Five Minute Friday: A New Era of Retail Education: Inside Retail Bootcamp Accelerator

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast again. Sarah Burks back on the show today. Happy to have you.

Hey guys, I'm excited to be here as always.

Oh my gosh. Okay, 'tis the season. There has been so much changing at the Hub that we thought we needed to come back and do a big update and kind of a like behind the scenes why things are changing at the Hub and kind of give you guys a sneak peek of what's to come. So do you wanna talk about the big announcement we just had?

Ooh, at Summer School, our big announcement of Retail Bootcamp Accelerator?

Yes. Yes.

So we are do— we, we did, we kind of went back to the drawing board and we're like, all right, what's the biggest struggle? What are we seeing in our communities? What are we hearing when we meet up with you guys at markets? What are we seeing in the chats? And the word overwhelm continually is a thing, and we know it. We feel it. Yeah, we know it. And we know you as small business owners are like, dang it, don't just tell me one more thing I got to go do.

Yeah.

So we went back We kind of put our heads down and said, let's, let's make this better. So we have launched a new program and it is called the Retail Bootcamp Accelerator. So it's everything you loved about Retail Bootcamp, but we've added so much more to it. So membership in the— and the membership. Yes. So we're tying these things together for you guys. So no more DIY, no more just here's a couple of things you guys need to go do and well, good luck, show back up. Right, let's do it. No, now we're doing it together. So it is year-round. You guys asked for year-round. You get Sarah and Ashley in a Zoom room along with guest experts every week of the year. Yeah, there's more, there's more. You'd think like, oh my gosh, that's awesome, and it is awesome. However, Ashley, you want to tell them about the boss system?

Yeah, okay. So again, Retail Boot Camp was just one period of time, right? Like you could join and it was just the modules. You got it for a period of time. Uh, this new accelerator, which is a membership and part of the Boutique Hub, is 52 weeks a year of coaching. But it's also not just the information. We wanted it to be instant transformation and lessons that you weren't just going to go do at some point in the future, but you could instantly implement in your business. So we included the BOSS Operating System. That's the Boutique Hub Operating System. It's a brand new AI dashboard, um, that soon many members of the hub are going to get access to, but the Retail Bootcamp Accelerator gets it first. And gets the most advanced version of it. Inside of the BOSS system, we're literally taking all of our knowledge from many years of retail bootcamp, from literally thousands of boutique owners that we've been able to work with, plus all of your store's individual data. And it's like your own chat, but built on those two things. So you'll be able to interact on a daily basis with, you know, I'm having this problem, here's the solution. But then it's also gonna be done-for-you solutions like, hey, My average order value is showing up as this on your dashboard. Now here's the next steps and what you're gonna do about it. Soon as AI continues to grow and evolve, like our vision for the future is that we'll have agents that are built into the BOSS system that will be able to automatically go and deploy and execute some of those to-dos so that again, you can be busy working on the business and your agents can be working in the business that's trained by our system, like our Boutique Hub operating system. So, Yeah, that's brand new and I can't wait for that. Okay.

And for all of you guys that are like, that sounds like a lot. What does that really, really mean? And I, I sometimes Ashley gets so excited. She's talking about something and I'm literally over here as the retail business owner that's like, wait, what? What is that gonna do?

What does that mean?

So let me, let me, let me give you an example.

Okay.

So when I had my store, I was, I was shoveling snow in the winter. I was taking trash out. I was ordering products. I was. Putting together my team schedule. I was intake of inventory. I was all the things. And I was still having a therapy session with whoever came in that wanted to talk to me about whatever her husband was doing, right? Like, you guys hear me now, right? So in the middle of that, I'm thinking about all these things I need to go do, right? And I forgot half of the things. And next thing you know, the end of the day, I go home and I lay in bed at night and think, I did not do those things. Yeah, I wish somebody would have reminded me I needed to go do those things. Well, that is what the boss system is going to be, you guys. So we want to help build this out so it's prompting you. It's telling you, hey Sarah, here's your 3 things you have got to do today. Yeah. Not me going and saying, hey ChatGPT, what do you think I need to do today? And then it says, well, you need to do XYZ, but it has no idea how many business, how many things I've sold, how many return customers I have, what my team is putting out. Doesn't even know my hours of business. It doesn't even know if I'm online or brick and mortar or what it is, right? We want to, we want to make that better, building out a whole system that understands you and prompts you along the way. It's like that person following you along with the clipboard is like, hey, Miss Burks, it's time to do this. Miss Burks, don't forget your dental appointment. Miss Burks, don't forget to reduce inventory here. Miss Burks, your return customer rate is not good enough. We need to do better. All the things. On a matter of fact, also saying, hey, don't forget, Magic is coming up in 4 weeks and you are sitting on this much debt. You need to clear out some inventory to be able to make room for freshness. Yeah, that's what it is. That is what it is. So it's a lot of these, what if we had a system that could do this? And all of us retailers like, yes, it's like, what if we had a system that could do this? So that's what we're really excited about. And so yes, that sounds like a lot. It's going to be a game changer. So stay tuned for more of that. But something else about Retail Bootcamp Accelerator, yes, we've always joined in Zoom rooms, but I think something that we've built out this round that I'm super excited about is these workshops. And being able to break you up inside the actual sessions, who you are, what type of business you are, and break up into expert sessions so you can have those niche conversations. Yeah, not just like, okay, I'm a small business, but maybe you're a small business that's on Lightspeed that sells home decor and gift. All right, let's have conversations and workshops around that. You're a Shopify store that only sells toys, or you sell— maybe you are a women's and children's store, something like that. We want to break you up and give you workshop opportunities that's niche for for you. And we can do that now inside the Retail Bootcamp Accelerator. So it's not just gonna be live coaching, but when we say workshops and hot seats and like deep dives, we really mean it because we have more time. We're gonna be doing this 52 weeks a year.

