So Far in Season 5: Highlights and Takeaways

All right, it's time to beat that summer slump with some of the best lessons we've learned thus far on the season of Boutique Chat. This week as we head into a holiday week over the 4th of July, I wanted to give you just a mid season recap of some of my favorite episodes so far and some highlights that you can take away and put into action in your business right away. So this week I hope you enjoy some of the highlights from Amy and Anthony Ekren, the founders of Inherent Clothes Clothing company, one of my favorite modest women's clothing brands, doing an amazing job of building an incredible e commerce business. Also, Mishiko Seto, owning several brick and mortar locations on the east coast serving an older demographic and a tourist clientele. How she has built, I mean an empire out of her brand. She talks fast and packs in a ton of information. Definitely don't miss that highlight. Then Jane Casper. Jane is my go to girl for everything, email marketing and text marketing and she's going to break down some of the things that you must know right now about email and text message marketing. Angela Smook is going to show up showing us all that we need to know about trends in home and gift. You guys, there is such an opportunity for apparel stores to be selling home and gift and home and gift stores to be selling apparel. Our industry has never had crossover quite like it is right now. So Angela does a really great job of breaking down those opportunities, but also some commonly asked questions and maybe even misconceptions that we have about one industry or the other. That plus many more highlights from this season so far on Boutique Chat. Then you guys make sure you set your calendar. You come back next week. Launching next Tuesday. I am so pumped about this is our 10 year anniversary series. Not only is it the boutique hub's 10th anniversary, but several stores in our in our industry and in our community are celebrating their 10 year anniversaries as well. So we brought them on the show to interview them about their experience and the lessons they've learned across 10 years of business. Next week I'm going to be sharing with you my personal lessons. 10 lessons deep that I have painfully, expensively, you name it, learned in 10 years of business. And I hope these resonate with you. No matter how many years you've been in business, whether you're brand new or or you've been in business longer than I have, I hope there's a nugget in there for you. So you guys all that to say I hope you enjoy all of these highlights this week from the best of our season so far and be sure to come back next week because you are not going to want to miss our 10 year anniversary series. You guys, thanks for listening to the Boutique Chat podcast and let's jump in with some of my favorites from the season so far. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. Anthony, I know you're so good at analyzing on the marketing piece, I would say like the SEO and the traffic and understanding like you said, is this model performing or is it the product that's performing all those Walk me through a day in the life of your brain when it comes to marketing and how you start to analyze those processes to help Amy better understand the social media and the marketing piece, but also the buying piece. What are the things you're looking for?

Oh boy, that's a big question. Ashley.

So margins.

Margins. It's, it's really. No, it's really just like so I didn't have a background in boutique obviously as well, but I came from more of an analytical background in the agriculture industry. So it's really just finding like sometimes I come to work, it's like, okay, what am I going to find today that could help? And then it's thinking through the process and figuring out okay, what metric would work well. And so sometimes it's a little non traditional in terms of like the verbiage the boutique uses and the marketing world uses, but a lot of it revolves around margin or you know, what's working in any of the social medias or email campaigns and then why did it work and how can we replicate it and grow that?

That's so good. So do you guys, how do you communicate that on a daily basis? How do you take what you found and make changes and implement it and how do you argue it out when you disagree?

247 all over.

Just kidding.

We do a metric meetings with our team and so once every two weeks we're meeting with each individual here and we have big goals as a team and then we break those up into action items every two weeks so we just chink away at it. We have a big meeting planned here soon and I Have two folders this big that scare everybody, and he takes it to the team and breaks them down into little ones. But we get there that way instead of the way that I have with the big folders. And so we just check in every two weeks. We all work on something together and individually and get those knocked off.

Yeah. So, like a great example right now is the person that runs our website, we're working with some after purchase upsells. Right. It's like you have all the options in the world to do and it's like, okay, so how do you. Where do you start? And then how do you get better at it? And it's just, a lot of times it's honestly. And this is Amy's help, but just starting, right? Just do the first thing, you know, like, I can get ahead of myself and never start something because it's overwhelming or I'm just not quite sure how to do it. But just start it and then measure it and then get it better. So we're working with like after purchase upsells right now and figuring out the right combination of product to that compliments, whatever the customer's purchasing, and then just increasing the upsell percentage a little bit.

A little bit.

A little bit. Until finally it's like, okay, I think we got this. We understand it. And then moving on to the next thing. So that's like an example of something we would work through on our metric meetings.

