How To Grow Holiday Sales for your Boutique

Oh, my gosh. Can we just. Can we all give a collective hiss to her boots? Because are those not fabulous? Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for the introduction. I wasn't expecting that today. And I just think the connections. It's such a small world, isn't it? You know, we obviously come from the Western industry, which is the smallest world in the world. So the fact that we have this connection is amazing. And the more I get into the fashion industry and the boutique world especially, it is such a small world. And the way that I look at our community at the Boutique Hub, it is. More than anything, it is a family. And yes, sometimes there's crazy aunts and uncles that come into the family, but there is a lot of amazing people inside of the family. So thank you guys for being here. When I look around, part of me kind of goes back to my agriculture roots and rural America roots. And I feel like you guys should be, like, listening to Sarah Jessica Parker or someone way more experienced than me, because in honesty, I'm just a country girl from North Dakota whose fashion idol growing up was Punky Brewster. Anyone else? Yeah. My fashion idol is probably still Punky Brewster. When it's, like, midnight and the kids aren't sleeping and I'm rocking a scrunchie, and I'm reliving my Punky Brewster roots. Totally legit. But when I come here, I'm just so honored. And the reason that I'm here is not because of me, but it's because of so many faces that I recognize in this audience, and that is our family at the Boutique Hub. So someone used this term yesterday. So I have to coin this. And you guys are going to love it if you're part of the Boutique Hub. But people have been calling Boutique Hub members hubbies. You're now hubbies. So can I get a shout from all of the hubbies that are here today? Oh, that was so weak. You guys let everyone know that you're here. Are you a hubby? Thank you. Perfect. So the cool part about the hubbies being here, and I feel like we're all so at home here, is because out of any Market center in the US I honestly feel like Dallas Market center gets boutiques. They get what it means to be an independent business owner more than anybody. And as I walked around yesterday and visited with a lot of our brands, which you' Boutique Hub member signs up and down this row over here, as I visited with a lot of them, the common thread that I heard was, you know, the retail apocalypse is A real thing for big box stores. So if it weren't for the business that we do with independent boutique owners, these brands would be out of business. And so they recognize in a really clear way how important your guys businesses are to them. So I want to commend you guys for putting in the effort that you do and having the vision that you have for your business, but also for Dallas Market center, having that shared vision. And as Katie alluded to, you know, our relationship is fairly new with dmc. The first time that I came here, I knew less than nothing about the boutique market, to be honest with you. I stood here in the Bling a Go Go booth and handed out cards like we're launching something called the Boutique Hub. And these people are all like, what is that, girl? And my husband and I rode the escalators up and down and just tried to meet people, but we were so out of our league. So to see this relationship come full circle is amazing to me. And as Amy could probably tell you the story, she told this story last night when a group of us had dinner together downstair. She talked about the first time we called DMC and talked about hosting the Boutique Summit here. Who all here came to the Boutique Summit? Awesome. So when we first talked to Amy about the Boutique Summit, she literally told this story last night. I said, I think we're gonna have about 300 boutique owners come to DMC for the boutique Summit. And she on the phone is like, okay. But away, she's like, there's no way this is gonna happen. This is totally crazy. And she told everyone in the office, if this girl could get 50 people here, we would be happy. But the way that it went, nine days, we sold out to 300 boutique owners who came here, which was remarkable, and it just shows the strength of what you guys have created. So I just want to thank the DMC staff and thank them for trusting me to come talk about this topic today, which is all about holiday marketing. And boy, do we have some things to talk about today. Yesterday when I was going to the airport on the radio, they said, we are now 29 days away from Black Friday. Does that make you want to throw up at all? Amen. Who here is feeling like, I got this? I'm ready for the holidays. Good. You're in the right spot. Perfect. This is what we're going to talk about and this entire topic. I want to share these six main points that we're going to talk about today and the reason we're going to talk about these specific Things is on a personal level, it's something that impacted a boutique owner who's a part of our community. And I'm going to just not share her name with you, but I want to tell you this came from a real person. Last year at about this time, we had a boutique owner who was a part of our program, Boutique Boot Camp. And she had come into the program almost like it was kind of her last chance. It was her last chance to make something of her business. Her business was struggling. It was causing some issues at home and with her family and she needed to have a turnaround. And can we all just attest that if there's a time for a turnaround, it's the holidays, it's the fourth quarter. Right. So we sat down and we made a plan with her that addressed six key areas for her business that could help her both online and off capitalize on the season that was ahead of her. And so that's a bit about what I want to share today. And I will totally nerd out on this topic, you guys. And I will go into way too much detail and I'll talk 900 miles an hour hour. So if you're not able to take notes, I'm going to share a link with you at the end so you can catch a free download that I'm going to give to you but then have access to the rest of this information in much, much more detail. So don't panic if I just go crazy on this topic. Sound good? All right, so let me see if I can work this bad boy. All right, so these are a couple of the key areas that we are going to talk about as I pull out my professor in me and I'm not going to waste too much time on the intro. We're going to get into it. In case you're not familiar with the hub very, very briefly, we have of hubbies here. But essentially what the boutique hub is is we are a two sided marketplace for the entire boutique industry around the world. And we do two things. We help consumers around the world discover boutiques that they love all on a single platform, but then shop those boutiques directly. We believe in driving traffic to you, not to our marketplace. And then we connect the boutique industry of boutique owners, apparel brands and designers and vendors, fashion bloggers and then service providers. So app developers, consultants, you name it. We want to be the go to place that helps a boutique owner or vendor develop their business. And we, those of you who are hubbies can attest we are a hyperactive bunch of People, Right. Our groups are in constant communication, lifting one another up, supporting each other, sharing ideas, training, education, live events, you name it. So if you want more information, it's the boutiquehub.com but I just want to give you that background. Alright, so the first thing I want to talk about in terms of these six pieces is your pre planning strategy. Have you guys all at least started pre planning for the holidays? Yes, a little. This is going to be the most important thing you do, obviously, because if you fail to plan, you plan. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Right? So if we don't have a key strategy lined out right now, we're going to sink pretty fast. So I want to address a bit of a myth and a truth. So the myth that I think a lot of boutique owners get wrapped up in is the fourth quarter is a time for a quick win. It's a time for quick cash and a fast sale. But the truth is the fourth quarter is your opportunity to develop the lifetime value of your customers. This is the time when people are trying out your business and it's giving them a look into who you are, but it's going to bring them back again and again in the future. So three key pieces I want you to think about when it comes to developing the long term win for your business. And the first is to go back to the entire reason the retail apocalypse is a thing. And that is because people want to do business with people. They don't want to do business with a big box store in the way that they do with you. And so the opportunity that you have is to provide an experience, to do something that's memorable and to leave a lasting impact to the people who come into your business. So the little touches are what yield the biggest return in terms of your holiday events and planning. So I want you to think about that in the way of what is that lifetime value of my customer? How do I get them in the door but I make it stick later on? What am I going to do to get them back in January? This is also a really important time. If you have not felt 130% confident in your ideal customer, this is the time when you really have to hone in on who she is. Because you know, it's noisy right now, you know her inbox is flooded and her social media is flooded. So how are you going to cut to the chase and cut through the noise and reach exactly what the need is of that ideal customer? Who is she shopping for? What does she really need? What is her Pain point. And how are you going to serve her? So make sure you really deeply know and feel what, what she's going through so you can address it. The third piece here is your staying power. And I'm going to address this a little bit more later. But I think the number one mistake I see retailers make in the fourth quarter is they'll throw up some blanket 40% off sale online or in store. And once they run the numbers, they realize they've lost money. They can't pay their staff, they can't pay expenses. You can't pay yourself because you've given away the farm. So we have to understand when we're making a strategy and a plan, how are we going to plan for our maintained margin at the end of the fourth quarter and not just give everything away at the beginning? So the thing I want you to think about here is what is the difference between a sale and a promotion? Sounds pretty simple, right? So a sale is anytime you're giving a direct financial benefit to your customer in return for driving that traffic to your store, which results in a lost margin for you. Right. It's a give and take. Well, what is a promotion? A promotion is a theme or an event or a reason, a gathering of why those customers are coming into your space. So my favorite example is an ugly sweater party. Who loves ugly sweater parties during the holidays? No, you guys are so lame. Come on, someone's gotta love an ugly sweater party with me, right? Come on. We have themed, if I can digress for a second, we have themed Christmases at my family's house. So a couple years ago, it was the ugly sweater party. It was a contest. Who came best dressed. We do handmade gift exchanges. I mean, we just, we get into the themes. So makes me a little bit excited. So how can you bring that into your business? How can you drive traffic without giving away the farm? Right? All right. How can you make the most of the next couple weeks that are ahead? Here's the strategy that I want you to work on right now. I want you to grab an old fashioned wall hanging calendar. You probably have plenty of those. Or you have a big desk calendar from Target. And I want you to simply start by circling the dates. Circling Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Small Business Saturday. And any event or promotion that you're going to run, start by circling them. And then I want you to think about strategy in terms of working backwards and creating a traffic plan backwards. So you have the date circled on your calendar. And now you're mapping out when do My emails go out. When do my postcards go out? What is the supply list I need for my photo shoots? Everything has to be in order from backwards, right? At this point we have to map it all out on that calendar and then you can check it off as you go. The other key piece when you're mapping out that on your calendar is how many of you have done the training we have on the four part to do list. Couple of you. So the four part to do list, again, something we have a complete training on in the hub, but it's how do we address your work and personal life balance because it's not separate. Right? One directly impacts the other. How many of you have kids or you have a busy life at home besides business? Yeah, I've got three kids. I have a three year old, a six year old and a seven year old. So balance is like my middle name. And life is crazy. There is no success in the business if there's not success at home. So how do we address the 4 part to do list which is what do we have to do every single week? What are the biggest rocks for this week only what is the brain dump list? That can come later. And then what can I outsource? And number four is probably the most important time of year what can I outsource? And we're going to do a whole other little piece on that in just a minute. So your end goal in terms of pre planning the entire holiday season is how can you drive the greatest amount of traffic? Leveraging that with the most memorable experience but strategically planned to get you the greatest maintained margin. Makes sense. Traffic experience margin has to be the name of the game. I pulled our community at the boutique hub and don't mind the picture because no one wants to do the Kim Kardashian ugly cry during this time of the year. I polled our community at the boutique hub and I asked ask for some of their greatest tips and takeaways. And so I've got some quotes from some members in here. So Shannon who owns a boutique in North Carolina said do not wait to purchase your inventory for promotions. Having the next three months fully mapped out now is so important for your sanity and for your business. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Can I get an amen? Amen. Are you good? Do you guys need more coffee or you need lunch or does everyone doing okay? Am I the only one with a lot of energy? All right, let's talk about promotions. We talked about the difference between a sale and a promotion. But I want to get into Just a little bit more meat on this topic. So the myth here is you have to run a sale on Black Friday or insert X holiday event here. It's a myth. The truth is, stop devaluing your brand. Stop devaluing your brand. Cheaper is not better. You do not have to give away your profit to drive traffic to your store. Amen. Amen. This is a huge mistake that is costing you dearly. So what is the difference between a sale and a promotion? We talked about that. So when you're deciding what is it that you need to run in terms of a promotion, four little things I want you to think about. The first is why is it that your customers are shopping with you that's going to impact what you decide to do? Why are they shopping with you? Is it it because they trust you? Is it because of your return policy? Is it because the quality of what you offer? All of that has to be in the back of your mind when you're thinking about what you're going to do. Your brand at this point in the year also has to feel up leveling, right? If you're going to get someone to pay closer to full price for something. You know, when I'm, when I'm deciding where I'm going to shop, I'm not going to go somewhere that I feel like I could get that at Walmart or, you know, it's the same level I'm at now. I want to go somewhere that makes me feel good, like I'm going up a level with my style. Right? So is your brand leaving your customers feeling like they're up leveling their style? The selection, your product assortment so important this time of year? Not just the sheer number of products, but how you're showing your products, how you're layering them together and how you're being the fashion educator of your clients. How are you showing them how to wear those products when paired together? And then the last piece of that why do they shop with you? Are you making it easy for them? Is it easy? Or are you asking them to say, hey, go to my website, it's www.and then go sift through all of my new arrivals and then go put it in your cart and then you can check out. And then there'll be one more confirmation step. No. When you're sharing your new arrivals, especially online, what is the direct link to purchase? Here is the direction. How do we get them there? The quickest, most easiest way possible. Right? And it's no different in store in terms of a merchandising plan, they both have to be well thought out. The second piece in terms of deciding what promotion or sale you're going to run is what is your financial goal at the end of the season? Have you thought about it? Do you guys have a number in mind in terms of that financial goal? Then have you worked your way backwards? What's your open to buy plan? How much inventory do you have have to have on hand and in what classes do you have to have that inventory on hand to reach that financial goal? Now, once you know that, what is your daily sales goal? What's your weekly sales goal? What's your goal for each event you're going to run? Have you included your staff and your team on those sales goals? Are they going to help you reach them as well? Or are you just hoping you make some money at the end of the day? Does anyone ever do that? I don't have a goal, but I'm just hoping I make some money. Well, this is the time to plan out what those numbers are exactly right now. The next piece from there is once you know those goals is here's four key types of sales and promotions. And I'm not going to go into detail because I want to spare you some time, but I have this in much more detail for you later. There's four key types of sales and promotions you can think about here. The first one is the actual price reduction, the transition, traditional sale percentage off, dollar amount off, pretty black and white. You give, they give. The second piece is a bonus, the bogo Buy more, get more, buy more, save more, whatever it is, you're increasing the average order size and you're maintaining a profit margin, right? Even though you're giving up more product. The third piece is your brand builders. So this is your gift with purchase loyalty programs, free shipping, something that's rewarding them for being a valued member of your brand and helping build your brand over time. And then the fourth type is the actual promotion. So you're not necessarily giving away any kind of discount, but you're bringing them in. You're having some kind of guest vendor in your store at a pop up with you. You're having a training or a speaker or a style session or drinks and entertainment or having an ugly sweater party. Whatever it is, it's a promotion. The fourth piece I want you to think about then and finally when you're determining what sales is going to run is how do I increase my average or her value? Right? That has to be the name of the game. It's not Just you're hoping for a sale. But what is my aov and how do I strategically plan to increase it over this period of time? All right, I got some more good Christmas pictures. I love ugly sweaters, and so I love this picture of this ugly sweater. It's perfect. So Tammy, who is a really active member of our community at the boutique Hub, said move old inventory and grab bags since people are still out shopping for others and not necessarily themselves. She marked surprise packages customers could keep under the tree as a present for themselves, and it was a success that allowed them to move overstock inventory. Are you guys feeling like you're more in the ugly sweater mood now? I'm just picturing what Trump's ugly sweater might look like. It might come with, like, a hair swipe to the side on top of it, really add some visual appeal. All right, let's talk about events. How many of you guys have holiday events planned? Come on, who else has holiday events planned? You gotta have some holiday events planned, right? How are you gonna meet your customers face to face and build your authentic brand and let your customers touch and feel your products? Even if you're an online boutique, you can still run holiday events. So there's a ton of events we could touch, talk about. But again, for the sake of time, let's focus on the big ones. Some of the optional ones could be vendor events. Open house, Scrooge nights, the twelve days of Christmas, ladies nights, men's nights, you name it. But let's just focus in on Black Friday to start with. And I think the question that independent retailers need to ask themselves in terms of Black Friday is, are you going to compete on Black Friday? How many of you guys come from a smaller town? A lot of you. Perfect. How many of you come from, like, a bigger city, more urban area? A couple of you. Perfect. So depending on where you're from and what type of store you have, the question you need to just think about here is, where is your ideal customer going on Black Friday? How many of you guys go out on Black Friday to Target, and you're, like, elbowing the woman next to you and trying to get in? Anybody? Oh, no risk takers. Okay. I like you. I like. I don't do that in this. Oh, no, it's. No offense. No offense. So there's a lot of people who do that, and they enjoy that, and it's a tradition for their family. So the question is, is that your ideal customer? Is that where she's going on Black Friday? Or maybe she's elbowing someone down to get into your store? I don't know, maybe that's the case. But are you going to run a big offer promotion or a push to get traffic on Black Friday? Or are you going to run it instead the weekend before and do a pre Black Friday sale? Or are you going to run some type of smaller promotion on Black Friday but then own that? Small Business Saturday is your jam. That's your day. That's a decision you need to make so you're not just again giving away the farm and putting some blanket discount out there for everybody to come in and grab. So let's talk about Small Business Saturday. Who has a Small Business Saturday event planned? Do you guys just love Small Business Saturday? Is that not the best thing that they could have done in terms of holiday marketing? You know, it speaks so clearly to this retailer apocalypse. This is exactly why the retail apocalypse is what it is. Again, people want to do business with people. They want to shop somewhere that has meaning and impact. And that's what Small Business Saturday is all about. Last year was the biggest Small Business Saturday ever. I believe it was $15.4 billion on that day was transacted with small businesses. Is that amazing? 