Boutique Chat #208 | 5 Essentials For Your Website | with Angela Froschl of Hot Mess Consulting

Hey, it's time for episode number 208 with my friend Angela Froeschel of Hot Mess Consulting. If you've been a part of the Boutique Hub for any amount of time, you probably have come across Angela and her awesome work on websites. So if you've got e commerce questions, this is your week. 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.

So I'm trying to remember how I first met Angela.

She became a member of the Boutique.

Hub as a boutique owner with Thonget Boutique, and she became the girl that so many of us just really enjoyed building a friendship with. She was always so helpful. She would help people who were struggling with shopify or had design or branding questions and just say, hey, from my experience, you know, this is what's worked for me. And really, it seemed like one thing led to another and soon she was starting her own business, Hot Mess Consulting, which is such a fitting name for the life that she wants to lead. And you're going to hear why today Angela is so such a woman with a giving heart. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She is willing to give you the shirt off her back if you need it. And you're going to hear more of her story and really what's led her to live her life that way and to be such a giving person and business owner. But you're also going to hear today some really actionable takeaways that Angela wants you to hear, because these are commonly asked questions she gets when it comes to branding and website design. I love working with Angela because not only does she have that experience again as a boutique owner, she's been there and done that herself. But now she gets to serve boutique owners, her clients, in a brand new way with her branding and consulting business. So get ready, we're going to talk about the five things that you need to work on for your website and branding stat. And when I say five things, I don't mean just five things. I mean like five things with like five to do lists of things underneath the five things I mean. She brings a lot of detail to this podcast episode. So in case your arms are cramped from taking notes because they darn should be. If you are hungry in this business, check out. There's also a download that Angela provided for everyone who's a member of the Boutique Hub inside of our training library. I tell you what she's giving like that. So go check out that download. Take tons of notes in this episode and I know if you've got questions, reach out to her and ask because she is your go to gal.

So.

So, guys, I hope you enjoy this episode. Thank you for listening. I hope that you leave us a rating and review if you love the show and let us know what you think anytime over on Instagram otikubusiness or my personal Instagram ajalderson, because I would love to hear from you and to hear what you're doing while you listen to the show.

So have a great week.

You guys enjoy this episode.

Hey guys, welcome back to the show this week. And I'm so excited about the guest that we have because I know if you're a part of the Boutique Hub, she's no stranger to you. You've probably seen her in our groups offering helpful adv, but also supporting a number of your businesses with Shopify, setup and design and all kinds of help when it comes to answering your e commerce questions. So please help me welcome my friend Angela from Hot Mess Consulting and also a boutique owner. So we've got dual knowledge that we're going to cover today, right, Angela?

Oh, yes.

Well, I know we have a lot.

Of, like, key takeaways and technical pieces that we want to cover today, which I really appreciate so that we can keep the podcast as actionable as possible for everyone listening. And I know that's right up your alley too. But before we get started, you have a really unique perspective, like I mentioned, because you are a service provider in the Hub and you work with boutique owners, but you are, because you have that extensive knowledge yourself. So can you start by just kind of telling us a little bit of the backstory about how you got started with your boutique in the first place, which then kind of led you to this additional pivot and opportunity?

Yeah, so I've really always known that I wanted to run a business from the time that I was like a little girl running like a paid palm reading stand and lemonade stands and just all kinds of stuff.

Wait, a paid palm reading stand you read as a kid?

Yeah, I only, I think I only had like one gentleman, like, actually pay me, but I had like this little slip that I give him, even that I filled out like it was already, like A pre made slip where I was just gonna fill out the answers based on looking at his palm or whatever. And no, I did not know at all what I was doing.

So what did you tell him?

Do you remember? No, I wish I did though.

