Key Components of the Six Layers of Retail in 2024 with Sara Burks, The Boutique Hub

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. She's back, you guys. It's the retail professor in the flesh. Good to see you and have you back on the podcast, Sarah.

Good to be back. Always good to be here.

Okay. There's a million different conversations you and I could have about the state of the industry and how to be successful retailer, whether you're online, brick and mortar, all the things. But today, what I really want to hone into is as long as you and I have worked together, we've, I feel like, kind of developed a great system for the six essential pieces of really growing and mastering your retail business. And we call them the six layers of retail. I think our team refers to them as the six layers of lasagna. If that's more your speed. We all love that crunchy cheese layer. But I want to know from you today, as we walk through those six layers, layers specific to 2024, what are the most important pieces of each of the six layers of retail? And how can we set up our businesses for success as we go into the new year?

That's a great, great question. I'm excited to dive into this with you because, man, as we talk to industry in, everyone in the industry, industry experts, retailers, wholesalers, the tides are changing. Things are really, really changing, and 2024 is a whole new animal. So I'm really excited to. That's one thing I love about us here at the Botique Hub is we're constantly adapting to the times. So I like, I like this topic. I think 2024 has a lot of opportunity for everyone.

I would agree with that. So let me give a little bit of backstory and then let's dig into the first layer. Sarah. But backstory on the six layers. In case you're like, I've never heard of this before. I like lasagna. I want some. If you are a member of the Hub and you go to your training library dashboard, you're going to see our training library. We recently did this where we broke our training library into these six layers. So it starts to make sense of how to follow this. But more specifically, our biggest program that we teach throughout the year, like college for boutique owners, is retail Bootcamp. And so all of retail bootcamp is designed around the six layers. I'm going to just keep calling them the six layers of lasagna. The six layers of retail. And so inside of retail bootcamp for 14 weeks, you and I do live coaching on all of these topics. And so we'll talk more about retail Boot Camp specifically at the end of today. So let's start at layer number one. I think about layer number one, Sarah, as the, I would say for the last several years, the number one question I get from retailers often has to do with Facebook ads and traffic. How can I run Facebook ads? How can I get more traffic? Yada yada? And the answer I typically give is, well, tell me about your customer. Tell me about your products. Like, have you really solidified the foundation and the base layer of your business so that it's ready for Facebook ads? And nine times out of 10, the answer is, no, they aren't. They think the ads are the easy answer. It's where I should go to grow. But really, it's all these other things that we need to do first. So layer number one is about the foundations of your business. Can you explain what the layer is and in your opinion, what's most important for this year?

Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I, I find the exact same thing when I talk to retailers. So the foundation of your business is just exactly what it is. What is the foundation of anything that you're. When you start a business, you are, you're building it. So you have to start with a very solid foundation to protect yourself for growth, position yourself for profit, all of those kind of things. So with that, it's everything from your business structure, what type of entity you are, how you're protecting yourself with insurance, how you're protecting yourself with an attorney to make sure all of the things that you are doing are right in line with your mission. Again, who is your customer? Identifying all, identifying who you want to target? What is your voice going to be? What's your brand going to look like when you show up on the marketplace? How do you stay consistent? How do you stay relevant? And really, it is that back. It's that thing that you always fall back on when you make a decision about marketing, when you make a decision about investing in inventory, hiring and firing somebody, you have to have that true north in your business. You have to have a foundation that every decision you make is based on. So we go way deep in that, in layer one and that is the foundation. We do it for two weeks and man, if you miss it, I promise your business will suffer sooner rather than later. Honestly, especially as. As competitive as this market is, you need a solid foundation.

I would say when we look at the foundation, it's really broken up into four areas. So company vision, branding, mindset and productivity, and then operations and processes. So those are the first and most important things that we really dig into. When I specifically think about 2024 though, one of the, I would say the two places that my mind really goes is first, branding and company vision. So who is my customer? How is she changing? Because now she's probably buying on Sheen and Temu and other places. So how is she changing? And therefore how do I need to change? Because we are not in the business to compete with Sheen and Temu in 2024. None of us are. So how are you going to make yourself different? And so one of the best things we do for that in boot camp is we do the customer surveys to really dig into, you know, what's happening over here with my customers so I can start to make changes. That's the first important, in my opinion. The second is mindset. We do a lot of work around mindset. Words we use. How are we operating as the CEO of our business and making changes. CEO decisions versus the hustling entrepreneur decision. And really a lot of the decisions that are made out of a lack mindset or a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. So those are two of my, I think, biggest takeaways for 2024. That if you're going to double down on. I think it's those two things. What do you think in that foundation layer are most important for 2024?

