Planning Out Your Year with the Boutique Boss Planner

Hey, guys, it's time to talk all things planning and productivity just for boutique owners.

Today I'm joined by Sarah Burks, our.

Director of partnerships and education. And we're going to walk you through what's happening inside of the 2022 boutique boss planner, the only day planner built by boutique owners for boutique owners. See how to maximize the planner and all the new features coming as your feedback directed in 2022. Let's talk about your business 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. I have a familiar face with you this week. Welcome, Sarah Burks.

Hello, everybody.

If you're listening to the podcast on audio this week, you should probably watch it on YouTube because we're twinning by accident. I like your shirt.

Total accident. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, we're both wearing these, like basic layering tank tops.

Is it.

Are we wearing the exact same shirt? Where did you get your shirt?

I'm pretty sure it's the same shirt. The Cotton and Birch in Sparta, Wisconsin. Shout out to Julie, Julie, that I.

Also got this at Cotton and Birch.

So what?

I, if I was a boutique owner at Market right now, walk up to you and I would grab the back of your neck and I would look at the tag in your shirt because that's just what you do when you're with boutique owners. Do you know I can't read my own tag, but do you know what brand these are? I think everyone needs to know.

Yeah, yeah. It's another love. And it is. I have this in about every color Julie sells it in. It's just my go to throw on. You don't have to have never ironed it. Pull it right out of the dryer. It looks great every time. Easy goes with everything. So it's my definite go to.

I think about when we're talking about assortment planning, you know, I talk about bread and butter products like what's the bread and butter that just is going to constantly sell all year long. And to me, that's exactly what this is like. You can wear it all year long. You can layer it all year long. Easy. Really easy.

Yeah. Your cost per wear here is fantastic. Highly Recommend them highly. Recommend them in your stores.

We could talk about clothes all day, but we actually came on the podcast this week to talk about planning and the Boutique Bus Planner. Are you ready? I'm so excited for this. Every single year, I get so excited about this because I think the Boutique Boss Planner is such a good example of done is better than perfect. And the first year we created this planner, what year was that? 20. 2018. 2018. 2019. Somewhere in there. Yeah. And it was not very good. Yeah, it was done. You know, it was 2018. We proved a concept. We put the information in there, but we didn't have a hardcover. It wasn't then pretty metal spiral binding. It wasn't all that. We just, like, got the information together, made sure it was everything, you know, the boutique owners wanted, and then continue to evolve year over year. And I am so excited, you guys. I know we've been dropping Pictures of the 2022 Boutique Boss Planner all over social, so I hope you've seen it. I love the red and pink together, but this year is better than ever again. And so today we're going to talk about some changes and updates that are coming to the Boutique Boss Planner and also what's launching with the Boutique Boss Planner. So, Sarah, you're. You're in the know, you're the insider. Are you going to walk us through the Planner this year?

Oh, you bet. Jesse Jarvis and I have been crazy busy on this all year. And, you know, as you said, you know, done is better than perfect. And the thing that Jesse and the team and I have really, we've really, you know, paid a lot of attention to is you as the consumer's voice. All of you retailers out there who have bought the Planner over the years, we're constantly asking you for feedback, and we're bringing that into every new addition, every update. So thank you guys for all your guidance on that. And we want to build a product that you're going to continue to use. And so, yeah, this year is bigger and better than last year. So we've taken a lot of those suggestions and asks, and we've implemented those straight into the planner for 2022.

So before we get into what's new, Sarah, let me just back up for a second. If someone is not yet familiar with the Planner, can you tell me what is the Boutique Boss Planner tell everyone and what is its main purpose for boutique owners?

