FTV: Tips to Create a Profitable Ecommerce Business with Erin Hooley, Bailey’s Blossoms

One of the most important lessons I think any business owner needs to learn when it comes to, quote, knowing your numbers and you're asking yourself, well, what numbers do I need to know? There's a few numbers that really have to work in tandem for us to make sense of how to grow our business. Yes, there's inventory numbers and then there's margin numbers and sell through numbers. Well, there's also traffic numbers. Right. You can have the perfect inventory and at the right margin and the right initial markup, but if you don't have enough traffic, you aren't going to be able to sell it at all. I love talking about this inside of Retail Bootcamp and inside of the Hub. So on this podcast episode that was one of our top performing past episodes, we dug even deeper with this and I was so excited to see another business owner really latching on to this process and understanding how to create a really profitable e commerce business. And not only that, but she also has built an incredible children's brand. So you're going to learn two things from this past podcast episode. Get ready to dig into one of my favorite episodes with Erin Hooley, the founder of Bailey's Blossoms, as we not only talk about children's and building a brand, but also really maintaining a profitable e commerce business. 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.

Hey guys.

You're in for reason some such a treat today. I'm so excited. Erin Hooley's here. Hey, Erin, how you doing?

I'm doing good. Thank you for having me.

Oh, man. I know we have so many business owners that are listening right now that are familiar with Bailey's Blossoms and are going to be so excited to hear your story and strategy and all the things that come with it. So I'm excited to have you on the show.

It's exciting to be here.

Let's talk about kind of from the beginning. I always love to start the show off just hearing kind of that foundational story, how you got into this business. I know we all come down such unique paths to get here and you definitely have a unique sidebar to your story. Just kids and life and the things that we're all juggling every single day. So give me, give me more of your foundational story.