Absolutely. Your voice in the industry, what are you standing on? You know, like, what is your message going to be in everything you do? But ultimately, who is that customer? And what does that customer need from you? Right? What does that customer need? And how can you show up every single day and serve that customer? When we choose to be this for one customer and something else for somebody else, and we, we get way too wide in our offering, our message is diluted. So, yes, serving that customer, who is she or he? What do they need in their life? How can you be their hero? How can you be their hero and make their life better? With consistent, consistent offerings, offering them more services.

Right.

And with value and benefits than just trinkets. There's no scarcity in the market for just products. Right. We can all agree every swipe of your Thumb on your phone is going to show you another product. The thing is, when TikTok makes you buy it or Amazon makes you buy it, it's because they get to your feelings. They make you feel a certain way and get you to believe that if you purchase this product, your life is going to be changed for the better.

Right.

That's something. As business owners, we really want that message to come across in our delivery. Before we start running Facebook ads or go to a market of some sort and source inventory, we have to know how do we want our customers to feel and what's our consistent message Every single time we show up on social, write an email, go live, open our storefront, whatever it is, it's got to be consistent, and we have to lay it out in a good, solid foundation.

Well said. Well said. You're wasting your money buying products if you don't know this first. Yeah. And you're wasting your money running ads.

If you don't know this 100%. 100%. And I think one other thing that we do touch on in layer one and people, I. I think people sometimes laugh about this, but we talk about your end strategy, we talk about the end game, because anything worth building, you guys, somebody wants to buy it, somebody's going to take over. And at the end, at some point in your life, you're going to decide, enough is enough, I'm ready to move on.

Right.

And when you start being super successful, those people are going to come knocking and there's going to be opportunity. So you have to be able to understand, like, what is my end game? What is my. What are my goals and what do I want to get out of this? Showing up every single freaking day, being an amazing CEO in my business, building this empire, whatever it is, how do I get out of it when it's time? Because we, you know, I use the analogy, you would never start off building a house. And when the builder says, hey, Sarah, you want three bedrooms or four, I'm all, what's the first thing I'm saying? Well, resale value, it's going to be worth more if I go with four. And if I say I'm only going to do three, am I actually ever going to do four? So if I am going to do four, what do I. What else do I need to do?

Right.

What else do I need to do to achieve that overall resale value that I'm really wanting? So building your business with the end goal in mind changes every decision you make. So I think that is super important. Not that we're training you how to get out of your business like from the get go. But we want you to have it on your mind so when you do have that opportunity come to you or a life change happens, who knows what happens in your life. You'll be ready and you'll have a viable product to sell.

So important, so important. All right, layer number two in your business. So again, you can take this back to the old food pyramid days, right? This is kind of how we're analyzing this. So that's layer one, the foundation layer. Layer two is products and profit, which go hand in hand. So we break this down into three things. Financial management, inventory management and profit planning. So of those three things, Sarah, what do you think in 2024 are going to be some really key things to focus on?

Oh gosh, those are three really big buckets. So I, I, I struggle because we are in this business to make money. So ultimately to me, most importantly is having your finances in order. That also includes pricing for a profit. So you are not undercutting yourself and getting caught in the pricing game. Thinking and pricing based on, oh gosh, I don't think people will buy if I price it too high. And that puts yourself behind in the game because you're already making excuses for your business and devaluing yourself. So pricing for profit, to me, we have to get really mindful about that. Like what is it we're offering, how are we offering it, what is our delivery, right? What, what is our customer getting from us and what is the value in that? And then making these really disciplined decisions every single day about our spending. You know, and being disciplined is a long term game. We have to be disciplined every single day in our business. And I think, you know, with the economy and everything the way it is, that that is going to be a big change. I see a lot of business owners, I'm talking to them right now and they're saying they're getting laser focused. Well, what that really means is they're getting disciplined. So getting discipline in our spending and our decisions on, on investing in inventory, to me in 2024 is going to be the big game changer because we're seeing people out there making rash decisions based on feelings. The whole, I think it's going to sell, it's cute. I'm sure someone's going to buy it. But they, but they don't know who that someone is. They don't, they haven't priced it to actually make any money. They price it in a position where, yes, it might sell, but golly, your return on investment is so low, is it even worth your time? So to me, those, I, I think I know I give you, I gave you two there, but I, I think that's going to be extremely important. 2024.

Yeah, you're really echoing. So Mary Langebury was just on the podcast and this is something we dove really deep into that I think is the biggest warning sign for 2024 is there's a lot of people making decisions based on emotion and not on data. And so you can't really effectively make the right decisions on how to grow your business if you first aren't tracking the right data. So to me, that's step number one, like, get a handle on your reports in 2024. Not just sales, because sales are a lagging indicator. It's telling you what already happened. And we have to be more focused on the leading indicator of what's going to happen. Right. So how much traffic am I driving? What's my conversion rate? What's my average order value? All of those things. So then we can project sales and then make some changes along the way to really increase the number to get us ultimately to the sales that we want. But then to your point, sales are just sales without, you know, profit margin. We have to have that conversation, too. And recently I've had some conversations with stores that even if their sales were slightly down, they have gotten lean and managed expenses and so their profit margin actually went up. So don't just put all your eggs in the sales basket again, you've got to focus on these other leading indicators, but also your profit margin, which to your point, starts with pricing for a profit. Yeah, those things have to come first.

