Designer Denise Albright built a greeting-card business she sold in 2007, then launched a stationery company with products like the Reminder Binder and Budget Binder. She scaled using cloud tools like Reamaze and Slack, moved into wholesale through Hubventory, and runs live-selling takeovers with a "find the yes" customer-first approach.
Chapters
Hey guys, I have a special surprise for you. Just for listening to Denise's podcast today.
Denise wanted to offer you 10% off.
Your entire order of any of the Denise Albright organizational stationery products featured on Hubventory. So use code lucky all caps, L, U, C, K, Y when placing any order. Through March 31 on hubventory.com. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from 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 this week we have a lot to talk about today. Denise Albright, I am so happy you're on the show. Thanks us for joining, joining me today.
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Ashley, I love seeing your face pop up all over the Hub. I feel like you have been so busy with so many of our members and I just think you are so creative in so many of the things that you're doing. So we're going to unpack lots of that today.
Fantastic.
I love it. Well, for anyone who has not met you yet or seen your awesome line of products, take me back. How did you get started? How did the company begin? Where did this all come from?
So, alright, so pretty much I'm an illustrator by trade. I've been an illustrator since the day I've been able to yield a pen. And so taking that at one point in my life and monetizing it was back in 1999 when I first launched my first company selling greeting cards. I used to design greeting cards for American Greetings, for Trader Joe's. And it was right about the time that the World Wide Web, that WWW dot thing was happening when I was able to launch my first company as a greeting card company that evolved to invitations and stationery. And I then sold that company in 07, right about the time when the industry was shifting to more of a just in time printing, like all of the shutterflies of the world and the tiny prints were moving in. So that's how I was able to sell my company at a very critical time. Because I look back and I think, oh my gosh, that company grew so fast that it was, I think it was put together with staples and chewing gum. So I was so grateful when one of my customers said, hey, we really need to buy content to keep this giant printing press that we just have that fills a room with content. And I was like, yes, yes and yes. Sold. My company said, oh, I'm gonna stay home and have babies and do all those things, which is sounds so wonderful until I did it. And I was like, not that I don't love being a mom. I've got three kids that I know of and love them to death, but.
I do love myself working.
So it was in that sort of period of time that I continued to illustrate and license my artwork to different manufacturers that it was. It wasn't until about 2015, 16, when the company that you see here today was born. And the company I have now is all about organizational stationery, journals, planners, budgeting tools, kids keepsakes, everything that helps a busy woman, dare I say busy woman, but all those things that she needs to kind of help declutter her brain and get, you know, what done.
I love that. I love it. Just in case, again, if anyone has not met you yet, I want to just talk about a couple of your products. Talk to me about maybe your top three best selling products. So everyone kind of has an even better idea of what's inside.
So the products we really focus on planning, budgeting, gratitude, and school keepsakes. So when it comes to the planner, the reminder binder planner was really the product that put us on the map. I've been licensing that to another company. They had a production snafu, they couldn't continue production. So I swept stepped in and decided to manufacture that product on my own. And that was really how this company got started. So it started with a planner, a coil bound calendar planner. And from there I really focused on what my customers wanted in addition to that. So everything kind of was built from filling the needs of the same person that's using the planner to then, okay, what else does she need? And typically she's doing lots of things around the house that would be commemorating the Kids Keepsakes, for one. So having things that are. For example, I mentioned the Class Keeper, which is our templatized Kids Keepsake album that kind of makes it really turnkey to keep all the good stuff and not be overwhelmed by the process and quell the guilt a little bit for having never done a baby book, by the way. That's kind of maybe why I may have brought it to market. But also, so the Classkeeper Kids Keepsake, we've got the budget binder, which is great for anyone who might be just Starting out on their money making career, whether they're graduating high school or college, or maybe they are the CEO of their own household. In my own life, I run my household like a small business. And I think people overlook the fact that even if you don't have a W2 outside the house, having the awareness of what you're spending in your own household, because if you're able to figure out what you're spending, you know, and what you're saving is just as good sometimes. Net. Net. The same is. Is as if you are bringing money in.
Right?
People overlook the fact like, hey, saving money in your house is just the same as making money. So we have the budget binder. And then the, the fourth one I would say is our Gratitude Finder Gratitude Journal. And, and in the last couple years, we saw a huge reemergence. Is that a word? Reemergence With Gratitude Journaling. Gratitude Journaling is not new. But of course, everybody, it was so easy in life just to kind of turn on any headline news and hear what's bad in the world. And so you really have to be intentional to look for the good. So that's where the Gratitude Finder gets its name. Is that what you look for? You will find. And so the Gratitude Finder Gratitude Journal is our fourth major product. So we have the reminder binder, the class keeper, the budget binder, and the Gratitude Finder Gratitude Journal. So those are kind of our four mainstay products. And then from there we've got all kinds of accessory products that complement each of those. So that's kind of where we focus on really serving our products or serving our customers with those products.