Oh, man. Absolutely. So I gotta. I always have to tell the story where the Planner really came from. So when we had our store, my business Partner and I would carry around, I had this binder and I called it like my bible, my business bible. And it was ugly. It was just, I mean it was ratted and torn up. And I would carry this thing with us everywhere. To the point when I say everywhere, I mean it sat next to the slot machines with me at Las Vegas at Mac Magic. When I would go from magic and I would be running around and decide to stop at a slot machine. Before I went to the hotel, the planner sat right there. And I remember actually we were at a roulette table one time and this guy goes, what is that thing? And I just was like, this is my life. This has everything in it. It had everything from my flight plans to get to the mat get to market to my open to buy. What vendors were working, who are our top salespeople, what are the things I will never buy again? Right. We, we analyzed our hours of operation. What were the best times to sell in our store. Everything was in there month by month, right. So the thing was pretty massive. But it was something that when I would, we'd be at market, we'd go to buy products, we'd look back and say, no, we're not going, we're not even going into that booth or we're going to stay away from that category because that's not what we need. But that's basically what it came down to is the boutique owners need a way to stay organized. And with that.

All right, so Sarah, let's first of all, this, my boutique boss planner is a hot mess right now. This week is a hot mess. Let's walk through some of the standard features that people are going to find inside the planner and then we can talk about what's in addition this year. But kind of walk me through some of these sections and what's inside and how we can use them.

Perfect. So the whole thing starts out with some goals, right? Because as you look at your the new year, it's a brand new opportunity for you. So setting down and writing out your goals, what is this next year going to bring? What are you hoping to accomplish? Who's going to help you and guide in this, where are you at today on January 1st and where do you want to be December 31st? And you know, putting it down in writing helps it become alive. Right? And you're acknowledging it and hopefully you are holding yourself accountable for that. So there's a lot of goal planning and self assessment there and really sit down and think, all right, what tools do I have that I Need to be utilizing more. Right. Or what's holding me back? What are some of those things I really want to accomplish? But what are some of the things that I need to delegate out? What are some of the things that I need more training on or who else do I need to bring into my team? So there's a lot of that in the beginning of the planner that really opens your eyes as a business owner for you to stop, reflect and make some real decisions and commitments in your business versus just get up, do the deal, go home, get up, do the deal the next day, and just at the end of it, be like, man, I didn't reach the goals I wanted this year. Didn't really go like I'd planned. But what is your saying about planning? Right? Like, you have got to commit to this. You've got to. You've got to write this out. You've got to be accountable for it. And that's exactly what we built in at the beginning of the planner. So I think that part's really cool. And I've heard some really great testimonials about that as well.

Yeah. The saying is, show me your calendar, you'll show me your priorities. So it's got to be front and center. The why, in terms of what we do, why we do what we do has to be front center. Otherwise, you know as well as anyone in retail, it's all highs and lows.

Right.

And burnout's a real thing. And it's a constant, like, wheel that we're on. It's a fast turn business. So if we aren't motivated by why we're here in the first place, it's not by achievement, I can tell you that, because achievement comes and goes so fast in this industry. So it's got to be deeper. And that meaning has to be front center in the planner for sure. All right, Sarah, next section. Talk to me about the tracking sheets that are all inside the planner.