Yeah. And it's, I mean, when. If you're listening right now and you're thinking, oh my gosh, that's a lot, I literally get stuff in from the UPS man, rip the box open, put a price tag on it, put it on the rack and hope it sells. And there's no thought behind it. You're not alone. Yeah, people do this in business all the time. And what happens is weeks later, when you're looking at your numbers or you're looking at your checking account and you're thinking, golly, I've sold a crap ton of products. Where's my money? It comes back to your pricing strategy. It comes back to potentially your inventory assortment and being over assorted in your products to the point where you are spending way too much money on too many things that are then just sitting there all the things go into it. So this layer, we always say, you know, if you skip this layer, you are. You're. You're going to fail the class.

Right.

We don't give grades, but we have to start here because it doesn't matter what comes next in the layers of lasagna. But if you are. If your products aren't right and the prices aren't right for the right customer, golly, you can run all the ads you want, you can go live as many times as you want, you can hire the best team, you can rent out the best location. You can. You can be on 17 different sales channels, but you're at the end of the day, your bank account's going to suffer, and then your. Your business is suffering.

Yeah, absolutely. Most important for sure. And most important specific, in 2024, you can build a business during a down season. Yeah, you build a great business. So this is how we're going to do it.

And I'm just going to add one other thing. The whole point. The whole point of retail boot camp is to teach you how to pay yourself.

Yeah.

Teach you how to make a profit out of your business that you can live on. Right. Something that you're proud of. So this layer, layer number two, man, Every discipline decision you make is either going to get you closer to that goal or move you further away. So for all of you listening that are like, pay myself. Oh, my gosh, that would be amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Heck, yeah, it is. Because you. We say you are your number one employee. You show up early, you stay late, you do all the hard things, right? You. You are just the go getter. I mean, you know the word grinding in your business, you're doing it every single day, so we want you to be rewarded from it. So that is the absolute goal of retail bootcamp.

Absolutely. I love that. All right. Third layer of lasagna is team. And when we think about team, there's all kinds of things. Right. And even if you're solopreneur, I still think this is important because, you know, you're only going to be as small as you are, you know, right now. This is. This is as small as you're going to be. You're going to go up from here typically. So we're talking about hiring, we're talking about onboarding and optimizing, and sometimes we're talking about firing. So what do you think is most important in terms of managing team in 2024?

Oh, gosh, again, I'm going to go back to your foundations. You know, Hiring is expensive. Firing is even more expensive. So getting that right the first time really goes back to that layer, one that we established. Like, what are your core values in your business? What is your voice? Who are you attracting? What's the culture you're. You're. You're defining and living through every single day? So hiring according to that and getting that right, you're gonna. I mean, it's a struggle out there. We all know it's a struggle out there. And even for those of you listening, they're saying, I literally am only a one woman show. Okay, not really. You have a banker, you have an attorney, you have an insurance agent.

Right?

You have people on your team, whether they're on your payroll or not. You have maybe somebody helping you with social media or graphics or whatever. Maybe you have a bunch of 1099 employees. You have. They still have to buy into your culture. They still have to be rowing the boat in the same direction, pushing you along towards your goals instead of pulling you back with negativity and excuses and a poor mindset. So team is. Team is everywhere there. I don't think there's anything as a one woman show, really.

There's not.

Your landlord is part of your team, right? That landlord is either helping you get to where you want to go or holding you back. So the team discussion is really important. And we had somebody on stage at Summit man in Atlanta. What did she say? She said, even, you know, even if Beyonce would just be a woman singing in the shower if she didn't have a team, think of all the people that surround her and make things happen for her.

Right?

That is you and your business. We can only do so much, right, because we only have 24 hours in a day and we have a thousand hats we're wearing and trying to juggle it, let alone trying to, you know, take care of our own self personally. So you are surrounded by a team. Sometimes you just have to look around and notice who they are and really maximize that.

That's so good. I recently heard this, actually. Tom, our EOS coach, I interviewed him for the podcast and he mentioned something to me, Sarah, that I'd never heard him say before. And I was like, oh, that's so good. He said, the mistake that most businesses make is that we hire for skills, but then when we fire, we fire on values. So why don't we just hire on values in the first place? Right? Values and skills. So to your point, going back to layer one, what are your company values? I grabbed this because it's Next to my desk. But these are the hubs values.

Do you have it too?

