Building a Brand with Your Best Friend

When I first met these two, I was totally enamored by the business they were building. They were still new, but they had caught a lot of traction. They were doing so many things right, and they were also all in on their learning. Having been a part of Retail Bootcamp and joining us for our LA Experience trip, I have loved getting to know Alina and Ember and to see the clothes rack really take off. So today on the show, I'm so excited for them to walk backwards through the process of building their brand, which isn't that many years old, you guys. And to hear how they did it, how they work together, together as best friends and partners, and also how they stayed in their own lanes, in their own strengths and opportunities, and how they systematized their business, how they got really consistent with their marketing, and now how they're starting to scale their marketing with Facebook ads and paid ads in general. These two are really something to watch, you guys. They are such a great compliment to one another, and we're so lucky to have them not only on the podcast, but as valued members of the Boutique Hub.

So.

So meet my friends Alaina and Ember of the Close Rack. 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. Welcome back to the podcast, guys. It is double trouble on the podcast today.

That's right. I love it.

I'm so excited to see you guys. I always love getting to run into you in person and through retail boot camp and. And the trips that we've had together. But your story always amazes me. I'm so pumped we get to tell it today.

We're excited to be here.

Oh, man. Blistered from the beginning. Talk to me about how the two of you came together to start this business.

Oh, my God.

Like, way, way back.

Yeah, but way back. We gotta hear from the roots.

Tell me about it. Okay, well, we are like retail dinosaurs.

We met with.

Back in, gosh, 2001. Yep. In Mensworth, actually.

Really? That's amazing.

Yep. Yep.

And where was this at? Tell me Location State.

Here in Kansas City. Park Mall.

Yeah.

The first Nordstrom in Kansas City.

Yep. So, yeah, we've worked together, God, for A while, became really good friends. Were in each other's weddings. Pretty much have been friends for like over 20 years. We. I started. I moved away. Ember stayed in Kansas City. I came back to Kansas City and then we worked together together at bcbg. Then she left to go to Banana. I worked in like different areas. We lived together. I mean, it's just. It was like a continuous. We just kind of remained friends and remained, you know, working together and stuff. And then it was what, 2018, was it 2018? Yeah, it was the beginning, I think of 2018. Like January. I decided that I was going to just be a stay at home mom. And I was like, Ember, like, I know we've been talking about this for a long time. Like, I think we need to open our own boutique. And she's like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, she's like, I'm the crazy one. And she's like the.

The thinker.

The thinker, yeah. Like, so, you know, and we just kind of like, we're like, okay, let's just put in same amount for both of us. We're gonna just start it, see where it goes. And that was in March of 2018 is when we started. We started in my basement and we kind of just hit the ground running. Like, we just did everything. We did the buying. We took, you know, we use like pictures.

Oh, yes.

Like stock photos and, you know, so we just kind of did it slow, you know, on Instagram, on Facebook, and started with pop ups here and there, like at my house and different places, salons and whatnot.

We would load our cars up with racks and racks of clothes.

It was so much work.

Lots of work. So much work.

It was fun, but it was good. And it just kind of little by little, it grew. We started in a. We started selling our stuff in a collective boutique and which kind of got our name a little bit in Kansas City. And then our Instagram just slowly just started growing. I had a little bit of a following at that point. And then my followers just started following the clothes rack and then from there on. And finally, like, I think it was like November of 2019. My husband's like, you have to get out of this house.

We cannot do this anymore.

Like, these boxes. I think it was like after we came back from market, February in August, and like, my front door was like covered, like boxes stacked to the. Yeah, you gotta get out. Like, you gotta find a space. Like, do something. So we decided to start looking and we got our warehouse. Yeah, we moved in in January 2020, right before the pandemic.

Always a good time, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. But you guys, really, during that time, you guys grew a ton when that all happened. Yeah. Tell me more about that.

Let's see. Well, so I was working. I was a full time manager at Banana through all of that. At the beginning. I actually left in 2020 when we moved into the warehouse. And I was so scared to leave, you know that just like, constant, like, paycheck, but we're like, it's like, all in or nothing. They say, make it business, make it a hobby. It was definitely like, make it a business. So then I feel like we started growing after that. And then Covid happened, and we started selling, you know, sweatsuits, pajamas.