Oh, goodness. Okay. Well, going back to the beginning, Bailey's Blossoms was launched in 2008. Kitchen table success story in Arizona. My husband had just finished up grad school. It's the middle of, you know, the beautiful recession at that. He got a job with MercedesBenz Financial Services which took him to Michigan. And I was just crazy out of my mind. Board in the evening. We're trying to sell our home, but it was a third of the cost that if we had purchased it for not two years prior. I was teaching preschool out of our garage. I had just had our third child. So I had a two year old, a one year old and a newborn at the house and started making hair accessories. It's called Bailey's Blossoms because Bailey's my oldest daughter. And I was making these little blossom hair clips, these little hair flower clips. So hence the name. And so really I launched this. I threw some things up on Etsy, I created a website within five days of making these first little hair clips and then quickly realized that I was making pennies. I'm burning my fingers with hot glue every single evening and selling these things for, you know, three to five dollars apiece. So really, dollar. Our dollar per hour proposition was the pits. So I opted to start making tutus at that time, thinking, how do I get a larger average order value? And started making these. Tutus, well, grew in popularity very quickly, became a very well known name on the Etsy platform and really just overburdened myself. I was not managing my time well. We ended up having a fourth child that moved to Michigan. All the things were happening at the same time. Shut down my preschool and was just not managing life and time and balancing at all well. So my husband, fast forward a little bit. He gets a job offer within Mercedes that would take us to Sao Paulo, Brazil. And I was like, hallelujah, shut this little sucker down. And I did because I just really needed to breathe and step back and think about what I wanted to do with, with this community that I was, that I was growing. And at that point we had about 25,000 followers on Facebook and, and it was just growing very quickly. So anyways, I shut it down for two years, told everybody, say, hey guys, you know, we're going on this little two to three year hiatus, but when I get back, Bailey's Blossoms is going to be bigger and better than ever before. And of course I had no idea what that even meant. But I knew I had some time to figure it out and went to Brazil. We were there for two years, went with four kids, came back with five, and at that time moved to Texas. So we bought a home in Texas and we had this little nest egg left over. And I told my husband, I said, I want to relaunch Bailey's Blossoms. And he said, are you sure about that? The last time we did this, you were a hot mess. And I said, yes, I have an idea. It's going to be better this time. And let me tell you why. I'm not going to hand make things anymore. I'm going to sell the kits. So I'll. If it's a tutu kit, for example, I'll provide the tool. I'll provide the ribbon, the bows, the flowers, the clips, all the little pieces that they need. I'll create a YouTube video and people how to do it themselves. And so that's what we did. I ended up depleting our savings account, went all in again. And I told my husband, I said, I will put the money back within a year if just have a little faith in me. And within three months we were, I was able to put that money back. And we saw that something really remarkable was starting to happen. So now fast forward even more things are growing year over year. We became one of the most well known Etsy shops for infants and toddlers. And I'm doing all these DIY kits and a woman reaches out to me and she says, hey, I love your designs, I love what you're doing, but I really don't want to make anything. Will you make it for me? And I said, oh, goodness, I can't open up that can of worms. I really can't. But I was so kind of in turmoil with this concept of this whole community of people that I wasn't serving. And I thought, how can I serve this woman and all these other people who feel similarly? So at that point I went back to the drawing board again. I said, okay, for all of these people, what does it look like to give them something ready made that I don't have to make? And so I drafted up our first romper and turned it into a romper set. Put a romper with a piece of chunky jewelry and a hair accessory all together and launched this. And it was a huge success. And that really marked the beginning of Bailey's Blossoms evolving into what it is today, which is a clothing line, but it did not launch with clothing at all, which is kind of a fun Little tidbit of our backstory. So now fast forwarding again. 2015, we did about $600,000 in sales on Etsy alone. And I looked at my husband. Now we have six children. And I'm just thinking, honey, balance is starting to fall away again. It's in every room of our house. We've got packages coming from overseas every single week. We're working out of the garage. I've got moms coming to my house for two shifts six days a week to help fulfill packages and answer customer service inquiries and all these things. And I just said, hey, you know, I love you to death, but I'm gonna die at some point. This is gonna kill me. And so I said, I. Either I need to shut this down, which I really think would be stupid, or I think that you consider quitting your job and we should just be entrepreneurs together. What does that look like? Can we do that? And he said, you know what? Why don't we in 2016. And this is a December 2015 conversation, right? So he said, why don't we use 2016 as the year to budget? As if my salary doesn't exist. We'll go solely off of what? The profits that you're actually putting into the bank account, not all the stuff that you're reinvesting into the business, because that doesn't count. But you pay yourself, get very serious about this, and let's see if we can make this happen. And I said, perfect. That sounds great. I kid you not. Not two weeks later, and Etsy changed some of their policies, and we got removed from the platform. 85% of our sales gone in the blink of an eye. And, I mean, we had our website, we were on E Commerce, but it was ridiculous. I mean, it was the pits. Not even worth mentioning, truly. If I got on and five people were on the website, I'm like, oh, hallelujah. It's a great day, right? I mean, it was. So at this point, I'm going, oh, my goodness, we're done. This is the end of Bailey's Blossoms as we know it. And I walked out to my office, to the little garage office where I had three women that were working, and my customer service manager was eight, eight and a half months pregnant. And I told them, and she looked at me and she said, erin, are you telling me that after I have this baby, I'm not going to have a job? And it just sucked out the life of me. And I took every word that I was intending to say, and it just swallowed up in that moment. And I just feel like the heavens opened. I said, no, I'm telling you that if you'll be flexible with me, your job description just might change. And she said, okay, well, what does that mean? And I said, I want you to get onto Etsy, and you have no list. Etsy doesn't give you an email list. You have no customer list. It doesn't belong to you. Right? It's their platform. And I said, go on and start messaging everybody individually and just say, hey, thank you so much for your, for your support. I just wanted to give you a heads up that Bailey's Blossoms can now exclusively be found@baileysblossoms.com and they looked at me like I had three heads. I kept my chin up and I smiled as if I knew that it was going to be okay, but I certainly did not. And then I went back in the house and I sobbed my eyes out. And they got to work and I had my little pity party and I got back up and I dusted myself off and I went to go and check what. How everything was being received. And this influx of responses were coming back where people were saying things like, oh, my goodness, congratulations. What a huge, what a huge move for you. This is so exciting, all of these things. And I thought, oh, my gosh, we can use this to our advantage. And so I really just said, you know, smack, smack, smack the negativity out of yourself, Aaron, and let's get to work. What needs to be done? What are all the things that you've been a bit on the back burner because we've been so content to be successful on Etsy that we haven't taken care of things on our own platform, on our own website. And so I started making sure that we were, that we were mobile friendly, that we had a great user experience. I mean, all the things I put all of this effort that we had been focusing into Etsy into my website. And within 48 hours, our website sales had tripled what they'd ever been on, on Etsy. And I was so confused. And I. What in the world is happening here? And I went to social media and I started looking and realizing that people were tagging us in pictures. And I'm thinking, well, that's pretty cool. But I don't. I still don't get it. And so then I'm looking at all of these images and I opened up one person in particular and then another person, another person and realized, okay, well, they're tagging Bailey's Blossoms, but their child has Been wearing our clothing for well over a year at this point. And now I'm going back to these older pictures and looking at the comments of people that were asking, oh my gosh, what a cute romper. Where'd you get that? And they'd say, oh, isn't it great? Hashtag Etsy. Uh huh, Right. And that's when the light bulb went off and I'm thinking, shut up. I have been busting my butt to build someone else's platform, someone else's business, and now all of a sudden it was, isn't it cute? Hashtag Bailey's Blossoms changed everything. I finally realized the power of a brand and the potential that we had, and I started branding. I put our brand on everything. It was on nothing before then because I didn't think that we were important enough to tout our name. And suddenly my eyes were open to the fact that you know what, a brand is so valuable as long as you believe it's valuable. And once I changed that, everything changed. And that that year we grew 233%. So it was, it was the year that we went from a six figure business to a seven figure business. My husband did quit his job. He's been working with me now for three years. And past two years in a row, we've been on the Inc. 5000 list and just all great things. So, you know, I am not averse to trial and to, and to just those gut wrenching moments, but I also see the opportunity that's there in front of them too, man.

