Boutique Tips | Holiday Marketing Mastery | Ashley Alderson - Dallas Market Speech

You guys, I'm so. I'm blown away. I've never been in this lounge before. How many of you guys knew this was up here on the 15th floor? A couple of you, this pretty cool spot. So while we're getting started, I'd love to know who here is a Boutique Hub member. You guys know the drill. Like, who here is like, what's the Boutique Hub? I came for free marketing tips. Okay, I got you. I got you. So. So in case you haven't met yet, my name's Ashley Alderson. I'm the founder of the Boutique Hub. The Boutique Hub has been around for. I see Ruby sitting here. We've been around for six years. And someone asked me the other day, do you remember your first customer? And I laughed because I think you had to be maybe one of the very first on Boutique when we first started.

Yeah.

So our mission is to be the central connection point of the boutique industry. And really our entire team is fueled by how do we help small business owners succeed? How do we raise the voice of small business owners in a time where everyone wants to shop on Amazon and we're telling them why not to shop on Amazon? So I'm going to tell you more about the Boutique Hub as we go and some new things that we have going. How many of you guys have seen Boutique Style in the last couple of weeks? Yeah. So that's our little baby that's kind of starting to grow. I'm going to show you some things with that and the Boutique Awards later on. But I mean, I don't want to hold you up. I want to get into the tips too. So a little bit about me. I'm from Wisconsin. Currently. I'm originally from North Dakota. I feel confined to a very small space up here, and I've got three kids. My husband Eric and I have three kids. Hadley, Easton, and Jade, and they're nine, seven, and five. So at one point, we have three kids under five. You guys know what it's like to heard cats, like, live in constant chaos. They're getting a little better than that. But how many of you guys know what it's like to struggle at bedtime? Like bedtime routines and kids. Amen. There's wine for that. You know, our kids are getting better about bedtime. But one thing my husband and I have always been pretty secure in, I would say, is making sure the evenings are time that we can spend with our kids. And we hold true to, you know, work ends at certain times time, and we're with our family and then we go on. But there's times. And you guys know what it's like when you get busy in business and it just doesn't go that way, right? So about a year ago, actually, it was December. It was right before the nfr. And you guys know what it's like. How many of you guys know what the NFR is? Paula Rodeo, are you familiar with that lifestyle? Okay, so women that go to the nfr, they have their outfits planned like six months in advance, and their bags are packed by the door like they're ready to go. So I had this. I was ready to go, but in true fashion, my work wasn't done yet. So I told Eric. I was like, let's put the kids to bed. I'm just gonna finish a couple of things. And then we flew out the next morning. So I set the kids up and I'm like, brush your teeth. Make sure your brother didn't lie about brushing his teeth. Cause he will. And get in bed. And I'll be up there in just a couple minutes. I just have to finish, like, email campaigns and some things I was working on. And so they go on upstairs and I start to type. And a couple minutes later, I can hear one of them yell over the balcony. Not like, mom, are you coming? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I just have one more thing. Like, I'm just going to finish this thing and then I'll be up there. And I keep typing and I don't know how 30 minutes, whatever, four minutes go past, and another one yells, mom, are you coming? I got this. Yes, I'll be there. This is really important, honey. Like, I'll be there in just a second and type some more. And you guys, it was, I don't know how long again after that. Pretty soon I hear these little footsteps come across the floor. And it's Jade, who was 4 at the time. And she's our total firecracker, but also will melt your heart. And she came and she was dragging her blankie. And she comes into my office, which is right off of our kitchen, comes in, and she knocks on my door because she knows she can't just burst in, you know, sometimes there's videos and things happening. And she just says, mom, you work all the time. And she walked up to me and crawled up on my lap and just asked, can I just sleep on your chest? I'm like, okay. So she gets up on my chest. And you guys that are mothers, you know what that's like. I felt this tall because unfortunately it Wasn't the first time that ever happened. Right. I think you guys know what that feeling is like, especially around the fourth quarter when the holidays are approaching and you're at your store, you're at your warehouse, or just like that, one more thing that we have to get done and we put everyone else that's important to us and the real reason why we started our businesses in the first place, for freedom and to provide for our families and to make an impact. We put those things second, unfortunately. So the next morning, my husband and I went to the airport and said goodbye to our kids. Went to the airport, and as we're on the plane, usually I'm a slinker on the plane. Like, I have a girl that's out in 30 seconds. Could not sleep that morning because all we could talk about was, this has to change, this has to change. And so for us, that's when we decided in 2019, our year or our word of the year was going to be maximize. Maximize. How do we get more by doing less? How do we create something and use it a number of ways and just get more juice for this week so that we are not burning both ends of the stick? And that's really, you know, when I think about holiday marketing tips, that's what I really want to cover with you guys today, because I don't want you guys running around at the holidays just trying to make sure someone else can have a good holiday and so you can suffer in return. Right? I want you guys to be the ones that are sitting around the tree this year, actually enjoying your time at the tree, not wondering, oh, crap, what did I forget to put under the tree? And how in the heck am I going to pay for the crap that's under the tree? Right? Because that happens, too. So we're going to talk today about mastering the holidays so that we can create the business that we actually want over the holidays. So I'm going to talk about a couple of these key things, six things we're going to go over, and I'm going to give you lots of ideas, lots of information. So if you have something to take notes, that would be awesome. If you remember the Boutique Hub, I'll tell you, Ed's recording. So we're going to hopefully put this.

In the training library so you guys.

Can come back to it if you want to see more of it later. And I'm also going to give you an opportunity at the end today to get all the information that I shared with you here. Plus, my slides sound good. All Right. So first thing I want to talk about is. Can't see my screen. The people that are most successful, the businesses that are most successful in November and December are the ones that start in July and August when it comes to the holidays, guys agree, we have to start now if we want to make a plan for later. So the very first thing I want to talk about in terms of maximizing is how important it is to pre plan your holidays right now. And that is step number one to create a holiday roadmap. So what I like to do for this is just get a basic calendar, a desk calendar, a day planner, whatever you want it to be. And start by circling all of the dates on that calendar. Where you have events or pop ups or promotions that you know you're going to run. Are there photo shoots that you know you have to fit in in that time, Are there promotional emails? Like what is all the marketing content that you need to have and when is it going to go out and how can you start to pre schedule it now? And I want all of that written down on the calendar for pre planning. This also comes in, you're at market so you're buying, right? So you're going to start to put in of course all of your delivery dates, all of your cancel dates so.

That you know what collections are going.

