Keep ‘Em Coming: Building a Consumable Brand

Okay, I'm challenged. Can I start today's podcast without saying, you guys? I've tried. It's hard, you guys. So here we go. Today, I am so pumped because my friend Sammy Hill is here to join us. And so many of you already know Sammy. She is a longtime member of the Boutique Hub and one of my favorite people in the wholesale industry. A number of you carry her brand mixology and love it in your stores and online. Today's conversation is not just for those of you who are on the wholesale side of the industry and you're wondering, how do I grow my brand and reach more retailers? We definitely talk about that. But today, I love the fact that Sami also breaks down how retailers can be more successful. What are her most successful retailers have in common? Whether they're brick and mortar or they're online? And also, the really, really important piece is why retailers are successful. Sharing consumable goods, something that not everyone thinks about. Often, retailers are buying and rebuying as boutique owners. You know, you go to a market and you see something cute and you buy it. But. But could you make more money if you're buying something that's consumable? Meaning someone buys it, they get hooked on it, and they want to come and buy it again and again, repeat business. So Sammy and I break all this down. What does it take for both wholesale brands and boutique owners and retailers in either the home and gift side of the industry or the apparel side of the industry to be successful? I know you guys are going to love it. I know you're going to love her because she is as sweet and genuine as they come. And I would also say she's team rodeo, in case you guys didn't know. Former breakaway roper. Shout out to my rodeo girls. Get ready to meet my friend Sammy Hill, the co founder of Mixology. 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.

It's finally time, you guys. Only two times a year does this opportunity roll around to work with me directly, and that is through our program called Retail Boot Camp. During Retail Boot Camp, I cannot wait. For 14 weeks, you and I get to work together. Live every single week and we're going to work on every single aspect of your business, from rebuilding your customer Personas to building your brand to managing your inventory and figuring out how to pay yourself more with the profit first method. What's important when it comes to buying assortments and plans and working with vendors. And then we're going to build your business from building your team to systems and processes and scaling your business all the way into e commerce to brick and mortar marketing to to building SEO and Facebook ads and then laying out an entire content strategy for your business, literally. We will not leave a stone unturned. In 14 weeks. I hope you take this opportunity, you guys, to join me this semester in Retail Bootcamp. When you join me, not only do you get access to Retail Bootcamp right now to work with me live online, but you get lifetime access. So we have students that have gone through boot camps seven, eight and nine times, each time learning something new because you always get the updates. And every semester when we launch a new session of Bootcamp, so check the link in today's show notes. I want you to join us right now for Retail Bootcamp, our highest level program for members and non members at the Boutique Hub. And a special little perk.

Don't forget, we actually take a trip.

Together to LA in the fall just for Retail Boot Camp students. It's a private retreat opportunity to connect, to grow, to learn with one another and also to get some buying done when we're together in la. Check out the link in the show notes. Guys, I would love to share with you more details about this semester of Retail Boot Camp.

All right.

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast this week. I am so excited, Sammy Hill, to have one of our OGs in the house today. Sammy, you've been such a longtime member of the Boutique Hub and one of our earliest wholesale members of the Hub. You've been with us every step of the way. So I love getting to share your story of just growth and change and customer service, just how you serve people. I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for being here.

I'm excited to be here, Ashley.

All right, well, let's go back to the beginning. I always love a good origin story of how you got into this industry, how you started developing this brand and deciding to get into the wholesale game.

Yes. So I came from a completely different industry. I had a clinical drug testing laboratory. Couldn't be further from what I do now at all. And that was actually the idea because whenever I sold that business, I wanted to Be as far away from all the stress, the headaches, the litigious nature of that, the unhappy people. Because people are not happy, usually when they're getting medical tests.

Yeah.

I just didn't want to deal with that anymore. So we set out to do something that would be really fun. I wanted to make a product that I could be creative with. I wanted to sell it to somebody and them smile and, like, have this happy moment of I created something. You bought it. You love it. Bye. I hope to see you again without. Without all the other stressors.