I'm like, how many pajamas can a person have? Apparently not enough. So we pivoted our business, our business model, like, not the model, but the buying just kind of changed. And what we were buying, we constantly just kept asking our followers and our customers, what are you guys looking for? What do you want? What do you want us to bring? And we were literally giving them what they wanted. And our business tripled in sales from 2019 to 2020. It was insane. Insane. I was like, holy moly. Like, how is this even happening right now? Yes, it was crazy. But we just stayed consistent. We are. Our business is very consistent. If you ask any of our followers, our customers, they know exactly what happens on every day of the week. So that's kind of what keeps us, you know, going.

I think also, like, both of us being in retail so long, we could run a store, like, with our eyes closed. So we apply all of that that we learned as retail managers and, like, you know, a storefront to our online business.

Yeah. Ember has this good analogy. Like, we treat our online store as a. As a. Like a brick and mortar, you know? Yeah. In order for us to be open online, we have to post something. And it's kind of like, you know, turning the key in the door and you're opening the door. That's what we do every morning. We have to. If we don't post something, like, people are like, okay, what's happening?

Yeah, yeah, that's so good. And I just. I'm thinking about especially, like, starting at Nordstrom. Right. Like, the Nordstrom training model is second to none. Like, there's no other retailer that does it quite like they do. And all the experience you bring in and even going through retail boot camp, like, as you look at your peers, as you look at other boutiques you've met along this journey. Do you think there's, like, core things that you guys have learned in this process that others. You're like, oh, I just wish you knew this. Like, I wish you knew this core piece of retail, like, if you could hit on one or two of those that you feel like most boutique owners really are missing that they could use.

Well, for me, it's customer service. I feel like from day one, like, at Nordstrom, it's just, like, ingrained in your head, like, it's all about the customer. And there's been so many times where when I would leave banana, like, oh, man, I cannot wait to leave, and then I'm just gonna tell a customer off. You know, you always feel like that. Yeah, you don't do that, and you never do that. I always. I'm. No matter, like, how awful the customer may be to you, I always try and turn the situation around just because I just never want to burn a bridge with, like, a customer, a vendor with anything. So I think a lot of people, I don't know, get heated in the moment, and I think just, you know, try and make a better decision than just, like, you know, telling a customer off. So there's been many situations where.

Oh, yeah.

But now I'm bestie's with them, right.

She just turns things around. So I think another one is, like, product knowledge. We do our best because, you know, when you go to. When you go shopping at Nordstrom, they try to teach you, like, how to dress and how to style things and how to. And even though we don't have a store, we try to do that online. We try to do that through our stories. When we do our try ons, we do, like. I do try ons Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Amber does try ons Tuesday, Thursday. We have completely two, you know, two different body types. Things fit differently. Our styles are totally different. The way I style something is completely different in the way she would style it. So people want to see that, and that has kind of, like, gave us the credibility and to a point where the customer literally, we can just say, like, you need to buy this T shirt, and they'll be like, okay, I'll buy two. Just because they know that. Will you show them three different ways of style something without them even, like, thinking, oh, my God, I. I could do this. Like, this is how you can wear this. So just building relationships and, you know, like, through customer service and through, like, product knowledge online is kind of what we've really focused on. I think that's Kind of what differentiates us from everyone else.

So yeah, I think that's really good. I think when you're online, it's easy to lose sight of that. Like you have to pretend that you being online and being on the other side of that Instagram account. In the comments, you are standing outside of the dressing room, right? And you are, you're serving that customer as if you're right there in person. And it's so easy to get lost in the business side of this. Like, I'm just here to sell a product. But no, really, you're here to solve a problem. And so what is the problem? What's the problem you're solving on a daily basis? How else do you take that into account when you guys are planning your social media content? How else do you plan around really getting to the root of what your customers problems are so you can solve them?

I feel like. So every time we go to market, we always want to try and include the customer so they just feel involved, asking what they're looking for. We always give them little sneak peeks at market, show them, get them excited about the product. I think every time we have like a big drop, it's always, always about just including them and getting them excited. We just did an unboxing video yesterday because UPS came and we're like, oh, let's show them what we got. Just opening it with us. So yeah, I just think including them more and making them feel like really what, showing, getting them what they want. You know, if they say they want dresses and we're gonna bring them dresses, but we're gonna bring them dresses that we like and show them how to style it. That's one thing that we haven't really gotten away from. I know a lot of, I've heard from a lot of boutiques, they'll start buying for what they think their customers want, but not what they like. And we've never really gotten away from that.