That's so helpful. And it's funny because I just, knowing you two, I can see how your personalities are so complimentary in that way. Like, Amy, like, has this great idea, hey, let's do this thing. And then Anthony's like, okay, like one piece at a time. But like, what a great compliment to one another. But I know you guys also have built an amazing team around you. Talk me through that process because, Amy, I know it goes back to what you were saying about even just your mission, vision, values, and the very initial branding you did. That's at the core and the foundation of all of your team.

Right.

How did you first start to grow that team as you took the company over? And then we'll talk about what it is today.

Yeah, I think we've been in a lot of different stages in our business and currently we're like, you know, if you have our values of keep it classic and simple, if you have a strong work ethic, if you're here to create a community of positive people, if you have integrity, spirit of humility and you want to serve others, you can be on this team. And if I totally trust all those things, then we're going to be okay. And a lot of things are teachable, and if you don't have those values, then I don't care if you are the smartest SEO person in the world and you're in our door. If you don't have those, it's not going to work here. And you have to believe in the purpose, too. I think as people come in the door and they're with us, they, you know, you start to bleed the brand and you really believe in it, and you work together towards something, and that feels really good. And so now we are hiring for more specific talent in different areas, but those values are still so important. And so that's kind of the core of our employees. And we make sure they have those when they walk in the door. And you don't want to just quick hire someone to get something done. You know, sometimes that takes time, so.

And really too, it's like we had to on our own systems first and make sure that whoever comes in the door, we can set them up for success because we've had. Yeah, the other way is not very fun.

Yeah.

So systems are everything.

Yeah. Yeah.

I want to talk more about your systems in just a minute, but good. Just going back to this team as you've, like, identified, they fit the culture. Right. They the cut, and they're on the team. But then I see you guys going above and beyond with always doing, like, personality profiles, and you've got these, like, pictures of all your team on the wall that talks about who they are. How do you continue, like, as your teammates even continue to grow as individuals and change as individuals? How do you continue to maintain that culture over time and help them to grow in their positions over time?

Yeah. And this is some things I've learned from our other family business. But who you are at home and who you're at work are the same person, and they need to be. And like, I want to encourage personal growth as much as growth. And if you're not okay at home, you're not going to be okay here. And that's super important to us. And so faith first, then family, and then work. And how can we help you grow in your faith and your family so that when you come here, you're ready to rock and you're not worried about everything else? And I think the most important thing is getting people in their joy spot. And so we do a disc profile test, and that is a free one online. That's. And you can also buy a version that's better. But then also the Enneagram test. And also we do working genius, which is a new one. And so their personality test to see where your strengths are. And the working genius is actually where your working strengths are. And if you're not in your joy spot there, you're going to be. It's going to be awful. You're going to feel that. And so before we actually hire a person, we analyze all those things and make sure that the position they're going to be in is going to fulfill their joy spot. And then that helps so much. Weed out through any anything in the beginning and gets them right where they need to be almost at the start.

Yeah.

And then we have an employee break room and we have all the pictures everywhere of everybody and it's like your favorite food, all those things posted. So that when you're working with others in the business and you're maybe frustrated with something, you can look at that sheet and be like, oh right, she's an enneagram 8. She needs control. Okay? We got to make her feel like she's got control in this situation so that she will perform well. And it's not manipulative, it's actually just understanding. And it's so important. And I think you can get so inundated with day to day tasks and like we just got to get stuff done. But if you care and work with others in that way, the, the work will get performed at top level and that's so important.

I get a lot of questions on that. How do I become a cash based business? And what I'm gathering from you is you just have to be extremely disciplined. Like you planned your numbers, you were very disciplined to those numbers. Right. So on a weekly basis, walk me through what metrics or what reports are you living and dying by?