I love that. And you accomplished it. So coming from that industry, I'm assuming getting into just perfumes, how was that? How did you decide where you were going to go next?

Well, oddly enough, if you can imagine yourself working in a clinical laboratory that did drug testing, literally, it was on my criteria list that the next place that I built would smell good. And so I have always been a fragrance person. Since I was a little girl, I've mixed my mom's perfumes. I've always got something going that smells good in my environment. And so I really wanted to do something that had to do with fragrance. Thankfully, we were also partners in a fragrance house, meaning it's a company that makes fragrance that goes in everything from soaps and candles to detergent and perfumes. And so we had the opportunity, through our partnership with them, to work with those perfumers. And they kind of let me play around and experiment with different perfumes and different fragrances in there. And I had this idea to create a line where people that didn't have access to those master perfumers could do the same thing. Yeah. With some sort of a consumer kit. So that's where the idea of the mixology blendable perfume collection came from, was women be able to be their own perfumer. Like, I got to be in that lab.

That's so unique. So tell me more about the backstory. Just because I'm not as familiar with, like, the perfumer side of things. Is that how most fragrances that you would go to store to buy, how they're developed, they all take just, like, a base scent, and they're all mixed to create whatever the actual, like, perfume is. Right. But mixology is taking that and allowing you to build it yourself. Tell me more about how all that works.

Yeah. So most perfumes are born in a perfumer's laboratory, and so is ours. So we work with these master perfumers that are brilliant, by the way. It's such a unique craft because it is a blend of art and Science like I've never seen before. There's few chemists that I would say get to be artistic at work, and perfumers do exactly that. They go in and they use their notes every day to blend different elements together to create different fragrances. And whether that's going into a perfume, in our case, or a new candle scent, there's a lot of chemistry that goes into it, but a lot of art and design and creativity. So with our brand, we worked with these perfumers to create something, create different oils that you could blend together at home without messing up. Because there's a lot of trial and error that goes into making those perfumes in a laboratory setting.

Yeah.

In our case, we wanted to make it fail proof. So we made these oils that no matter how you mix them, there's no bad. There's. You can't mess it up. Yeah, perfect.

So when you first got started, did you initially want to be a wholesale line? Like, did you want to sell into boutiques or did you imagine mixology going direct to consumer? Or how did you first, like when you were building the company, decide, okay, this is going to be my main go to sales channel and here's how I'm going to grow within it. What were those early lessons and decisions?

Like, nothing worked as planned whatsoever. The goal, or if you look back at our business plan from 2015, when we started, the goal was to invest a bunch of money in social media and sit and watch the orders come in on Amazon for our $99 bloodable perfume kit. And we were just going to sit around and maybe put labels on the orders that were going to go out in large, large volume quantities that did not work at all. We launched in October of 2015, and I would. And we spent a lot of money on Facebook ads and everything that we were supposed to do. None of it worked. Apparently people wanted to smell perfume before they bought it, or they at least wanted to have heard of the brand before. So we're in our prime time. Right. This is fourth quarter 2015. We're supposed to be just blowing it up. And Jeff, my partner and I, we looked at each other on like December 14th and said, that didn't work at all. Like, there's no way we could point to one thing that was working. Yeah, except we had this amazing product. So we called up Dallas Market and said, we don't know what we're doing, but we think we need to go wholesale, we need to put this product in stores. And thankfully, I got a leasing agent that found me a corner And a back of the building. I mean, it was a terrible location. But that was our first wholesale market in January of 2016. And since then, it's been like 90% wholesale in market after market.

I love those stories, like those early wholesale stories. Meredith from Makeup Junkie Bags, who, you know, I love the part of her story where she's like, I had to Google what is wholesale, like, what is a line sheet, all those, like, early on things. So I still get this question a lot today. So for those who are listening, who are like, I'm just tiptoeing into wholesale. What were the things like from that very first booth space that you wish you would have known before you got there?