You're giving me like all the, like Pinterest mom of my dreams vibes right now. Like, I'm just so inspired because I've got all the guilt you were talking about, from not doing the baby book to having a million photos everywhere, just all those things. But I'm curious how that translates into you running your company. Because you made a statement. You said, my first company was held together with, would you say glue and.
Staples and chewing gum.
Staples and chewing gum. Okay, so how do you go from that to what feels so organized to me. The same must translate into your business. So talk to me about the systems and the processes and the things you've done that have helped you scale this business specifically.
Absolutely. So truth be told, I've been kind of the entrepreneur all my life. I was the one in grade school that I would buy the big box of charms, blow pops, and Sell them at my elementary school, by the way. So I've always had that little entrepreneurial spirit. And so that's, I've always known that that's what I wanted to do. So I have that sort of like, you know, in my DNA. And so, you know, and my first company, as you mentioned, it was put together so haphazardly because it grew so fast. Because in 1999, when the world wide web was just coming to be, that's when I started that company. So it was very easy, since I was at the tip of that iceberg, to grow so fast. And I really didn't understand the power of having solid scalable systems until I got away from it. And my solution back then really was not so much the systems, but okay, who can do it for me? Throwing bodies at whatever it is I needed to have, whatever problem I needed to solve, I would just hire on and have a team of people, which I had great people working for me. But what I realized quickly was that I was spending more of my time managing the people and then managing really what was happening in my business. And so when I sold that business and took some time off, I really kind of knew at that moment I'm like, okay, I always knew I'd probably start a new venture, which given what's in my DNA and all, but I always thought at that moment my next company is going to be a lot cleaner, meaner, money making machinery. And really what it came down to is I wanted to rely more on scalable systems and just a few individuals to help operate those so that it was really scalable and things were standardized. And as much as I can, I try to automate as much as I can in every aspect of my business just so that people know what to expect, when to expect it. And there's no manual, there's as little manual intervention as possible so that things don't fall through the cracks. Because it's when things fall through the cracks that really it takes so much bandwidth and resources to kind of unravel, fix whatever it might be. None of us like to deal with customer service issues. So we do everything we can to make everything flow the way it needs to. And I really kind of focused on that with the business I have now is how do we take care of speaking about customer service? How do we take care of customer service issues? We've got a mantra and our customer service department find the yes and cs. Because there really only is one answer that anybody wants to hear from you when they have a customer service need, they want to hear the yes. So what I focus on is really trying to find that yes for that individual Sidebar to that is that in that environment, by the way, you know, we do have to concede to giving our customers what they need and what they want. You know, and I don't mind acknowledging, I think Oprah said it best in her last show. You really need to acknowledge somebody for whatever it is they're going through. And that's what we do. We start out every customer service engagement trying to understand what's happening. You're right. That's so frustrating. How can I help? This is what we'll do. People just want to hear that we solve their need. If it's, if it costs us a second shipment or whatever it might be, that is the cheapest marketing we do. Because then in the end of the whole process, we also will ask them, hey, you know, if you, if you appreciate what we were able to do for you today, would you mind sharing by way of a review? Here's the link. And that person who may have started out as being the person who needed help, something went wrong, something unraveled. They sometimes becomes our biggest cheerleader and biggest fans. And especially as an e commerce business, you know, we live and die by those reviews. And so we might have to give a little, but then we're like, okay, it's a small business. We need to like kind of compensate and kind of offset that sort of whatever it is we had to, you know, compensate that customer with. We ask the question, we're not afraid at that point, say, hey, we were able to take care of this. We turned it around. Can we ask you a big favor? We really rely on reviews. Would you mind doing this for us? And usually at that point again, they are like, absolutely, we are so grateful to do that. And so that's where we're like, okay. So having those little things built in, having that culture, but then also even having the system, like we use cloud based customer service. We use a platform called Reamaze, which has been, it's definitely a more sophisticated program than we started out with. We started out with another one called Gorgeous, which spelled differently than the word gorgeous. But then we evolved Reamaze, which really integrates a lot of our platforms on our website, on our email marketing platform, our loyalty programs. So really having that sort of system where it's very, you know, standard. Excuse me, what am I saying? Global, like universal, Everyone has access to that. With all of the templatized answers and all the accessibility to all the different resources and tools to really help streamline any sort of customer service needs or questions that might come up. And so that was something back in the day, people were calling us on the phone, you know what I mean? That wasn't a thing to have this cloud based customer service. So having things like that to kind of really take care of the customer quickly because they, they are. You think you're busy. Customers are way more busier than they, they need the answer yesterday and so no one wants to wait 24 to 48 hours. They want to hop on the chat, get their answer. So integrating things like that into our processes was something that has so helped us in educating our customer. Whether we provide the quick answer on an Autobot or then circle back with a, you know, with a complete answer with the links that they need and whatever it is they might be trying to, trying to figure out, having those things are so important. So that's kind of how we take care of the customer piece. I know you're talking about systems. I'm going to jump to internally, some of the systems that we use that I think have helped our team. So we use within our own system. We were a virtual company before everyone went virtual in these last couple of years. But there's a couple different applications that have totally changed how we able to work together so seamlessly. Because I've got women that work with me all around the country. But I love, of course, Slack is great for messages. We use Slack quite a bit. The other program that I was kind of new to was called Trello, which is great for project management. Heck, I've even used that with my husband when we try to do things that we might be planning a trip or what have you. But it's great for project management. It's also free. And even Slack has its own free version. And then the third one that has really changed the way we actually communicate internally, we use Loom. Are you familiar with Loom?