To be releasing at certain times of the year. Because how many of you guys are big into collections when it comes to the holidays? I'll talk about this in a little bit. You know there's really like three types of collections. Typically we'll promote gift collections, bundles for the store, promotional items, and then what are your customers actually going to wear? So what are they going to give away, what are you going to use as a promo and what are people actually going to wear? So how can we start to put that into a calendar and start to pre plan all of our marketing around that list? All right, number two. Oh, one more thing before I go on to number two. How many of you guys hire extra help over the holidays? Right? And would you agree that you can never hire enough help for the holidays? Because what happens plan A, plan B when you have employees quit the day before Black Friday and that happens every year, Right? And it can't always be you to pick up the slack. It can't be you because this is about you having the best holidays you can get. So who do we need to hire and how can we start to hire them now and train them ahead of time so that they're ready for the holidays? Alright. Number two, let's talk about this huge obstacle I think a lot of boutique owners face over the holidays is they are looking at the wrong numbers. They're looking at what was my gross sales last year and how can I meet those gross sales next year. And I think that is a huge mistake. Right? Because our gross sales are not the number that puts money in the bank at the end of the day. Right? It's our profit margin. It's our nmu. So how are we going to start to increase those numbers so that we can be more profitable at the end of the season? Because I cannot tell you how many store owners I visited with that said, man, I had the best holiday season ever with my sales numbers, record sales, and I'm like, awesome. How much did you put away in the bank? You know, you're a squirrel. This is a busy time of year. We gotta put our notes away for the spring and for the J months. And if we're a squirrel and you know what they put away? Nothing. Nothing. They had their best sales ever, but they weren't profitable. So this year, I want you to start thinking about what numbers am I really going to track, right? Is it my aov? Right. Am I average order value? Am I going to try to sell more units per transaction? Is it my mmu? What am I really going to study to make sure that I'm more profitable and not just selling more with a blanket sale? All right, number three, let's talk about buying. Right? So I love the holidays because I think it's such an opportunity to test out different price points and different categories with our customers. And I'm going to go on a soapbox. How many of you guys listen to the boutique chat podcast this week which was all about pricing? Couple of you. Okay, so I went on a big soapbox and I'm going to do it again because I feel like there's a huge misconception in boutique land that cheaper is better in some places. In boutique land, right? And cheaper is not better. Right? We're not Walmart. We are boutiques. And people come to boutiques because they want curations, they want unique items, they want quality, they want someone that's going to dress them, that's going to style them, that's going to be their sister. That's going to build their confidence. They do not want to go sift through a rack at Walmart and vulnerable price match. But you don't price match, Right? And so when it comes to pricing and it comes to buying, this is such a critical time of year to make sure we get it right and then we're testing out different items. So I love the fact today that we're on this floor specifically because it's really easy. We all shop a lot of fast fashion, but this floor, how many of you guys have shopped on this floor before? Shop showrooms. So a couple of you, how many of you are like scared to admit it? Like, I've never actually been up here before, but it looks cool. Couple of you. And that's all right. So a lot of times, especially for young business owners, it feels a little intimidating to walk into a showroom. But I love the fact that we're up here because some of the coolest trends in this building are up on this floor. And this is an opportunity to area protect for your store and to test out some really cool items that are a little bit higher value. Another thing we talked about in the podcast this week when it came to price was this idea of pricing and increasing value. It's all about the mental state of your customer. What I mean by that is price. The way that we set price in business, right, is an equilibrium. It's when the pain of letting that dollar go out of our hand is outweighed by the value that we perceive we're going to get from the product we're buying. Make sense. So we've got to make sure as business owners that we're minimizing the pain that our customers are feeling by spending the money and we're increasing the value of that item. So this is when it comes to you, when you're carrying higher quality, higher priced items, try on Sessions Fit videos. You're talking about stitch, you're talking about buttons and zippers and how many times can I wear this Right? A little bit. Last week in Vegas, I think I was, I don't know if it was from one of my talks, but I was saying when my kids are really little, I love $20 T shirts because my kids could like spit up on those things anytime they wanted and I could throw them away in a heartbeat and it didn't matter. It was disposable fashion and that's what I really wanted. And now that my kids don't spit up on me anymore, I want the good stuff. Right? So where is your customer at in her journey and what type of product does she really need in her journey right now? And so how can we increase that idea of value when it comes to price? So we're getting her higher quality items. The other thing, when it comes to buying right this time of year is also looking for great off price items. So last week while we were in Vegas, the off price show was going on. I know there's always a lot of questions about off price in the hub, but that's something I would encourage you to talk to your vendors about as well. Because just like boutiques, we all have overstock. Vendors have overstock too. And so if you can come in, maybe it's not the trendiest item, maybe it's not the new arrival you're going to put in your window at your store store or on the front page of your website, then maybe it's the doorbuster deal that you needed for Black Friday. So don't get lost in the trap of paying full price for something that you're going to use to discount later on to try to attract traffic into your store onto your website. But try to look for those bargains and those off price items. All right, number four, what are your boundaries going to be? What are your boundaries going to be? This is all a part of pre planning for the season. So did anyone who was at the Boutique summit in Atlanta this year. Woohoo. Alright, so one of my favorite talks, if you weren't there, was Mike Michalowicz, the author, the author of Profit first and he was talking about this theory of the small plates. You guys familiar with this? So the theory of the small plates is, is the larger our plates get when we're at dinner, at lunch, the more we're gonna consume, right? I'll put bagels, steak and potatoes on there, I'm gonna eat all of it. But if I eat on a smaller plate, I'm gonna consume less. So I look at this as my life, my time, my boundaries. What am I saying yes to? What am I saying no to? And there's actually been some studies, several studies that have proved proven this theory and said when you actually take your say a 40 hour work week and chop it down into say 30 hours or 25 hours, most people are often just as productive in those 25 hours as they are in 40 because of the theory of the small plates. Because when you don't have that opportunity to procrastinate or to fit more in, you don't. So when it comes to boundaries, what are the things we're actually going to allow on our plate in terms of scheduling and time blocking and the family commitments that you're going to have this year versus what are we going to say no to and ask for help with later on? I threw in some quotes from some of our boutique members. Actually, Shannon works for the boutique hub now. So a couple of tips as we kind of transition here. But don't wait to purchase your inventory for promotions. Having the next three months fully mapped out now is so beneficial for your sanity and your business. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Don't do the Kim K Ugly cry, please. All right, so how many of you guys have staff? A lot of you. Right. All right, so back in Wisconsin in the land of cheese and beer and apples, I coach basketball. My nine year old daughter's basketball team and actually a co ed team that my 7 year old son and my daughter play on. And Sarah Burks, who's on our team and also leads retail boot camp with me, her husband is a varsity basketball coach as well. So we talk a lot in sports analogies in the hub and we love this. Actually Sarah taught me this analogy and I think it's brilliant. So I'm gonna steal it and I'm gonna share it with you today. But when you have a team, it's just like coaching basketball, right? When I coach 9 year olds on the basketball court, it is literally hurting cats. They have no idea what hoop we're going to. They have no idea like who's supposed to take the ball down the court. You know what it's like when you go to a little kid's basketball game and someone like is on fast break and the whole crowd is running like wrong way. You're at that hoop like you're going the wrong way. But the little kids are so excited. They're like dribbling as fast as they can. She's so proud of themselves. Well, business is the same way. It's so easy with our teams to bring them into that first practice and we hire them and then we forget that we actually have to be a basketball coach and we have to continue to coach them every step of the way. Are there any basketball fans here? You guys? You're okay? Like this is landing with you. Do you need a margarita? Anybody? A couple of you? All right, so in the fourth quarter in a basketball game, right? Let's say end of the game and it's tied, 30 seconds left or we're in overtime. Either analogy, take it as you will. What team are you going to put your money on? The team that has the best coach. Right. I'm going to look for the team that has the most seasoned coach because I know whatever play they're going to call in overtime or in the last 30 seconds of the game. That's the money maker. I'm not going to rely on the high school kid taking the ball down the court to have a flipping clue what he's going to do at the end of the game. I'm relying on the coach to be figure it out. And same with us. So we're coming into the fourth quarter, right? This is our busiest time of the year. This is your moneymaker. Are you going to rely on the high school kid to figure it out? Right. A lot of us do, but we can't. This is our opportunity to continue to coach our team. So just like lots of football teams right