Awesome. Yes. The tracking sheets are really where the whole idea came from. Because, you know, as I was preparing to go to market, the weeks before market, leading up to it or sitting on the plane, I was getting, you know, getting that game plan on. I needed to know what I was really going to do when I got to market, because that is time away from my family, time away from my store. I had payroll, I was paying, you know, for people to manage everything while I was gone. And ultimately, the more advanced I got as a boutique owner, the more I realized the expense of going to market. In the beginning, I was Kind of just like, oh yeah, woohoo, vacation. I'm going to Vegas, gonna hit up a show and I'm gonna buy all these fun clothes and it's gonna be great. Well then all of a sudden, you know, real fast, I realized, yikes, that credit card bill gets pretty heavy the month following market. Maybe I need to be using my time a little wiser, right? Or I'd get home from market and I was like, oh crap, I totally forgot to go see this guy or I forgot to buy from this vendor or buy this product. Well, my time was gone, right? Like I in small town Wisconsin, I wasn't gonna just turn back around and go to a major market. Those only happened every so often. So it was time to get organized. And with that we built these tracking sheets and they lived in that ugly binder that I was talking about. But I was able to reference those and see what categories are winning in the store, which ones are not doing so hot, right? Which ones do I need to continue to feed, what do I need to fix and what do I need to forget? Like what is it when I walk into Magic or I walk into Atlanta Apparel Market, do I need to like put my blinders on and not go to that area? Because that doesn't work for me. My trending numbers, what I'm seeing in my data here is showing me stay away. Sarah, you might like it, but your customer doesn't want it. So that's what we use those tracking sheets for. And you know, we were diligent about it. We were diligent about tracking trends in our, in our stores with our customers, buying history with the discounts we were having to give, who was shipping on time, who was not. All of those kind of things helped us become the better buyer for our business. And I, I don't like to really use the word buyer, but that's what people relate to. But often I will say investor, right? Because it's, we're investing as retailers. We're investing in a product to turn around and sell it at a profit. We're not buying it to keep it forever. Hell, we don't want it forever. We want to turnaround, right? We want to turn it into cash fast. So that investment of our time and of our money is super important. But if you don't track it, you're just kind of guessing she profits now.

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Yeah. Only a track number grows. And I think one of the things I love about the tracking sheets is we have access to these in QuickBooks, we have data in Shopify and then we have social media tracking on top of it. We have this data all over the place. And what I love about these sheets is that they encompass all of that, from website traffic to inventory management to sales numbers to goals, and everything's in one place. So as an owner, when you're sitting down and operating as a CEO of your business, it's all in one place. And every time you have a date with numbers, it's all in one place. And again, it's only a track number grows. So when it's top of mind, it's so much easier to take action on. I love that. Another thing that is so easy to take action on is the done for you checklist. They're inside of the Planner. And I think about one of our roles at the Boutique Hub is to be able to see the forest through the trees for people and kind of bring boutique owners to, oh, my gosh, this needs to be done before you, you know, forget that it needs to be done. Can you talk to me about some of the checklists that are in there throughout the Planner?

Yeah. So all you boutique owners or small business owners that are sitting here listening, what was. I guarantee this has happened. You've went to do something in your store and you're like, oh, do I do that now or do I do that later? Or what are the other things I need to be making sure before tax season that I have done right? Because otherwise you're going to be blindsided by like four days of craziness, of trying to get all these things put together to meet this end of the quarter deadline or whatever it is. So we've, we've mapped those things out every quarter about things as a retailer, as a small business owner that you need to be remembering, you know, that keeping an eye on so you don't get blindsided later. And the thing about we get Asked this, and I just want to, I mentioned this, right? Now we get asked like, why is this not just a digital version? Why do you have it in print? You know, I'd prefer if it was in digital. And the thing I just want to go back and say is your business is going to grow and when it grows, you're going to need a team. Right. And you're going to need a team to get it to the next level. And I'm a big believer in open book management and I'm a big believer in seeing, seeing the scoreboard. Right. We talk a lot about sports and I've never played a game of basketball, a full game of basketball without knowing what the score is. But that's what we're asking our team to do. If we don't turn the dang scoreboard on for them to see what's happening, how much time is left? Where are we at? Are we meeting our goals?

Right.

And that's what I love about writing these things down in the planner. Because at any moment when you're talking to your, your staff in a team meeting or whatever it is and saying, hey, this is where we're at, you're going to have the data to back that up and you're going to show them. And as you're sitting on the plane and your managers next to you, you guys can be going over these things. You don't have to have a screen in front of you that you're flipping back and forth from. Right. Everything is right in front of you. And when you are giving a to do list or checklist to your manager about things that they can help with, or maybe it's your, your high school kid that comes in just one hour a day. You know, give them some accountability. With these checklists and these reminders, it can be as simple as one of the things we have in here is backing up your data. Right, Right. Cleaning out the old files. Some of those things that if you don't do it, it just becomes a big weed in the garden. Taking light over your life.

Yeah.

