New Year’s Resolutions for Business Owners

It's episode number two four zero. Oh, my gosh. Two, four zero. And we're kicking off 2020 by talking about New Year's resolutions for your boutique and for our entire industry. 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 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 to 2020. Doesn't that sound crazy? 2020 vision. 2020 a new decade. 2020. I know you've got big plans and whether 2019 was the best year of your life or 2019 was a dumpster fire, because we all know those years happen. This is a fresh start, and it feels like one of the coolest fresh starts we're going to get in our adult lives. Today. I wanted to talk to you about something I know you've probably already gone through in terms of practice, if you are part of the Boutique Hub. We've been doing the best year yet challenge, and we've talked a lot about planning in 2020 and New Year's resolutions. And I know in general, everyone turns over New Year's Eve with some grandiose New Year's resolutions, but I want to get a little bit more specific today on New Year's resolutions for your business and for the boutique retail industry as a whole. And as I do that, we've got 20 New Year's resolutions to cover today. And I'm going to be talking about many of these at a Western Summit and did cover some of these at Western Summit. And they're a combination of both looking forward on what we think is coming in terms of business and marketing trends and industry changes we need to be aware of. But it's also combination of looking back and saying what happened in the last year. How could we do things better? How could we improve and how could we move forward? And I just want to leave you with this kind of one thought before we dive into these resolutions. And it actually was an experience that happened to me while I was traveling over Christmas break. I was back in North Dakota in my hometown. First time that I ever got to take our kids or that Eric and I got to take our kids back to the high school that I went to, the school that I went to growing up in Bowman, which was amazing to get to see the gym, which I have so many memories in, and old friends. And I'm gonna tell you, there's like a kiosk where you can look up graduation pictures in the corner of the cafeteria. And so, Hadley, that'd be really funny to go look up my high school graduation picture, which, you guys, I don't know what happened. Was I on my period that week, was I eating a lot of chocolate? Like, what was going on? But I was having an acne breakout, and it's not a good picture at all. So she pulls up this graduation picture and she's like, mom, what happened to your face? What happened to your face? And then Eric's like, I'm not going to waste an opportunity to make fun of you. So he took a picture of it, which, if that ever surfaces, he's dead. I'm just going to tell you that that was my experience heading back to my high school gym. But the reason I tell you this is we came to watch my nephews play basketball. And one of the games, the C squad game, was an awesome game. These boys, oh, my gosh, they were so much fun to watch. The B squad game equally as fun to watch, but they just were having a rough game and they. They didn't pull out a win in the B squad game. And my sister Tina was sitting next to me, and one of her boys was playing in the game. And. And it's about the fourth quarter, and she pulls out the video camera and she starts to video these boys, you know, kind of sucking air, sucking wind, trying to get down the court. And she's videoing and videoing. And yes, I said, video camera. I don't know why she doesn't use her cell phone, but, I mean, we'll cover that in another episode maybe. But she's videoing with this video camera. And she gets done, and I asked her about it. I was like, oh, you know, interesting time to video. And she's like, you know what, Ashley? She said, our boys learn more when they watch themselves play at their worst than they will ever learn when they play at their best. And I thought, man, that's interesting. They learn the most when they play their worst and they can watch it. And so many times we think about our business and our life and we look back on the year and it's easy to celebrate the highlight reel. And I think that's what happens on social media, especially on New Year's Eve. Everyone's like, look at my amazing year. Here's what happened in 2019. And I'm going to show it to you. And. And we should do that. And we should celebrate those high points. And I'm. I loved reading them, to be honest. Like, I loved it. I wish you guys would share them all year long, your high points, because we want to celebrate your wins with you. But equally as important as celebrating the wins is celebrating the times when it did suck. Because truthfully, the moments that were the hardest, those are the moments that changed us and challenged us the most. And if it's not hard, if it's not a challenge, it is not ever going to change us. We don't learn things when we're in the winning season. We learn things when we're in the losing season. So whatever that's worth. When you're thinking about your personal goals and your personal plans going into 2020, I really invite you to look at those struggles that you had and to ask yourself, what did I learn from this situation? Right. How am I stronger today because of