Yeah, we use Slack, Trello and Loom. You're totally speaking my language right now.
I know, exactly.
So Loom.
The funny thing is, but what I want to jump back to is in that customer service world, I sometimes send a loom, which is just me on camera talking to a customer to answer her question.
Yeah.
So using those platforms for things that are little out of the box uses. Or I'll even have an idea I want to share with someone. I'll make a loom and share that with someone. I know I've done that with Samantha on your team where I wanted to share something. I wanted her to see my face and hear my tone and get whatever it might be that holds true when you're trying to communicate with a customer because you can say you can type words, but it really matters how they're receiving it. But if they can see your face, hear your tone, it changes everything. So I've even used Loom in that customer service world to kind of really make people feel like, I hear you, I see you, I acknowledge what's going on, and here's what we're gonna do. And then they're like, wow. And really, it just takes a couple of minutes, but it's so impactful and impressionable. So that's why I say Loom has been great for internal communication, but also communicating with customers. We'll use it as well.
I love that we've used Loom a lot for onboarding our team and just like simplifying and streamlining our onboarding process so that you can not just see it on a checklist. Right. Or just see a video of it, but it's like two pieces in one. So I love that you've mentioned that. And I hope everybody that's listening today just stops and pauses and takes note of what you are actually saying with your customer service process. Because so many times, Denise, inside the hub, I get or I see questions about this person wants to return something, but it's out of the 14 day window. Or, you know, they said this is broken, but really it's not. Or, you know, all the things that we could fight over in customer service.
But at the end of the day.
It'S not worth it. I love the fact that you're taking all of these issues and turning them into opportunities by way of, hey, what do you think about this? Would you leave us a review? And these people can be your biggest advocate, but talk about something that is unmissed because we're so focused on the price of the return versus the value of the impact. Two totally different.
Because when that, when you have that customer service opportunity and they might be talking about a $50 item that you like, oh, you know, I'm going to have to eat that $22 wholesale cost and the cost of shipping or whatever, you know, you've walked away with $22.
Okay?
So, but if you say no to that customer, if you say yes to her, find that yes that you know she wants when she goes to the yoga class or goes on a power walk or out to lunch, and she's gonna be like, do you know they just gave me my money back, no questions asked. Oh, my gosh, that's great. And that customer is gonna be an advocate, an ambassador for your company. And then she's gonna come back because she wants that buying confidence that even when things go wrong and she knows that customer knows if she was being unscrupulous in some way. You know what I mean? And we're never gonna call, as the business owner, we're never gonna call somebody out. We know, too. But you know what? It doesn't matter. That individual, she knows, right? And so what? I'm going to give her exactly what she needs, but then I'm really going to rely on her being, you know, being trusting us with her business and knowing, hey, even when things happen that are. That, you know, I'm not saying every customer has a customer service issue is being unscrupulous. I don't want to imply that. But, you know, when things do happen that are out of the customer's control or out of our control, guess what? We're going to swoop in and make it right. So keep coming back to us and send your friends.
I love that we could talk all day just on this topic alone, but I have so many more things I want to ask you about, so something that you've done. Talk me through this part of your business journey. You started as B2C, and now you've gone to B2B. Talk to me about that evolution and why you decided not only to sell the consumer, but then to also jump into wholesale as well.
So, you know, it's funny. It's my first business really was heavy into B2B, and it was a different life, you know, different sort of processes then. And we were literally getting faxed orders with people writing down what they wanted on the invitation, and they had to underline whether it was a C or a lowercase c. Like, that's how. That's where back in the day, we were working with. And so whenever I thought about going back into B2B, of course I would have, like, PTSD just thinking about all those faxes, fax orders, and people's typesetting and not being able to read what they had written. You know, it was, like, scary, cringy. And so I was always reluctant to say, okay, I'm gonna get back into the B2B. But in this. In this day and age, it's really, you know, the past. You know, the past couple years have really been enlightening for a lot of us in a lot of ways. And I really you know, my whole thing about business is evolve or dissolve, you know, and so, yeah, and so I really, you know, I'm trying to. Whenever I see something like the shift in, like the landscape of how people are buying and what they're doing and some of the challenges, we just as a, you know, fulfilling orders and shipping costs and things like that, I'm like, okay, you know, we've got a great system on the back end.