15.4 billion. You know, we have a huge trend in people wanting to support small business owners. So what are you going to do on that day? If I could give you one tip when I catch up with my slides, it would be to collaborate. Collaborate. Collaboration is the name of the game in terms of marketing right now. So how are you finding another local vendor to you or another store owner that's across the street? Maybe it's a coffee shop and they're giving a free cup of coffee to your customers and you're giving something else to their customers. Back and forth. If you listen to Gary Vee, Gary Vee talks a lot about this, but how are you working together? Maybe it's the Girl Scouts who are going to come in and do your gift wrapping on Small Business Saturday and you're going to promote the Girl Scouts and they're going to get donations for doing gift wrapping, but they're going to promote your boutique in return. So how are you going to collaborate? And for those of you who are online only or maybe you're mobile or do pop up events, you still have a huge opportunity. You're a small business. This is the time for you to tell your story. I think think the big myth that we face and I used to run an economic development corporation by the way, for a small community. So I understand that Whole shopping local. And I also understand how many people in a community do not shop local and it annoys the tar out of me. Amen. Yes. This is your time to tell your story. I pay taxes locally. I pay property taxes, I hire a local insurance agent. I have a local attorney. You have to tell your story. You employ people, right? And you're not a buy in group. You have a legit business that is supporting the local economy. So you have to be loud and you got to be proud when it comes to Small Business Saturday and wave that flag of what your small business is all about. Make people know that you are there and what your business is all about. Alright, Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday. I could nerd out on this topic, but this is the time when you get to work like email funnels and work on your custom audiences and work your Facebook pixel and you really get to be a digital marketer on Cyber Monday. Now you could go that route and you can nerd out like me, or you could just drive some digital traffic to your Facebook group or to your website and just try to get some audience flowing to wherever it is that you're selling online. How many of you guys have Shopify store or do something online? Yeah, quite a few of you. Perfect. So if you have a pixel installed on your Shopify store, this is the time to capture traffic. Even if they don't finish a transaction with you, get their information. Let your pixel capture their information so you can build a retargeting audience for later. Sound good? You can get people retargeting on Facebook. You can get people into your abandoned cart. Either series, you can bring them back for later. So even if that sale doesn't finish on Cyber Monday, get that customer information so you can market to them later. Finally, Giving Tuesday. Who here participates in Giving Tuesday? Hey girl. Good to see you Giving Tuesday. I think this is really important too. And again, I may be like speaking about this too much, but in terms of the retail apocalypse, this is another key reason people want to do business with boutiques and small businesses is because you have a why in your business, right? Can you all just think for a second about what is your why? Why'd you start your business? It certainly wasn't just to sell clothes, right? Certainly it wasn't just to make the big bucks. Amen. Right? You have a why. It's to impact someone or something, right? I know you're thinking about whatever that thing is right now. For some of you, it's your family. For some of you, it's a person for some of you, it's a charity. So on Giving Tuesday again, that's your opportunity to wave your flag and talk about who you are, why you do what you do, what is the impact that you want to leave in the world. And then you invite your customers to come in and be a part of that. You know, maybe your why is a local charity. Maybe it's something for cancer survivors. I'm a cancer survivor. So when it comes to like the local wigs organization that creates free wig for every cancer patient, you bet I'm gonna wave that flag. So you now invite that local charity into your store or to do a pop up event with you somewhere. And they're gonna drive traffic to your store and you're gonna drive traffic and a charitable donation to their charity. It's a win win on Giving Tuesday. So don't let that event pass you by. Sound good? Sound good? All right. Any Clark Griswold fans in the house? Amen. Ellen. This is another one of our family traditions. We watch this movie every single Christmas. And one year in our themed Christmas party, we all dressed up as the Griswolds. And my sister and her husband were Clark and Ellen. And Clark even had like the squirrel pinned to his shoulder, so when he would turn around, the squirrel would be there. And my dad wore this God awful wig and he had this old like blazer with a hole burnt in the back of it because he was Uncle Louis. So we take this to the next level. So Anne Shaw, who's been a member of the boutique Hub for a long time, she talked about her holiday open house before Thanksgiving because that's when people are in the mood to start that Christmas list. And last year she served wine and chocolate. She didn't offer specials or have a sale rack, but instead she had them draw in a bowl for discount at checkout. And it could be for a free gift to purchase at checkout. You can decide what it is that you want to do. So you can read the rest of her quote there. But she had a great time and those people end up bringing friends with them. So again, it's about driving that traffic to bring people back in the next year. All right. Educating staff like a boss. And I just have a couple of quick things I want to touch on here. Because your business cannot fully function with just you alone. You cannot reach whatever it is you're to going goal for. Your business is with just you alone. You have to have a team. And as bad as you need a team in your business, your team needs a leader in your business, and that's you. So maybe some of these things are going to be easy. You already do them. Maybe these things are something new for you. It just depends on the level of businesses that we have here. But the first thing is, is don't stop hiring. No more chicken and egg. Right? Stop the chicken and the egg. You hire for where you're going, not for where you've been. And this is the time of year you're going to need it most, because can we just say amen? Inevitably, it is going to be Cyber Monday, and your best salesperson is going to quit. Been there, or it's going to be if you have kids, maybe your daughter's Christmas recital and someone called in and can't come to the store, and you're stuck. And that is not who you want to be on Christmas. You want to be with your family, too. So this is the time. Even if you feel like, ah, we can squeak by no higher, get some staff, get some additional warm bodies in there. Don't let anyone on your team feel like they're comfortable and they've got this. You're always bringing new