Well, I'm not the best on that anymore because I can definitely see I've lost my banking niche because I'm more the visionary in my company now. And you know Alyssa, she's more the chemical engineering number cruncher. It is funny because I always thought I was the math science number cruncher person. And I really see, I think that's what people push me to be versus I am definitely more the visionary person and I need the organizers who are doing all that reports and stuff behind me that that isn't me. But I think for the first so many years when I started too, if you're just starting with one store, you know, you're probably that you are probably the Salesperson, the janitor, you're doing everything. I mean, I was wearing every hat on. And that was the whole joke. And that was how I finally sold my first in person. I'm like, you'll never be bored because you never know what's going to happen every day. You know, you could be in delivery, it could be this. But it also, for me, with the flexibility, as soon as, I don't know, I, I, I'm very good. I hate that word pivot anymore. We're all tired of using that word. But pivot, I, I know I can move around and make business happen no matter what. And I guess that's where I never let nothing else ever control me, you know, and so that I always had metrics because I knew what I needed to make. And I paid myself from day one. Ashley. Yeah, I pay myself very well now. I, I feel like every store has to pay me for me to be worth it to keep all these stores. So, you know, and so I think that's part of it is, is, is not just, I mean, I put a lot of money back in, I took what I needed. Did I know, maybe not splurge in the beginning or whatever like that, but I also knew I was, we're on it like, you know, our 12 o' clock read, our 3 o' clock read. Where are we at for the day? How much more do we got to get in? And it's that discipline and making sure you're, you're not, wait till the end of the month. Oh, we're down $10,000. Right. It's solving it each day as it goes. Because I can see, like, we were lucky. January, no snow days. But it doesn't mean that we're going to lose on a short month of 28 days into February, you know, what's going to happen with us? And so we're always pivoting and changing if we have to, to try to make sure that we can do everything in our control to make sure we, we meet our goals, we don't sit on product and so forth with that. You know, that's, that's an important part of it too. I don't know. I just have it all spelled out. I know my budgets, I know what my things are. You know, I just know everything I have for the year and what I've got to pay. I was always that, I think, is I did mortgages and loans, so I always had to crunch people's cash flow and their ratio and their debt ratio. Because you got, because I see Many people eat up all their, all their income for paying expenses and then they have no product, no money for product, you know, to go buy a new product and keep it going. I see people get in that vicious cycle and I've always separate. And I was, I did have. Right from day one. And I hadn't even read the book that everybody reads on profit first. Whatever. I had a separate account for product money, separate account for payroll. Separate. I had that set up that way. As a banker, you should see even how I pay my credit card bills. I do pay by each vendor. I'm a crazy person, but I like it because I feel like when you're in front of your money, you know where your money is.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's kind of what I've always done and it's worked.

Yeah.

If I could summarize that for someone who's listening, I. What I'm hearing you say is, number one, your cash flow analysis is key. You have a budget, you know what you're expected to sell, you know what you're expected to spend. Right. You know what your margins are going to be. And now you know how much money you're going to have rolling over from month to month. So cash flow is huge. But beyond cash flow, you have an open to buy. You know what inventory each store needs. I know you're a fanatic about buying, and I'm going to ask you about that in just a little bit. But you have a plan. And I think that's like if in the most basic of basics, you've got to have a plan, you've got to have those numbers and live and die by those numbers. And I think it's just too easy to fly by the seat of our pants and say, well, how much money's in the bank? I'll just go spend that in inventory. No, you gotta, you've got to be analytical enough just to have a plan.

It is because I mean, I'm always planning like the last week of the month is our payroll, is our rent. Rent accounts, are we sitting good with our money? I mean, you just have to sit back and look at it because. Right. Because you can get you does. Are we perfect? No. And you know, sometimes you budget, you're gonna, you, you think you're gonna have your same salespeople here that are doing great, and then all of a sudden you don't have that staffing and you're not turning that profit. You always are going to have a little bit things to juggle with. But you got it. You got to have that because that keeps you feeling like. I see sometimes people get so crazy in their business and I think if you have that foundation, then you're not going to make yourself sick to your stomach or let that stuff get to you. You know, it'll work out. And as you build, as long as you keep learning and you know you're going to keep earning, as always, I always tell my staff, I said, as long as we keep learning, we're going to keep earning. And you know, and we have solutions, we solve shit. Okay, I don't want to say that word, but. Yeah, but that's what, that's what we do. As a business owner, you know, you've got to be able to and want to do that, you know, so you just can't stand there behind the counter. I think it's going to happen, you know, I think, yeah, part of it.

I've got to repeat that. I got to put that on my wall or something. If you keep learning, you keep earning. So on that note, you've been a part of our mastermind this year. And something I have watched you do and, and seen so many other people learn from you on is you. When you decide something, you're just like gonna run through a brick wall and do it. Like, I've got this idea, I've got this thing, I'm gonna do it. I would love to know, how do you, how do you keep feeding that tenacity? And it's made you like the queen of events and promotions. So I would love to know, like, what are your top three events and promotions because you're so good at them.

