.

But the apple obviously panned out.

And what I did when I started investing then and even now, and even what I'm doing for my children is slow and steady actually wins the race. So if you have a business and you're like, hey, okay, I have some money. I want to start investing it, first make a list of all the companies that you love. Right? I love Apple. I love, you know, Amazon. These are companies I frequent. I'm on a MacBook. There's an iPhone, iPad. Right? And, you know, Amazon. I get Amazon packages delivered to my house every day. A lot of us do.

Right?

So these are companies I'm already using. I'm already frequenting. Right? So start investing there. And you don't need tons of money. You could literally start investing with as little as $5.

Literally.

Right?

You can open up a Robinhood or E Trade or a Weebly account. Pick a couple companies you like and, you know, set an amount, 50 bucks a month, $100 a month, whatever it is, and have that happen. I have a really great. I wish I had the illustration to show you guys. It shows the power of investing over time, Right? And this is great. A lot of times for entrepreneurs, if you don't want to have to chase the markets and trade, it was an illustration that showed if you had started putting $200 a month aside for your kid from, like, age 5, by the age. By the time they turned to age 65, I believe it was like $2 million they would have. That's awesome. Like, imagine if your parents are putting $200 a month aside for you. Just, you know, and then you wake up at 65. You know, they're like, oh, here's $2 million to supplement your retirement. That's amazing, right? $2 million. There's another illustration. If you started at age 25, from 25 to 65, just putting $200 a month into an account, into an investment, you'd have a little over half a million dollars, right?

Just $2 a month.

So basically saying that to say you want your money to work for you, right? You want to have your products and things that are making money for you, but you also want your money growing for you in other ways. Right? Another thing that I personally do, what we teach, we teach trading as well, right? So we have our students who are placing trades and making $1,500, $2,000 extra a day. And so even when I'm thinking about the multiple streams, I'm also thinking about multiple streams outside of my business. And I think a lot of times as business owners, we put all of our eggs into our business basket. And I did that for years. I get it, you know, when you're first starting and supplementing, but I think there's a lot of other ways now, especially with. With technology, we can start investing and Having our money grow for us in other places, if that's, you know, real estate through REITs, which are real estate investment trusts. And you know those have, you can get into some of those for 10, 20 bucks. Right. So having your money growing in, in other areas is very important. Even when you're thinking about the streams and as I said, you can literally start doing that for like five bucks and just start investing into companies that you already use and already frequent.

Do you think that they're like, when you're thinking about where someone is going to get started, whether they're picking stocks like you're saying, or would you also recommend that they get into something stable like mutual funds or something that's going to be even keeled when the market is, you know, doing what it does? Is there one or both?

Yeah, you know, so this is my thing. You have to do what works for you. Right. And so anytime you open up your investment account, they're going to have you fill out a little risk tolerance profile to determine your risk tolerance. Are you aggressive? Are you aggressive? Are you conservative? I am an aggressive investor. The greater the risk risk, the greater reward the reward. Now if you're one of those people, like I don't like to see the market ups and downs. There's nothing that's truly stable except cash and that's technically losing money. If your money isn't making 9% a year, because that's what inflation is. Mutual funds are considered to be stable, but if the market is down, the mutual fund is going to be down. Right. So a mutual fund is essentially just a basket of stocks. That's all it is. So instead of just. So instead of investing in, just into Apple, if you buy a mutual fund, they're taking your money and spreading it amongst hundreds, sometimes thousands of companies. But if the entire market is down.

It will be down.

Right.

So I think there's a lot of yes, it's great to invest in mutual funds. You're going to still see great returns for sure. You may not see as strong of returns if you're investing into individual companies. But mutual funds and ETFs, which exchange traded funds are great places to invest. My thing is that investors in something, that's the thing. I don't care what you invest in. If you're investing in a stock, a mutual fund, etf, I don't care. One of those is better than you investing in nothing at all. And for most people, they're investing into nothing because they're so scared. Also now with the market being Down. And you know, I've already lived and worked through one recession and now we're into another recession. I wasn't here with the Great Depression, but based on the research from the Great Depression to the last recession to now, one thing the market always does is go up. Okay. So people who are taking advantage and getting their money into the investments right now over the next three years, they're going to be very happy. They're going to be. Their future cells are going to be thanking them for what they did today. Right. Right now the market is literally most of the stocks are at their 52 week low, meaning this is the lowest of the stock price has been in the last 52 weeks.