now are doing two A days, right? How do they do that in Texas? They just, like, practice super early in the morning. This heat is unbelievable. Like, Texans, what do you do super early and like late at night? It's still. I mean, no wonder these kids, like, vomit. This is crazy. I can't even walk across the street here, let alone play football. So 2A days, right? So if we're going into the fourth quarter, how are we going to start having 2A days and coaching and training our teams in the same way? New product education, cross training, cross promotion. It's not always you that has to be the trainer either, right? Your team can train one another. So I've used this analogy a few times, so forgive me if you've heard this before, but back in the day when there was no boutiques in North Dakota, I worked at the Buckle because there was no boutiques in North Coast. So at Buckle, my specialty was denim. I loved denim. And how the business structure works is someone on the floor is always a specialist in one area of the store. And then it's your job to educate the rest of the team on everything to know denim, women's denim, for me, fit, price, quality, cut, like everything someone needs to know about denim, I was their girl. And then other people were specialists in shoes and accessories and all these other things. So how could we bring that same mentality back to our team where they can be a specialist in something and the weight's not on your shoulders to continuously try to train your team? And it's not just for those of you that have brick and mortars, honestly, it's your social media team as well. So just like you have sales associates on a floor in a brick and mortar, whoever's doing your social media, that's your sales associate online or that's the girl that's doing the live videos with you. How many of y' all do live sales? Awesome, right? How many of you. You're the only one that does the live sale. You're exhausted, aren't you? Right? So the more you can train, you have to have help. But the more you can train the people that help you with the live sales, they're your sales associate too. So cross train run your 2A days. Definitely get people up on the plays of your team. I love Buddy to help. The only way to grow and scale a business is to get really good at two creating processes and coaching your team to spot the gas in those processes. A good coach never stops coaching in the good times or the bad. Right. I heard a recent study done that was talking about how when employees quit or asked to leave, it was like 90% of the time those issues are a result of poor leadership, right? So it's so easy when we have an employee issue to go, it's their fault when really it should be. Maybe I didn't train them well, right? Or maybe there was an unmet expectation or conversation that needed to take place that maybe didn't, right? So take that opportunity to learn now before it is the day before Black Friday and you're like grandma, mom, aunt, who's going to come in and help you stack the store, the warehouse. All right, let's talk about events. So another misconception in events is that when we do pop ups or we go to shows, the main purpose of events is to have a hard roi. Dollars. Dollars in the bank, right? Who here thinks that might be like, I'm going for the dollars when I do events? It's pretty common, right? But to me, the fourth quarter and events, this is not about making the money as much as it's about customer acquisition. This is customer acquisition season because everybody and their grandma literally are shopping during the fourth quarter, right? So this is a land grab of data in the fourth quarter. How many email addresses can I get? How many people can I get on my text list? How many people can download my app? How many people can comment on my live sale so I can come back and run retargeting ads to them later? How many touch points can I get? So same thing when it comes to that idea of in the fourth quarter, like, oh, I broke my sales record but I still wasn't profitable. Are you hosting events in your store, at your warehouse just to host events because you've always hosted them, or is there a way to increase your hard or soft ROI with those events? So first things first. What is the goal? Some events you might go to looking for the dollars, some events you might go to just for customer data. Let's talk about the nfr. A couple of you were familiar with that and we talked about having a booth at the NFR, right? So when you're at the NFR, it's an expensive place to be in Vegas for 10 days, right? Bringing team and setting up there. To me, the most important part of being at the NFR is again, the data. So this year I did a little test or last year at the nfr, I did a little test. I shopped at a lot of stores. A lot of stores. My husband is not happy with me, but what I was looking for was when I got home from Vegas, how many of them followed up with me? How many of them knew I was an NFR shopper and sent me any kind of specialized marketing? How many of them had Facebook ads that showed up in my feed in the next month? You know, how many? Two. One. Two. And there's a lot of boutiques in Vegas at nfr, right? So this is an opportunity to make sure if you're collecting emails at events that you're hosting, that you put them on your email list, that you're tagging them as Vegas NFR Shopper or Round Top Shopper. Right? Where did we meet those people? So that 12 months from now when we go back to that event now we can email that tagged group of customers and start to market to them specifically, hey, I know you come to the nfr, visit our booth this year we've got such a greater segmented audience and a greater open rate and conversion rate likely because we know those customers are interested in those specific events. So make sure you're taking the opportunity to follow up with those customers after every single event you host. Alright, let's talk about prepackaging items. This is one of my favorite holiday strategies, kind of going along with this idea of data acquisition during the fourth quarter. Sometimes it's not that we want customers to come in and make a huge purchase with us. Say if they're a new customer, first time customer, sometimes we'd rather have them come in and make a tiny purchase so that we can at least get our foot in the door. Like just take this tiny little thing, even if you're not ready for anything else in my store so that you can start to get on my list and I can wow you with my customer service, right? So when it comes to the holidays, those tiny little gifts for teachers, babysitters, dog walkers, grandmas, the old lady next door who sometimes waters your flowers, whatever it's going to be right. You can come up with a million ways to create cute little bundled items that make it a no brainer at events or in the store or on the website. E Commerce girls bundles still work really, really well online. So how can we create that easy opportunity for a customer to do business with them? Let's talk about wish lists at events. How many of you guys do wish lists at events? So cute. So cute pregnant. So wish lists are another opportunity to grow our database in the fourth quarter. And I know you all have probably heard this if you've been a member of the Hub for any time, but my favorite wish lists are wish list list that has to do with men. Right? So let's say you have a ladies night at your store or a ladies night at your warehouse or a ladies night online in a private Facebook group or in a private Facebook event and you're asking women to come in and fill out their wish list of their, you know, what's their size, what are the items they like in your store? Maybe not a particular item because you're likely going to sell out, but in general, what do you like? What's your room panel, what's your anniversary and what is your husband's name and email address and phone number? Right. Because he is clueless when it comes to the holidays. My favorite gift ever from my husband is a popcorn maker that he bought at an Elko store on Christmas Eve in the morning one time. Yes. He's not really that great in the gift giving department. So we actually don't give each other gifts anymore for that reason. Don't have tell them that I told you that there's lots of other men probably like my husband that feel the same way. So how can we take some of that weight off their shoulders by getting in contact with their wife ahead of time at an event or some strategy. Maybe you're just going to email your email list, maybe you're going to run Facebook ads. But you've got to get your customers start filling out those lists and giving husband's information. Because now we can market to them not only at Christmas, the Valentine's Day, and you've got her birthday and you've got her anniversary. So this is an easy opportunity, you guys, when the store is quiet or when your shippers aren't busy, somebody on your team can make this really personal and reach out to the men and hand hold them. We'll gift wrap for you. Like we'll have a secret pickup night for you. Actually, it'll be a morning, the morning of Christmas Eve, because that's when men are gonna do it. Right? You can make it so simple for them, but guys can't. That is one of the biggest opportunities when it comes to holiday marketing. Right there. Another huge opportunity I want to talk about at events is gift cards and doing gift cards for the next January. Right? So you guys have heard, we have a program I'm going to tell you about a little bit called the holiday marketing Masterclass. And this strategy is in there because one of our gals who was a part of that training ran this promotion and ended up having the biggest January she'd ever had in her business's history because she simply started to market. If you purchased X amount during the holidays, then you got some kind of promotion for January. Right. Or you're selling gift cards for January. There's some kind of cash back for January when it's the Jane month. And now you're starting to mark down anything that's left in your store. Right. That's a huge opportunity for money in your pocket in January. All right, last piece. When it comes to events, you guys know our mission at the Boutique Hub is community over competition. And I believe that that doesn't just mean boutique to boutique, but it means every business in your community there is an opportunity always to collaborate. Side note, yesterday, all of our team that's in Wisconsin, there's about five of us in Wisconsin. We were all in Minneapolis, because who here uses Sezzle or, like, an alternative painting method? Yeah. So Sezzle's based in Minneapolis, so we've been talking about this forever. And finally yesterday, we got to go over there and visit their headquarters. And then we went to a twins game last night, and it was so cool, you guys, to sit there and just, like, hear their feedback about, you know what? Our business was six months old when we met Boutique Hub. And, like, we had a random introduction. Their business was six months old. They hardly had any customers. Very, very new. And we started to work together because we saw such an opportunity. Like, how come boutiques aren't