And let's talk about that because we're right in the middle of, you know, the point where so many people have the same choice that you had, either to, you know, go into the room and to cry and to say, well, this pandemic's got me right, I'm done for. Or they can go into that room and discover how they're gonna pivot and what's gonna be next and what opportunity they're gonna make and how this situation can be happening for them and not to them. So talk to me about just kind of, how are you guys handling the situation we're in today? But also, how can others learn to pivot like you did in the moment that you faced?

Absolutely. There's a couple things here, and I am a firm believer that strength and success don't come from a lack of emotion and a lack of being disappointed or frustrated or upset or sad or stressed. You can feel all of those things. You, you can throw yourself on the bed for a few hours or even for a day if you need to. And you can have your moment of just pure and utter upset. The difference is, when you're done, do you get back up and do you put together a plan? So it would have been really easy for me to throw in the towel that first time. The nice thing about this is I'm looking at this and I'm going, you know what? There's nothing about the situation that makes me warm and fuzzy and happy. But I do understand that just like the previous recession that we've been through, the economy is getting hit hard and it's not going to be pretty for quite a while, but it provides us an opportunity to step back, to put together a plan, because there's going to be a lot of people that are going to say, you know what, it's too hard. I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm going to throw in the towel. We have an opportunity to step forward and say, this is going to be hard. There's an opportunity here. And. And I would rather. I'm going to fight. I'm not going to give up. I love what I do. I have passion for what I do. And bring it on. Let's. Let's get through this together. Link arms with the few right people that are around you and really just put together an action plan.

Yes. And two things as I'm thinking about that action plan that you put together or that everyone can put together, two things you've already mentioned to me should be the top of that action plan. Number one, no longer putting your eggs all in one basket, which I know so many people are guilty of doing right now, and they're not going live or they don't have a website and they've only been relying on, say, a storefront or anything else. And now they have to diversify and get omnichannel. And number two on that action plan is you have to have a brand. You have to be the spirit leader of your business, and you have to show up and define how you want.

Others to see you.

And not just let that be a company name, but your personal name along with it. What else would you add to that action plan?

You know, I think first and foremost, you need to determine what your goal is. And just because the situation has changed doesn't mean your goal needs to change. Your goal can stay the same. We have a company goal for Bailey's Blossoms this year. It's 60% growth. And then our sister brand, Peyton Brie, 100% growth. I haven't changed that. We just understand that it's going to have to come in a different way than what we thought it was through January and February of this year. And we need to reorganize and reconstruct what that action plan is. And so when it comes to E Commerce, I understand that there's three levers that we can pull and it's just determining which of those levers we're going to play with today. Which of those levers are we going to dissect today and how do we show up for our customers? I don't. Just to your point, being solo platform heavy, whether that's in a storefront or solely on Facebook or solely wherever it is, is so dangerous. And we want to diversify so that as these things come up, not if, because they always will. When it's not coronavirus, it's going to be something else. It will always be something. We need to be able to have something else in our back pocket to be able to pivot towards. Man.

Absolutely. Talk to me more about those levers and how you know when to pull which lever.