And next. And it sets you back. So getting eyeballs on those things and getting a little heads up. This is coming soon. Be ready. You know, we're all busy people with our head down doing the deal, and next thing you know, we're like blindsided by something. So that's why we, that's why we did those checklists, that's why we, we've got all those tracking sheets is to help you see, like you said, the forest through the trees.

Yeah. And I love that it's pre planning checklists. But then a really cool feature of the planner that I've always loved is the end of month reflections. So it's one thing to create a goal and to make a plan. It's another to be accountable to. Seeing how it went. And like post calling, I guess, is what Eric and I say most often is we're going to post call and see how did it actually go? What could we do different next time? How do I feel about this month? Because sometimes our emotions will tell us one story about how the month went. And then when we sit down and we actually look at the data and we reflect on the right questions. Right. You get better answers if you ask the right questions.

Yeah.

When you actually reflect on the data, you're like, oh, this month was much better than I actually thought it was. But my emotions were taking me down a completely different street. So talk to me about. There's a couple sheets at the end of every single month that are the reflections that we can look back on.

For sure. One thing I wanted to add that I forgot. The beginning of every month, you guys, you will notice something that is super important to us. The very first thing at the beginning of every month is on your checklist is pay yourself. That is on everything. And then at the end, it's like, did you pay yourself? We want to make sure that you are putting yourself first because as Paul Erickson says, you are the very best employee you have. You're the one that shows up on time, you're the one that stays late. You're one that gives it 110 every time. So, hey, pay yourself. You've earned it. So that is. That is a big part of those checklists, the beginning and the end. Right. But in that reflection, it's like, what did I do this month? How did it go? What did I do well? What did I struggle with? You know, what were my busiest sales days? What promotions did I run that worked well? What could I not give away? This is one of my things that I loved. I love to look back at, like, what was that product that I could not pay to have somebody take? Right. How often did I re merchandise my website or re merchandise my store? Did I get complacent in that? What was I doing a good job of making things new again? Those are all really important things. What was the weather like? So that is something simple for all you brick and mortar stores and where we're at in Wisconsin, that can really drastically affect our entire month. We could have a February where we, we had a blizzard for, you know, six days in, no foot traffic, right? And if I go ahead and compare that February to the year before when it was 45 and sunny, I might get really down on myself. And the next year, you know, I might buy different from my inventory needs for February thinking oh no, we're trending lower. Well no, Sarah, you had a blizzard, right? You're not guaranteeing you're going to have that blizzard again. You're not guaranteeing you're going to have 45 degree days. However, you have to look at the whole big picture. So that month in reflection, what it was, your maintained markup, what were some of the social goals that you, you know, you reached or you didn't, what were some of the big things you did? You will never remember these things if you don't write them down. And if you think, oh I'll just look back at my social next year, well that takes time and who knows if it's going to be there or not, right? So those things in reflection I think is really important understanding at the end of the month we're big about this and for all of you guys that are wondering how much inventory do I need to have on hand at a certain time, we've got that open to buy plan mapped out in here where you can write down what did I have in sales, what did I discount, what was my inventory on hand? And I asked you to do this by retail and by cost, right? What did I receive during that month and what do I have on order going forward? And it acts, it asks you to write those things down every single month so you can track those things. And guys, it's, it's amazing the story your inventory numbers will tell you when you track it. Over time you'll become so much better of an investor of your money and much more profitable and you'll start turning your inventory faster because you are seeing trends and you're seeing demand. So I just that part of the end of the month reflections, I think that is a non negotiable part of your day or your month as a business owner is to dive deep into those and really own those numbers.

Such a great thing to bring your team in on. And I love what a better planner you're going to be the next year when you can look back on the previous year and have all that information so readily available. Sarah, there's five new features.

Oh, sorry. One of the other things I forgot to mention is your payroll. Tracking your payroll, I think this is so important. And a lot of times as small business owners, we just. If somebody says they can work, they work. If somebody says they can't work, they don't work.