this situation? And we could have a whole episode just on that. Because I have a lot of thoughts to share around overcoming adversity and obstacles. But we all have that same drive and fire within us to move forward and to grow and to climb that mountain. And I think it's a Rachel Hollis quote. Maybe I heard. Maybe it was in her book. I don't know. But I can remember her talking about how we think about people that are standing on a mountaintop. Right. We think about people that are winning and they've climbed this mountain and they're on the top and they're. They're doing the rocky dance, but they aren't doing the rocky dance on top of everything that went. Right. Right. It's a mountain of the failures that we have to climb. It's a mountain of the obstacles that we have to overcome. It's a mountain of the boulders that got in our way, but we climbed over the top of them anyway and we figured it out and we continued to rise to the top. That's what success really looks like. So as we think about New Year's resolutions, I want you to keep that in mind. Both what's happening? What do we see coming down the pike for our industry? But where are you now? And where can you learn from where you are now so that you can move forward in a positive way? Sound good? All right, I've got my coffee. Let's go. We've got 20 boutique growth and marketing New Year's resolutions so that you can start the year off right Resolution number one. And this is probably the longest resolution out of all of them. So bear with me. There's a lot to talk about here. Resolution number one, quit blaming Amazon for everything. Have you ever done that? Oh, man. Sometimes I see posts, and not just in our, in our boutique hub, but all over the Internet. People are like, oh, Amazon's really hurting this business in this industry and so on and so forth. And, you know, maybe to a certain extent, I think if you let it hurt your industry, if you let it hurt your business, it's more of a mindset shift in my opinion, than it is an actual fact. And here's why. Two reasons there's things that we can embrace that Amazon does and has to offer and reasons our customers are shopping Amazon that we have the same access to, that we could be doing the same thing Amazon's doing in our own business. But number two, there's a lot of things that Amazon can't do and won't do and reasons why your business will be stronger because Amazon exists. So let me go deeper. Number one, how can we embrace what Amazon's doing? First is ease, ease. If we can't search for sizes and multiple products and specialty words, if you don't have a great selection or if I can't click with one click checkout, then that's not easy and that's what customers want. But with technology today, if you're a brick and mortar store and you're listening and you're wondering like, do I need to really be online? And yeah, you really do need to be online. If you're not online, in my opinion, in some way, shape or form, great with social media or at least having a website presence and driving traffic to your storefront some other way, you have to be where people are searching for you or you don't exist. So I just read a stat the other day that E commerce right now equates for 9% of retail sales as a whole, right? In retail, E Commerce equates for 9% in the end of 2020. By the end of 2020, they are estimating that it will jump to 13%. Think about that jump. Like if it's at 9% now and it's going to jump to 13% of total retail sales will be via E commerce will be on your desktop or on your mobile device or via your app. Isn't that crazy? That's a huge increase. So think about where we are headed and how we need to get on board with that now. At the same time, I'm going To preface it with, if you know what your bread and butter is, you have to really be diligent to your bread and butter. And if that's your brick and mortar, if that's what's, you know, paying the bills, you gotta be really diligent to not walk away from that and try to just chase E commerce because it is its own game. But we have to be thinking about how we are going to strengthen E commerce if we want to build a business that's viable three, five or 10 years into the future. And if this is like not your wheelhouse, there's a million people out there that can help you with it. And there's some awesome people inside of the hub that we love and trust and value that are E commerce experts that can help build those things for you. And then you have all the opportunity in the world to be resourceful. Find a college intern, right? Find if you are, you know, an older generation boutique owner, find a daughter, a granddaughter, or again, a college intern, somebody who does feel comfortable with technology, if that's not you, and bring them in and start training them. Now you have every opportunity to be resourceful and be just as easy to use and have as many options in terms of fashion as Amazon does, right? People go there because it's easy, but your business can be just as easy to use. The second opportunity, you have to be just like Amazon. And I'm going to argue that just as much as Jeff Bezos wants your money, he wants your data. That's why he's got Whole Foods, that's why he's bought all these other companies, right? It's a data play and that is one of the greatest assets that you also have access to. So many times I think in boutique owner land, we get caught up in what's everyone else doing on social media. They're going to market and they're doing these photo shoots and it looks so glamorous behind the scenes. But what people don't post on social media is the not glamorous part of owning a business. And that's the hour sitting at your desk thinking about how could I re segment my list? How could I create automation so I can work smarter and not harder? How can I use this customer purchase data, right? Or my sales by class or vendor or sales by size to then resegment my list so that I can use this data smarter? 