taking advantage of this yet? It's because they just don't know about it. So we started to just collaborate with one another. What happened was their business is now traded on the Australian Stock Exchange. They have close to 100 employees, and they're one of the number one alternative payment solutions in the world. Like, so cool. Because of that one little collaboration, it just started something. And now they have a partnership with Commentsold, which I know has been huge for them, too. The reason they're telling you that story is one tiny little collaboration that you might think is meaningless right now because you don't know where it's going to go. Could turn out to be something huge tomorrow. So the more you have an opportunity to collaborate with other types of businesses local to you, not local to you. Maybe it's a beauty brand or food or health or beverage or whatever, don't limit yourself to just what's local to you or just to other boutiques. But collaboration truly is the way of the future. So when it comes to holiday marketing, see how I'm bringing this back full circle? So when it comes to holiday marketing, the same is true. How could you run checklists or wish lists or cross promotion little Christmas display in a local store that says hair salon let's say and how could they run something in your space? Or how could you have a promotion on social media for a different business type and vice versa. There's so many ways to slice and dice this to cross promote and reach one another's customer bases over the holidays. Same with Etsy stores. That's definitely a number one favorite of mine over the holidays is how many of you guys have like Etsy makers to you that you know of? No, there's two of you. Congratulations, you've been on Etsy. If there are Etsy makers or let's say furniture people who like remake furniture, people who sell vintage goods, you name it. I know there's all of those women in their homes loyal to you somewhere but offering for them to come in and do a pop up in your space. Or maybe you're an online boutique and you don't have a space, right? And you can go pop up in someone else's space. The opportunities are endless and the answer is always no unless you ask, right? The answer is always no unless you ask. So look for those little hidden gems of opportunities. All right, Another little marketing idea from Ann who's a bar of the Boutique Hub. She hosts an open house before Thanksgiving because people are in the mood and they have their Christmas present list and she served wine and chocolate and she doesn't have specials or sil rack but she has them drawn a bowl to receive a discount at checkout. And they can get anywhere from 10 to 20% off their total purchase or 30 to 50 off a single item and she gives them all a gift. Earrings is an opportunity and they often bring friends with. So the reason I wanted to show you that is this is another I think common misconception when it comes to holiday marketing and that is that I have to run a sale, right? Sale is such a four letter word, right? And it is so easy to go, oh, I'm lazy. I'm gonna do 30% off store Y because I only have to like update one thing in shopify and I'm done, right? But that's where our margin just disappeared to. How many of y' all have heard the saying, don't toss out the baby with the bath water? That is what they are talking about. Such a gruesome saying. Like all the things my grandma said don't make any sense to my kids today. They're like, why would she say that? That's horrible, right? But it's true. So when you run a blanket sale, you're totally tossing the baby out. You're tossing the diamonds out with the dirt. So when it comes to holidays, right? This is where knowing your numbers and inventory management, I like Sarah Burks if she's on stage with me, which is like bleed and plead. Please know your inventory. Please know your aging, right? Please know your turn rates per categories. Please know what your diamonds are. Please know what your dirt is. So that when it comes to any type of promotion you want to run, there's a major difference between a promotion and sale. And when we do run a sale, it's to get rid of the dirt and keep the diamonds, right? So at the end of the season, for example, if we're going to do a fill a bag sale, say no one here is going to put their new arrivals out to go into a fill and bag sale, right? Or if you do, you're going to like lose your butt big time. But you put your new arrivals out, you make them separate from the fill bag sales so that when everyone comes in and they're doing like the crazy land grab, they're like, oh, I like that. I'll pay full price for that. So there's huge opportunity to sell all of those items completely at full price. So understand what is your gross sale number versus margin and start to set that goal early. Opportunities like free gifts, giveaways, Bogo double points gift cards in January, like we talked about any of those opportunities. As long as you can make your customer feel special, help her feel like she got a win, that's what matters, right? She's not going around and price shopping and saying, oh, she's doing 50% of off and she's doing this and she's doing that. As long as you have what she wants and you treat her really well, right? And you've given her some kind of Apple to make her feel special. She's going to continue to choose you because you're not Walmart, right? And she's not crazy shopping you like she would at Walmart. Another opportunity here is Instagram experiences. All right, so just like we're giving our customers a Kara, whether it's a Bogo item or a gift with purchase, another great way to help your customers feel really special this time of year is to create an experience. How many of you guys heard about how millennials will spend more on experiences than they will on things, right? Most people have heard that by now. I would say it's not just millennials, but I think our whole society is really making a shift. And I could go on a soapbox here. Two things and then I'm going to come back to the main point. One is yes, they'll spend money on experiences, but also when it comes to buying, I want to go back to talking about being on this floor specifically. We talked yesterday a lot at Sezzle about the trend in people buying higher priced items they know they can resell later. So, like, you've seen vintage bags and you know, all these things being flipped and turned a number of times. I think Sezzle and this alternative payment solution, like this trend is only going to continue to promote that because now we feel like we can afford to spend more on these higher price items, right? Because it's broken up into payments. But I also now know that there's a huge resale market out there, right? It's not just Poshmark, but Depop and there's a number of them out there. So huge opportunity shift in the way customers are buying that you should definitely be aware of. So getting back to this idea of experiences, same thing. Taylor Jones is a tiny closet boutique. You guys have probably seen her. She spoke at the Boutique Hub, she's on her podcast. She talks a lot about the reason she has a mobile boutique in a school bus. For those of you who don't know, it's a pink school bus. And she talks about one of the reasons that's so successful for her when she takes it to pop ups is people have to have their picture with the bus, right? It's such an Instagram worthy picture. So is there an opportunity for you if you're doing a pop up, let's say if you don't have a space or in your storefront where people have an Instagram worthy experience in your store? Right. Maybe it's an Instagram backdrop. Like we have the signs in Vegas last week that say Boutique boss and you can hold them and take the picture in front of them. Or Sarah on our team, another example, she had, she had a prayer wall in her store and people come in and they could leave a prayer, they could take a prayer where a number of different ways we could slice and dice this, right? But the more you can create that experience, that draw, that's something that people, when they have an experience, they feel it. Because people don't remember what they bought from you. They don't remember what they bought from you, but they remember how you made them feel. So when we're thinking about sales versus promotion, how do we want to make people feel with these opportunities in the fourth quarter? All right, I think we've talked about some of these. Move old inventory grab bags. Since people are out shopping for others and not themselves. We've marked surprise packages customers could keep under the tree as a present for themselves. It was a success and allowed us to move over stock quickly. You guys like that idea? I thought this was a great idea because so many times, especially as women, right? Like we talked about at the beginning, during the holidays, we're still so busy checking off our list and wondering what we're getting. For everybody else, you as a boutique owner have an opportunity to say, here's my gift to you, right? You can market that so many cool ways where you have those little gifts packaged for your customer. Maybe it's free, maybe it is a grab bag that's a discounted item and the gift is the fact that she's getting that discount, right? But an opportunity to make your customer feel special. I've said this a million times, but Mary Kay Ashe, since we're in Dallas, brilliant woman, always said view people as if they have a sign around their neck that says, make me feel important. The more we can do that, the better off you're gonna be. Alright, this is my nerd out topic because it's my favorite thing to talk about in the whole world. Let's talk about topic. Okay? So rather than just thinking about sales goals, I'll explain all these numbers and things a second. While we're thinking about sales goals, I want you to shift your thinking for a second and think about traffic and conversion goals, right? It's a little less daunting because how many of you have had that experience where you're like, okay, this is my daily sales goal, but I'm not here yet, right? This is my number and I'm not here yet. And it feels like a gap of where, you know, you need to be and where you are, there's this gap of need and it creates a lot of anxiety for all of us. So what if we shifted our thinking a little bit instead of thinking about dollars and we started to think about traffic and conversion? Right. How many people do I need to get into the door today to convert at X percent to hit my goal? Once we start to shift our mindset into thinking about traffic and how many people we need, how many boots on the ground we need or eyeballs we need on our website now we start to think about, oh, if I did another Instagram post or I did another Instastory or if I ran that Facebook ad and I knew I could drive 100 more visitors to my website and they're going to convert it 2%, that's two more sales. If I have a hundred dollar average order value now, that's $200 more in my pocket. You guys like math? No? Me either. But once you start putting math in those terms, for me, I'm on it. Right. It makes so much more sense. So you may have seen this formula before, but I'm going to give it to you again. It's kind of written in a way it's hard to understand. On this slide, what is your daily sales goal? That's DSG on the slide, what's your daily sales goal? Divided by your average order value, which equals the orders that you need per day to hit that goal. And then what's your orders divided by your average conversion rate? So if you're an online business, average conversion rate for E Commerce is about 2%, which is scary. 