Oh, we're twins, look at us. We're doing the things Beth tells us. But this is everything for us. And it might seem like, oh yeah, company values. I got a couple words right. But it's more than that. We hire on this, we train on this, we reiterate this in every team meeting, we do company reviews, individual reviews on this, and we fire on this. And the unique thing about when you put your company values in place is what is the, the stat? There's like 20 of your team that you'll either let go or they'll walk away once you start to be accountable to values. And that was true for us. You know, things definitely changed. But this has been the best thing for our team culture, our team alignment, our team growth has really being been laser focused on what those values are. And then second to that, it's the values, but then it's accountability to numbers. So again, in managing a team it goes back to layer two, which is our products and our profit. Our team has to be accountable to some sort of data. Whether it's if they're sending emails and they're accountable to the open rate and the click through rate or they're buying for us and they're accountable to, you know, category assortment, planning and sell through in the categories, turn rates, all of that stuff. But they have to be accountable to values and accountable to some sort of data to be a successful team. Yeah.

And I hope you guys listening are sitting there saying, okay, what am I holding my team accountable for?

Right.

It can be everything from return rate, it can be, it could be something with errors in, in, in the checkout process. It could be just showing up on time.

Right.

But we have to have an accountability that we're keeping holding them to a scorecard that we're holding them to because they are going to come ask for raises, they are going to come ask for more hours and you have to have reasons to base these decisions on. And we train on this so heavily in this layer. I get really passionate about this. But you ultimately are the business coach, you're the coach to your team, right? So look at the basketball team, you're the coach, you're giving the direction, you're calling the plays, you're training them every single day. So when they are left alone to do it on their own, they can, and they can survive and they can thrive and they can be successful and which ultimately makes them feel better about their job, feel better about their position. But your, your business benefits from that. Their customers benefit from that. So we teach you how to hire. We, we walk you through a new hire checklist, you building your own, creating a hiring process, a review process, a stay interview process and, and the firing process. So we walk you through all of that and there's homework involved. I. This layer is, is. I, I shouldn't say it's one of my favorite. I say that every time. This layer is so important to the growth of your business. So yeah, I get pretty excited about talking about team.

Yeah, agreed. Okay, give me a quick head nod if you love the power of January. Like opening a new planner, the smell of the paper, not writing like you're a 12 year old boy like me. Like maybe even using some fancy gel pens while you're at it.

Right?

Like it's just such a feeling. That's why I love January so much. It feels like such a clean slate. So every year at the Hub we host this week long challenge called the Best Year Yet Challenge. You don't even have to be a member to participate. It's literally free for everyone. And the goal is just how do we start this year off in a really powerful way. So this year I just have to say it's going to be more important than ever because we're facing some major changes. How we do business in this industry is changing and I think there's so much opportunity in it. But if we don't address the opportunity and lean into it, it's going to be really a tough year for a lot of people. So I want to get ahead of that with you. This year we are talking into the three major ways to grow and change your business and we're going to deep dive each of those three ways each day of the Best Year yet challenge. So I've got a link for you in the show notes to go ahead and drop your email again, it's completely free and I'll email you the information and the zoom links. It'll be January 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 10am Central Time. Each day will go for about 90 minutes. You're going to want to be there because it is the most powerful way to start your year off completely fresh and address the changes that we're seeing together. You guys, this is your time, this is your opportunity. This is just like opening that planner and getting out your finger. Fancy gel pens. Let's do it together during the Best Year yet challenge. Okay, the next layer. This is where I think the layer we get excited, you and I get excited about the first three layers because we know how important they are. So foundations, products, profit, and team. But I think everyone else starts to get excited about the next three layers. So it's kind of funny how that lays out. But the fourth layer is sales, right? Show me the money, honey. We're gonna go Jerry Maguire on everybody. But when we think about sales, we break it down in this fashion. We look at sales strateg, whether that's brick and mortar or that's online and E commerce or live selling strategy. We look at it as merchandising. Again, brick and mortar or online. And then the third piece we look at is sales channel optimization. So very specifically, how are you managing each channel? And we'll get into the boutique traffic formula and all those things. So when you think about sales as a whole and how we sell, how do you think that's changing in 2024 for people? And what do people really need to hone in on?

Oh, man, I. I'm a merchandising fan. I think it's the year of 2024 is the year to get the niche markets, unique experiences back for boutiques. I feel like we've gotten pretty diluted. People started to look the exact same. I'm not saying I'm against drop shipping by any means, but when too many people use drop shipping, everybody starts to look the same.

People are.

You know, like I said, we have. We're. We're business owners, right? We're busy. We're wearing a thousand different hats every single day. We have so many things we have to do. Hats. Sometimes we drop the ball on rephotographing our products, getting good copy, really doing a good job of putting things out for presentation. That makes people feel drawn to something and want to stay in a store longer or spend longer time on a website or increase your average order value by buying more things, all of those things. And it really, it comes back down to the. The common denominator is retailers are time poor. They're very time poor. Everything takes time. And so I think in 2024, spending.