Absolutely. So the three E commerce levers that I talk to my team about all the time. Number one, traffic, number two, conversion rate, and number three, average order value. Now these are the three things that we can toy with in order to meet our goals. So ultimately, if we have a goal of a top line sales figure, dollar amount, that's great. But if we don't actually know what it tangibly looks like as we break it down, then it's just a wish. We're just hoping that it happens. We don't actually know how to make it happen. So as we understand these three things, traffic, conversion rate, average order value, we can start really making an impact on that goal. So for example, we'll go into traffic first. Let's say if you're saying, okay, I have a goal of $100,000 in sales, and now granted, for some, this may be a small goal, for some, this may be a very lofty goal. I'm going to talk in general numbers, but for easy math and you can add or subtract zeros to this as your business kind of fits. But let's say I have $100,000 goal from this month in my sales and I know that I have a 2% conversion rate and a $50 average order value. So that means 100 people come to my website, two people check out, they each spend $50. 100 people come to the website, they spend $100 in total. If that makes sense. So now I know if I want to get $100,000, then I need 100,000 people to come to my website this month in order to reach my goal. And so it just kind of breaks this down. So now the traffic, for example, if you're, if I'm saying I've got $100,000 sales goal and I know that I need 100,000 people to get to my goal to come to my website first I need to understand who's already coming and how are they and how are they getting there, where are they coming from? I need to audit my social presence. Are they coming from Facebook? Are they coming from Instagram? Are they coming from TikTok? How often? If they're coming from Facebook, then I need to say, okay, if Facebook is the core driver, how do I amplify what's already working and make it work better? How do I go from. If I'm posting once a day, what happens if I post twice? What happens if I post 3 times? If I know that the limit that my customers will put up with me before my drop off rate starts to increase or they start to unfollow me, then I can say, okay, well, I can only post two times a day, that's fine. What kind of content am I posting? What's the most engaging? What's driving traffic? How am I, how am I getting? What content is working? And that only comes through testing and auditing and engaging with those customers. And then also after you've done the social media presence audit, with all the channels that you show up on, what areas do you own? What does your email list look like? What does your SMS list look like? How often are you showing up? How often are you pushing something out in those avenues? We've gotten so finite about this that I can almost guarantee you, I know my numbers, I'm going to post this. The average. The average. If I post on Facebook, I know the average organic reach that is going to be, that's we're going to achieve. And from that reach, I know how many people are going to go to my website and then I know how many people are going to convert and how many dollars that's going to equate to. So I can break it down and say in order to meet our sales goals, we need to post this many times to get this much reach, to get this many people to the website to check out this many times. And it becomes math. And that can sound a little bit overwhelming, but I promise it's really not that difficult. And we're going to kind of break into this a little bit more. But understanding how to get that organic reach is huge too. What drives traffic? New things, new arrivals, sale items and trending items. So it's just constantly taking a temperature and saying, okay, I've got this, this new arrival. Well, what works? Do people want a picture of it on a model? Do they want a flat lay? Do they want a this or that? Where I'm saying, hey, here's two ways to style this new top that just came in. Which one do you prefer? Get them to engage. Because engagement means additional organic reach, which is more people and more eyes seeing your things without you having to pay for a Facebook ad.

So good money follows eyeballs 100%. You get them there and they have to engage and then the opportunity for the sale follows. I everything you're saying, I'm just dropping the mic over here 100%. Because we talk about this all the.

Time in the Hub.

We call it the boutique traffic plan that measures these areas. And I think so often in business we're just throwing things at the wall just to see what sticks. You know, I'm just going to post. How many times am I going to post today?

I don't know, four.

And we'll see what happens. But it only matters if, and it only works if you have data. You have to know the data and know why are those people coming to your website and where they're coming from and that. It's not the field of dreams, Kevin Costner. And if you build it, they aren't going to come unless you're strategic about it.

This is so good.

So you've talked about traffic and content and the types of content and iterating on the content. Talk to me about conversion and how you pull that lever in your business.