98% of people come to your website and leave with nothing. 98%, right. So when we talk about giving ourselves some grace during the fourth quarter, this is where we've got to give ourselves some grace because that number can feel really overwhelming. So if you're a brick and mortar boutique, you probably have a much different conversion rate depending on if you're in a shopping mall or if you're of a destination location. Right. Your conversion rate may be anywhere from 30 to 50 to 70%. But you don't know until you run some numbers and just do traffic counts in your store. So if we divide our orders by our conversion rate, now we know how many people do we need per day? How much traffic do we need per day to hit that goal? Does that make sense to everybody? Pretty straightforward. So hopefully that gives you a little bit different tool, especially if you have a team and you don't yet feel comfortable sharing those numbers with your Team. Right. If you don't want to share your daily sales goal numbers with your team, which I think you should be, FYI, but in case you're scared to yet, this is a good number to share. Okay. Our goal is to have this many hits at the website or it's another way to just slice and dice your team goals. Maybe you share it with your team multiple ways, but it's a great way to get them on the same page with you. So we've got our traffic plan and now we know if the average person needs to see something seven times. Right. We've got some work to do to take that content that we're creating and slice and dice it on Facebook and Instagram and Facebook messenger and email and text message and make sure it's on the app and then make sure our collections are updated on the homepage of our website. Right. Do you ever feel, like totally burnt out by the amount of content sometimes you're creating? Right. So some of you have probably heard me share some of these things with, but I'm going to share with you again because the story I told you at the beginning about what happened with Jade and I, this is a result of what happened with Jade and I. Right. A huge struggle we've had internally at the Boutique Hub because we create so much content, not just on the business side of things for business owners, but on style side of things. For people who read Boutique Style and want to hear about boutiques, it's like two separate businesses. So 14 different channels versus seven. Right. So we started to sit down and think about how do we maximize what we're creating and take that same piece of content that we just made and we use it seven different ways versus just putting it up as one simple Instagram post and then being done with it. So that's where this content sanity idea came from. So in terms of content sanity, I want to give you this. I made a post about it at the Boutique Hub Group this week so you can get like, my full notes on the six essential pieces of content. I apologize, I don't have it up on the slide, but I'm going to try to remember off the top of my head and give you the best I can. So each week, if we sit down on a Monday, Mondays are my most creative day of the week and I can sit down and I can plan out my week and the content I'm going to create. I can batch create everything and schedule everything into Facebook, build my emails, all of that. And now the rest of the week you can just engage. So for boutique owners, we created six essential pieces of content that we feel most every boutique owner or wholesale brand owner would want to create in the week. The first is it's not on a slide. First is two to seven, either live or pre recorded videos. A lot of you are doing live sales and doing them every day. Some of you, I need more water. Some of you are doing them multiple times a day. So 2 to 7, depending on the size of your business. The second is up to 10 fit videos. So just like a 15 second little clip of you wearing something that I suggest to be a higher value item or an item that you feel like your customer may struggle understanding how to style, right? Because your role as a boutique owner is to be the style educator and that's a huge opportunity in the fourth quarter, isn't right? The more you can build collections for your customers on the homepage of your website or on social media. And you're saying, here's our little black dress ideas for New Year's Eve, here's gift ideas for teachers, here's this, that and the other thing. There's a million ways you can create collections, right? So fit videos are a great way to integrate that into the items that are a little bit trickier to market to your customer. So a 10 fit video then depending on how many new arrivals you bring into your business every single week, I'm just going to use a round number. I'm going to tell you 30 product photos and I want those to be a mix of new products and aged products, right? One of the most common reasons items aren't selling in our business is because our customer simply hasn't seen them yet. They have social media fatigue and we post all day long and that stuff gets all lost. So if we're looking at our aging reports every week and saying, okay, these items aren't selling, first question is why aren't they selling? Where did I post these items? How did I style these items? Could I create new photos and repost these items later? So when it comes to those 30 photos, let's just say 15 of them are new arrivals and 15 of them are aged, okay? Fourth piece is for quotes or memes or engaging pieces of content. Content. You guys all know what I'm talking about. The fifth is three personal stories or three talking points, right? So for you, let's say you're traveling, right? You're all traveling. So something you could easily talk about this week with your customer is what do you do to prepare meals for your family? If you're traveling, if that's your jam, right? Or does your husband cook and you're just incredibly blessed, right? Does your husband cook? Oh, that's awesome. My husband likes to buy frozen lasagna at the grocery store. And then he videotapes our kids eating it. And then the kids are like, mom, dad's lasagna is better than yours. Yes, this frozen lasagna. I actually am a good cook, so that offends me, but I'll go with it. They're getting better, so we're fine. So you've got three things you could talk about every week with your customer. Because we know that selling doesn't sell, but serving sells. So the more we can create authentic relationships by that genuine, engaging content story conversation every single week. Now they're going to start to buy. The sixth piece of content we're going to create every week is our collection or our theme of the week. So of all the new pieces that hopefully shipped from market, what collections am I going to create this week? And maybe it's trend based, based on what are the new arrivals coming in? Or maybe it's based on what's happening in my customer's life right now. Right? It's game day. It's back to school. It's I'm shopping for T shirts to wear when I go Black Friday shopping with my crazy sisters. I don't know. There's always a reason, right? So what's the collection I'm going to feature this week? So once you have those six as essential pieces of content, now you can take those pieces and slice and dice and reuse them on every single social platform you have in a number of ways. So that's what content sanity is. So for those of you I know, there's a lot of questions in the group today about this. I put this on the screen if you want to look more what that all includes, I put the link up here. You can just take a picture of this slide if that's easiest for you. But what we did at the boutique up is I built an Excel spreadsheet that is plug and play for every channel that we're on, every piece of content, we create a checklist of every single day of the week and when we're going to post these things and it's all plug and play. So you can take this and your six essential pieces of content and put it wherever you need it to be during the week. All right, Another tip, we've been known to get some great freebies from our vendors. Also Help with stuffing freebie gift bags. Free people sent coin purses, temporary tattoos, tote bags, Natural Life sent recycled gift bags. Jalen Brooks sent decals and keychains. Don't be afraid to ask for freebies. We carry these throughout or we get these throughout the year and throw our logo on them as well. So for those of you who are at the Boutique Summit, you got a lot of swag, right? Pretty much anytime you get together, there's a lot of swag. So tons of opportunity to collect those things throughout the year. And great giveaway ideas, gift ideas, bogo ideas from any of your holiday marketing events you're going to run. Alright, last piece, sixth tip for the day and then I know you guys are after a margarita, so why is your customer going to shop you this holiday season versus Amazon? That should be the number one question I want you to think about asking right now. So does your customer really know you? Right? Do you think your customer really knows you? Knows your mission, right? Authenticity has become such a big thing in the last year. Specifically, the more she knows you. That's piece number one. How well do you know her? When's the last time anyone sent a survey to their customers? I heard boot camp. So I know you did, right? Who was sent a survey like in the last six months, let's say, yeah, boot camp. So surveys. I use Typeform. I know a lot of you guys here have used Typeform. You can do it for free in type form. But send out surveys and get to know who's your customer shopping for this season. What is she looking for? What trends does she love? What trends does she hate? What are her fears? Right? What does she struggle with? What does she like, love or hate about online shopping or brick and mortar shopping? We can slice and dice that a million different ways too. But the point is that you ask. And again, that sign around her neck that says make me feel important, that's why she's gonna shop you over Amazon. So let's ask number two, create video. Create as much video as you can. I love watching like macro trends happen in marketing and in retail. And one thing that I see that all of big box retail right now is trying to do like boutiques do, is video. And boutiques have got this. You guys know this, you guys got this with video. But all these big box stores, they want to keep up, they want to try to create personalization and video the way that you guys do. So use this to your advantage. Instastories, IGTV. If you don't yet have a YouTube channel. I mean that's Google search of video right there. You can take down your Facebook lives, you can upload them onto YouTube and