people in and training them up so that you don't ever feel like you're left holding the bag at the end of the day. So keep. Keep hiring that team. In terms of how you have that team once they're on with you, how many of you are holding regular meetings with your team every single week? How many of you are holding any team meetings with your team at all? A couple of you. Okay, so just like we talked about, just like you need a team, your team needs you to be a leader. So if it's an intern, if it's a shipping girl, whatever it is, that state of communication that you have with them is so crucial. So a couple of quick tips as you might walk through the idea of a team meeting. Be consistent. If you're going to have a team meeting, set the date, set the time, and do it every single week so they know that it's coming. If you have staff that can't come, make sure you're emailing out an agenda. Or here's the things I really want you to be aware of. Okay? Here's the sales goals that we set for the store. And guess what? We met them. Congratulations. And hey, Angela, you were our top salesperson this week, and I'm gonna get you a pedicure. Congratulations. You have to reward them to reach the goal. So celebration and recognition is the start of every team meeting. When you Follow up those wins. Then you come in with, okay, now we could have done a couple things better. And here's what those are going to be. Here's the constructive criticism part of the meeting. Then you're going to go to the third piece, which is what's new this week. What's happening? What is the promotion? What is the event? What do we need to be aware of that's changing in the business? And then the fourth part, which is kind of like the sugar on top, and the dessert is the education part, the empathy part. Because can anyone relate to this? You have two types of salespeople on your floor. You. You have the older. The older sales associate who gets a certain age of clientele. And then you have, like, the young college intern who has a totally different style. And when the older customer comes in the store, who do they want to shop with? They want to shop with the older. The older sales associate. Right? And when the college girl comes in, she's going to gravitate to the under one. Well, what. What if you and your team meetings brought them together and said, hey, I want you guys to educate each other on different body styles, on different trends, on these five pieces of new arrivals that came in and how we can mix and match them together. Right. How much more powerful is your sales team now when they have product empathy and product knowledge? Maybe you're getting your college girls who are really excited about fashion, you're getting them in to do trend boards. And each week in your meeting, they. They're pulling pictures out of magazines or they're pulling pictures off of your website, and they're saying, this is the trend that we see coming. Here's how we would wear it. Because again, it's all about being the fashion teacher. It's about education and filling the need of your customer. So make sure you take advantage of that opportunity with your team. I love Elle. I love anything that has to do with Will Ferrell. But this quote from Julie I thought was really important. Julie said, don't forget about your employees. At the end of a great sales day, celebrate with a glass of wine or champagne. Have a secret Santa gift exchange at a nice local restaurant. They are the backbone of your boutique. So in the training that we do on holiday marketing, we talk a lot more about this, because each of your sales associates, no matter where they're at on your team, maybe it's just your shipping and packing girl. Everybody has a trigger, whether it's money, time, recognition, words of affirmation, trust, whatever it is, they all want to feel special however their own language allows. So it's up to you to find that trigger. And then as you set goals for your business, you reward them within their own love language within their own trigger. Make sense? Perfect. All right, E Commerce like a boss. And this is where I will probably nerd out. So stay with me here if this. You just raise your hand if you have a question. But I love this topic because as I think about the future of retail, it is truly an omnichannel experience. It's selling wherever your customer may be. Right? How many of you guys feel like you have a handle on omnichannel experiences? So it's selling either online or in store or mobile or in a Facebook group, but you're going where the customers are and then you're offering them a path to purchase the product. Make sense? Omnichannel experience. So in terms of E Commerce, I want you to think about this not just by way of a website, but whatever your omnichannel experience is. Maybe it's a Facebook group and you're sending PayPal invoices. Whatever it is that fits you best. All right, here's a couple of numbers I want you to understand. First, just like your financials, every week you have to update QuickBooks every week, you have to understand you're open to buy whatever the financials are in your business every week. You also have to understand what your traffic is numbers are. Because who here knows what the industry average conversion rate is for E commerce? Yeah, and it's even going lower, but it's about 2%. So about 2% is the industry average for E commerce. So to put that in layman's terms, for every 50 people that visit your website, you might get one sale. Is that scary? It's pretty crazy, right? So that gives you an idea of how much traffic you have to be driving to meet whatever those sales goals are. So just as important for you to be filling out those financial pieces every single week, it's filling out what the traffic pieces are every single week and understanding the changes that you're making in your marketing plans and how those drive new traffic and new conversions to your website. If you don't have Google Analytics already, Google Analytics is free. And that's going to help you understand what these numbers are on a weekly basis. Google Analytics, super, super simple to use. We've got some trainings on it inside the hub if you need to know how to install it or what numbers to look for inside of Google Analytics, I want to talk about basic site Layout. So for those of you who do have an E commerce site, or if you're thinking about an e commerce site, maybe you jot these down as notes. But I want to give you a good idea of how your site should lay. The first, the first thing is ease of use. Ease of use. And sometimes as a business owner, it's really hard for us to see the forest through the trees. Have you ever felt like this? Like you look at your site and you're like, I don't even know what to do. I look at it so much, I confuse. I'm sick of it. You have to find somebody who's a trusted friend of yours who also has an online shopping addiction. Anyone have those? Yes. Get them to get on your site and give you some feedback. How easy is it to use? Are they sifting through tons and tons of products trying to find what fits them best, or are you making it really clear and really easy for them? Ease of use. Clear. Shipping and return policies have to be a huge part of your website. If you guys have a hello bar on your website, which is like the very top banner of your website, that is where those pieces have to be. Free shipping or free shipping over $50. I could argue both sides of that argument. Whatever it is, make get clear. Because one of the number one causes of abandoned carts is unexpected shipping charges. Someone purchases something with you, they get to the cart and they're like, what? 10 more dollars not gonna pay it. So you have to make it really clear up front. There's also a couple of apps that you can install on your website that are shipping countdown timer. And if you do free shipping over $50, it'll say, hey, 24 more to go to reach free shipping. Am I gonna spend five more dollars to get four free shipping? You bet I am, if that's what it is. My husband thinks that's just the dumbest thing he's ever heard. But I'm a woman and it makes sense to me. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna spend the $5 to save the $10 on shipping every single time. So make sure that's clear. In terms of the return policy. It has to be easy to find, it has to be easy to read. And if there is one time of year where you may be slack, I don't want to say slack, but go easy on your return policy. It is this time of year. Yes. You have to be careful so that you are maintaining your margins at the end of the day and you aren't giving away the farm with your return policy. But we all know what happens when a customer has a poor experience with a return policy. What does she do? First she goes to Facebook and she says to the world how much she can't stand your guts. So what do you need to do? You have to make returns so easy. Have to wow them with customer experience. Right? Customer service. Have you guys a little book that you guys might enjoy reading? It's the Zappos story. It's called Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, one of the founders of Zappos.com and they have a really cool story about customer service and how important it is to their company culture. They actually did a little study with some secret shoppers once and they were actually able to order a pizza through their online customer service@zappos.com that's how far they went. The customer was like throwing all these crazy objections and then finally said they needed to order a pizza. And they actually got the job done through that customer service on Zappos. So that gives you an idea of this time of year. What an opportunity. You have a customer service. All right, collaborate. Oh, no, sorry. Next piece. One click to purchase and then photos. How many of you guys are still using stock photos? That's okay. Now is the time to bridge from stock photos to your own photos and creating your own personal brand. And the more photos of your individual brand, the better. When I get to a product description page, let's say like this Kate Blazer, for example, Kate Blazers might intimidate a couple of people, especially if you're shopping online. The more photos I can see of this Blazer. So I can see like when this girl moves, what is it like look like? The more photos, the better. But my favorite trick right now on Shopify or any commerce site is video. You can add video to your product pages. So now the model is walking and I can see, oh, that is how it fits. That is how it lays. It makes complete sense. So I'm going to be a happier customer. I'm going to have trust and faith in that purchase. And your returns are going to go down when you make use of those branded photos and video. All right, alright. Social proof is the last piece. Social proof is a huge part on your website. Whether you have some kind of app installed that gives you your Instagram feed on the bottom of your site or if you have something like, have to have it installed where when your customers use your hashtag, their photos show up on the bottom of your site. Or if you just Have a love page where in the footer of your site you have a love page and it goes to all of your customer reviews and testimonials and photos of themselves in your product. Make sure you include social proof because how many of you guys get annoyed when you're on Facebook and you see like fairy season and all of these knockoff sites that are stealing boutiques photos and posting them on Facebook like they're a real boutique? You know what I'm talking about? There's a lot of imposters out there that try to pretend they're a boutique and they're not. So making sure you're connecting with that potential customer, that you're real and that real people shop with you is really important. All right, Holiday content, I'm not going to go into detail here, but one trend that I see in E commerce right now that's really powerful, it's having your own branded holiday content, your own branded holiday landing page that you can run your own pixel on, you can run sales funnels on. If you're into digital marketing like that, you could do retargeting on. You can do a contest to grow your email list on your holiday landing page. There's a lot of opportunity there. But if there's one tip I want you to take away from this, if any of it's felt a little overwhelming to you, it is to grow your email list. Grow your email list. If Facebook or Instagram shut down tomorrow, how do you reach your customers through email? It is the only piece of your marketing that you actually own. And trust me, by marketing to your customers through email, it doesn't mean just hitting the send button. There's a number of other ways that we can use emails to reach our customers. Whether it's your business building custom audiences on Facebook, inviting them into our Facebook group if we use that, or by just digging in and really understanding their buying habits and their personal preferences. Alright, Lori Beth, who was actually a big part of the boutique Awards, had this little tip and she said bring customers back in January. She ran a promotion called Christmas Cash and they collected it during the holiday season when they spent money with her boutique. And it was only valid to be used in January. January and they printed it so it was like a dollar bill. So those people felt like they had money to blow because use Christmas cash before. You guys all know to beware of the J months, right? January, July and June, which can get you. So any way you can build that bring back into your holiday marketing the better and the Christmas jammies video. Anyone watch this YouTube video? It's another good one. Alright, last piece. And that's driving traffic. Alright. In terms of boutique marketing and online offline, wherever you're, wherever you are selling product, your main goal is not to sell something, it is to fill somebody's need. Amen. That is what boutiques do. We fill needs. We don't just sell stuff. So when you are having conversations with your customers, whether it's through your emails or through your Facebook ads, or through your Facebook group, how are you asking questions? How are you getting feedback? Are you doing polls? Are you asking them what they are going to be shopping for, who they're shopping for, what price points are they going to be shopping in? Live videos are another great way to do this. It's a great way, whether you're online or off, to get right in front of your customers and build a relationship and a personal connection with them so that you can actually fill their needs at the end of the day. Who here is doing live videos in terms of their marketing? Couple of you. Perfect. Live video there is the number one medium to reach your customers. It is video. And live video is certainly the highest organic reach. The best way to go about that. Number two in terms of driving traffic, whether it's online or offline, and that's collaborating. Collaborating in terms of local bloggers who might be running some kind of Christmas gift list, something that we do at the Hub, we're putting together. Actually, Cassidy here is going to be putting together a number of gift guides that we