Weeks.

So I consider this time in the market like not sure. If you guys shop at Target, if you go to Target, you go to the end of the aisle and there's.

All those red stickers.

Yes.

You feel like you hit the jackpot when your favorite products have a red sticker on them. They don't sell their own clearance. That is literally what the entire stock market is. It's like walking into a Target. Yeah. To a Target where everything has a red sticker. Okay. So being able to take advantage of various opportunities to get into investors. Investors. Right now you're gonna thank me later. You're gonna thank your future self later. This is not the time to be scared. So if it's a stock mutual fund, I don't care. Just get into something. Don't let the market go back up again and you miss out.

Right.

Because for a lot of us maybe, well, there'll probably be another recession in our lives, but there only may only be another, another one or two down times in the market. So making sure you're taking advantage of this time for sure.

Small businesses, boutique boutiques, tax stores, whatever, maximize and make sure they're selling the products that people are excited about on Yellowstone.

So a lot of our stuff, so with our tack that's that comes from our Prof. Department and they, they source any of that or a Taylor Sheridan does have a lot of resources. Well, he, he knows his people and he wants to bring his people on a lot of the time. And so a lot of that is either stuff that he likes and wants on the show or it's sourced out by our props department or our set deck and property. They deal with all of that and bring it on. And a lot of the times it's either who you know or a style that they're looking for. And then when you come back into the costume Realm, which is more my realm. A lot of times it is either who. You know, like with the Kimes, Taylor's friends with the Kimes. So of course he wanted a lot of the Kaim stuff on the show, which you see we will. In any episode where you see any of the ranch hands, you're probably going to see a Kaim's hat or some Kaim's jeans or something. You're gonna see it in there. Not only that, but we also love Kimes. Kimes is a good brand. So yeah, it's. And what also has the look. So if you're looking at something and you see ranch, you're probably going to think Wrangler, you're going to think Carhartt, you're going to think Levi, you're going to think those. Those brands. And so obviously you're going to want to bring those brains in to help make something look realistic.

Yeah.

And then again, it's. I'll. I'll be looking through Instagram. If I see something I like, I go and take it to our designer. Hey, look, what do you think of this? Like, I just saw that scrolling through the gram and maybe it'd be something for good for, you know, this character, that character. And she'll either yes or no it and will you order some or not?

Well, it's such. It's so interesting to see the ripple effect that has on businesses. So in January, I was at Dallas Market center and actually two separate conversations, one with Keith Mundy from American Hat and one with Devin, who I believe is a national sales manager for Resisto. And both of them separately mentioned what an impact Yellowstone has had on their sales at that market. And they said it's like the urban cowboy effect of, you know, the 80s and 90s and when being a cowboy was cool. And this show has made that happen again. And now we're seeing small businesses really reap the benefit of that. And probably Covid, where people aren't going to an office all the time, they can really dress more authentic to who they are rather than a suit or whatever that is. But it's really cool to see how that's going to continue to evolve on our culture today and what an impact.

That'S going to have.

Right?

Yes. I think it's so neat and especially coming from the more western world in general, like myself and seeing it, seeing it on tv, seeing how people really see how the ranch is ran, not so much Rand, but how people in the western world live and how they dress and stuff like that, like, I think it's. I think it's neat how it's coming back around. It used to be popular and now it's coming back and it's popular again.

And.

It does affect, I think, the way the stores are selling the product. And like you were saying, resist all in an American hat company. Like, I know people are like, hey, where can I get that hat? And I was like, well, first off, have you ever worn a cowboy hat? Because I know you have it, because I know you don't come from that background. Do you know how much one of those hats cost?

Yeah.

Oh, maybe I don't want that one. But how can I get something like.