80% of our revenue comes from 20% of our list. And so the more we can really break down the data that we have at hand and how to Use it. It's all about how do I get one more dollar out of my customer's pocket. Think about what that does to your year end revenue. Right? Just one more dollar per customer. So the data that you have, you have to be willing to sit down and take the time, even though it's not glamorous, to analyze it. And can I go on a soapbox for just a quick second? I think that we're all fed up with this idea that we have to keep up with the Joneses on social media. Like, we're over it, over it. And just because this boutique and that boutique and even boutiques in the hub, you guys, I love all of you in the hub, but everyone comes from a different demographic, different store type. What works for one person may not work for all. So whatever you do in 2020, try not to chase shiny objects. Try to chase your own data and test what's going to work for you. Implement iterate, test it again and keep working forward on what you know your customers are responding to versus trying the next best thing, or looking for the golden ticket or looking for that one shiny new tool or resource that you heard somebody recommend on social media. Dig deeper into your data because I guarantee there are so many answers that lie inside of your data. All right? Within that, within data, I guess we hit on segmenting and creating automations, right? Another thing that's inside of your data and inside of how customers are searching for you is your SEO. And for a long time, I'll say, I had no idea how to really use SEO and keywords. Like, I was, I was oblivious to it, I thought I knew what it was, but I had no time to really dig into it. And I think a lot of us probably feel the same way. Like, it feels like just another thing feels a little overwhelming. But one thing we did this year, and I'm so happy that we did, we hired another marketing expert on our team who happens to be amazing with SEO. And he has totally rewritten the rules of the game in terms of how we do podcasts and blog posts and the content that we share. And we've talked about it so much in terms of boutique owners, where it feels like it's overwhelming. And you're probably getting all of these phone calls from quote unquote marketing experts and agencies that want to do SEO for you, charge you five grand a month, and then you're like, not really sure what they're working on at the end of the day or if it's fruitful or not because you don't understand it. Right? That's a great trap to fall into and have watched a lot of boutiques fall into that trap. So something that he and I are going to work on internally at the hub this year is how do we share what we've learned from SEO and share it with you? And as simple as I can put it into these terms, it's this. If your customers are searching for you on social media, what is the one single term they're going to use to search for you the most? If it is online? Women's boutique. I tell you what, Laura Benson giving you some shout outs because your SEO is amazing. And if you look at Laura's site, it's in every headline, it's in every sub headline, it's in the body copy. I could name a number of other boutiques that I love to just like follow and see how they work SEO too, now that I understand it on the back end. But it's just one simple keyword. Like, how is it that your customer is looking for you, right? If you carry plus sizes, if you cater to a curvy market, boy, do you have an opportunity, right? Get really specific about how you're going to be found and then get that word and those keywords everywhere on your website. And again, we'll talk about this a lot more inside of the boutique hub this year, but something to certainly keep thinking about because Jeff Bezos wants your data, he has his own search platform in Amazon. And just as much as it's important to understand your SEO and your search for Google, I tell you what, YouTube and Pinterest, they're search platforms. And if you understand your keywords on Google, now you go into YouTube and you download your try on sessions and you start your YouTube channel and you go into Pinterest, which is a search platform, and you start using it in your pin descriptions and in your board names and in your hashtags on Pinterest. And you're getting really consistent using tailwind. And you have an opportunity to drive a ton of traffic to your site without you constantly having to post on social media, right? This is how boutiques continue to grow over time, organically, without having to hustle for every single visitor that comes to the website. So those are two ways you can be a lot more like Amazon and not intimidated by them. But the real thing here is what makes you unlike Amazon is that you're a