Navigating Change with Grace with Lindsay Heyneman, Lettie Boutique

Hey, guys. Welcome. It is time for another episode of our 10 year anniversary series. And this one I have been really excited to share with you because today on the podcast, you're going to get to meet Lindsay Heineman, the founder and owner of Leti Boutique. And in this episode, she is going to drop a ton of knowledge bombs and talk about the evolution of her business in a way that I think so many of us can learn from, whether we're new or we're scaling or we've been around the block for. For a while. Lindsay's going to talk about what it took to build a thriving online community for Leti, how she's even taken a great group of her customers and done meetups at Disneyland together. We're also going to talk about Lindsay's life changes and what it meant for her to build a thriving online business and a warehouse that actually have to move across the country for her husband's education and how she managed to do both at the same time all the way up into now. Lindsay building her first brick and mortar location for her business. Guys, this is an episode that is packed full of ideas. And when you get to meet Lindsay, I've had the opportunity to meet her in person a number of times. She is one of the most kind, genuine, just positive and someone who is such a bright ray of light type of people. I'm just so pumped for you to meet her because you are going to feel her warmth come through this episode. So, without any further ado, meet my friend, Lindsay Heineman, the founder of Leti Boutique. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works. From mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat.

Hey guys.

Welcome back to the podcast. Lindsay, it has been forever since I've gotten to see you. So, so good to see you. So good to have you on the show and to get to catch up. Welcome.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

We were just catching up before we started to record and I think we haven't seen each other since like before the world went crazy, before, like all your moving and everything took place. So I love seeing you back face to face. We've got a lot to talk about today.

So many fun things.

So many fun things. I love what you've built because I think whether you are an established boutique owner or whether you're a brand new boutique owner, you're going to learn a lot from today's conversation. I think there's really going to be something for everybody today because the message that you have to share is really like the cord that runs through everyone's business here. So I can't wait to. Can't wait to dive into that. Let's start here. Go back to the beginning for me. We'll set the stage. How did you start? Why did you start? Where did you start?

I started. I was barely 18 years old in my Utah State College dorm room. It was one pack of the Now I'm like, back then it was like the cutest shirt you've ever seen, you.

Know, and now it was probably chevron.

Yep, 100 chevron. And yeah, I was just. I come from an entrepreneurial family and I, you know, that first year of college, trying to figure it all out and pay for college and everything. And I was like, I actually hate working for other people and I want to do it myself. So we just fired it up and have gone from there.

Oh, my gosh. So where did you even get this pack of Chevron when you were in your college dorm room?

I think it was like Lemon Tree Wholesale. And it was one of those that, you know, they're just a distributor. I wish I would have known, you know, I was spending way too much wholesale for several years. But, yeah, just whatever popped up first.

In Google, you got it and you started to build. So when you started to build and I've got to set the stage, you're going on 10 years right now and that is so cool because you've had so much change in 10 years. You started to build. Where did it go from there? Social media, I mean, was still pretty new at the time. I was really new at the time. Tell me about that evolution early on.

Yeah, so I don't think we even got the ability to go live until we were probably like three or four years in. So, like, social media really was so new. Instagram, I had had a personal Instagram for about a year at that point. But yeah, we started on Instagram. During those first few years. I got married, had my first baby, and I actually had decided to like, close Leti. And it was Lindsay's secret closet at the time. And the worst name.

It sounds a little scandalous.

I didn't my 18 year old self didn't hear kind of the scandal in the name, but anyways, so I kind of decided I had built another business with my parents at that point. And I was like, okay, I think it. Letty's like, run its course. I think we're going to shut it down. And so I started a Facebook group, which I thought I was being very original. I didn't know anybody else that had done this at this point. And I was like, I'm just going to add some of my best customers, some family, friends, neighbors, and like clear out the rest of my inventory. And then they start adding friends and adding friends and adding friends. And suddenly our group had like 5,000 people in it. Truly within like a month. And when are you getting new arrivals? When is something new coming? Do you have any of this? Like, I want to see more. And I was like, okay, like, apparently we've got something happening here. Maybe I need to put a little more stock into this. And so I remember I was graduating from college on a Saturday, on Friday around noon, I was like, we're gonna do this. So I got on Shopify, built myself a new website, did a photo shoot on Monday, and we launched Letty Boutique on Tuesday over my college graduation weekend. So I love that.

And the rest is history. Here we go. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Nothing is not a crazy ride.

It's been a crazy ride. So you built it right for, for a period of time. But then talk to me about moving because I feel like this is a question I see a lot. This is something you've lived. You built this online store, but then you had to move across the country and that is really overwhelming for a lot of people. How did you handle that?