It or, you know, you know, it really. It ties in that whole cowboy hat conversation of. I don't know if you follow Courtney dehoff on Instagram, fancy lady cowgirl, but I recently was having a conversation with her about this as well. And what I think is cool about people asking you that you're like, hey, have you ever worn a hat? Is this is not just about people who have been western, but it's about people who are enamored by their lifestyle and they want to be western.

And I think we're being introduced to.

It in general, and we all have to embrace that. I think, think sometimes those of us who grew up on a ranch or we rodeo or whatever, we become a little bit closed off to, like, oh, well, are you authentic or you want to be anymore? If somebody wants to be western or you want to support agriculture, period, I am here for you. I don't care if you are from the downtown of a big city. Like, we have to embrace that if we want that lifestyle and that culture to last. Right. So what a great way to introduce that.

You don't want it to. You don't want it to go away, especially your culture. It's who we are. It's who we want people to know about what we do and who we are.

I'm curious if you can help me answer this. I see a lot of T shirt makers today capitalizing on the Yellowstone brand and they're making things with the Dutton brand on it. I have heard that it is heavily trademarked and that is something people should steer clear of. Is that anything you can lend some insight to?

So, yes, it is. It's very trademarked. And if you. I know they are sending out cease and desist orders to companies as they see them. I actually, another part that I kind of helped start was the merchandising for Yellowstone through one of the Studios. And you see them now at. We had setups at the past two NFRs. The Yellowstone store.

Yeah.

So. And as they were going around going to the different setups and seeing that people had Yellowstone stuff and that they were just making it on their own and they were either like, you either take it down or we are gonna send a cease and desistory. And some companies took it right down. They didn't realize. And that is something that people don't realize in general. People don't understand that most TV shows in general are trademarked. You can't just.

Characters, faces, names.

Yeah, characters, faces, lyrics. Exactly, exactly. Those things are all property of somebody else or another company. So that's. And if you want to, you have to reach out to. I think for Yellowstone. It's a Viacom, so you have to reach out to Viacom and get permission to sell the product. I know Wrangler has like Boot Barn has to be able to sell just a logo in general from the Yellowstone.

Okay.

So just be careful is all I have to say. If you are selling it, I know it's such a huge show and we all love it, but do your best not to get in trouble.

Well, we've seen a lot of it. We've had this conversation in the Hub, so I would just echo that. It's not worth getting your social media taken away, getting your Shopify shut down. Like anything that you carry that has the likeness of something else that's popular through art, it's probably going to be protected. So something else that you've done really well that I want to call out is you built this great brand on Instagram, but you've also built a personal brand alongside of your business brand. Was there any, like, as you go along and you're sharing just behind the scenes in your personal life and you're a mom with two busy kids. Was the thought behind that to be able to like leverage and push one to the other or how have you viewed Instagram and using it for both business and personal in this really unique and intertwined way?

Gosh. You know, on the personal side.

That.

Just kind of happened that I still don't even have like a real vision or goal for that. I just, just, I. I just, I love to share. Probably overshare. Um, but no, you know, but another thing, my best friend, Katie McFarland, she's a blogger and I have to say, I mean she's the one that I feel like gave Hale House the credibility on Instagram. I mean she is such a major Influence, you know, on my life, like, in business, but also personally, so. But the way that they go together, I don't know, that just kind of happens. But I am my brand, you know, because I am Hale House. Like, Hale is my maiden name. I mean, you know, like, that's who. That's who we are. And so, like, I like the personal side because I get to show you, like, how I wear it, how I style it, what's, you know, what's my life, you know?

Yeah. And it works. It works. And there's so many. It really does, right? You're giving me a face if you're living in that. But it does because it's authentic. And I think at the end of the day, like, that's the real thread here, is you've built something that's really authentic to you, and your customers have latched onto it for that reason. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to be relatable.

You know, And I feel like being, you know, being vulnerable, you know, is just so people. You don't really want to be vulnerable. But I think that, you know, because, like, you don't. I don't want anybody to talk bad about me. I don't want any, you know, I don't want any. I don't know. I just, you know, any conflict or anything. But I think that. That women and moms, like, there's so much out there that we can relate to, you know, like. And kids are hilarious. Like, kids are so funny. And I don't know. Life is just. Is crazy.