Absolutely. And one more thing on traffic before we move on too, is that for me, if I know a good post or a mediocre post reaches this many people organically, a moderate post reaches this many people organically, and a phenomenal one reaches this many people organically, then I know as I'm kind of tracking along anything that's exceptional or doing really great, those are the things that I'm turning into ads. I'm not creating ads without testing them in my organic audience first. Whatever people already within my sphere are responding to, that is predominantly going to be the stuff that everybody else has responded to. And now it's got social proof already. So that when you go through Ads Manager, you turn it into an ad on Facebook you already know that the chances it's going to perform are significantly better. So there's. It's a system, right? It's a system. Totally. Yes. And when it comes to conversion rate, ultimately, If I have 50,000 people coming to my website, and that equates to $50,000 with an average order again of $50 and a 2% conversion rate, what happens if that conversion rate gets increased? So if. I know. So here's another easier day to day example. So we just kind of went over the traffic. So let's say that the goal is a $5,000 sales day today, right? Now, we know with traffic that focusing on traffic, that just means I need to get 5,000 people to my website at a conversion rate of 2% and average order value of $50. Now, conversion rate. If I still want that same $5,000 in sales and I'm focusing on conversion rate, if I can increase my conversion rate from 2% to 2.5% and the average order value of $50 remains the same, traffic now doesn't need to be 5,000 anymore. Now it only needs to be 4,000. And the sales equate to the same thing. So 4,000 people, 2.5% conversion rate. $50 average order value also equals a $5,000 sales sales day. So it's just pulling a different leverage. How do you increase your conversion rate? You do a website audit. The number of times that I've had people reach out to me and say, erin, take a look at the homepage of my website. Do you think it's pretty? I'm thinking you're asking the wrong question. Honey, it does not matter if I think it's pretty or if you think it's pretty or if your best friend thinks it's pretty. What matters is, is it converting? So when you go. So we use Shopify as our hosting platform, and I can go into the Shopify analytics and I can say, okay, let's look at all of the products that are rompers, right? Or let's look at all the categories first. Okay, all the categories. I've got dresses, I've got rompers, I've got footwear. All these different things. Which one is making me the most amount of money? Then my data will say, well, Erin, that's rompers and jumpsuits. Awesome. Okay. Bailey's Blossoms knows how to sell rompers and jumpsuits. So then I go into rompers and jumpsuits, and I say, okay, rompers and jumpsuits. We've got a hundred of them. Which one or which, which are the top three best selling rompers and jumpsuits, and I identify what those are. So now the homepage of my website should have a banner advertising the jumpsuit and romper collection at the very top, because that's prime real estate. If you were selling houses, you would not put the little shacks at the top, you'd put the best of the best at the top. Same thing with your website. The best, highest converting product or categories should be listed first. And then within that, the highest converting pieces within those categories should be the ones that are showcased on the banner itself. So, so often I see people that are saying, oh, I can't get this to sell, I'll put it on the homepage of my website. No, it's backwards. People don't check out and it's not going to sell more, you're going to end up converting less. You've got to put your best foot forward and that above the fold, if you will. Which just means when you're on your phone, before you start scrolling down, above the fold is gold, or potential gold if you use it right. So it's put the best of the best above the fold at the top of your website. Before anybody has to scroll to find anything else, they should be captivated by the best you have to offer right there. So doing a site audit on your homepage, making sure that the best products are featured for the best collections, and then just testing your user experience, Go through the whole process, see where the chinks in your armor are and see what you can do to improve that user experience. Make it a little bit easier in the checkout, make it a little bit quicker, less clicks, put things that make things easy and accessible so that people don't get bogged down by speed or by too many pages or whatever, it has to be terrible loading time, whatever happens to be, find out what it is that's making people bounce and fix that and you will see a higher conversion rate.

Do you have any tools that you love to use for that, like site auditing tools or SEO tools like Semrush or any of those that you love to help you in that process?

Oh, goodness. You know what? Yes. And right now, off the top of my head, I'm going, oh, what are the ones? So there are speed. If you just Google site speed, site speed metrics, and I can't think of the names right now, but multiple will pop up where it will grade you based off of how you're doing and how your site performs. And we've done that quite frequently. Right now we have an IT guy who constantly audits that. So I've been out of that loop for a while to be able to name things in specific. But there are lots of free tools available to test that out.

Awesome, awesome. So we talked about conversion rate. Anything else to add on conversion rate on how else you go through your website audit?

No, I think the biggest thing is just making sure that you understand the data that your website provides, whether it's a ton or a little bit. And if you, and if you're new to E commerce and you're just putting up your site and you're saying, I don't know what the best thing is, I don't know, I don't have any data. Well, you do. Even if you have five people in your network, you can get their opinion, hey, between this romper and this romper or this dress and this dress, which one do you prefer? Everybody says, you know, three out of five people say, this one perfect. Showcase that one perfect.

So next is average order value. How do we get people to spend more money?

Okay, and the concept here, with average order value, so we talked about the case number one, using traffic to get to $5,000. Case number two, using conversion. Case number three, if you have the same traffic, so 4,000 people, your conversion rate is 2%, which is what it was in the original. And the only thing that changes is your average order value. Instead of $50, it goes to $62.50. Do the math again. That is also $5,000 in sales today. So it's just again, which lever are we pulling? So for average order value, it becomes similarly to what I did in the beginning days of Bailey's Blossoms. If you realize, hey, I'm selling a bunch of things, but they're all low in value, then it's what complements that low in value item that can increase the value of the overall purchase. Can I put things together? Can I cross sell? Can I upsell? Can I put some flat lace together to where people are? Because a lot of people don't actually know how to put an outfit together. And you would be surprised how many times you have to see, say, actually this looks good with this, looks good with this. And people buy the entire outfit. You can do that on your E commerce platform as well, where you're focusing on entire looks. We use an app on Shopify, it's called Covet Picks. And you can upload photos and tag all of the different items to those photos and then you can drive traffic to that lookbook. To give people inspiration on how to shop or how to put outfits together. So that's a great resource. So cross selling, upselling. Another one that we've done is considering a free shipping option. Now here's what a lot of people will do. They'll say, okay, my average order value is $50. So therefore I should give everybody who purchases $50 free shipping. No, no, if your average order is $50, you should increase it by 20 to 30% and to encourage people to buy just a little bit more in order to earn that free shipping. So if I wanted to offer this up and my average order value was $50, I would say if you purchase $65 or more, which is a 30% increase from that average order as it stands right now, then you get free shipping and then that average order starts to increase. Now a lot of people may say, wait a second, but now I have to pay for shipping. Awesome. If you don't feel like you can pay for shipping, then factor that in too and say, if I need to cover the shipping costs, then you can just bake that in and say, okay, what does it need to be in order for this to actually make sense for me? And that's where that average order value will start to increase. So good.