Yes, let's first, let's set the stage. I did not handle this well. It turned out really well, but I don't want to give anybody the appearance of me ever that it's like, oh, she just like floated through it and it was so easy and whatever. So I started this in Utah at Utah State. I moved back to my hometown of Pocatello with my husband for him to do undergrad. And then we knew that he was going to PT school. And there is a program here in Pocatello, but very competitive. And we were like, realistically, we don't want to put. We don't want to go into the mindset of we're staying in Pocatello. And so yeah, we started building this business. And he ended up getting accepted to a school in Austin, Texas. And I Was like, that's a long ways away from our family and from our business. And I was so grateful. I was having a conversation with one of my best friends who's also our photographer, and I was like, I just don't know how I'm going to move business. This makes me emotional, like, remembering how hard this was for me. But she was like, lindsay, leave it here. We can handle it. I will help you. We can do this. And I had two other employees at the time and then our photographer and model team. And so we went out to dinner, and I sat him down, and I was like, what do you guys think about this? Can you help me do this? And all of them were like, absolutely, yes. Like, it makes no sense for you to take it with you to find new warehouse models, employees. Like, all of these things. Just. Our plan was to always come back home to Pocatello. This is where all of our family is. And they were like, it doesn't make sense to move it for three years. We've got it. Like, you can trust us. And that was the biggest blessing of my life. And I don't know if I've ever felt so loved. And they did an amazing job. I would fly home. We had a townhouse here that we kept and just Airbnb while we were gone. And so I would fly back and forth every other month or so, check in, come do, you know, lives with our customers, and do team meetings and everything. But we stayed in really close contact. They did an incredible job, and I am forever grateful for those girls that made that time so much easier for me.

Yeah, man. It says a lot about a couple things you did, right? It says a lot about the foundation you built with your team culture and the people you hired. Like, you got that right. But it also tells me you had to get the systems and processes right in order to make that work, too. So break down both of those things for me. First, how did you find these awesome human beings that are in your life? How did you build that culture that made them so trustworthy to take this on for you?

So this is something I say cautiously, but I knew these people beforehand. One of them is a friend from high school, and then one of them was my older sister. And so there was already a level of trust. And I realized that hiring friends and family does not work for everybody, but it really worked for me. And the other thing is, I try really hard to not micromanage my team. I give them their jobs, they know their responsibilities, and they get it done. Now we are Online only. So obviously that's a little bit different with like scheduling and stuff. But I'm like, you know, your job, I'm not going to set hours for you. You know your job, you know what needs to be done, you know your deadline, I trust you to make that happen. And so we all have kids and I'm like, if you need to bring your kids to the warehouse with you, that's okay. If you need to come in at midnight after you've put your kids to bed and you've had time with your husband, that's okay. You know your job, I, I trust you to get it done. And obviously that takes a very specific person to give them that much leeway. But I think giving them that much space and freedom and trust gave them the confidence and ability that I'm like, I can step out of this, I can be in Texas. And I know that you can, that you can do this, you know.

Yeah.

And I, I don't know exactly how that blessing came to me that they are that amazing, but I'm so grateful they both still work for me. And yeah, it's very empowering.

Very empowering. So. So you went to Texas, they take over managing the day to day. Right. You're still leading the ship and building your community and all the things we'll talk about next. But tell me about the second half of how that worked. Systems and processes. Talk to me about maybe like three or four of the most important processes that you guys have implemented that have allowed those, allowed this ship to sail smoothly.

So I think they were primarily taking care of like our shipping intake, customer service. They would do pop up shops and like open warehouse while I was gone. They would do all of these things. And so I think that one, having a really firm system and placement of what does our shipping day look like? How does that run smoothly? What is our, even to how do our packages get from us to the post office? How do just what does the order look like? How do we make sure that things are accurate? And we've changed those systems over time and they changed several times even while I was in Texas. But really having a firm chain of command in that kind of. And it's like, okay, this is primarily your responsibility. If you need extra help, you ask this person. If you need extra help, ask this person. And just having a really firm, you know, we go in and we check for local pickups first and like having a very clear, detailed, step by step, what are we doing? And the other thing that we did was create a Google Doc for like our team communication. So, so that no matter where anybody was, we could create our communication there. We used Asana as well and created training videos. So if anybody had a question, if we had somebody new joining us, if we had somebody covering for us, whatever it was, there was always kind of a fail safe and of course they could always come to me. But creating again another level of that kind of that trust, you know, your job, you know how to do this and I trust you to do it. And then I also think, of course mistakes happened and of course there was adjustment periods when I'm, when I step out that much. But creating a culture and systems for if something happens, let's talk about it. We're not going to do shame, we're not going to do guilt. We're going to be like, hey, this is what happened. Let's talk about. These are my ideas. But you're the one that's doing this day to day. So what are your ideas also of how we can fix this and make sure that it runs smoothly in the future and we can mitigate some of these issues.