We've got great product.
We have a, we have a scalable fulfillment center. We can send out thousands and thousands of orders a day and you can't break us. We've got that. But what I don't have, what I don't have is I don't have that bullhorn, I don't have that audience to really sort of take advantage of the systems that we've built because we're really good at delivering quality product fast. So, you know, when I look at that, I think, okay, well, where do we find that? You know? And there's so many boutiques out there who, they've done such a tremendous job. Some of these owners I've met, I mean, their communities, when we do these live selling events and the communities surrounding them, they're such an amazing group of people. They're so loyal to their groups. It's so exciting to see. I mean, it's just like these groups of friends, it's like they're having a party and they invited me, you know, and so I know that I can make that boutique owner shine because I'm going to bring them useful, functional product that's going to be delivered on time, backed up with five star customer service. Really, it's my hope that I was trying to tap into those bigger audiences because we've got something in our corner. But it's a big secret because we couldn't get our voice out there. So I had to say, okay, how can I get, how can we get our stuff out there? And it was literally, we were on another platform and we overlooked her order. And I called her, I said, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, it's a new system. And I didn't realize, I didn't. I missed that order. And she goes, oh, that's okay. But you know what? Have you ever heard of the Boutique Hub? I was like, what? I was like, no, what's the Boutique Hub? I mean, literally, this was last fall. I was like, what's the Boutique cup? She goes, oh my gosh, it's amazing. She's like, it changed my life. It's like, you know, and of course she's, she's talking about the, you know, community over competition and all this. I'm like, oh, tell me more. And so literally it was in that moment that I was like, oh, Maybe the whole B2B world has changed, you know, maybe it's not so. You know what? I remember it to be back in the early 2000s. It's completely changed. And really it was because of that one call. We literally missed an order. Talk about talking about things. Like, you never know how things will unfold. I missed an order, called the customer, apologized to her. That was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I looked at I'm so sorry, it's on its way or whatever. And then we just started talking and she was one that told me about the Boutique Hub. That's amazing. I know. I'm like, let me find out about that. And then I got involved. I realized what this group is all about and I was like, oh, working with other businesses might be fun. This is a really good group. And so it suddenly made it like so much easier and sort of like it was just a different sort of marketplace, you know, and it's really. And this is so working. B2B didn't happen until I met the Boutique Hub.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I didn't even tell you that part.
No, I had no idea. Thank you for that. Are you planning to attend any in person trade shows in the next year? This is one of the most commonly asked questions we get at the Boutique Hub. What trade show can I attend besides going to the common trade shows you see us at Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas. I wanted to also get you a free list of every trade show happening in the country specific to your business. So this includes all of the regional markets in Louisiana and up and down the east coast from Minneapolis to Chicago to LA and Seattle. If you want a list of all the trade shows happening in the United States, please check on this free download. I've linked it up in the show notes for you today so you can snag that free list. And I hope I get to meet you in person. Make sure if you specifically are in Dallas or Atlanta, visit our showrooms. Ask anyone and I bet they'll be able to tell you where is the Boutique Hub. Come on up, give us a visit. We always have swag, food, drinks, and we're here just to talk about your business. So stop by anytime. And I can't wait to get to meet you in person because since I've Watched your journey inside the Hub. Like, I feel like you came on like a ball of fire. And you were active in our groups and you were meeting members and you were talking with our team, like, what else can we do? How can we collaborate? You got on Hubventory as like a very early tester on Hubventory and gave us feedback. And now you're even using Hubventory different than most brands that are using Hubventory. So I would love to hear from you. I feel like our industry is changing so much, so your fresh perspective is really valuable. Something that's come on so strong in the last, I'd say eight to 12 months has been live sale boxes and live takeovers. And these are two things you become a total master at. So can you talk me through those two strategies and how you approach each of them from your angle?