We do. And we have, we have, we have marketing books. We keep a running thing and we always evaluate, we evaluate what was good, what was bad, what could we do every year after. And I think that is so important, important with your marketing, you know, and we build on each year and sometimes we don't do everything every single year. But to me, I'm in an area that people want something to do at the beach. It is too cold to go to the beach this time. They want something to come out for. So I'm always looking for things that will get people out of the house and have a great time with us. And that's the big thing we're known for, as well as giving back a lot to the community. So we balance a variety of events, charity events, give back programs, and just fun to come out. Now I'm lucky I'm in Delaware. I can serve alcohol All I want. I'm thinking about putting an actual bar in. Long as I don't charge, I can serve. And my demographic is not coming in to get sloshed. They just went, oh, I got a blooming boutique chocolate martini today. And I give them little five ounce cups, you know, I mean, but they love it. They come out, they want to know what my drink of the day is like. Our drink of New Year's resolution drink for January was always pink cherry vodka with five calorie, one gram of sugar, cranberry juice. Would you like to try today? That's what I do on my weekends. I bartend, I have fun. And I, you know, I mingle with my store, my customers, and I distract the husbands, talk football with them between me and the dog. We take care of the husbands so that the women can shop. Okay. And so, but we do love to do events. And I think, you know what, I was in direct sales for eight years and I have to give that a lot of credit because I put on a lot of events for my downline and for my groups and all that kind of stuff. And I was social chairman in my, I was social person. It's my sorority in my community. I mean, I don't know, I've just done all that kind of stuff I love having. And my mom always did that. I guess, you know, you don't realize what you learn from, even from your mom. But we love to put on events and we like to do them big. We do a few, two big artisan events in our stores and people have literally flown in from Europe and Asia to come and buy tickets to come to our event and we sell tickets to get into some of our events because we can only humanly handle it. I don't want to lose control of an event where it is not a good experience, especially when people are flying in, paying for flights, hotels, food and things like that. So, you know, certain things we plan and now we've, we've done I don't know how many, maybe 15 of these, those events that we've got it down to a system, you know, and I'm lucky. I have a brother who's a chef who does a lot of my catering for me too at the Jersey Shore. So he comes over to help. But we, we always do something in our stores. And like right now I've got a big food drive going on because the first quarter it's really hard for people to collect food. And so to get people even out in the cold here, older people, it's hard. So we're giving what we call blizzard bucks. I'm giving them a dollar for every item they bring in in the shop in my stores and I cannot believe the people it brought out. So to me it's like I'm giving back because I used to go get the food and sell the food at the counter. Not that was too much for me. And so I. We're giving back. Plus it's, it's kind of your marketing too because it's getting people out and in your foot traffic in your stores. So it's a win win, you know on that. We have a Galentine's event coming up. We always do that kind of thing and I'm just going to switch it up. We do a lot of loops because I have so many stores and you don't have to have so many stores. You can do with fellow retailers. Yeah. Where like I did I do a chocolate loop in January. It's chocolate martinis, chocolate wine, sea salt caramels, hot cocoa bar with Rumpelman's and whipped cream vodka. So you go to all the different stores, they sign a little loop card and they drop it off at the last store and then they're entered in. I do a gift certificate from each store. We do a drawing. People love to do that stuff. You know, it's all about that kind of fun and experience. People love give back programs. They like to support local charities. I try to bring in the off season when we're not busy. Lots of different artists or trunk shows or little events in. I try to bring as much to me so I don't have to lug as much to go out, you know and work smart with it. Plus, you know, I think your biggest thing is is you setting up some sort of calendar, you know and look at each month. I use your holiday calendar month like one of our favorite things. In the fall we do National Fortune Cookie Day. We actually get custom fortune cookies and people come out for the. I think I should start serving like wonton soup next year or something. But people come out and they love our custom fortune cookies and of course a lot of them are like 5% off, 10% but it is a big event for us just because that's a good idea. It is. So we try to look at all that because. Just because I have so many different stores. Like you know when there's a taco thing or there's a nacho thing or margarita day, you know we do, we do all different types of things like name games. Your name is Ashley, come into our store today and you're gonna get a free this or that. We do towns if you're communities. We just try to do all different things and we try to make it all about the experience. It's not the products that you're selling, it's the experience when they come in and be with you. And that's really what it is. You know, we have beverages, we have candy dishes at the counters. We try to have the right music on because I do have to control my younger ones with what they're in the store. But we try to have. I. I'm all about the five senses too. You know, we try to have something smells good for the season. If it's fall, I usually have an apple scented melted thing going and things like that, you know, and people and the men want to come to our store. They want to know what we're serving for the day or what we've got going or what kind of food do we do? I mean, we do all different types of things. So, you know, and you don't have to spend a lot of money to do a lot of this stuff.