Spending a good.

Getting a plan for your merchandising, to present your products in an amazing way to your customers. For them to recognize the difference between you and Sheen or you and Timu, or you and whatever, whoever the influencer is on TikTok, whatever it is, set yourself apart. Raise the bar in the discovery for your customers, in the. In the displaying of your products. I think that's going to be a big, big thing.

That's spot on. I agree with You, I really do think that is something that sets so many stores apart from one another is merchandising online and in person. Our industry certainly has all begun to look alike. So that's, that's critical. Something else I would add to think about in 2024, and I know you and I have had this conversation, is I think that there's been so many retailers who have thought they have to be everything to everyone and they have to be on all the channels. Like, I have to sell E commerce. I have to have a brick and mortar. I have to have multiple brick and mortars. I have to do live sales. I don't think you have to do anything. I think you get to do what you want to do and you should do what you're good at. So maybe even scaling back in the sales channel category this year and really getting laser focused at what you're really good at and what, you know, feeds your, feeds your baby, your business. I think that's going to be important in 2024 as well.

Yeah, I totally, I totally agree. And you know, with that, that whole how do you present your products? You know, we talk a lot in this layer about the difference between sales and promotions, and it goes back to that pricing strategy and it goes back to the disciplined decisions every day you're making in your business and knowing the age of your inventory, what's worked, what's not. So being being mindful of time. Time is money in your business. So if it is not selling, if the sales strategy that I've chosen for said product, it's not working, looking back and asking yourself why five, six, seven times to really figure out what is not working here and what do I need to do to fix it, you know, instead of just repeating the same thing over and over, that whole definition for insanity, right? Like, oh, well, I'm just going to open up today, I'm going to open up tomorrow, I'm going keep doing the deal. You know, the consumer has changed. So going back, using that customer survey that we did in week one, using that to make these decisions based on our sales strategy and build that out in for 2024, whatever that's going to look like for your store. But I, I am, I feel like 2024, like we said, there's a cleanse in the industry. Some people that are not doing this are not going to make it. So 2024 is an opportunity for you to jump on, you know, jump onto that market too, because there's going to be a lag there and some People's favorite stores are going to close and those customers are going to need someplace else. So it is a year of opportunity, for sure.

Absolutely, man. When do you buy in the stock market? When it's down. Yeah, yeah. So definitely opportunity. Okay. Layer five. This is my favorite layer because I don't know, I'm a nerd like this. I love content planning. So the reason layer number five is so important. And the reason layer five is separated from social media marketing is there's a difference between content planning, really, and. And mapping out what's going to be successful in your business versus I'm on TikTok, I'm on Facebook, I send emails like, well, yeah, you can check the box, but are you doing it well? There's two totally different ways to look at it. So in layer five, we break down how to really map out what is the right content for your brand, how to plan all of that content, and what makes some content better than others. So you're planning effectively, and then if you're someone who has a team and you're the CEO of your business, you can hand this plan off for someone else to help you execute the plan. So huge distinction there. What do you think in terms of content planning is going to be critical in 2024?

I feel like a broken record when I say disciplined, but I really do like being mindful and planning. Go ahead and pick whatever it is you're working on. We're just. We're gonna say Pink Friday because Pink Friday, we know when it is. Every year you're gonna go back, go to Pink Friday and work your way backwards and develop a plan that way. Back in July, when you start planning for this big event that's happening in November, you plan that out. How many lives, how many fit videos, how. How many product photos, how many engagement posts, how many emails are going out? Have that plan in place so you can maximize your time. You know what, when you do a photo shoot, you get all the angles, you get all the videos all at one time because time is money. And you know, every time you set that camera up and take it back down, you do your hair, you get all ready to go, or you hire and get the models in. And then only to find out, we let it all go. We took it all down. We let the models go. You look at things, you're like, oh, my gosh, we didn't take one picture of the back of anything. That sucks. Now what do we do? Right? And that happens. I see it happen all the time, but I think when you put together this content recipe that we talk about, you coach to this. In this layer. I look at it like it's, it's, it's a practice plan for a basketball team. It's a teaching lesson for the grades, for the teacher.

Right.

Your ultimate goal is to get these kids ready to pass their test, get these kids ready to go to the game and win. Right. Your ultimate goal is get your consumer to open their wallet and spend money with you. It doesn't just happen. And it might happen once and it might happen twice, but it does not happen for the full season without a plan.

So good. So good. Part of that plan, in my opinion, Sarah, and what I think is so important is I think it's not focusing on selling a product to a person, which a lot of people do, but it's focusing on building a community. And once you have a thriving community, they'll buy anything you're selling.

Yep.