It is crazy. I'm sure you get asked this question about just behind the scenes at your own life. So you gave us a behind the scenes of a week at Hale House. Tell me about your life as a wife and a mom and a business owner and how you're able to juggle the things or try to juggle the things right. That are happening on a daily basis. What does it look like behind the.

Scenes in your life?

Controlled chaos is what we do in our family. You know, Tyler and I, we just. We set. We set boundaries for ourselves. Like, we know, like, okay, Mondays are shoot days, and we don't have it figured out. We absolutely do not have it figured out. But we have, like, we're so blessed, our families. His parents are here, and my parents are here. And so they really help us out, you know, with the kids and even, like, in the business. And we're actually like, Tyler, he's also, like, in the remodeling business. And so, like, we're Remodeling a home. And I'm like, when our heads at that pillow at night, like, it takes everything to do just to stay awake, you know, But I don't know if I juggle it that well. I think, you know, fake it till you make it, I guess. I don't know. But I certainly don't have it figured out.

I wish I could.

I have a hard time saying no to things. I feel like. And Tyler does too. Like, he gets fomo, you know, like, if there's like an event going on, like, we both want to go. And I really feel like that's where I struggle is like, I live to fill my calendar and it's not a great trait. Like, I wish, you know, I guess it might be my New Year's resolution. But, like, I'm looking at my calendar and I'm like, okay, I'm empty next week.

Like.

Like I have to go to LA because I don't have enough on order for December. Like, am I going to go to la? But I'm like, but, but, you know, and that's the thing, like juggling the family and juggling the business and juggling your friends and your marriage. I mean, it's something always has to give. Like, there's always sacrifices to every decision that you make, you know, whether it's, you know, go to la, I'm going to miss out on my kids for three days, you know, you know, markets and everything else. It's all a juggling act and I don't have it figured out. But I'm doing my best. And, you know, I hope that Tyler and I are showing our kids, like, what hard work looks like, you know, that we show up and we do the work and, you know, we're doing this for them. And, you know, that's what, that's how I was raised myself. Like, my dad was in the Marine Corps. My mom, she worked nine to five, you know, for 30 years. I mean, they're both retired now. And I'm like, oh, man, I can't wait to be retired like you.

I call them.

I'm like, mom, are you still in your PJs? It's 11 o'.

Clock.

She's like, oh, yes, sweetie. I'm just needle pointing and watching the Price is Right.

That day will come.

That day will come.

It will.

Yeah.

Do you feel like there's been in your business journey so far, like a hardest lesson that you've had to learn?

Oh, man. Lots of them.

Gosh.

I can't think of anything I Mean, I think all of it's hard. I think lessons, I really don't believe in, like, a failure, if you will. Like, I think, like, like, those are just their opportunities to learn. And don't be afraid to fail, I think is such a thing, you know, because they are, they are little lessons, you know, in life and like, okay, this will be better than this, or, you know, but just trusting your gut and taking a risk, I think I, you know, kind of like going back to that glass half full. Like, I've always, I've always been a risk taker. Like, I moved, you know, when I went to, I went to University of Arkansas, and, like, none of my friends went there, so I'm just kind of like a. I don't know, I'll just go, I'll just jump off, like, and I really don't know if there's water at the end, but I'm hoping there is. And I'm like, sure, there, there might be. I hope this pool is deep enough for me, but. But it's funny because my, my husband is totally opposite, and so I feel like that's how we really balance each other, you know, because I'm just, you know, jump and go and pray for the best. I'm kind of a crazy lady. I feel like I have all these thoughts, but my brain is like scrambled eggs sometimes, so.

Well, I think we got scrambled eggs out on the platter for everybody today to see and to learn from and.

To be inspired by.

So thanks for being a part of the Hub for so long, too. You've been a longtime member of the Hub. I, I, that means so much to me, honestly, to have you as a.

Part of our community.

So thank you for that.

Oh, my gosh, thank you. Thank you. You just, you continue to inspire me, so please don't stop what you're doing, because you are a rock star.

Thank you.

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SA.