So good. There's always a reason behind every single number. Right. And sometimes we just. Again, we're throwing those things out there. So it's so helpful.

Yes.

As you're looking through these three number or these three levers. Right. Talk to me about additional reports that you're constantly looking at in your business.

Oh, goodness. Well, I think a lot of times when it comes to creating content, this is where a lot of people get hung up and it gets really difficult for people to get out of their own way and they feel like it needs to be over complicated. So if we put our content into buckets and we say, okay, I'm going to release new arrivals every Tuesday or I'm. And then I'm going to talk about doing a flash sale every Friday or whatever it happens to be, you can put a regimen in place that triggers you to not have to think so hard. So we do every other week we audit our sales and we say, what are the top 20 best selling trending items right now? So we'll go through the reports, we'll pull a report of the top 20 best selling items, and then we'll, we'll do a live and we'll show people, hey guys, these items are flying off the shelves. Take a look. Thank you. So much for your support. We love that you love these. Let us know which one is your favorite. And we're just interacting and we're showing people. And then we take those same items, we'll tag them on Shopify, and then we'll put them into a collection of their own so that people can come to the website, they can click on trending and they can shop the best items. Because a lot of people don't want to go through 150 product pages or collection pages on the website. They just want the best of the best. So what are those, what are those best selling items? And again, when it comes to driving that traffic, you have to focus on what's new, what's discounted or on sale and what's trending. And if you're constantly looking at those three buckets and you're auditing what is fresh, that kind of falls into each of them, then you're always going to have something new to talk about. About.

I love that. I love it. I've never, I think about three buckets in content as engaging content, branded content, sales content, product content. Right. But I love that you're taking your actual products and further breaking them down into buckets, which makes it so easy to keep track of. And it also gives your team an action plan every week that doesn't always have to be directed by you. This is something easy enough for your team to take a hold of and take action on.

On. Absolutely. And to that you, you just touched on, you know, a content recipe of sorts. You know, a lot of people talk about educate, engage, inspire, promote, entertain. I mean, all of these different things that we're all very familiar with and creating a plan, but understanding that you're creating a plan around creating a community. And so perfect example of this with everything with COVID 19, with all of the angst and upset and stress that this has provided and so, so much change so quickly. And my team and I, we took a step back and we said, wow, okay, what are what our customers needed two weeks ago and what they need today are two very different things. So how do we show up for them in a way that really matters most? And so what we determined to do was we said, okay, let's do 30 Days of Smiles because everybody just needs to, to have a little bit more joy, something to smile about. So we launched this, this campaign, if you will, 30 days of smiles where every morning and it's tied to a giveaway because we determined, you know, it's always, it's cheaper to Give something away than it is to promote something half the time. And so I know we'll get more eyeballs with more engagement. So let's just give away, you know, a $25 gift certificate in exchange for that engagement, rather than having to spend 100 or 200 or $500 to boost it. So, so we're doing every morning, we're doing 30 days of smiles. We've done, you know, tag a new mom who's, you know, tag a new mom in need and tell her what about her? Either one is makes her a great mom or will make her a great mom. The reason that she's going to be a great mom when she has her babies. You know, thinking about all of these, all of these moms who are pregnant right now, my goodness. I mean, think about needing to smile. Or another one where we said, you know, drop your a link to your favorite dessert recipe or your favorite minute to win at games or I posted a video of my son who had eaten all of our Valentine's candy and he was busted. So it was like, drop your favorite busted kids story video or whatever happens to be. And it's just getting people to laugh and to communicate with one another and to just find joy and in the fact that we're all stuck at home together. Right? And so it's as we kind of step away and we say, you know what? Yeah, not an ideal situation by a long shot, but there's still a way that I can show up. There's still a way that I can serve. And even if it doesn't come back in dollars today, that loyalty, that community, that sense of a true relationship will pay back a hundredfold down the road. Ah, so true.