But it has to be like a community first plan. So in 2024, what does that look like? It looks like you aren't just creating content, that's product photos, but you might be sharing a recipe or you might be waxing your husband's nose hairs. You might be doing some random thing. But my gosh, if it's relatable to your community, to your people, and they want to get involved in the conversation and then tell you about the time they waxed their husband's nose hairs, now you have a conversation. It's not about your products, but it's linking people together and building relationships. And then again, you can sell them anything. So all kinds of opportunity again, when, when people maybe aren't buying as much, they still want to engage and they still want to feel important. So how can you provide them that so that when they are ready to buy more, you're the first person they think of?

Yeah, I mean, a perfect example of what you just said. And I am not a swifty by any means. I'm going to. So those of you guys listening, like, okay, hold on. What is Sarah talking about now? But how about those little bracelets, right? I mean, how long has the cotton pick and bracelet that's with the little beads, have kids been making them and then they put the word love in it or whatever they put in there. Right. How long have those been around? Quite a while. I date. I'm dating myself because I know I made them with my grandma when I was a little kid, but guess what? Taylor Swift does something with them. I don't even know what she does. But apparently you change. You exchange them at concerts and all the things, and they're just the rage and people, whatever. But I mean, that's not new. It's not unique. But Taylor does it, so everybody's got to do it. And it just takes off like wildfire because she has a community, she has a people. She has people that love and trust her and follow her and what she says goes.

So.

And if you're sitting there thinking, sarah, I'm a store owner. I'm not Taylor Swift. You are to your people. You are to your people. Especially when done right.

So good. I love that you're so analogous. Oh, geez. Favorite thing about you that's like you can. Any store has the opportunity to do that. What is your thing gonna be? You guys know, if you follow me, you follow Boutique Hub, I'm going to talk about meatballs. Maybe meatballs are my thing. Sarah. We're just going to exchange meatball recipes or not. Oh, gosh.

Yeah, I can. I can get on it. I buy them in the freezer section at the store. Yep. Put them in the crock pot. There you go. There's my recipe.

That's a hard.

Okay.

Layer number six of why this all going to be about food now, meatballs, lasagna, this is the favorite layer of everybody. It's the crunchy cheese layer. The layer on top, it's layer number six. All about marketing and traffic. And so when we break this down, we break it down into three categories. Social media, traditional marketing. So email marketing, postcards, text messages, paid media. Right. And then the third piece is paid traffic. So Facebook ads and Google Ads. So this is a big topic. It takes a while to cover all these things because I'm telling you, in Bootcamp, we break down all of it. TikTok strategy, Instagram strategy, Facebook strategy, paid ads, email, text, PR. All the things what in your opinion, in 2024, when it comes to social, is going to be most important?

Oh, man. I go back to build your marketing plan based on all these things that we've been talking about with your voice, that's consistent, products that serve a purpose right on your. On the right sales channels, all of the things. Consistency, right. And delivered in a way, delivered in a way that's entertaining, educational, community driven, all of those things. So when you go and put this marketing plan together on social, you have to. You have to show up with that voice every time to your people, to your people. And I. And I think one of the big things that I see, you know, we can all Learn so much from TikTok. Whether we love it or hate it, but the algorithm and the for you page and getting something in front of you based on other decisions you've made and ways you've interacted. How do we do that? Well, we teach you how to do that. We teach you how to get very disciplined in your decision making in marketing. And it all goes back to that layer. 1. Who is your customer? Who are you speaking to? What voice do they expect you to show up in?

Right.

So all of these things and then the other part about the marketing plan that I love that we and I know this is so important is it's not a one hit wonder. We don't. We're not one hit wonder stuff or stores. We are creating an opportunity, we're creating these events, we are selling you something. But the follow up marketing that we train about in RBC and Retail Bootcamp I think is so important. It is such a lost art right now because we're so focused on the next best thing, the next big thing, and retaining our customers through marketing. That lesson is really powerful because going and finding brand new ones every time is exhausting and extremely expensive. So I think focusing on social media for your said, tried and true customers that you've built that loyalty with and thanking them and keeping them engaged from a marketing standpoint, gosh, I see stores doing that right now that are doing great and I love that idea for 2024.

I think you really hit the nail on the head with. It's so easy to think about social and marketing in terms of just acquiring new customers, but really there's only three ways to grow a business, right? Acquiring new customers, getting your customers to buy more per transaction and then getting your customers to buy more often and leveraging your marketing, whether it's social media or which is more cost effective at the end of the day. So I think this is a year when if you haven't been email marketing, you better start now. Email traffic. But the cool part about it is not only are you leveraging it for sending emails and retaining customers and exciting new ones, but you can leverage it for Facebook ads as well and that can help grow your Facebook ad audience. So that's the second thing I would say I'm most excited about in this layer is Facebook ads. And as you guys know, Jeff on our team, he's kind of the king of Facebook ads. He's been running huge ad budgets for companies much larger than ours for almost 10 years now. And inside of Retail Bootcamp, but then also Inside of boutique Hub Black, he can show you exactly how to either optimize the ads you're running with an agency or just take another look at him, have a second opinion at them, or teach you how to run them all yourself in a really efficient way. So there's all kinds of opportunity. I think there's always time for Facebook ads, but it seems scary and overwhelming for people, and it doesn't have to be.