Absolutely. So I did not even know I'd heard about live selling a while ago, but really, I couldn't put my head around it. It was so unfamiliar. As simple as it sounds, you know, people want to know, wait a minute, can you really break it down for me? And that holds true of just about anything in life. The more you don't understand, the more like, unfamiliar, you'll ignore it. And so instead, and when I started hearing about live selling and I got it, I got a sense that people were succeeding at it, whatever it was. I just became a student of all, all things to do with live selling and live selling takeover specifically, because as a brand, that's really what I was going to hone in on. And so I just started asking question of fellow members, like, okay, what is a live takeover? Or what is a live, you know, what do you do on these live sales? What. What platforms do you use? Okay, this takeover thing, how is it that I can help you do what you do? And really, it was within the hub that I would ask enough questions to kind of get enough information. And then I kind of reverse engineered based on some of the things that they said they loved about working with other brands and tried to figure out, okay, what can I do to help you help me. And so really when it comes down to live selling or life selling takeovers, you know, I thought I really want to make it easy for them to do business with me, you know, and sometimes as a business business, we get so caught up, we're so familiar with our own campaigns, our own processes that we try to tell someone about it and then we forget the part that they need to walk through the front door and you're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I didn't give them the link where they can actually book a live takeover. So sometimes we really take our time on the back end to really say, all right, let's break it down. As if this person had no idea.
What they were doing.
How can they work with us? And so that's the kind of approach we took to this live sale takeovers. We wanted to make it. First of all, we wanted to explain what live selling is for those who are just as new as we were just 60 days ago. Explain to them what exactly it is, what a takeover is, and what that means for us as a brand. We're literally what it boils down to. You're giving us your login and we're standing in front of the camera instead of you. Yeah. In a very simple way, sometimes words can be a little bit more intimidating than what they really are. And the nice thing about, of course, the takeover piece is that everybody wins in that situation. The boutique owner gets to take a break from being in front of the camera. We are the experts of our own brand products, so we're able to showcase them in ways that maybe tell backstories and inspirational stories, that it's hard for someone who has hundreds of products to know every little thing, every detail about it. So having the ability to get in front of their customer and share the backstories and, and the lifestyle uses of our products is really valuable to both of us. Because in that moment too, what I found is that some boutique owners, they'll not some, but they will all watch the show. But then some boutique owners, when we ship them the product from the live takeover, during the unboxing of that shipment, they will have a secondary live sale that they conduct, taking some of the nuggets from what they learned at the takeover. And then, of course, everything's still within their systems or comments sold, and they rewind, hit play, and have another sale from unboxing of that product. So it's just kind of like, why not get more juice out of that squeeze? Right? So I thought that was like such a simple concept, but I was like, that's brilliant. So anyway, so backing up to the setup, what we thought, there's some excellent tools out there to help you get set up. So what we do is we. We create a landing page explaining what live selling is and we can share that with the group. Anyone can follow along and how we set that up. Baked into that site is a link to a calendly calendar where they can Actually schedule out the time within that link. They have got 10 questions they need to answer. That gives us everything we need to know about them. What time zone they're on, what channels on which we're going to go live, their login credentials, everything that we need to know so that we can take that information on our end. We create a trello card for each live sale event and we have our own internal checklist. We want to make sure that that person has all their digital assets. We've got an art board in Photoshop with all the different various sizes that we go in and we create those assets for that individual with the time that they need it. And then we find out of course on those questions. Do you need a product catalog in what format? Whether it's directly to commentsold or Shopify, potentially we send them those assets, the CSV files they have, the tools that they need and then once they've got everything uploaded, I log in, kick the tires a little bit, make sure everything is in the sequence of my event as it needs to be. And then we have the follow up piece all of these back into Reamaze, the cloud based customer service platform I talked about, the templatizer. To follow up, I kind of modify a few of the comments so that they know what they're doing as far as placing the orders, provide them with the proper ordering options, and then we kind of close the event that way and we invite them to keep it open for those unboxing lives or conducting their own live. And that's where the live boxing. Let's do live boxing. Live boxing. Pow pow. Sometimes you can feel that way, but the live boxes come into play. So whether they choose to create a live event based on unboxing what their shipment was, they can also order a live box. And so what I have found is that those who invite us to do a takeover become a student of some of the buzzwords and things that they know that their customers engage with and resonate with their customers. As far as how to use our products, they can order a live box, which is really just onesie twosie samples of just about everything at a very discounted price. You know, quite frankly, we wouldn't mind giving giving them away. As a matter of fact, that's how we have it baked in. If you get a live box and you do $1,000 in wholesale costs, we'll give you back the $99 that you paid, which is still even at the $99 for the what you're getting is a fraction of the wholesale cost, you know, but we get it. You need to have that product to have and to hold and to share. Right. So we're trying to give you the tools to do that. So if that boutique owner would become a student of how to sell a product, then they now have the kit that they can do their own live sales event over and over and over again or fold it in to a mix of products they might have. They might cherry pick a few things from that live sale, you know, but it's already in their system where they can add those, those products to a product selection within say comments sold, for example, so that they can have a mixed bag of whatever it is they might be selling and our products might be one of them. That's so powerful.