Right.

And I know there's that struggle out there that you're like, I don't want to upset them. I don't want to give them the hours they don't want or whatever it is. But ultimately, the payroll dollars that you're paying out have got to work for you. And you shouldn't just be paying for warm bodies.

Right.

You shouldn't just be paying for somebody to stand around and take up space. So we also have a place in the planner for you to track your payroll. What was your goal for the month? Where did you end up? Right. Were you over or were you under? And then compare that to your productivity by your sales staff. And maybe it's. Maybe you're online. So they're not actually in a store selling, but they potentially are in the warehouse packing and receiving. And you can compare that back. Right. With how many products they're getting out the door in how many hours. And. But yeah, that's another big part of your monthly tracking to keep you budgeted and on track.

Yeah, I love that. There are five new features this year that we're adding to the planner. Let's talk about those real quick and what everyone can look forward to for the 2022 planner, the first new feature, you want to tell them what it is.

Okay, so we've extended this goal planning section of the Hub or the. I'm sorry. Of the boutique boss Planner. The reason why is because in the Hub, we talk all the time about diving deeper into these goals. Right. To say January 1st that you want to have a 500,000 doll and then say go to your. To your staff is not. Doesn't really help. Right. So it's important to dive down. What does that mean monthly? What does that mean weekly? What does that mean daily in the store? Right. And then taking that even further down. What does that mean?

What.

What is our goal for social? What is our goal for if we're doing live sales, if we're doing in store sales versus online, or if we're doing all of it, how are we going to achieve that overall goal in these different buckets? So tracking those things is really important. And that was the one thing, you know, we realized we weren't doing the best job of asking in the previous year's planner. So we have a much more detailed goal setting section in the 2022 planner. Which I think you guys are going to love. And that was a request from many.

Of you, love that second new section has to do with fourth quarter and holiday planning. Tell us what that's all about.

Okay, so the holiday planning and promotion section, this is new this year. This is a way is we're always talking about open to buy planning, we're always talking about forecasting and we're always talking about, you know, getting ahead of the game. Right? Because a lot of times it's all of a sudden, I'll just use the fourth of July as an example because that seems to be a big thing. All of a sudden you're like, oh crap, it's July 1st. Did anybody order those 4th of July T shirts? Okay, Nope, they didn't. And so we don't get that this year. Same thing happens with Black Friday, you know, and this year with P. And that's why we've mapped this out for you to plan around early around your holidays, your promotions, what you want to achieve, set your goals around them. What are you going to be, your big products that you want to be delivering, what are your highest margin products, what would be your door buster products, things like that. And then we go back and set reminders for you to remember to get those things on in store or in your warehouse and get the photos taken and get the promotion started, get all the marketing rolling, build that excitement for that engagement so when the product does launch, you're ready to go. All of those things that, you know, make a promotion work. It takes planning. And so that is new in the Boutique Boss Planner for 2022, the total guide on that and mapping that system out so you can better forecast that.

Those are super helpful. The third new feature has to do with social media too. There's been obviously with the rise of TikTok and just how we're tracking a little bit different with social media this year those changes have been made. Can you add to what's new in terms of social media tracking?

Yeah. So the social media game continues to change, but we, you know, I'll eat crow on this. A while ago I was like, no to TikTok, but I've jumped over to the other side as well and it has become a great resource, a great marketing tool for stores, for small businesses and they're making it fun. So that is continuing to, you know, take time from you and your business to implement and to strategize. But with that we're seeing we can cross over on different platforms with things however we want to Know what is working? Where are we finding traction? Right. Or where are we just sitting there wasting our time and throwing out content that nobody is seeing? And it might be we're doing it wrong.

Right.

But it doesn't do us any good to just keep doing it right. That whole, you know, continuing to do the exact same thing, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. And we only have so many hours in our day. So our new extended social media tracking sheets really help you get your eyeballs on what's trending, what's not. Where do I need to fix my marketing system, my process, right? Like how do I make it better? How do I use this time that I'm allocating with my social media person or with, you know, maybe it's myself? How do I make sure it's, you know, I'm getting more fruit out of my efforts there?