Don't already know, Jane, and what you're doing to help other retailers with email marketing and text marketing. That's what I really want to dig into a little bit more today and specific some of the changes that are happening right now in email and text marketing. So for a couple of points of reference before I turn it over to you, Jane, and we get into it, just know that there's going to be some links in the show notes today where if you have questions about this and some of the regulations we're going to talk about. We're not attorneys, we do not pretend to be. So we're going to link up some information for you in the show notes. Plus, if you were at the Boutique Summit, Jane did a complete breakout session at the summit. So those of you who attended or have a digital ticket, you can find Jane's session there as well. I'll link those up in the show notes today also. So, Jane, let's jump off here. Let's start with text marketing. I feel like so much has changed in the world of text marketing. So I would love for you to start with just if someone was looking for text marketing to be a big part of their marketing program going forward, number one, why would it be important? And number two, what would you be looking for when you're choosing your text marketing provider?

Okay, so the reason why it's important is just like everything we want to meet people where they are, right? That's why we have mobile friendly devices, that's why we use comments sold, that's why we use Instagram and we use Facebook. So very similar to how I'm sure we all have those customers that comment like crazy on Instagram and they also have Facebook but we never see a comment from them on Facebook. Right? We all have our, our preferred platforms. So it's the same way with email and text. People who shop on mobile are more likely to purchase on text from text marketing and people who shop on desktop are more likely to purchase via email marketing. So for that reason we want to meet them where they are. Also, people who are of certain generations convert better on text marketing. That being said, don't forget to. So like for instance our, our customer base is 45 and up and for the longest time we did not do text marketing because we thought like they aren't going to want to get a text message, they're going to be annoyed. And then we did a survey and we had much higher number of people who wanted us to do text marketing. Then we even, I mean we're completely blown away. So we started, did great and then over time we ran quite a few tests and studied like where different people convert and maybe they also had email, but maybe they don't check their email or maybe they have, maybe they order from their work email and the work email bounces it or it just goes into a filter, right? We like to assume that if we're sending something to someone that they're receiving it. On the same token with text messaging, one thing that we always assume with with text marketing is they like to use the old metric of 99% open rate. And that was the case before iOS 15. But what happened is we now have all have that unknown folder, right? Like if you, I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about in your inbox, on your iPhone, you can click on unknown and you can either click on all known or unknown. There are a lot that live in that unknown folder. And so we've done a few internal studies. The text marketing agencies still like to use the 99% rate. What we've actually noticed is it's more of like a 40 to a 50 depending on if that person has saved your contact in their phone. And so for that reason, like we all like to talk about attribution, right? So we all like to, you know, anytime you get like your Facebook agency comes back and they're like, we contributed to 70% of your sales and you're like, no, I was doing a live or I did a sale or that also had to do with like all these things that they put that they purchased is exactly what I posted, right? So we don't like to use the term attribution, we like to use the term affiliation. So we like to say like, this is our affiliation, right? Because if you look at each of your orders, especially if you have Shopify, you can look at your conversion details and see, oh, this person came to the website because of Facebook, but they converted because of a text message, right? They got like an abandoned cart message or maybe they came to the website because of an email they got, but they converted because they got served a follow up ad on Facebook, right? So for that reason we use the term affiliation rate. So one of the biggest things, especially after iOS 15, is when you are looking for a text provider and this was something we didn't really pay attention to until iOS 15. It's just kind of one of those things like you don't ask questions sometimes because you operate on assumptions, right? So we work with many different text agencies or many different text platforms, but we started whittling down after iOS 15 and that's because we were getting attribution rates that didn't necessarily seem accurate because we were seeing our click rates drop, but the attribution rates weren't dropping. And one would think if the click rates are dropping, then therefore so should the sales from that. So as we started to push, we realized that when they consider them views or opens, there's actually no way to track if someone has viewed or opened a text message. For that reason, it should only be tracked based on clicks. So one thing you can do is, number one, you should always be using a text platform that has revenue attribution. You need to be able to see who clicked, you need to be able to see what they purchased, you need to be able to see what that window is. You need to be able to see if they have failed sends, any of those things, right? And so I would recommend either changing your attribution to click only or to going with a platform that only tracks clicks. Because the reality is viewed and only equals sent, that doesn't even mean that they received it. They'll use the term received, but that doesn't mean that they received it. So you need to be with the platform where you can actually run a report for those failed sends and remove them. Because at the end of the day, if you're sending an mms message, that's 2.7 cents for every single message, Right? That adds up. Like Maybe it's only 10 or 15 people per text, but maybe you're sending it two or three times a week. That makes a huge difference.