Well, I wish I would have known that you can't launch with one product. So that's what we had, this $99 retail value product. Yeah. And the rest of my booths looked like I was selling art because I had to fill it up with something to look pretty, to draw people's eye. And it was beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful booth I've ever had. But people couldn't figure out what we were sell because the one thing we were selling was this big. Yeah. And we had all the space to sell this one thing. So that's the number one thing, you know, have a variety of things that you can go to market with. Not one single skew. It seems like anybody would have known that. But that's what we had and that's what we went with. The other thing I would say is just go there with the idea or the mentality that you're there to learn and meet people. Because I've had a lot of flop markets where I was like, gosh, that was a terrible show. You know, we didn't have foot traffic, whatever. We've had everything go wrong from hurricanes to, you know, riots that would ruin attendance at a show. But I can tell you this. There's never been a show that I've been to where I didn't meet amazing people, Whether that's vendors or buyers. That taught me so, so much. So just go into it knowing that you're. You're there to learn as much as you are to sell.

I think that's so good and something you're so good at. I watch you do this and in the hub and at market, it's. You're just so collaborative. Like you're the. You're the kind of vendor that I'm sure everyone would be lucky to be set up next to at a wholesale market because you are willing to Collaborate with everybody down the row and share ideas and build one another up. I feel like anymore today, like that has become a little bit more common on the retail side of things, but in wholesale, we're still learning how to be like that, collaborative. Do you have any advice for those listening what community over competition means to you on the wholesale side of the industry and how people can engage in being more collaborative with one another?

Well, you mentioned Meredith earlier and her and I were like the first. We were both each other's first friend in wholesale. And so we were kind of babies at the same time in that. And we learned so much from each other and started working together very early on and figure it out as we go. But I would say no matter what the other brands are selling, there's probably some way for you to work together. You know, we've got some other collaborations going on right now where we're putting our samples and other wholesale brands packages and we're doing the same for them, putting their information in our packages. And I'll just write a note saying, this is a brand I think you'll love. And I mean it when I say it. You know, I'm not just, you know, spewing out things. I want other brands to grow alongside us and I want to see them be successful. And that is. Brings me so much joy and contentment to be able to help another brand grow. So I'm all about doing that. I would just say, just ask, just reach across the aisle, literally at a trade show and say, hey, how can we work together? And the answer is always, let's do it. I've never had somebody go, no, I'm not really into that, you know.

Yeah, that's so, that's so helpful because when you think about your goal, at the end of the day, it's not just to sell product, but you're trying to build successful partnerships with retailers. Right. Because if they're more successful, hopefully they buy more from you. But just like you said, you can't be successful selling one SKU and neither can the retailer. So you're better off to help the retailer find great brands that you know will sell for them and that will complement your brand because in the end they're going to come back and buy more from you. Right?

Absolutely. Beautifully said.

Yeah, I just love that. And I have to like, just like plug this really quick because you've been so instrumental in helping us build Hubventory for this very reason, with the idea that collaboration will be such a key component of that. So I Love that. Not only are you literally reaching across the aisle, as you said, but you're helping build other opportunities for brands online as well. So thank you for that. How did you just going back to how you started to grow from growing to trade shows, you started to diversify how you were selling. I'm assuming after that first trade show, you went back and started to build a website and found out I've got to build wholesale from a couple different angles. How did you start to build those different sales channels for wholesale?

So we met some reps while we were there. That was probably the biggest takeaway we had from that, is that we had. We were discovered by rep groups that had showrooms at market, and one thing led to another. We went into a showroom in Dallas and a gift showroom, and they introduced us to showrooms in Atlanta and Las Vegas. And before you know it, we had 75 gift reps out there repping our line. Now, I learned something quickly from them, too. You can't give a rep1 skew. And so that's when we started selling our perfumes individually and started adding all kinds of other things like lotions and, you know, the whole bath and body line that we have now. So rep connections really accelerated and escalated our growth in that critical, I would say, first year of wholesale. It was our second year in business, but our first year in wholesale. And that is definitely a way to put a little fire under what you're doing and make you do the things that are hard, like working on your brand story on your website, because the reps have to have something to sell, and reps are demanding, but it's great because they make you do the stuff that maybe you would just sit on.