that's people constantly searching your name and driving SEO back to your brand. Another great way to get found during the holidays. Personalized service. We've talked about this today. Creating collections and product education. So how many of you guys have a customer base that's maybe like 20 something to 50 something like pretty wide demographic, right? Okay, so how many of you guys have staff members that are similar age ranges? Some of you. So is it hard for a 20 year old sometimes to dress a 50 year old? Yes. Right. And vice versa. So this goes back to this idea of educating our team on trend, on what are the different bunch of body image issues that women face at different points in her life. Right. Arms. Yesterday, Jade, we were at the baseball game and I was like cheering or something and she started doing this to me. That's not fair. I don't feel like I'm there yet, but apparently I am. According to her, I am. So do our 20 year old customers know those things? And I know that you guys have items in your store that one demographic is going to sell better than the other and there's items you're going to sell better than anyone else. So we have to get that education, that information out to the rest of our team so we can really maximize it this time of year. Alright guys, so this is your opportunity this season, right? Is to create the most authentic, lasting relationships in the most high energy time of year. So I want to give you guys an opportunity to ask some questions and then I also want to give you an opportunity if you want to learn more about any of the holiday marketing stuff that we do at the Boutique Hub and also talk about boutique up style. You guys good with that? Can you margarita refill? We're good for five more minutes. Okay, cool. So first things first, for those of you who wanted to hear more about holiday marketing masterclass, just take a picture of this screen and this goes into 100 times more than what I talked about here today. Plus lists and lists of promotional ideas that you can run throughout the holidays. We'd like to talk about boutique style. Can I tell you a little bit about this since it's brand new? So when we originally created the Boutique Hub, Boutique style was this idea of creating an online shopping mall boutique where people could come and discover stores around the country, but then shop you directly, not us as a marketplace. So we wanted to create something that was best. We felt for all the boutiques that we were working with. So that you always kept your customer data and the sale always originated with you. So you were building that relationship with your customer. So we think about the customer boutique style to be this woman that we call Kate, right? And Kate loves shopping boutiques. She's shopped at tons of boutiques. But because Kate's a busy mom, sometimes she struggles remembering all the boutiques that she shopped at. And if Kate's anything like me, she usually has 45 tabs open on her computer. And then someone comes into her office and shuts all the tabs and she has a mild panic attack. Does anyone else do that? Yes. Beth was at her house the other day and she shut all the tabs of my computer. And I was like, you should know me by now because that's where I keep all like the places I want to go shop, the products that I was looking at, other stores that I follow, like it's all there. So when I have time to sit down and buy something, I'm ready to do it. So I've heard from countless other women that they struggle with the same thing I do. They want to shop all of these stores, but there's not one central spot to find this. So that's what you style is really meant to be. But we cannot build this with your guys input. Your feedback is the most important thing to our team because if this doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for us, it doesn't work for the customer. So this is a central place where a customer can come and take a style quiz. Pretty soon she'll be able to take style quiz on site. And when she puts in all of her trend tags now she's got boutiques recommended to her that might really fit her style. Or if she's shopping, let's say she goes to Nashville for the weekend and she wants to find boutiques near me and wants to know what boutiques are in that town. She can enable location tracking and see all the boutiques that are near her in that location. So we're trying to create a place that is as easy as possible for people to find cool stores in every type of trend, in every type of category, in all types of locations. And then just like a social media channel, they can follow their favorite stores. So when they hit follow now, the next time they log in, they have a personal feed. If you integrate your Shopify channel that shows your newest arrivals in their style feed, that all goes back to your website and your shopping cart. She can also come in from that style feed that she has in your products favorite products on your site and that saves to like a wish list that she has on her style feed of your favorite products. Again, that goes back to your site. So if she wants to shop, she can shop till she drops and then whenever she's ready to go make her pretty purchase again, it goes right to your shopping cart. Has nothing to do with us. We're just a placeholder so she can come and discover you on the site. Does that sound cool? Awesome. So if you guys have thoughts or feedback again, I'm going to answer questions in just a minute or if you want to message me or the team, I'm Ashley.com I'm AJ Oliverson on Instagram. But I honestly would love your feedback so that we can make this the best it possibly can be. And in its like itty bitty baby stage right now. So this is a sample. Our profiles have changed a little bit. Obviously these are all stock photos where there's actually badges. Those of you who have participated in the Boutique Awards, those badges show up on the profiles. We're going to start actually after a conversation yesterday, we see that a lot of shoppers are searching for stores that have alternative payment solutions. So we're going to actually have Sezzle and Afterpay badges on profiles so consumers can find you that way as well. And then something I'm really excited about but hopefully in the next week this is functioning is we wanted to create a place where we could build your email list like your email list. So there's actually going to be an opt in on all the profiles where anyone who's following you can opt in and be on your list. And when you log into your dashboard on the hub right now, you have to manually download all of them. But hopefully eventually there's a drop integration where we can send it to an email service provider for you. So right now this also works with Shopify. Like I said, it's a sales channel on Shopify. So it's a product feed but we're working with comments sold as well to hopefully build out that in the future. This is just a little picture of the search page where people can search and subscribe and follow to your store. And then this is an early iteration of their style feedback. There's a lot, there's a lot that's changed on this page. But there's products and in stores and all the products are actually listed with your store below them so they know exactly where it's coming from. And it's not just a group of products that they're looking at. Right. So if you want to check it out, it's www.boustique.style. and then the last thing I'll share with you for today since I'm just going to give you all the updates from the Hub Sigma. Actually this number's changed since Friday. Our developer emailed me this morning. We had 200,000 votes cast in the Boutique Awards. Is that crazy? This is really, really cool. So Boutique shopping, There's people looking for you every single day. That was one of the coolest things I have heard all day. So congratulations for those of you who are participating in the Boutique Awards. And we've tried to make a ton of changes with your guys feedback this year on giveaways that are being run just to try to even the playing field in the Boutique Awards. But we truly want this to be something that you guys can use to celebrate your store with your customers 24. 7. Whether you win or lose, win, lose or draw. This is an opportunity for us just to create a conversation with consumers about what it means to shop at boutiques and the impact that shopping small has on real families and real communities, no matter where you're at. So those are my updates, guys. Do you guys have any questions on the tips from today or anything else I can help you guys with today? AJ Alderson, That's a great question. She asked, do you find that Instagram stories are just as effective as sent out an actual survey? I like both of them and I think they're both effective but for different reasons. I like sending out the actual survey because if you send out an actual survey on Typeform, you're going to collect a lot of email addresses that you may not have had before. So if you put it out across social media to all your customers and they have to take the survey, they have to put their email address in to do it. So now you're building your email list. But I love Insta stories because that's instant engagement and now your Instastories reach is going to start to grow every time you do those. Plus they're a lot of fun. Right? Other questions? That's a great question. So our question was will Boutique style and the boutiques near me feature be integrated for mobile boutiques? I thought about that for NFR obviously, because that's close to our heart. So I would like to say yes. That's something I don't know timeline wise, but yeah, definitely on our radar. Okay. So we actually have A really small community. And I have a question. I don't know how to ask a question, but, like, do you get the. Speak to us about more like how to. We have a lot of, like, her and I are neighbors and we're very, very supportive of each other, but we have others that are not so supportive. Yeah, I want to know, like, what can we do to maybe another set of. On how to communicate more, you know, supported each other and not, you know, down. Yeah. She is asking a question about how do you get others in your community to be more supportive of you? Because some. Some aren't there yet. Some don't understand that we in this room, we live in community over competition. You guys know that. And not everybody concedes that. I like to quote movies. So I just have to be honest. All that's coming to my mind right now is Napoleon Dynamite that you should just bake them a cake. But no, don't do that. Don't make it. Right. So it. Our mom's always taught us to kill them with kindness. I wish there was a better solution, but honestly, continually, like, just trying to reach out and be the bigger person is all you can do. And then let it roll off your back, you know, the answer is always no unless you ask. Right. So it's all you can do is continue to rise above. And I wish there was a better way. And maybe if I heard more about your situation, I can help you with that. But sometimes just filling them with kindness is the best solution. Any other questions, guys? Yeah.