Yes. Fourth change is something that's not necessarily an addition, but something that we're actually removing from the planner and keeping it digital so that it's easy to update and change just because we know how crazy this year has been. Talk to me about market dates and the best ways to find market dates for boutique owners.

So this is something that I it. Jesse and I were really torn about this, you guys, because I love having the market dates right in the planner. Well, we all know what the supply chain is like this year and market dates, bless them, they've been through a whirlwind as well trying to get everything scheduled. So they didn't have their market dates in time for print of the planner. So therefore you'll get the market dates. Don't worry, you'll get all of those dates. They'll be given to you digitally. Then we ask that you're, you know, take those and put those back into your planner. But we that will come with a download. That's something that we'll be able to insert with your planner. You will get them, don't worry. They just unlike the last year, which was a kind of a train wreck anyway, 2020, when we had all the market dates in there and then half those didn't. We couldn't. They didn't work right. Yeah, life got put on. But nonetheless you're going to get them. They're just going to be showing up a little bit different this year.

Yep. And there are still whether you have the planner or not, they will always be in the Hubs training library as well. Just so everybody has access to that really easy where to attend market. All right, last thing anyone want to guess what this is going to be. This is a brand new product to go along with the Boutique Boss Planner that I'm super excited about because coming from the social media and the marketing side of things, you guys know I love spreadsheets. I'm a freak in the sheets as they say, with the spreadsheets and I love planning out all of the social media. But now we have to have a way to do that on paper. So talk to me about the brand new content creator.

Man, if I could give props to everybody that mentioned this, we'd be here for a couple hours. But this is something that we've been asked and it's something that Ashley, you train on this all the time and you know, it just made sense to marry the two. So the new content creator is something that is going, you are going to be able to day by day, channel by channel, mark and, or track and plan what you're dropping when, where you're dropping it, right? And it is going to be, it's going to be a game changer because ultimately we're playing on so many different courts. We, we have, we're playing the game, but we're on so many different courts, right between YouTube and tick tock and email and text and reels and stories and pages and groups and yeah, whatever, that. It tends to become a real blurred out mess and you get very, very, I don't just tired of it, all right. Or you start to make assumptions that you've done it and the next thing you know you realize, oh shoot, I've been MIA from Pinterest for gosh, about a month now. And so ultimately the goal too is to reuse content, recycle content so you're not constantly reinventing the wheel. So that's where this content creator has really come in. You guys, this thing is a beast. It is going to be an absolute game changer. Game changer.

I'm super excited about it because I love planning our content in spreadsheets. But for some people, they just need to see it in person like on a notebook. And they were trying to fit all their content planning in with their Boutique Boss Planner. And really it's two different things. One is managing time and productivity and task and the other is a marketing strategy.

So I love that.

It's, it's two separate notebooks, it's two separate planners. They're hard. One's hardcover, one's not hardcover, and the content planner is not dated. I want to mention that too. So you can pick up anytime during the year Try it out. There's no dates associated with it, so I really like that feature of that planner as well. So tons of new things happening.

It's 365 days.

Yeah, it's. It's thick.

Yeah. It's every day, all day. Guys, it's not like we. It's not like in the planner where your calendar, when we time blocked our days that Saturday or Sunday or something like that, as a small thing, you have everything. 365 days of this content that print off the book is a beast every day. And that was something else that we gave you more room in the actual planner too, for note taking and writing. And that was something that we heard a lot of in. In the content creator. There's room for you to make notes. There's room for you to really map out your. Your content for the year. And I think it's a. It's a nice marriage between that marketing bundle that. That Shannon did for 2021 that allows you to really get creative. So take that with this content creator. Oh, my gosh. Your social media game just was completely elevated. That's. Those are huge tools.

Huge tools. Well, guys, if you're excited about the 2022Bouisine.