So just, just to clarify, so if anyone is still like if they're fuzzy on this, so they're getting the products, they're uploading them into their own system, they're doing the sale and then they're going to you and placing the full order for what they know is guaranteed. And then probably then some, I'm assuming.
Yes, right. That's exact. That's exactly the flow. And so in uploading their own system, we even provide them with the uploadable file. So that includes even though it's a file, there's URLs to even link to the images. So there's no manual creating of listings or descriptions or images or anything. We provide that in a file that's easily uploadable even to say too. We can even upload those for people within their comments so they give us our takeover credentials that we need. I can even go in and upload the listings for them if they apply directly to commentsold.
And then when you place those orders, are you shipping it to them like a traditional shipment or are you drop shipping or are you giving them the option to do one or the other.
Option number three, Ashley. So in those in that calendly list of questions, because we can ask up to 10 questions, there is a radio button are we shipping? Or a checkbox, it's are we shipping bulk to your store? Are we drop shipping to you? Are you doing a hybrid of both? And so usually because the live sale event is not just a one and done type of event, in part, I like them to know we offer drop shipping as well. In case they want to, they have the live event, in which case maybe they choose bulk. They have their live sale, we might offer a promotion or whatever it is, free gift with purchase, whatever that might be. And Then they place one order through Hubventory, a bulk order. We drop ship that big bulk order back to the shop. That's how a lot of people like to do it right now. But maybe next week they've got, you know, a couple onesie twosie orders that they want to, they don't want necessarily get a bulk order and have to reship it. They will ask us to drop ship it to them. In which case drop shipping just is putting in the address to which it needs to go. It's all blind shipping. There's no, there's no contact information on our part. There's no prices on the packing slip at any time. And then we just drop ship directly to the customer.
That's so smart. I want to go back to something else you just mentioned, because you're the only one that's doing this on Hubventory right now. And so we're working out all the kinks and creating new ways to make decisions.
I love it.
You guys really are. But there's no other platform that's doing that. And so will you talk about how you're doing or just make people aware that you can drop ship on Hub andtory with your products? And we're going to make that even easier very soon.
So the first thing, in order to drop ship, you need to make available all of your products purchasable by the each.
Right.
Is that how you would say it? Right. No case packs, no case quantities and no minimum. So you kind of have to remove those sort of criteria from your Hubventory platform, which we're happy to do. We'd already started there anyway. We weren't imposing minimums anyway. So this way someone can actually go in and order one item, place one item, and they simply change the shipping address to where it needs to go. And then we get that order just the same and we process it through our fulfillment and then we drop ship it to that individual and we can use the Hubventory platform to place that order. Now that's kind of right now how it works in a very manual way. I know we were talking before about other more streamlined flows, which just what you had sounds like there's a great sort of seamless process even getting better in the future. But really it comes down to if it's a onesie twosie order flowing through Hubventory like that, simply by changing the shipping address is how we're dropshipping. Now the only thing is that if you have say 100 drop ship orders, say you have a live sale, you got 100 orders. Exporting those as a spreadsheet on Shopify, those would be something they would submit to us directly so that we're able to upload it to our shipping software. And I know that's what we were talking about, that how people are doing business. We couldn't have known that even six weeks ago. So I know everybody, we're all trying to catch up with how people this changing landscape. And so that's kind of where we're also trying to help too. Like, okay, how can we help them do what they're trying to do with 100 drop ship orders without hand keying all of those orders individually? So that's the part, that's the hurdle that we're trying to clear now. And what we're doing is just having a spreadsheet that might be exported from Shopify that we can manage. But finding a way to do that kind of through the existing system is even better. So that's what we're funding for. And that's why I'm so excited about everything you guys are doing on the back end of Hubventory to foster that.
Well, your feedback is so helpful because we only know as much as we experiment with.
Right.
So your feedback made that possible for us.
I've got to go back.
So let's talk about these retailers that are doing live boxes, live takeovers, all of that. Talk to me about everyone. You don't have to name names, but what do the most successful experiences you've had so far? What do they have in common? What do retailers need to know in order to make this work and worth everybody's time? Because at the end of the day, their time's limited, your time's limited. You just can't be going live all the time for the fun of it, for four people to show up live. So what do retailers need to do to be successful with boxes and takeovers?