Well, that's unique.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I could go on and on. I have a bunch of funny stories of like different businesses that I tried to start when I was little and stuff, but so, but somewhere along the line, you know, like I, I mean I knew that that was still what I wanted in the end, but I kind of lost like sight of the possibility of it. Like I kind of lost faith in it a little bit. You know, you get, you get to be an adult, you graduated college or whatever your path is, and you just like start getting into a career and you kind of get stuck there. So I was an admin for like 8 years before I finally started my boutique. And it was a really terrible health condition, pretty much cancer. It's complicated, it's called a desmoid tumor. But it really kicked my butt for about five years. And it was near during the worst of it, like when I was bedbound. And that's a whole nother story on its own too. But during the worst of it is when I finally like woke up and was like, oh my gosh, like I can't wait to get better. And I'm scared about how long it's going to take to get better, but I'm actually more scared of getting better just to go back to the life that I had before that, where I wasn't chasing my dreams, where I forgot what I wanted out of life. And so I was kind of able to use that time instead to be like, this needs to mean something. And so, and, and, and so that's what I did with the boutique. I actually like 13 years ago, I wanted to start the boutique and it was going to be called Thong in It Boutique because I was going to specifically sell thongs, the panties and flip flops. Those were two of my favorite things at the time. And I made a website which I actually kind of had to do like the coding on myself because this was like before Shopify or before any of these programs just made it really easy. So I was using this thing called Zen Cart. And again I had to get into a lot of coding just to make it look even a little bit cute. And anyway, so I did a bunch of stuff, but I just never pressed go and really started the business. So fast forward to dealing with this health issue that was opening my eyes, and I. It was literally, like, in the middle of the night, and I was like, okay, what am I going to do next then in my life, like, if I. If I don't want to get better because I don't want to go back to where I was. What's next? And it was literally in the middle of the night that the boutique came back to me. And I was like, oh, my God. And at the time, lularoe and everything, like, leggings were all the craze. So I was like, well, what if I could start with, like, leggings or something? So I looked up wholesale leggings, and right there at midnight is basically when my boutique started rolling around, like, trying to figure out what to do. And literally on my phone, so as I was looking for leggings to buy wholesale, you know, everybody was like, oh, you need your wholesale license. You need your wholesale license. So I googled it right there, and I was able to apply in California for my seller's permit for free. All on the phone, like, in 10 minutes. And so. And that was it. And from there, I just took off with it, and I never stopped.

Oh, man. I remember when you and I think first connected, you must have just started your boutique or you were fairly new into it, I feel like. And were you still maybe battling the tumor big time at that point? I feel like I remember you telling me about being bedbound during that time and just how that spurred you on, which is remarkable. Like, what good, good can come out of such bleak situations?

Yes, yes. And the tumor. So I am basically almost three years, or just over three years, something like that, tumor free. And this was a tumor that has a really high recurrence rate. And so, like, a lot of my counterparts, like, fellow patients that I'm still friends with and stuff, are still suffering, and they think that they'll be suffering their whole life. And at one point, I wasn't sure whether that was going to be the case for me either. But I have this really strong, like, will, you know, And I'm like, always, like, I am never willing to settle. Like, this is good enough. Like, for me, tumor free was the only thing that was going to be good enough. So when there was doctors saying, like, oh, it's if we can just get it to stop growing any bigger, when at the biggest, it was 20cm and it was in my hip, like, it caused problems walking, like, all kinds of stuff. So they were like, you know, we don't recommend you get it removed because it'll Just come right back and. And I did get it removed and it did come back, but. But then there was more treatments after that. And anyway, so now it's been like three years. And so, I mean, that's another thing is just like never give up on like what it is you really want. Don't settle for what you have right now. If what you really want is more than that. That's kind of off topic. But your question was.

Yeah, no, but it's. So when I was so crucial.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, when I first started, I was bedbound and I was off my off work on disability from my regular job. And so, you know, I was low on funds because disability doesn't pay you all you normally get. And I was still recovering and learning how to walk again because my first surgery, they took out my gluteus maximus on the left side. So I literally had to like learn how to walk again. And I still have a limp and will always, but whatever. And so, yeah, I got started still in bed and just on my computer and just kept trucking along.

So at what point as you were going along through this, you know, in building the boutique, building the online piece of this, did you realize, oh man, there's other people who have questions around something that comes relatively easy for me as you began to figure it out. Really, how did that all transpire?

It's so crazy, like, how it all happened as far as like the boutique and then Hot Mess and like, I always knew that I wanted to help other ladies, like, really early on in my own business. I was. If people came to me asking for business advice, I was really happy to help them. I mean, I never wanted to, like, give them bad information. So I, you know, wouldn't go beyond what my knowledge was. But even if you just started your boutique, there's always going to be somebody that's behind you that you can help that's just a few steps behind or whatever. And so the main thing that I helped in the beginning was like, I would help ladies with like, branding. Like, I had a friend that sold handmade jewelry and she really didn't have a logo or colors picked out, you know, even just the basic stuff. So I kind of helped her with that and get her business cards designed. And this was long before I ever charged for my time or ever even thought that, you know, that this could be a business or anything. So shopify itself, like, and websites in general have always been an interest to me. And when during, like before Hot Mess, I spent most of my Time. Working on my website, like, that really was the main thing to me. Like, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and that's also something to consider when you're looking for help or when you're looking to grow is like, what do you do best? And keep doing that, and what do you maybe not do the best? And can you outsource? Because it's not always. Sometimes it's about quality. Sometimes it's just about time. Like, time really is money when you have a list of things that you're amazing at, and then this other thing could take so much of your time that it's just not worth doing.

It's an absolutely true growth principle. Actually, Sarah says this all the time inside of Retail Bootcamp. Do what you do best and hire the rest. Because, yes, there's no doubt everyone can hustle and figure it out, but that does. It costs you money. And what is your time worth? And are you truly valuing that at the end of the day?

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

How did you come up with the name Hot Mess when you first decided to start this new journey?