Yeah. And I think something new we've added this year is those audits where you can jump in and you can look at your site and you can look at the. The content you're putting out there and just run an audit and see where you need to fix some things.

Right.

Like all of. So your marketing efforts are not for a waste. I think I. I'm. I'm really excited about that. So for all of you that have been in rbc, you know, you have lifetime access to it. So jump back in. Because that's just one of the many improvements and upgrades and new things that we're adding to the course for. For this semester.

I think that's so good. When you think about rbc, Retail Boot Camp, all of our acronyms, we've taught thousands of stores in the program, and again, they have lifetime access, so they come back every semester. When you think about all the stories who have gone through the program, what do you think the most successful ones have in common?

Oh, they show up every single time, and they're. They're taking away something new. And. And I. I've made the comment that, you know, what was my story? Last round. Like, the first time you ever watched a movie when you were in. I. I use the word, the movie. Steel Magnolias, right. When you were in junior high, middle school, way back then, that movie hit you in a certain way, and you took things away from it. But because the space you were in at that time in your life, you couldn't really understand all of it. So then as you grow up in Retail Bootcamp, as your business grows and evolves and you show back up to Retail Bootcamp, all of a sudden you're taking away new things, and you're able to implement new things because you're ready for that. And you've experienced different things throughout the last year of your business that now you have growth opportunity with. Same as. Same as that movie, right? When I watch it in junior high, I had no ide idea what some of those women were talking about. But now that I'm approaching 50, I'm like, holy crap, I know exactly what she's talking about. Right. And I can, I, I can empathize with people and I can. Those experiences hit home for me in retail boot camp. The same way, you know, when you're at the very beginning basis, you're. You're focused on certain things. When you're at that million dollar a year mark, it's hard to get to the two million dollar a year mark.

Right.

That's a big jump. That's a huge jump. So you have. Your focus is a little different. Your team is bigger. You're all the things. So I think the stores that are consistently successful, they're showing up every round.

They're.

They're maximizing the community, they're maximizing the Facebook groups where they're chatting and collaborating together all the time. They're utilizing the expert industry service providers and industry experts that we're bringing in. They're asking the tough questions. They're participating.

Yeah.

Every single round.

I think that's so good. That's true. That's true. I would say, in my opinion, most successful stores, what they have in common, very similar. But whether it's in retail bootcamp or wherever, they're always learning, they're always curious. I think that as you grow a business or the longer you're an entrepreneur, it's tempting to get prideful over the fact that you've been there, done that. Like, oh, I've already done that. I've already tried that. Or that doesn't apply to me, or I'm. I'm too big. I'm beyond that. But I think, especially the biggest business owners, that I'll say our mastermind students, for example, the one thing I keep hearing them echo right now is when we say, what are you going to do in 2024? You know what they say? I'm going to go back to the basics. Yeah. Every one of them says that I'm going to rebuild my foundation. I'm going to go back to these things that I know I maybe kind of worked on when I got started, but now I need to really go solidify it. So they're always curious, they're always learning, they're always going back to the basics. There's not some secret formula that they all of a sudden know that someone else doesn't know. There's not one thing, but it's all the things that you already know you need to do. You just have to do them. Yep.

That's absolutely. It's so good. Yes. Because you're living and learning every single day. You're learning some of the things you're gonna say no to, some of the things that you are just gonna, you're narrowing your focus, you're gonna say no to these things. And maybe you got yourself too wide and too spread out with your offering. And you need. You're going back and you're reassessing what really matters, what is really important to you. Going back to that, that vision when you started your business, why and who was this? What was the story you wanted to be? Who were you as a business owner? When you looked at yourself 10 years down the road, how did you envision your life being and going back to that? And you do a wonderful exercise of that inside Retail Bootcamp that I just love, that really makes the business owner stop and think. And again, I think my word of the year is going to be disciplined because I keep thinking how important that is across everything we do. Personal, business, all the professional, all the things health wise.

Right?

Discipline means we're in it for the long goal and every decision we make matters so good.

I love that, Sarah. All right, well, you guys, hopefully you got all kinds of nuggets, I hope, of where we think the industry is going in 2024. Any other things you want to share, Sarah, about Retail Boot Camp and just how the program specifically works? And again, the six layers that we were talking about, I just have to reiterate one more time. We go deep into all these in Retail Bootcamp, but it's also how, as a member of the hub, how all of our training is laid out. So hopefully this idea, no matter where you're at, like, it should apply to absolutely everybody who's listening, but specific to Retail Bootcamp. Anything else you want to add?