human being and you serve other human beings, right? Your customer service is unmatched. Your ability to understand your customer, to know her, to love her, to serve her, to know her body type, to style her, to provide product education. That is something the big box stores in Amazon can't do. And one trend that I've really been noticing a lot lately, and I know we're all aware of this, is all these Chinese knockoff sites, which love to steal your product photos, by the way. They're really, really heavy on Amazon. And so there's a lot of people that have gotten burned on Amazon, especially when it comes to fashion and like home goods, bath and beauty products as well. And you can't trust what you're going to get when you order there. And I think a lot more people are starting to wake up to that fact that, man, I really shouldn't be ordering these products on Amazon because I truthfully don't know what I'm going to get and I don't know what the quality is. But when they come to you and your business, they do know what they're going to get. And you've really got to be able to hang your hat on that. And we have to stand together as an industry to wave that flag and to talk about all of the fraud that's happening around us and why doing business with independent retailers, whether it's in your brick and mortar on your website, is different and how consumers can trust you. You know, there's so many Facebook groups out there where it's, you know, groups of women that are rallied around a cause. And a lot of times the questions they ask each other are, hey, where did you get this? Or where did you get that? And those women often are quick to share the cheapest place, which is often those knockoff sites. But in a lot of those groups I'm in, I'm starting to see many more of them say, hey, don't order from these places. Let's find a boutique that actually has this product, the original product, and the high version or the high quality version of the product. So huge thing to hang your hat on. Stop letting Amazon influence you or intimidate you because you've got game, sister. And you got to stay in your lane and make it happen for your business in 2020. Resolution number two is, well, that's ironic. Stay in your lane, right? No more comparing yourself to others and other businesses on social media. And I alluded to this a little bit ago, but again, so often we see other boutiques that are, you know, traveling to LA on a regular basis or they're set up at the NFR or they're opening a second Location or they're doing this, that and the other thing, you think, man, if she's doing it, I've got to do it. Or that's the definition of successor. If she's opening her second brick and mortar, man, she must really be making money. And I'm over here. I'm not able to pay myself yet. Have you ever had those thoughts? You know, it's easy to see the highlight reel, but without really measuring what matters, and that is profit in the bank. So you can actually help someone else or help your own family or impact a big cause or a big why doesn't really matter, does it? So I've seen some posts already in the new year where some of our members have talked about downsizing. This year they've decided that, you know what? Bigger isn't always better. And it's better to be smaller, but to be profitable and to be happy and to be fulfilled than to constantly chase this rat race that we think we have to keep up with online. So resolution number two, stay in your lane. No more comparing yourself to strangers on the Internet. All right, resolution number three. This is kind of the Yang and the Yang of social media. You know, we talk about not comparing yourself to others, but in resolution number three, let's talk about how we can use social media to continue to grow, and that is to embrace the influencers on social media and figure out how to grow with them. So there's a number of influencers today that I feel don't mesh well with boutiques. They want to promote Walmart or they want to promote Amazon, and they do it because they're trying to make a living, too. Right? And those are the big sites that have influencer programs and that have commission programs or they use like to know it. But there are a number of influencers that will still work with boutiques. We just have to make sure we seek them out and we continue to collaborate with them in a meaningful way so that it's a partnership and it's a win win for them and for you. And when I say influencer, I think that can be kind of a, like, annoying word for some people. Like, you either love it or you hate it. I don't just mean fashion influencers, but truly look for lifestyle influencers, makeup artists, athletes, fellow business owners, speakers, health and wellness coaches. Everyone has to wear clothes, right? So anyone who has clothes on their body and has some level of influence or authority may be a good fit for you, not just someone who, quote, unquote, calls themselves a fashion influencer. Resolution Number four, more video. More video. More video on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Pinterest has video and TikTok. All of the things, video views for your product, photography on your website. More video resolution. Number five, forget likes. Build engagement. Likes are just a vanity metric. Engagement is what pays the bills. Money follows eyeballs and the way that we get.