So this name actually started out as what I was gonna just do. Like, I was just gonna have a blog, and it was just gonna kind of talk about my journey on starting my boutique, and I was gonna share it with other people in case they wanted to just needed some inspiration for starting their own business or even not a business, but, like, whatever it was they were working on, you know, like, believing in the impossible and just taking the steps needed to just do the thing, whatever the thing is. And so that's where the name originally came to me. And that one just came to me so easily because it's just the truth. Like, I've worked with hundreds of hubbies and boutique owners in general now, and we. We're all Hot Messes. Like, if we say otherwise, like, I mean, anybody who comes to me and says that they're not, like, I know they're immediately lying.

True, true. So as you work with retailers on a daily basis, so not only. You were just. We were talking before we started recording this show that got gals helping you with Hot Mess consulting sitting in another room right now. And you've got other gals sitting in another room working on the boutique as you continue to build this really cool empire that you've started. I'm sure you hear feedback up to the minute feedback from boutique owners on a daily basis about most commonly asked questions they have with Shopify. Specifically, can you talk about what maybe some of those commonly asked Questions are and how you could help some of these gals who may be thinking of them right now.

Yeah, so the most common question that I actually get, even though what I help with specifically is Shopify websites and mailchimp templates and your branding. So even though those are the pieces that I help with the most, the question that I still get the most is, will your help bring me more sales? And the issue is it's really the wrong question to be asking. I mean, like, there's different pieces to the puzzle as far as your success and, like, bringing sales in and branding is definitely one of them. And marketing is a whole separate thing. So a lot of times people seem to get those kind of mixed up. So, like, the main thing with Shopify is if you're not looking at your data at all, we kind of can't even have a conversation about this yet. But. So the first thing that I usually ask when I'm asked that question is, how many average daily visits are you getting to your website? Where are those visitors coming from? And then what is your actual conversion rate? Because it's important to I'll get a lot of potential clients or just people asking questions that are like, getting a lot of traffic, but it's not converting. Like, what can I do? Well, we look at everything and they're only getting, like around 25 visits a day or so, say. And really that's not enough to even be looking at. I mean, you still should be looking at your conversion rates, but at 25 a day, that's probably just like really organic traffic. Coming from the few posts that you do on social media, those are probably like, your friends and family and people that are already following you. So those are like warm visitors, for one thing. And it's just not a lot. It's not enough visitors per day to really gather anything super useful from your data. So if you're only getting like 25 visitors a day, well, your first goal really needs to be to get that to 50, whatever you can do. And we'll go over this more a little bit later, I think too. But, like, what can you do to get those visits up? But, you know, so if you're less than that, you want to get to 50. Once you're there, your goal should be 100 visits per day. And then just keep going that way because you do want to look at your visits and your conversion rate. But until your visits are high enough, you can't really, like I said, just make useful inferences from the data and then the conversion rate Itself. I mean, remember that the average conversion rate is only like about 2% in our industry. So like where are you according to that? And if you're starting to increase your traffic and this is brand new traffic coming in or it's colder traffic, so it's people that don't already know you, your conversion rate is going to be lower too. You know, you might be used to having like a really high conversion rate when nobody's really looking at your website, but that's because the very few people that are looking are your friends and family and they're already ready to buy. And so you really just want to work on getting that traffic up. And then the other thing is like how is your website when the traffic is hitting your site? Like, is it, do you have enough inventory? Do you? Well, we'll go over some of this later but really that's the main question that I get is like, can your help bring me more sales? And honestly my answer is no because there is so much, there are so many other factors in the success of your website and increasing your conversion rate and everything. Like I'm just a piece of the puzzle, man.

I love that. I love it. And so I think what we should.

Do next, we were kind of strategizing, man.

How could we lump all those pieces into one flowing topic, right? Because you're right, I always use this analogy that being a successful boutique owner is like a four legged stool, right? Where you have to be great.

Like I'm just a piece of the puzzle, man.

I love that, I love it. And so I think what we should do next, we were kind of strategizing, man. How could we lump all those pieces into one flowing topic, right? Because you're right, I always, I always use this analogy that being a successful boutique owner is like a four legged stool, right? Where you have to be great, you've got to have great financials, like financial know how you've got to have the right inventory, you have to understand marketing and then there's like the whole personal mindse piece. So there's so many pieces that go into you as a successful business owner. But I mean even just you and E commerce has all these moving parts. So let's talk about this. Five things to work on for your weight. You've got to have great financials, like financial know how you've got to have the right inventory, you have to understand marketing and then there's like the whole personal mindset piece. So there's so many pieces that go into you as a successful business owner, but I mean, even just you and E Commerce has all these moving parts. So let's talk about this five things to work on for your website and branding ASAP so that you can generate more sales, right?

Yes.

So tell me about what is number one for you.

So one of the first things that I work on with clients and some don't have an issue with this at all, but is your menu and navigation. So.