Yeah, that's a really good point. A really good point. I'm curious going into rep, especially reps in the home and gift industry, I feel like anymore there's so much crossover between home and gift and apparel, where it used to be a very segmented, maybe more siloed, like I'm this store and you're that store. But today there's a lot of crossover. There's a lot of apparel selling in the beauty category or in the home and gift category and vice versa. How do you see our industry continuing to evolve and change in the crossover in those two categories?

Like you just said, I've never seen it more crossed over than I do today. We have stores that we sold to back in 2016 that were only gift that I'm now running into at the apparel markets and apparel brands that I'm seeing, I'm sorry, apparel buyers that I'm seeing at the gift show in Atlanta and Dallas. So that crossover is happening so naturally, organically. I think all of the retailers are realizing that the more diverse their offering is, the more consistent shoppers that they're going to have on their site or in their store.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. What about like the beauty category in general? Like, I feel like perfumes, you would think I need to be in person, right? I need to. I need to smell this in order to buy this or lotions, whatever. But I find the beauty category to be quite diverse today too. Whether that's home and gift stores or apparel stores or online stores, whether that's E commerce or live sellers. How have you seen beauty as a category specifically? Expand.

Wow. I couldn't have predicted it. I wish that I had known back in 2015 that you could be successful selling perfume online. It took some really amazing online boutique owners and live sellers to show me that that's possible. And they are so good at it. They are phenomenal at describing and getting people excited about beauty products in a way that I don't think existed five years ago before now, I mean, especially with regard to perfume and not to just get all into one category, but we all went to the mall to buy perfume. 20 years ago that was where you bought it. And now people are buying it in small town boutiques and they're buying it online from online boutiques and live sellers in just the same way. They just needed. They needed to know that that was okay, I guess. Or somebody needed to teach them.

Yeah, I love that. I laugh thinking about just seeing your line in different stores local to me because now my kids know your line and so we'll be walking through a store and they're like, mom, that's mixology. Like, look, that's your friend.

Isn't that cool?

I'm like, oh my gosh, it is. So to see that expansion is really neat. Thinking about those stores though, that are carrying your line, what do you feel like those most successful sellers have in common? When. And not just for mixology, but I'll just say like any beauty specific line where there's a scent involved, this maybe could be candles too. But what do those successful sellers have in common that they're able to convey online that they don't? That's different than in store, right?

I think it's an excitement about fragrance. Not everybody is into fragrance and not everyone appreciates that or makes it part of their environment. So the number one thing is that they use the product themselves, and then they're very authentic. Whenever they say, you know, I burn this candle every day in my house because it makes me feel feel this way. And describing the feelings that they get and the environment that is around them from that fragrance, I think is just key. But that doesn't come honestly or naturally if they're not actually using the product. So I think that's the key.

That's so good. What about your most successful brick and mortar stores? What do you feel like they have in common?

What they have in common is great merchandising for our brand. We provide beautiful displays that are made here, by the way. We have a wood shop in the back of our warehouse where we have an incredibly talented and committed craftsman back there, carpenter that, and some high school and college kids that help him. So we have. We provide these beautiful displays and the store gets it. They set it all up. And the most successful stores, guess what, they go by and do simple things like straighten it up, dust it, keep it looking like it did the first day they put it out. And if they do those things, it's a tremendous difference between the ones that set it and forget it. You know, they put it over there and they kind of expect it to dust itself or to straighten itself out. The other thing is they keep inventory out. So something very unique about fragrance. In particular, it's collect shoe size. If you want this specific scent, whether it's a candle or a perfume or a lotion, you smell the tester and that's the one you want, you fell in love with it. It's a very. That sense that is very unique to people and very personal. If you don't have that scent in stock, chances are they're not going to buy another one. The same way that if you wear a size 8 shoe and they don't have a size 8 shoe, you're not going to go, well, I'll just go ahead and get the nine. Yeah, it's the same thing. They're not going to buy it. And so now we've all missed an opportunity. So just keeping their displays full is so key. One retailer told me one time, very successful retailer, by the way, she said, I always have two to go and one to show. Meaning that she would have a display, she would make sure she had at least two to sell that day and then one to show. So a tester in our case. But in other cases, whether that was a top or a shoe, you know, she makes sure she at least had One out there for people to see.