I did not do this. Yes, you did.

I did. Growing up with what she was saying.

We had to say very, very small town. I was part of the first boutique.

Now we have two more. We've been blessed that our ladies that.

Are boutique, they want to collaborate. And I'm always preaching to them, hey, it's a sisterhood on top of everything. And we've got to set the trend. I would.

I like to be a trendsetter versus somebody that follows.

So what is a good way for me to. We talked about doing like this on town Christmas small shop, you know, where we do punch parts, take stuff, selfies where it's not going to cost us anything because we're small businesses. We're not big yet, but we also want to do something fun and creative with our other sister boutiques or even like we have our. A restaurant. He's willing to do something like that.

They do concerts out there.

So what is a good idea to bring them in? Because. And I've told them, hey, I'm like.

Hey, y' all here to go to Boutique Hub. Join us.

It's a great community. So besides that. That, what else is it to, like, bring them in without being too. Too much of a loving thing?

I know. Like, I want to love you to death. Right. So, I mean, one thing that I've heard a lot of people have success with and. And success in collaborating with people that maybe weren't so collaborative was honestly having, like, a. A Christmas stroll, a ladies night out, a boutique crawl, anything like that, where you can invite them to be a part of it, and all they can do is say no. Right. But it doesn't just have to be boutiques either. Like, you said restaurant. It could be any other business. Do you have, like, a Main street association or a chamber of commerce or anything like that? Yes. Okay. Are they active in creating those things, or do you need to take the bull by the board?

Yeah, that's why I said. Small towns would be so set on their ways that they don't want to.

Yeah, I. I would just. Even if your chamber, if someone doesn't go for it, I would come up with some type of ladies night out or a stroll, if you can get Christmas carolers or someone to have baked goods. Like, all our local banks would even participate. So I was in economic development before we started Teacup, so that was totally in our wheelhouse. But every single. Every single organization, nonprofit organizations with. Would come in. We would do food drives, clothing drives, anything we could to get our entire community involved. Someone to dress up like Santa. They'd be at the local library. People would come, take pictures. Like, you could make it a really cool community vitamin. Yeah, you bet. All right, one last question. Well, I was just gonna add to that.