Yeah, I just want to say, you know, one of the biggest things about Retail Bootcamp is the, the circle of business owners that you're. You're working with every single week. You know, Ashley and I go live in there every Wednesday for about two hours. On Thursday, I go live with a guest expert talking about up to date what's happening right now in the industry of based on what Ashley and I talked about the day before, 12 weeks long. But then at the end of this, at the end, every fall, we go to LA together as RBC students, as a team, and we, we network together. We, we take advantage of all things la as far as LA Fashion District. We learn how to buy down there. We have all sorts of education and collaboration and cocktail parties and all sorts of fun things that it's a celebration of. The fact that you dove in, you did it, and you made it through retail bootcamp, and it's just a time to get together face to face with each other, too. So that. That I think is something people really look forward to every single year.

I agree. That is my favorite trip of the year because it's so. It's so personal and it's fun. It's just a whole nother level of getting to learn all year together, both in January and again in June when we reopen enrollment for the second semester. And then we get to kind of put a bow on the year together in September in la. So.

So good, because then when you show up in the zoom rooms every week. Right, because that's what it is. Just so you guys are aware, when Ashley and I go live, we're in a zoom room with you. We encourage you to have your camera on. We encourage you to have the messy bun. You might be cooking dinner or whatever, breakfast or whatever it might be, you know, come as you are, take it in. They're all recorded so you can listen to them later. Right? But the thing is showing up, participating, asking those tough questions. This is whether you're home decor and gift or your bridal and special occasion or your, you know, boutique clothing or whatever you are, Salon and spa stores take the course too. We all can learn and grow together, and what one does, the other one can get ideas from as well. So show up every single week, cameras on. Be you, be authentic. Be real. That's who your customers are. That's who they want to. They want to hear from.

Right?

So then when we get together in October, September in la, you guys already know each other. You have those boutique besties, and those conversations can be even better.

So good. All right, last question. Out of all the times we have taught retail Bootcamp and all the stores we've coached, do you have one favorite moment or memory?

Oh, my gosh. One. Yeah. You know, I. I have a couple. I have a couple. But the merchandising, since we were talking, I really am excited about merchandising for 2024. Do you remember the round where we talked about the importance of resetting your store and making the old look new again? And one of the. One of the RBC students, she said, I'm doing it. I'm going to. As soon as she got off the call, she went back and she reset her store. She flipped it. She. She moved the mannequins around, she moved the wall displays, did all that, and she moved some of the things that had been dated, had been kind of shoved to the back that she needed to sell. She moved those to the front of her display. She moved them to the front of her face, outs on her waterfalls. And. And she came in the next day, was raving about the best sales day she'd had all year and sold out of or sold through so many of those products that had just been sitting there because she reset her store. So to me, that was like one of those immediate wins.

That's.

That's something that sticks out. How about you?

Yeah, so similar. Like, I love the immediate wins. And so, I mean, I love it when people come back year over year and they can like make a list of all the things that have been wins, but those fast ones are the most fun. So this was a western store and a family business. You know these people very well. And the daughter in law came into the business and was going to learn how to run Facebook ads and take over the e commerce side of this family business. And they had placed a very large shoe order at the time and it was setting them up for an in person event that they were going to have. Well, when. When she was in retail boot camp and she learned how to run Facebook ads, she turned on a Facebook ad for this shoe order that they had. Again, they'd order inventory for all these in person events, which are major in the western industry. And she accidentally, by learning how to run Facebook ads, sold the entire container. A container load of shoes. Yeah, that's how big this order was. And she sold them all, which is great. Her family was very proud of her. But I think her family was also pissed because they were like, we were counting on this inventory to carry these in person events. So to see that was really, really cool.

Yeah, Very powerful. Love it when. Love it when people take action. It's so good. And be vocal about it. We love to celebrate wins. That is. That is so important. So we love to celebrate wins. We love to collaborate and talk over struggles so we can get to the wins.

All good things.

It is a community. It's a very vibrant, alive, and very fun community for sure.

Awesome. So good to spend time with you today. Thanks for jumping on the podcast and talking about all these things. You're making me very pumped for the next round of boot camp. You and I have so much fun together. No, we're such nerds and I love that about us.

Me too. Let's start tomorrow. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Awesome. All right, you guys, I will leave all the info for Bootcamp for Hub membership, all the things in the show notes so you guys can ask some questions or learn more information. But as always, don't hesitate. Let us know how you listen to this podcast. Take a screenshot, send it to us on Instagram, AJ Alderson or the Boutique Hub. But we can't wait to see you.

Soon inside the program. Thanks guys. Great to be be here. Bye Bye.

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