Yeah, that's so good to stay true to your core. Absolutely.

We did that beginning with. Yeah, when we first started, we did that in the beginning. We were like, okay, will the customer, they're like this. And then we were like, okay, well, neither you or I would ever wear this. So like, why would we buy something that we would never wear? Like, I want to be able to. Like, my Closet consists of 99% of clothes rack and 1% of Zara. Like, those are. That's my closet, you know, so it's like I. It's just hard for me to buy clothes Anywhere else. Because we have so many cute things that I want to wear. And I want the customers, like, when they message us and they're like, oh my gosh, my entire closet for my vacation is clothes rack. And we're like, oh, my God, like, we love that. So you just have to be happy. You have to do what makes you happy before you do anything else.

That's so good. You sell what you're excited about always.

Yeah.

How do you keep your customers, I mean, besides like, asking them every day on social media? But are you guys still actively like, serving your customers or where else are you digging deep to find more customer data and maybe it's even in product data to come back and make even, even more well informed decisions in your buying?

We did do a survey. We haven't done one in. In a while, but we did do a survey that kind of put it gave us a lot of insight. But we do a lot of this or that engagement posts on stories that kind of teach us a lot about our customers. They're very vocal and very honest, which has been, you know, good. But that's come. That comes from, like, the relationships that we've built. Like, we literally, when we go to market, it's just to a point now we're like, okay, Kim, Silvio is gonna like this or this person is gonna like that. Like, we buy for them because we know their style and what they like. So it's crazy. Like, we treat them like they're our friends. Like they're part of our business with us, and they know that they literally can message us. And I'll know exactly, like, you know, her kids and hers, the size that she wears and where she's going on vacation and what color she likes. Like that just that right there, I think is very important when you have an online store, because you can't. There's no other way for you to build that relationship. Yeah.

Your customer and. And your customer Personas around that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Something else that you said that has really helped you both scale over time. And I know even. Even now, like, in the time that we're in, helping you continue to grow is being incredibly consistent. And you said every day our customers expect the same things. What does that day look like for you? How. How are you planning out those systems and that consistency?

Well, so we like to plan. We plan out like a month ahead, so starting with our, you know, our products. So I have weeks, like July, week one, two, three, and four already planned out. And then we just. We know, I break it down by like new arrivals drop Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So for us a day might be, we might have to run out and take photos because it's just her and I, I take the photos, she's model and then I break the, I just break it up and then we look back at our numbers and we plan our weeks out. Like we need to do like so and so this week, so and so this day. Oh, we did a crazy sale last year and we need to comp that number this year. So we're very like numbers driven. We always have our number on the board behind us that we're always looking at constantly. I think if you don't have a goal then you're never going to reach it.

Yeah, yeah. But consistency wise, like we do our try ons Monday, Wednesday, Friday, no questions asked. Monday, Wednesday, Friday we do a try on, I do it Tuesday, Thursdays, Ember does it. They already expect it. You know, they know that on Monday, Wednesday, Friday they should expect the text from us at 11:00am on you know, Monday through Friday or Monday through Sunday, whatever. They, we get an email sent out at 9pm every single night. And whether it be new arrivals and you know, the denim that we have new styles, color stories, whatever it may be, it changes. But we just try to be, try to do the same thing so people are not. Sometimes we'll be like, oh my gosh, you know, a random drop on a Saturday and they're like what new clothes or new things on a Saturday. You know what I mean? So it's like sometimes we'll excite them, sometimes we'll send them a random text in the middle of the day and you're like, you know, you got this. Like whatever you're going through, you got this. So just it's not always a salesy pitch but it's, it's consistent. It's the communication is always consistent from us.

I love that. What about like when you guys are, are planning that all that consistency that you're building, what's on each of your plates? I'm curious how, how do you work together as a team? What are the tasks that one of you take on that maybe the other one doesn't? Or how do you really work to make, make sure you're always complementing one another in your to do lists?

You wanna. We kind of all, we have each, we each have our own thing that we're like good at. Yeah.

So I do all the styling, put all the outfits together, put all the collections together, make her suffer through trying it all on, organizing it for our photo shoots. I do all customer service emails. I respond to all those customers. She's more of the social media technology person. If there's a new app that we need to get on the computer, she's all over it.