I'm not brick and mortar. I'm online only. But our town has. Oh, gosh, it ranges from probably 10,000 to 15,000, 20,000 codes of college. But during the holidays, a number of small businesses will go in, and with every purchase at that small business, you get a ticket if it's over a certain amount of money. And then at the end of the time period, they draw a ticket. And in our town, it's $10,000. So obviously, it's a big draw to want to shop local, But, I mean, you could do something a little bit smaller. Just everyone get together and get a pot and do something like that.

That's a really good idea. Did everybody hear that?

Yes.

So the whole town gets together, or.

The small shops in our town, and.

With every sale, you get a ticket.

And at the end day, the of of the time period, they draw a ticket and you get the prize. And for our town, it's 10,000.

So.

I'm never hard to say because I'm not brick and mortar, so.

But I shop. So yeah, for those of you who sponsor local events too. So something similar. My family rodeos, Right. And so every weekend we're someone with our kids at a rodeo or at a barrel race and something. A lot of communities that businesses are sponsoring those events. What they'll do is whoever's putting on that rodeo, that event, if you spend money in the local community that weekend, we bring our receipts in, we'll turn all of our receipts in at the office and then they'll do something similar. They'll do a drawing. So it's basically like, how do we encourage all the people who are coming to visit that event to shop local because all these local businesses are sponsoring and then reward them at the end of the day?

We do it just during the holidays to kind of keep the money in the community during like the big Christmas season.

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. All right, guys, well, thank you so much for coming today. This is an awesome turnout. If I can answer any other questions, I'll be around. But we do have another presentation. Not in here. I forget where we're at tomorrow. I don't know where Mike is tomorrow at 12:30 maybe on like 7:12 or 13, I don't know. We'll play roulette. It's somewhere. It's probably on the sign. And we have a teacup meet up tomorrow in our store on the 13th floor from 4 to 5, so please stop by. It's actually Ed Olvera's birthday tomorrow, so could we just like sing him Happy birthday early in case anyone can't make it as he's videoing and he sit down. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Ed Happy birthday to you. Thank you. 12:30 tomorrow on floor 12. Okay. And we're talking about 10 boutique owner challenges. Thank you, guys. Other questions? That's a great question. So our question was, will boutique style and the boutiques near me feature be integrated for mobile boutique? I thought about that for NFR, obviously, because that's close to our heart. So I would like to say yes, that's something I don't know if timeline wise, but yeah, definitely on our radar. Okay, so we actually have a really small community and I have a question. I don't know how to ask a question, but like, can you give us any tips about More like how to.

We have a lot of burn Iron.

Acres and we're very, very supportive each other, but we have others that are not so supportive. Yeah. I want to know, like, what can we do to maybe like, how can we get more supported each other and not, you know, tear each other down? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, man, the start. She is asking a question about how do you get others in your community to be more supportive of you? Because some. Some aren't there yet. Some don't understand that we in this room, we live in community over competition. You guys know that. And not everybody can see that. I like to quote movies. So I just have to be honest. All that's coming to my mind right now is Napoleon Dynamite and you should just bake on a cake. No, don't do that. Don't. Right. So it's. Our mom's always taught us to kill him with kindness. I wish there was a better solution, but honestly, continually, like, just trying to reach out and be the bigger person is all you can do and then let it roll off your back. You know, the answer is always no unless you ask. Right. So it's all you can do is continue to rise above. And I wish there was a better way. And maybe if I heard more about your situation, I could help you with that. But sometimes just filling up with kindness is the best solution. Any other questions, guys? Yeah.

I did not do this. Yes, you did.

I did. Going up of what she was saying.

We have a very, very small town. I was probably the first boutique.

Now we have two more.

We've been blessed that our ladies that are boutique owners, that they want to collaborate and I'm always preaching to them. And it's a sisterhood on top of everything. And we've got to set the trend. I. I like to be a trendsetter.

Versus somebody that follows.

So what is a good way for me to. We talked about doing like the small town Christmas small shop, you know, where we do punch cards, take selfies where it's not going to cost us anything because we're small businesses. We're not big yet. But we also want to do something fun and creative with our other sister boutiques or even like we have our. A restaurant. He's willing to do something like that. They do concerts out there. So what is a good idea to bring them in? Because. And I've told him, Pam, like, hey.

Y' all need to go to the boutique hub, join us. It's a great community.

So besides that, what else is a good Way to bring them in without being too. Too much a loving thing.

I know. Like, I wouldn't love you to death. Right. So, I mean, one thing that I've heard a lot of people have success with and, and success in collaborating with people that maybe weren't so collaborative was honestly having like a. A Christmas stroll, a ladies night out, a boutique crawl, anything like that, where you can invite them to be a part of it and all they can do is say no. Right. But it doesn't just have to be boutiques either. Like you said restaurant. It could be any other business. I. Do you have like a Main street association or a chamber of commerce or anything like that? Yes. Okay. Are they active in creating those things or do you need to take your bowl by the morning? That would be up. Yeah, yeah. That's why I said. Small. Yeah, I, I would just. Even if your chamber, some. Someone doesn't go for it, I would come up with some type of ladies night out or a stroll if you can get Christmas carolers or someone to have baked goods. Like all our local banks would even participate. So I was in economic development before we started boutique up, so that was totally in our wheelhouse. But every single, every single organization, nonprofit organizations would come in. We would do food drives, clothing drives, anything we could to get our entire community involved. Someone would dress up like Santa. They'd be at the local library, people would come, take pictures. Like you could make it a really cool community wide event. Yeah, you bet. All right, one last question. Well, I was just gonna add to that.

I'm not Greg Warner. I'm online only. But our town has.

Oh, gosh.

It ranges from probably 10,000 to 15,000, 20,000 colleagues. But during the holidays, a number of small businesses will go in. And with every purchase at that small business, you get a ticket if it's over a certain amount of money. And then at the end of the time period, they draw a ticket. And in our town, it's $10,000. So obviously it's a big draw to.

Want to shop local.

But I mean, you could do something. Something a little bit smaller. Just everyone get together and get a pot and do something like that.

That's a really good idea. Did everybody hear that? Yes. So the whole town gets together or.

The small shops in our town. And with every sale you get a ticket, and at the end of the time period, they draw a ticket and you get the. And for our town, it's 10,000 catchphrase.

So. I've never.

Hard to say because I'm not brick and mortar. So but I shop.

So I yeah, for those of you who sponsor local events, too. So something similar, my family rodeos, right. And so every weekend we're somewhere with our kids at a rodeo or at a barrel race and something a lot of communities that businesses are sponsoring those events. What they'll do is whoever's putting on that rodeo, that event, if you spend money in the local community that weekend, we bring our receipts in. We'll turn all of our receipts in at the office, and then they'll do something similar. They'll do a drawing. So it's basically like, how do we encourage all the people who are coming to visit that event to shop local because all these local businesses are sponsoring and then reward them at the end of the day?

We do it just during the holidays to kind of keep the money in the community.