So obviously we need people the first and foremost that we're all going to benefit from. We need people in the seats. And that is no small task. I get that. Those who have established kind of live shows and get a regular audience, that's awesome. And that's amazing. And not everyone has that sort of community, but really that's what, that's what makes the difference between an event that has four people or 400. It really takes someone for that to promote that show. Because you have to look at this show as, you know, just because you're not in front of the camera, your level of work and promotion is really just the same. You just get to be, you know, you don't have to wear mascara that day. Right. So that's where it's so important that we provide to help you help us. We provide the digital images and assets and all the different shapes and sizes, stories, square, Facebook size, whatever they need so they can promote it. We even give them the swipe copy, which is just a fancy word for copy, and paste this text to talk about the show. So we try to give them everything they need to put it in an E blast, to put it on their socials, their stories, really everything that they can do to drive people to watch that show. Because, you know, if people aren't there to buy, then it really is a waste of everybody's time, you know. So we so appreciate and lean on the boutique owner to really promote the show. And we try to give them the whole entire toolbox to do that effortlessly. You know, the second thing I would say that I see is that the most successful shows. And there was. There's one gal who I saw Coffee with Crystal. I'm going to call her out because I think she does an amazing job at this. She was on the show and what I found was so amazing is every time somebody commented that they purchased on the show, she would follow up with a thank you or a comment or something acknowledging that sale every single time. And I was like, imagine that saying thank you. And I thought that was so. I mean, such a simple thing. But not everybody does that, you know, I mean, people. People are grateful and, you know, I try to call out audibles on when I see people buying things and things. But of course, I'm focusing on kind of like the show and what you. What I'm talking about, how to use the product and such and such. I'm looking at the dot, not the comments, looking at the camera, not the comments. But I thought that was. She was the one too, who told me about the secondary live that she does when she unboxes stuff.
And that's so smart. Working smarter and not harder. I love that.
Oh, I know. Because you figure everything is already there from days before for the event. And I'll tell you because, you know, in that moment, there was somebody who was watching that show who either a had to jump away and couldn't purchase what they wanted or maybe was still thinking about, you know, if you can't stop thinking about it now, you get sudden you get another chance to buy it, you're gonna buy it the second time, you know.
Yeah.
So literally, you know, she would Sometimes send a secondary order that's a $500 worth of product from the unboxing. Of course she's unboxing. And of course she has her authentic sort of excited mindset, like, oh, my gosh, look at this and look at this. And she's now touching and feeling the product. So it's a fresh sort of vibe as well. So anyway, she really nailed it. And she's done three live takeovers. We've done three live takeovers for her. And she has done countless little orders in between because she does all these little unboxing and she leaves the event live. You know, she checks in with us to make sure inventory levels are still where they need to be. And we have deep inventory of most of our items, with the exception of some of our dated stuff, which is that just happens seasonally. But anyway, she's done that, and she's really been able to sort of get a lot of residual revenue from that initial, initial takeover. So one takeover, it's not over. When the. When we. When we hit stop recording, you know, it's almost like this is kind of like the tip of the iceberg now. You gotta kind of keep up the momentum, you know, and so whether you do an unboxing live when you're unboxing, or you get a live box and refer back to certain parts of the show from before or just, you know, let people shop the replay for extended amounts of time, but I think having that. Having that engagement while people are talking and really sort of engage, you know, a lot of people do it really well, but I just thought it was. Crystal was the first one I saw. Every person, every time someone, she would thank them and, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. Because, you know, who doesn't like to be thanked? You know, they have a lot of places they can spend their money.
Absolutely, Absolutely. I just think that's so wise. And, you know, if you think about it, I think about these takeovers and drop shipping just like you would think about planning traditional inventory. And if you calculate your cost per touch when you're ordering, say, wider versus deeper, every time you get a pack of inventory in, right, you've got to unbox it, hang it, tag it, steam it, market it, shoot it, upload it, all the things, and you're touching it. Teen times. And then you're doing it all again for another pack of six whatevers. But when you're doing live takeovers and live boxes and you're taking the time to introduce someone to another brand again, that's a lot of touches and a lot of time. Why wouldn't you try to just keep going and going and going and just get as much out of that experience time after time after time as you can versus doing live takeovers with 50 different people and just continually starting all the process? Your time is worth money, and I.
Wish people would see that.
So make it worthwhile. This is so helpful.