Yeah, that's a really, it's still a really empowering process. I love that you said no shame, no guilt. Because it's really easy to place blame, especially when you're upset, when something goes wrong, rather than focus on, okay, let's fix it for next time. What do we need to do?

Yeah, and I think it's so easy when you're in your business day today, just like, I'll just do it really quick. Like, I'll just do it. And I'm, I'm trying to get back in the mindset through the pandemic. It was so hard because it was, it was a lot. Just me and my husband there for a minute and. But I think being able to step out of it and be like, it's okay, I trust my team, we've got our systems and it's okay. Mistakes will be made and we can build stronger from that and your team will never learn and, you know, you'll build a really disempowered team. I think if you're always just like, oh, I'll just do it really quick, I'll just, I'll fix it, you know. Yeah, I think we have to give some of that power back to our teams and you know, again, no shame, no guilt. We don't do that around here. This is what happened. Let's work together to fix it. Thank you so much for having that conversation with me. We're moving on if I could take.

You guys on a behind the scenes of what it takes to build a wholesale platform, I would totally do that. I think it needs to be an entire solo episode. What do you think, you guys, I have loved your feedback on building and shopping and optimizing hubventory.com, our very own wholesale platform and built by the industry, for the industry with all of the curated and vetted brands that boutique owners know, love and trust. You guys, as we have grown Hub and Tori over the last six months together with you, we have loved building the features that you're looking for. So if you haven't yet shopped on hubventory.com now's your invitation to shop curated brands by following the brand, saving the products, just like Pinterest, saving products to boards so you can plan out your collections and maximize the investment that you're going to put into your inventory. Using our ROI calculators on projects or even building in budgets, which is now available on Hubventory, I encourage you to jump on the platform, take a tour, follow some brands, build a few boards, and start to shop today. This is just the beginning. Keep the feedback coming, keep the input coming, and keep telling your friends all about shopping wholesale on hubventory.com yeah, I want to dig a little deeper on that because I feel like that's probably one of the biggest struggles I see with really boutiques of all sizes. Whether you're brand new, you're solopreneur, you don't want to hire your first employee because you feel like, I'll just DIY it. I don't trust anybody. Right. I always hear that comment. Or it's, it's just faster if I do it myself. I always hear that comment. Or I just don't want to give up control. Like you, you kind of got thrown to the fire. Like you had to give up control with this move. You had to. So now in hindsight, if you could give advice to anybody who's listening, that is like holding on to the reins so tightly, they don't want to empower their team because they're scared something might go wrong. Is there any other advice you would give to someone listening with that mindset right now?

I was very much the same way for a long time. I told my husband, I was like, I just want it to be this fun little thing that I can do. I don't want to have to deal with the team. I don't want to have employees. I don't want to worry about, like payroll taxes, like all of these things, you know, but the truth is, you know, you said, well, I can do it faster. How long can you actually do it faster for?

Yes.

How long? How far can you really grow your business that you can actually do it faster? And I think it also takes a level of humility. For me, I am not a well organized person. I'm working on it. I'm really trying to be. I'm surprised by that.

I'm surprised to hear you say that.

Really? Yes.

I look at you, and I'm like, she's got it together. Like, you look like the Pinterest mom who's got it, like, please. Planned out.

Oh, Ashley, we should hang out a little bit more. No, I. It's something that I'm working on, but it's not like, my brain dominance is very visionary. And so something that I look for is, you know, you always say, do what you do best and hire the rest. Yeah. So I hire people that are very organized. My team is very organized. They have great organizational skills, even to the point of, like, hey, our warehouse would actually be more functional if we switch these things around and organize it this way. And I'm like, would never have thought of that. We also have somebody on our team that is like, if her mind fascinates me, she can figure anything out. And so I'm like, okay, I'm trying to figure out, like, this display or, hey, I need to figure out how to add a dressing room in this warehouse. And she's like, no worries. I got it. I'll do it. And so I think playing to some of those strengths, realizing where I'm falling short and letting somebody else take that off of your plate. I think that sometimes there's kind of a belief, especially right now, that, like, ugh, employees are so much to manage. Like, they're so hard and, you know, but if you can find the right people, yeah, they can make your life so much better. They can make your life so much easier. They can grow your business. They can really catapult you into the next level, and you can't get there by yourself. You can only do it by yourself for so long.

So good. I completely agree with all of this, and I love, like, the real truth and positive perspective of how great employees can be rather than always ragging on, you know, how terrible they are, because it doesn't have to be that way. And I've had the same experience at the Boutique Hub. Like, there's no way any of this would be possible if it weren't for the amazing people on our team. So I love that you shared that perspective. The other thing that I feel like just hearing your story and knowing you were able to move across the country and move back, I feel like the real underlying root for you is also not just what you did with your team, but it's really what you built with your community and your brand. Like, you, you just have this amazing, like one of the most close knit communities for a boutique that I'm.