That's so good. That's so helpful. And thinking about not just having the right scent in stock, right. Being everything, being fully stocked. But the unique thing about, I'll just say the whole beauty category as a whole is it's a replenishable item. So hopefully somebody buys it and they want to come back and buy more of it. And to be honest, Sammy, I think sometimes that's a really big missed opportunity for retailers is we look at like I bought this one cool thing at market, but sometimes we just think about it as a one time sale when we should be looking for products and categories that are like that, consumable, that are multiple times. We're going to keep people coming back and really draw them into our space, whether it's online or in person because of that item. Talk to me about building a consumable brand. And again, what do your most successful retailers have in common that are really ordering and replenishing a lot and building that long term consumable relationship?

Right. So our line in particular, you know, it's an experience when people go in the store because they might not have gone in there to find a fragrance. So when they do find a fragrance in that store, there's a great association that is built immediately where that person associates that purchase with that store because it's unique. You can't buy our fragrances at the mall. So they're going to remember that moment of where they purchased that product. If the store owner does not continue to stock our brand three months, six months down the road, guess where they're going to go to get it. Because they, they're gonna get it, right? People are so, you know, convicted about things like that. I love this scent. I want it again. Okay. I'm gonna go back to that store that had it before and if they don't have it, they're coming to us directly, which, you know, that's, that's great for our brand. But to be sustainable long term, we want those partnerships with these boutiques where they keep it in stock, they keep people coming back to their store to buy those replenishable products. And guess what they do while they're in there? They came in to buy our sultry perfume and they find a top that they love or a pair of earrings that they can't live without. So critical to just keep people hooked. If you've got something that they love and they bought before and you know it's going to run out, keep it.

Yeah, that's so Good. You know what you mentioned about just like building that long term relationship. I feel like in the last year or so, it's like a big personal mission of mine of how can I help boutiques and brands better understand one another in terms of like ordering and customer service and just ongoing relationships. I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions on both sides of the aisle. I'm gonna just be stuck on both sides of the aisle all day. Now. What? Like, if you had any advice for both retailers and wholesale brands on how to build better relationships with one another, what are a couple of sticking points? Like, gosh, I wish more brands understood this and I wish more retailers understood this because it would make our relationship so much easier long term. What do you think those items would be?

I think the number one thing is to remember that we're literally all in this together. We're all small business owners that are working towards the same goal. We're trying to affect that end user customer's decision. And if we look at our partnerships in that way, I think everybody's going to win more, make more money, you know, build bigger businesses. And when you realize that we're partners and we're not adversaries, I'm very fortunate. I have a lot of friends, like true friends that I would say now that I have met in this industry that are not just acquaintances, they're not just people that I do business with, they're truly my friends. And I take that as examples of how I could have even that many more friendships and partnerships with other boutique owners and other brands. And it's just so important for us to, to look at it as a way that we can all be mutually growing together alongside each other. I think that the hub's commitment to community over competition, it's so easy to see when boutiques alongside boutiques, and we know what that means. We know that they mean that they need to help each other grow and that they can all grow together and be competitors with each other in the sense that they might be down the street from one another, but that they don't have to compete for the same business or the same customer every day that same thing goes with brands. And you know, I have lots of examples of brands that have helped me or other vendors that have helped me and I've done the same. But another thing we can do is help crossover and help stores be more successful and they can help brands be more successful. A couple of examples I have of that are stores who have introduced me to other stores and where I've introduced stores to other brands. And when we see each other as, like, this collective hub of, like, just helping, we're all going to feel better. At the end of the day, we're all probably going to sell more and be more proud of what we're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. A rising tide lifts all ships. No matter what side of the industry you're on, there's so much room for everyone to succeed and grow here. So thank you for. For leading that example. I feel like you've always been an example of that in and out of the hub, so I really do appreciate that. All right, let's talk about just personal life for a second. You and everyone in the wholesale side of the industry, you're on the road a lot. You're going to markets, you're juggling a lot of things. How are you maintaining personal health, spiritual health, mental health, while you're growing a business and trying to do all these things? I know there's other wholesalers. I know there's other retailers that feel that same, like, gosh, I've got to be there. What does that look like for you? How do you make that work?