So true. Always service above self, right?

Yes.

The more you give to people, the more it will always come back around. In the meantime, you know, I want to kind of transition at this point. And you, you and your husband have six kids and you have this growing empire, right? And you have a team and this world of chaos that we live in, you know, a lot of our retailers and wholesalers that we work with at the Hub also have families and they're doing this thing called balance. And I always laugh. I think balance is such an impossible word. Like, I just don't really think that it exists. And I also don't think that life is a zero sum game. Like, if you give in one area, if you're great in business, doesn't mean your home life has to suffer. But instead, a rising tide will lift all ships. If you're committed to greatness at work. You're also committed to greatness and excellence at home, too. So I would love to hear. How do you. How do you do that impossible thing called balance? What are the standards that you guys have set in your house and in your business and in your life to maintain that level everywhere you go?

Absolutely. You know, this is something I struggled with, and I touched on this earlier. I struggled with it so many times off and on, especially in the infancy and youth stages. Right. Of as I started to figure out this whole, this whole working at home business mom thing. And I would eat myself alive. I was not kind to myself until I realized, you know what? I started tracking the good days and the bad days because I was trying to make sense of what makes a good day good and what makes a bad day bad. And I realized that my ability to be present or my succumbing to constant distraction was the key difference. It didn't matter if I was at home for six hours with my kids or even all day. I could be home all day with my kids and they're running around my feet and I'm distracted the entire time. And I felt like crud in comparison to they've been at school all day, they come home, I put everything away and truly away. And I was with them for us for an hour, even just an hour, even just 30 minutes of just uninterrupted, perfectly present time. And I went to bed with a smile on my face. And so for me, it's about the ability. Balance isn't about five hours here, five hours there, five hours over there. It's about when I'm working, am I present in my work? When I'm with my spouse, am I focused and present with my spouse? When I'm with my kids, am I focused and present with my kids? And if I can say, yes, I am present, then I feel balanced regardless of how my time shakes out during the day.

So important. How do you, you know, when you're thinking about how you create that present time? Are there certain boundaries that you've put in place for yourself and in for your work and for your family? Are there like hard stops that you abide by every day?

You know, I'd love to say yes, but the truth is that I'm auditing my intentions for every day and every day. And so I'm going to wake up and I realize what's on my plate and I have to create an intentional plan around what that day is going to look like. And today may look Vastly different from tomorrow or from yesterday. And that's perfectly okay. So number one, it's flexibility, flexibility to adjust to the differing circumstances. Two weeks ago, our businesses required something much different than they do of us right now. Right. And so it's that ability and that grace to be flexible and then to set your intention. So for me, in the morning, I've got my calendar, I'm blocking out my time, I'm determining and then I'm stepping back and I'm looking and I'm saying, does this feel right to me? Is there anything that I should change? Do I feel like I'm giving appropriate time to all the things that I, that I value the most? And then I set my intention for that day and I stick to it. And at the end of the day, I'm going to go back and I'm going to look and say, did I accomplish what I set out to accomplish, My goal for the day? Did I do that? Did I get distracted? If I did what distracted me, how do I keep that from happening tomorrow? And rather than beating myself up for a quote, unquote failure, I'm putting into place an action plan for change. Hey, this distracted me today. I didn't really like that Netflix was playing in the background. I couldn't, I thought I was focused, but I wasn't, you know, all of these different things. And it creates an actionable plan for me to be able to audit and hold myself accountable.

That is so good. And it's more about focusing on a to done list than a to do list.

Right? Amen.

So smart. Where do you go? You know, you're, you're such a, a light, you're such a bright light for people. And where do you go? Because you know, you can only fill others cups when yours is full, right? Can't fill from an empty cup. Where are you going to be inspired?

And yeah, I love listening to podcasts. I love, I don't consume a lot of media, ironically because my business is very established on, on social media. But I had, I have noticed within myself that the more time I am on social media as a recreational activity for myself, the I don't function very well, my self esteem goes down, I waste a lot of time, I don't feel very productive, I'm not present. So for me, the boundaries I've put into place are more for my emotional health and determining what is feeding me and what's depleting me. And for me, social media recreational activity does not fuel me. It's a time waster for Me, it's like a black hole of death.

Yeah.