Yeah. I think I'm, I'm most excited about that, you guys, just being able to go so much deeper with every business we get to work with. Because in the past in Retail Bootcamp, we were always limited to 14-week chunks. And again, overwhelm constantly was the word. There's just so much. We built Retail Bootcamp to be so massive. And it always like, it was college for boutique owners and it grew with your business, but we just never had enough time to get into the nitty-gritty of implementation. And now with this new membership, we're gonna have the time to do that. And as business changes, right? Because I think about like the years we went through COVID or all of a sudden it's the holiday season or, you know, something happened with the tariffs. That's another big one. You know, the whole structure of what we talked about in bootcamp needed to change. And so now literally 52 weeks of the year we have an opportunity to grow and evolve as the news cycle and the economy changes. We can get specifically to what's going to work for your business. So it's going to be so exciting.

It is going to be so exciting. It is going to be so exciting. Yeah, I'm pumped. One other thing, just want to make sure everybody's aware. So when we built this out, we also wanted to make sure our General Hub membership is included in this. Yeah, so you have access to all the major perks and discounts of our Hub membership. So when you show up at Dallas Market and you come into our showroom, you get to take advantage of all the major perks, right? You get to shop with the major vendors that are offering Hub member discounts.

Yeah.

Saving you money. There's so many more things involved in general in our Hub membership, but you as a Retail Boot Camp Accelerator have access to that as well.

That was a real big deal for us because a lot of times when we were coaching Retail Boot Camp and we would say, oh, here's the retail calculators, right? And you pull up your screen, it was like, "Oh, but this is in general membership and you guys are in Retail Bootcamp." Yeah. It was two separate things. So I'm really proud of our leadership team and staff at the Boutique Hub who were really pulling for you guys and saying, "You know what? Let's just make this simple. If you're a part of Retail Bootcamp Accelerator, you also get general hub membership." Yeah, for sure. So hopefully that's a really big deal for you guys and a huge cost savings as well where you can pair those things together. Gosh, okay, Sarah.

It's a win.

Any words of advice if someone's just joining the accelerator? Oh, um, what's your best words of wisdom, like how to get the most out of it? What should you expect?

Oh my gosh, just keep showing up. Get in there, you know. No, nobody should be comparing themselves to who they think another business is. Yeah, get in there, be raw, be authentic, ask the question, because I guarantee you somebody else on this same Zoom call is going to have the same question. Be the leader, be the voice, you know. That's, that's what it's all about. And Ashley and I always like to say this, If we don't know the answer, this is a beautiful part of the whole entire Hub ecosystem. We partner with so many of the experts that, that do know the answer. So I'm not too prideful to like give you some BS. I'm going to say, you know what, I'm going to come back to you with the, with the answer. Or as a matter of fact, I'm going to invite that expert into the class with us. So just let's get going, ask the question, and we're going to, we're going to find the answers for you.

I think that's so, so key. All the guest experts.

Yeah.

Um, okay, last thing. There are so many of you that are listening that are former Retail Bootcamp students, and I just, I think we should share like a very specific message because you guys, I'm going to tell you, we spent hours and hours and hours pouring over this decision of should we build this, how should we build this, how do we make everyone who's already taken Retail Bootcamp feel really, really special. Um, so I just want to thank you guys for Some of you showed up like 4 years in a row, like you've been through Retail Bootcamp like 7 and 8 times. And if you're asking yourself, is this for me too? We just want you to know like, yes, this is absolutely for you. If you've already done Retail Bootcamp, obviously we have some special offers which you guys are gonna hear about outside of this podcast so you can take advantage of this. But this is for you and this is gonna be advanced. It's gonna be more in depth. You're gonna get access to new information that we haven't had before.

Yeah, it's what you guys have been asking for. So I urge you to just jump in. We're taking the overwhelm, getting rid of it, right? This is all information or transformation of the information we have given you in the past, but we're building off of that every single week together. Together.

It's not—

no more of just the, here's the lesson, go do it. This is the roll our sleeves up, get dirty. Yep, do it together. And it's what the industry needs. And honestly, we're not seeing it out there, so we want to make it happen for you guys.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we're so excited. Sarah, thanks for jumping on the podcast with me today. Uh, you guys, I will of course link up all the information for the Retail Bootcamp Accelerator, uh, in this week's show notes. You'll see it all over our website, you'll see it all over the socials, uh, but you're invited. I hope to see you inside of the accelerator program. Sarah and I will be there with open arms waiting to work with you in your business. All right, thanks for tuning in this week.

Thanks guys, see you there.

Bye.