That's a tough question, an eternal question, probably, that we'll all be asking ourselves this year. In particular, that we've committed to not doing as much on the road. The sense of relief I have from that is immeasurable. Just knowing that it's okay to say no to a show that I can grow in other ways has been very, I don't know, just a great release I've had of the stress on it, of not feeling like I have to be everywhere all the time. I could definitely be better at saying no more often, but I tend to be the type of person that wants to say yes. So I'm sorry, Ashley, that I don't have great advice for everyone else out there, because I haven't figured it out yet.

But, you know, what you did say was, I said no. And, Sammy, that's the hardest thing. Like, we have to especially. I feel like as women, this may becomes a little bit harder to be able to look in the mirror and say the words no and practice it. But I think in your case, like, being able to say no, I'm not going to go to every single show is a testament to. I've built a great brand. I have great relationships. I have to trust myself that it's okay. People will still buy from me. I will still meet new customers. My customers will still reorder. Even if I'm not everywhere, all the time. And I think there's wholesale brands who.

Need to hear that.

And I know wholesale brands who are having the same conversation right now. And I know a lot of boutiques are having the same conversation. So just hearing it from you, I think, is incredibly helpful and realistic.

Well, I can tell you that my excitement about Hubventory is beyond excitement, because I think it's going to give me exactly that. The opportunity to stay home more. Because the more we can be a real virtual trade show like Humpentore is going to be, the more I'm going to be able to stay here. And when I say stay home, yeah, of course. I mean, I want to stay home with my kids, and I want to do the things with my husband that I enjoy doing. But I also feel like more time at home also means more time for me to work on my business here at home. You can only do so much on a laptop, on an airplane, and so that time is so valuable for building the business, too.

Yeah, I totally agree. And hopefully I appreciate you saying that about Hubventory, So thank you. Because I do want to create that opportunity, but then also just because I feel like wholesale and, like, in person experiences will always be important. So my hope is that Hubventory is great for you online, but then when you are at a show, it can make you even more successful there as well. Definitely an omnichannel in two ways. Opportunity. All right, Sammy, last question, and then I will let you go for the day. I always feel like this is the big question, because at the end of the day, I know we're not just here to sell mixable scents. We're not just here to sell lotions. We're not here to sell products. We're not just here for business. Right. We're all on this earth for such a larger purpose. So I'm curious. Just 20, 30 years down the road, and you're on the front porch with your kids and your grandkids, and you're talking about the businesses that you created and the life that you live. What is the thing that you really want them to remember the most about you and the person that you are?

I hope people remember and want to emulate how I treated other people, whether that's my employees, because I have a great team here and a great partner. I treat everyone with respect and appreciation. I thank them all the time. I feel like I do the same with our customers. I want them to know how much I'm thankful and how much I appreciate. So it doesn't matter how much perfume I sell, I want everyone to know that I really appreciated everyone else and that I was thankful for all the people that helped me.

I love that. Well, Sammy, thank you so much. You're such a light for our industry. I appreciate the time you spent with us today. Thanks for all you do and we'll see you soon.

Thank you, Ashley.

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