So. And then I also surround myself. You know, even just a year and a half ago, I kind of had this. A very difficult moment that we passed through, and I realized that, man, I was surrounded by cheerleaders, all the people that were like, hey, you're so great. You're so wonderful. You can do this. You can do anything. Rah, rah, rah, Erin. Go, go, go. And it felt good, but it was. It was not pushing me to my next level. And it wasn't until I hired somebody on my. Onto my team who was not a cheerleader. He was a challenger. And he came in and he would push and he'd push, and he'd break things apart, and it was uncomfortable. And suddenly I found myself really trying to break apart. Why I do the things I do, how it could be done differently. What other options are available are my. Am I setting goals that are pushing me to really, really reach, or am I setting goals that I know that I can reach because it feels good? And if I'm doing it because it feels good and it's easy, why am I doing that? What about me needs that constant affirmation, you know? And it's just constantly breaking down my mindset and what it is that I'm trying to achieve, surrounding myself with both cheerleaders, because you still need the cheerleaders, but also making sure that you have appropriate challengers in your sphere, in your immediate sphere is so, so important because they make sure that you don't shortchange yourself.

And no one really talks about that. You know, I'm really happy to hear you say that, because I think that with social media the way that it is today, we live in this, like, instant gratification world. And it's like an echo chamber.

Yes.

Where you just constantly have to hear and get this immediate, you know, gratification from everyone that you're doing things right. But that type of feedback is healthy. That type of constructive criticism is helpful. And sometimes it hurts, and it is hard. I have been there with you, girl. Oh, my gosh. But good for you. For. For standing up and stating that, because we all need to hear that.

Well, ultimately, I think what it is is once you start going through these changes, once you start seeing what you can become, because you're truly, truly. Your potential is limitless. Once you truly see who you are, what your value is, and what your potential is, you're not satisfied to sit still anymore. You're not satisfied to just stay where you're at. You want to know what that next phase looks like for you. You want to know what that growth, what that growth opportunity is. And so it becomes addictive in a sense where it's just, I. I want to pick it apart. I want to hear the tough things, and it doesn't hurt as much anymore because I know what's on the other side of it.

So good. Well, I can't thank you enough for all of the wisdom that you've shared today. This has been one of the best podcast episodes. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I want to ask you this one final question, because I think it's the reason that we're all here. Clearly, you and I both, you know, we're on the same page that this business and this life isn't just about business. It's not about selling something for a profit. But we are here to serve on such a greater level. Right. And to leave such an impact on the world around us. So you've got six beautiful kids, and fast forward with me a couple years. You've got, you know, multiply that by six more. You've got at least 36 grandkids, right?

@ least. At least.

I come from a family of six kids, so I can totally appreciate this. The youngest of six. So you're sitting on the front porch, those 36 grandkids, and you're talking about the life that you lived and the business that you and your husband built and created and the change that you left in the world around you. And I would love to know what is the impact that you want to leave on that world around you? And what do you want them to.

Hear from that conversation? Oh, my goodness. Okay. Not to mention that you're totally making me tear up over here. I'm like, that's quite the question. I love it. Oh, golly. I think the best word is impact. I. When I went to school and when I went to college, I went with the understanding or the belief rather, that you could either be a mom or you could be a business owner, but you had to choose one or the other, and there really wasn't a way to do them both. Well, I didn't realize how many limiting beliefs I had. And then as this all started to unfold and I felt this mom guilt between, oh, I don't think that I'm supposed to be doing this. I think that I'm supposed to. It's supposed to look like this success can only look one way, and this is the way it's supposed to be. And then I started looking at my daughters. I've got two daughters and four sons. And I thought, do I really believe that? Do I really believe that? Here I am teaching my sons, you know what, boys, you dream big because you can be whatever the heck you want to be. But girls, you be careful. Dream big, but not too big. Because once you become a mom, it really doesn't matter what you want. Right when I realized how messed up that was, I want to change the rhetoric. I want to change the mindset of every woman, of every of every human being who believes that there are limitations imposed on them by their circumstance, by their upbringing, by the cards they've been dealt in life. And I want to open their minds to the fact that the only limitations that matter are the ones that you put on yourself. And if you're lacking a skill, you can learn it. And if it's a mindset holding you back, you can change it. It's all within your power to recreate. And you write your story. And if you want to be the hero of your story, you write yourself as the hero of your story. And so for me, I hope that someday my 36 or 136 grandkids, right, I hope that they look at me and they look at themselves differently because of the way I lived my life. I hope that they look in the mirror and they see absolutely no limitations and they dream huge. That's beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful. Erin, I know everyone is going to want to follow up with you after this podcast and you have your own Path podcast as well. Tell us where we can find you across social media and also listen to your show.

Absolutely. Aaron Huli.com I'm active on Facebook and Instagram at erinyhooley and then my podcast is Conquering Chaos.

Fitting. Perfect. Thanks so much for being with us today and thank you for being part of the Boutique Hub community as well with Bailey's Blossoms. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Foreign.

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