Yes. And, you know, everything you said is kind of in our. The undercurrent or overarching in all of our products. Decide at once. Maximize the time, create a system, you know, and more is not always better because you're having to stop and restart. But if sometimes, if you just do it one time and really maximize that opportunity, you know, you're already engaging with that product. Those shirts that you're unboxing and hanging and tagging, you know, why not? Okay, how can I just get a little bit more out of this effort, you know, as opposed to stopping and starting and rethinking a new one? You know, and I say that even within my own team, you know, we'll have. We'll have social media posts and assets that we created a year ago, you know, and I'm constantly going back to my. You know, I've got a gal on my team who helps me with a lot of design stuff, and I'm like, we can just grab that old asset, maybe just spruce it up a little bit and roll it out again. Because, trust me, the people who saw it last year, you know, whatever that campaign was that we. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? You know, we don't. You know, and if we can squeeze your time down and have, you know, some things that we kind of refurbished or refreshed, you know, we can. We can do three times as much content versus having to start from a blank canvas. And you can apply that logic to exactly what you're just describing when you're pulling it, you know, pulling out a new item and unboxing and hanging and tagging it, you know, like, okay, we already. How can I sell this? How can I sell twice the amount with this effort I've already done? You know, and so really trying to, you know, get as much we. I always use the phrase, like, okay, how much juice can you get out of that? Squeeze everything, you know, so when it comes to those live selling, and I think, and really live selling, I mean, the. The benefit of it all really is that from a boutique standpoint is they're ordering just what they need, right? Which is great, but I always encourage people to say, look, pay attention to what people are ordering, because maybe you say, you know what? Wow, I really sold a lot of that cover style of that gratitude journal, and maybe these top three and order a few extra so that you can have on hand and put those in your store or make or incorporate those into your next live of your own. So to really think about, like, okay, I'm already ordering. I'm already paying for the shipping. You know, might as well adding a few more couple items is not going to move the needle at all when it comes to shipping costs. That's the smartest time to add a few more. And then you already. It's already had social proof that your people like it, you know, and so why not order a few more? So it's great because you can order just what you need. But for those items that you can kind of see firsthand that sell well, why not order a few more? Knowing that, look, this is, you know, I know this sells, right? I mean, that's kind of the beauty of it, too. You can get to test things out in a way that's like, okay, I can confidently buy a little bit more inventory so that you can do during that unboxing. And guess what? I ordered extra and this is what I have, like right now. If you get these right now, you know, just kind of really hype it up. Why wouldn't you want to have some stuff on hand where then you can ship out in your normal way?
Yeah, you're making all of my, like, my brain is just firing right now with so many different ideas. I love this. This is so good.
Like I said, we could go on for days, Ashley.
We could go on for days.
I feel the same way about you. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, I just want to tap into that brain and just keep going.
I know. Well, for. For everyone who's listening, even before we got on the podcast, I think you and I sent spent like 30 minutes just like, pew, pew, pew, firing ideas back at each other. So we're going to follow up and we're going to do this again. And I think the hub and everyone inside is going to get the fruits of our ideas right back to your company. So love it. One last question. Well, couple things. First, I'll say this if anyone wants more information. You are all over the Hub. And I know you've been so, so gracious to go live in our hub into group, in our wholesale only group. So if you're a wholesaler already, on the Hub, you've done business education for wholesalers. It's in our training library. If you're interested in carrying the products, obviously, you're all over Hubventory as well. You can order there or find you in our groups. So there's a number of ways we're going to get you guys connected. But last but not least, I want to ask you this question because I think this is really what it comes down to. You've got amazing products and they speak for themselves. But at the end of the day, if I look at your business and your past business, you're not just here to sell products. You're here for such a bigger purpose. So I would love to know down the road, you're a mom, 30 years down the road, you're a grandmother, and you're sitting on the front porch and you're talking about these amazing journeys and stories that you have and the businesses you've created, the products you've created. But when you're talking to them, what's the thing you really want them to remember most about who you are as a person and the life that you lived?
I don't know why that question, as you asking it, gave me the chills as you're talking, because I think too, when I think about that answer, I think it boils down to, I want to be able to say people could count on me. People could count on me. And I apply that to just about every facet of my life. I want my kids to know that they can count me. I want my family to know they can count on me. I want people that I'm friends with to know that I'll be there for them. They can count on me to be there. If we work together in a professional way, that you know what I'm going to do, what I say I'm going to do, count on me. Because I will be there. I will do what it takes. And if I can't, I'll let you know that, too, because you'll be able to count on my answer, whatever it is I give to you. So I don't know why I've been suddenly moved to emotion, but I wasn't planning on that at all. But when I think about, like, looking back, like what is really important, I want people to know they can count on me in any relationship in my life. And I try to live by that and live a life of integrity and honesty and really be sort of, you know, real with people, because those are the type of people that I like to work with. Those are the ones that I count on, that I call on, that I lean on, you know, and I want to be that person for others. So I try to live the life that I want to be around. So really, when it comes down to I want people to be able to count on me.
You'll love that.
So. Okay. I don't know why that got me so worked up, but it was from the heart.
Well, it's one of the best. It's one of the best answers I've heard. And you know what? The world today could use a whole lot more of you can count on me. So I love that. Thank you for sharing. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for all your time. The genuine nature of who you are speaks volumes and it boils over in everything that you do. So I sincerely mean that. Thank you for the light that you are to this world and for sharing it with us today on the show.
It's my pleasure. Thank you for creating this space where we can all be in. So I'll right back at you, Ashley.
Thank you. Hey guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope that you loved it. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review down below for a chance to be one of our featured listeners each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and how to access complete show notes and bonus downloads from our guests, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.
Sam.