can feature products of our member boutiques in. And I know that there's a number of other places that do that as well. How can you find someone to collaborate with to create a holiday gift guide and you can share those products with one another and drive a new set of traffic to your store. Also, in terms of neighboring businesses, just like we talked about on Small Business Saturday, how are you collaborating with the neighboring business to drive new traffic to your store? Maybe you've got one of those cute little Christmas trees with like the dress form on it. You know those like they have to be in your boutique Christmas trees this time of year. Maybe you've got one of those set up in another local business and they have some other type of display set up in your business. All right, Pixels and paid traffic plans. I love to talk about pixels, but if that overwhelms you, that that's okay. Understanding your pixel this time of year and driving as much traffic as you can to your pixel on your Shopify site. So that you can retarget that traffic again and again throughout the next year. That's a really key piece of driving new traffic and also understanding within those pixels or within Facebook advertising, what is cold traffic and what is warm traffic and how can you market to both to be successful? Alright, mastering your channel. Does anyone feel overwhelmed by any of this at this point? Which is not my intent, but you probably do. All right, so if you feel overwhelmed, the one tip I would say is I think a lot of retailers, no matter where they have a store, online or off, they feel this push from society and this push from marketing experts, but they have to be everywhere. You have to be on Snapchat, you have to be on instastories, you have to have a YouTube channel, you have to have a podcast, you have to do all this. That is such a load of crud. It's not true. You have to master your channel. What is your channel? What makes you feel good? What helps you deliver your message? Where is your ideal customer looking for you? Right. Where is your ideal customer looking for you? You have to be there and you have to be good at being there. You have to be consistent at showing up there. How many of you guys have a Facebook page and a Facebook group? Good. A good number of you. For those of you who don't just really, really briefly grab a drink of water, a Facebook page is like your. Your business card. It is the first place when someone is seeing if you're a legit business. That's where they're going to go to understand who you are and what you sell and what your style is. And that's where you have a suite of tools that Facebook provides you. But your group is where you really are. That's where you are the most authentic and that's where you reach your customers. It's also where you have the highest amount of organic reach. So I hear all the time from members of the hub and the girls who have gone through Boutique Bootcamp, they love being in their Facebook group because their customers feel like best friends at that point. They have daily interaction with those customers, back and forth. So if there is two places I say you do have to be, it's an Facebook page and a Facebook group. Those are the most important two places to be. Alright? And finally, the last piece of driving traffic is that your relationships don't end. And that's kind of been the whole moral of the story today. Don't think of the fourth quarter as a sprint, but think of the fourth quarter as a sprint. That is the beginning of a long marathon. And how do you drive the lifetime value of your customer? The thing that a lot of boutique owners miss in terms of holiday marketing is they to follow up. They're like, oh, great, I got your money. Thanks for shopping with me. See you later. No, now it's time to follow up. Now it's time for your email list. And you're segmenting your email list to the people who bought with you in the last 30 days, 60 days, they spent a certain amount of money with you, they're your best customers, and you're reaching out to them on Facebook and on email saying, hey, thanks for being my best customer. I'm gonna bring you back in 2018. Let's do business together again. Have you guys heard the stat that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your list? 80% of your revenue comes from twenty percent of your list. Amen. Right? So this is an opportunity for you to follow up and build lifelong relationships with those customers. All right? And plan for January. Now, if there's anything that I feel like we've all learned in business, it is to build your business deep first, and then why? Second, and make sure that it is not the good times in your business that actually create the bad times. Right? You gotta be the squirrel that's putting the nuts away for later. So if you have a successful holiday season that you are saving for those J months and you are making plans how you're gonna market yourself in the J months, because the holidays, even though they're great and they're fun and they can be profitable, they can be the thing that puts you out of business later. So make sure you have your eye on the prize in terms of the long term. All right, last piece and back to Christmas vacation. Allison from the boutique in Jamestown, Tennessee said, and this is kind of going along the lines of promotion. She said, we've been known to get some great freebies from our vendors to 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. They keep them throughout the year and throw them in with their own logoed items. So what a perfect little opportunity that you have while you're at market. A lot of vendors have some cool freebies that your customers would love. And what a great opportunity to give a free gift with purchase or a tote bag to the first 20 customers who come to your pop up event. Whatever it is. So capitalize on that opportunity right now. So the question is, how are you going to own this market or this holiday season? Right. How are you going to be confident in who you are as a boutique owner? Because that directly impacts who you're being in your boutique. Right. People want to do business with people, not with companies. So if there's one invitation I make to you, it is to stay in your own lane, to not focus on what anyone else around you is doing, but to be confident in the plans that you've made and the opportunity that you have to speak to your own ideal customer that sees it. Okay, perfect. So I want to take an opportunity to answer any questions that you guys have. But before you rush off, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for coming and sitting on the floor and for listening and for being a part of our journey at the boutique hub. We really appreciate it. Again, that link, if you want to get more information, it's bit ley hubchecklist. Bit leh hubchecklist. And we'll be putting more information on that link on our Facebook pages. I'm going to give you guys a free download. It's an event planning checklist that you can actually print out, map out your entire event you're going to run during the holiday season, map your progress on the event, where the sales that you made, what the traffic that you saw. And then I want you to put it in a folder and save it for next year so that next year when you start planning your event, you have everything that you ran in 2017 in a folder waiting for you for a quick reference so you can get that download at that link. And then I'll be sending you guys more information on all of these six pieces. Okay. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer otherwise. Thank you. How do you understand a face? Okay. Yeah. So her question is how do you start a Facebook group? Yeah. You know what, that's still a great opportunity though. The thing that I love about Facebook groups is it's more personal, but you have a higher amount of organic reach. So it's a great tool in terms of marketing. If you're not sure how to start a Facebook group, in the blue bar on the top of Facebook, that's the little drop down arrow on the right hand side, there's going to be a long menu that drops create group. Then you, it'll prompt you create group. You'll create a name, you'll create a type of group. You'll be able to invite people to your group. It'll all be there. You'll upload a cover photo just like you did for your Facebook page. The group will be there. And now it's up to you to mark it on your Facebook page or in your store to get people to join the group. Okay, so here's my question. Just one group. Just. Just one group. And name it. Your name. The name of your store. Yep. And for. We have a whole training on that too. If you ever need help, just email me. I'd be happy to send it to you with a training on how to start and build your Facebook group. Yes, absolutely. All right. Who. Did you have a question? Yes. BIT VI L y Hub checklist. Hopefully that's bit Lee for whoever asked that. Ly Ly. Yep. Hub checklist. We'll put that on our Facebook page later today. And we have two Facebook pages. Just so you know, if you're following the boutique hub because our platforms are different. Boutique hub style is where consumers discover boutiques. Boutique hub business is where the boutique industry, all of us connect. So put it on our boutique hub business Facebook page. Did you have a question? Do you have any advice on branding yourself with your own brand without taking away from inventory since they kind of like commerce site. This is what we have and represent our own brand. But not take away from. Do you mean like private labeling or can you ask that again? Do you know how the inventory comes in 222. So you have too small, too medium, too large. And I wanted to take that and represent and wear my own inventory and represent my store out without taking away from what I have to safe. You just have to do it or buy more. Well, you offer the opportunity to your staff. You give them a slight discount so they can do that together with you. But for you, I think you have to just do it within reason. You set a budget for yourself in terms of what you move, what you can and can't do and go from there. I don't. I mean there's a. There's a gray area. Right. And I don't know that I have a good. A good solution for you, but I think some people that carried bit a little from that. If anything else, it's making sure you're tracking it. It's making sure that you're keeping that line item in quickbooks. So you know what you've taken for personal use at the end of the year. I'm good. There's also some good Facebook groups that are resale groups too that you can get in and Say hey, boutique owner closet purge. And then you're selling those items. So you're still getting that revenue back out of the item when you're done with it. So search those out for sure. Any other questions? Yes, ma'. Am. Do you think that there's success for small independent retailers that come to the website? Do you know the percentage all of us here on the are or smaller online? Is there the amount of marketing dollars that you have to put in to be a L.com to be a nice really make it? Do you think that there is that opportunity? And I, I ask that because one more boutique dot com. I see a lot of girls trying to figure out how to afford the monthly dues for Shopify. I know everyone preferred to go to Shopify and start an account, but you have to pay every month. And so how do you. What percentage of businesses are really succeeding? Do you know anything about that? Yeah, that's a great question. So our groups, by the way, at Boutique Owners Community and then the boutique. So not the Boutique Owners column, that's a different group. Oh no, it's okay. There's a difference because we have a lot of really great established businesses in the group and some there's other boutique owner groups that will let buy in groups in and kind of anybody and everybody. So there's a bit of a difference. I just want to make sure you see. No, that's okay. So I think the, the first piece to answer your question is what is your definition of success? Right. Because not everybody can be a Lulu's dot com. Right. Not everybody could be Kiki Larue or whatever name brand boutique you want to say. So what is your financial goal for yourself? What is it you want to pay yourself or what kind of team do you want to have go from there? But yes, I would say there's some women in this audience too that can attest there is an opportunity. Do I have an exact percentage? No. I've heard people say that one in four boutiques will survive. Three out of four will fail. And I think the key is are you looking at your business like a business or a hobby? And how consistent are you being with that business? So how are you running the numbers? How consistently are you posting on social media? If you're just getting started with a Shopify site, are you also trying to supplement with vendor events or some other types of creative marketing strategy to drive traffic? Because a lot of people think they're Kevin Kof's and if they build it, they will come and that's A load of crap. They don't, they never come. So it's thinking like a business, not a hobby. This is a zero entry business. Anybody can be a boutique owner if they want to. Anyone can, you know, get a tax ID number, get a couple receipts and come shop here. How many of them will actually follow through and become something? Not as many. Right. That's up to them. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I personally stayed away from creating a website due to the cost and being freaking part of my time. Yeah, yeah, well. And I don't think you have to. Something that I thought was really interesting at the Boutique Summit last year when we had some really big boutiques come in and speak, the thing that was interesting to me was a lot of them said the bigger I got, the less profitable I was. Bigger is not better. So it's finding the point that you are happy with your business and sticking to that. If you're really good at being a brick and mortar, be a brick and mortar. Don't feel like you have to try to do something different. And in terms of, you know, if you are getting started with Shopify, you can start for, is it $29 a month? A lot of people do 79. But you don't have to go spend a bunch of money in Facebook ads, start a Facebook group, do a couple of like share win giveaways, get your email list from your store, invite them to the online store, have them invite their relatives by running some contests to the online stores. And it has to slowly build. I guess in terms of business is the greatest scheme of things. If your goal is to make a million dollars and all you can focus on is making a million dollars, you're gonna be really unhappy in life. This is gonna take a dang long time to make a million dollars. But if you pick out small goals along the way and celebrate each one of those little pieces, it's much more easy. But it's the, the ones that happen overnight like that, it's pretty rare. You have to really have a good plan for that. So stick to what you do best and where you're comfortable. Anyone else? Another question? All right, well, you guys, you made it to the end. Can I just get a. All right, thank you guys for coming.