Yeah.

And then also being able to send images, right? Being able to track what people are doing, being able to, you know, there's a lot of platforms out there where you can just send out a blast, which is great, but you also need to know what state are they in, right. What time zone are they in? What have they purchased, how can we meet them where they are? And I think that we've been doing that for a long time with email marketing, but for quite a bit of time that wasn't available for text marketing. Right. We weren't even able to do an abandoned browse flow until a year and a half ago. So did you know that you can actually, like if someone, all they do is look at your website, you can actually send them a text following up with what they looked at. That's creepy, right?

It is.

My mom thinks it's magic. But. And then also when you're looking at a platform, make sure that they have that two tap sign up, right? Make sure that when you go, when they go to your mobile to your, like if they're on their, their mobile device and they go to your website that it has, you know, that pop up that says like, you know, join our text club for 10 off. Make sure it's one of the simple ones or all they have to do is tap it, it populates in their phone and they send it because that essentially that can qualify as a double opt in because it's automatically coming from their phone number. Also just as important, we all like to use those banners that say like save 10 off to, you know, I like the cute little icons. By law you have to have a link to your terms of service and your privacy policy in there. Also, here's my shameless plug. There are a fair amount of online stores that do not have their terms of service and their privacy policy posted. That is our number one thing that holds up our build outs is because they don't have their, their legal attributions on their website. It does vary by state, but many states you cannot legally do e commerce business if you do not have those posted on your website. So even if you aren't doing text messaging, please go do it. Just go post them. You can in your checkout. They're usually displayed, but I would check your state regulations to make sure that they don't have to be displayed when someone arrives to your website as well.

So can you get by that by just making sure they're linked up in your footer? I feel like that's such a global place to make sure your TNC and your privacy policy are listed besides your checkout. Does that cover it if you have them in your footer? Because they're right there.

Absolutely. Yeah. So what you can do and anytime where you have like a page where you can link it to, because even in that pop up, you could say like, you know, to view our Terms of Service, click here to view our privacy policy. Right. Most people aren't going to, but there are people who do go through and you know, usually small businesses aren't the target, but there is a. There's a raceway in Florida that got sued recently because the guy stated that he didn't remember opting in and he obviously didn't win. But still they had to go through the lawsuit.

Yeah. Let's pause here because I want to talk more about this. So I feel like across so many channels in the last two years especially this has become an issue. Whether it's with text marketing, whether it's with email marketing, whether it's with handicap accessibility on E commerce websites. We've seen more and more small businesses be taken to court or have, you know, a C and D at minimum sent to them for not having some of these basic boxes checked. We'll say. So talk to me specific about what has happened. There's been a number of lawsuits even with boutiques that we know for some of the practices they had with text marketing. Talk to me about those regulations and some things that we should all be looking for so that we don't get sued as well.

Okay. So TCPA compliance is. It is difficult because it's actually written out for telephone calls. And the issue with that is, is that sometimes there's a gray area. So for instance, like if you're in Florida, you have to be able to. It's stated as callback, but it can be legally digested as contact as well. Right. So you need to ensure that you have two way texting at minimum. If you don't have two way texting or Florida also has something in place where if they repeatedly try to reach you and you don't respond to them, that's also in violation of tcpa. So TCPA was put in place during the Ronald Reagan administration and it's regarding telemarketing. Right. Because we all remember when you're little and you know, it's like eight at night. And the phone rings right after dinner and then your, your dad answers and you're like oh this poor soul, right? And he's like, it is 8 o' clock at night. And so now all you have to do is say like, hey, can you let me know I opted in specifically. And then they take you off their list. Right, but that's where the do not calls list came into play. So there are regulations as far as when you can call all of the other states besides Washington and Florida, it's 8:00am to 8:00pm that means if you send out, if you live in Idaho, I live in Idaho. If you live in Idaho and you send out a text at 8:30 in the morning, it's 7:30 for all of your people in California, that's against the law. You cannot send a text message more than twice in a day. That is also against the law. For whatever reason, Florida has three times. And usually Florida is much more stringent on everything. But you also have to keep in mind that the autoresponders are included in that, right? So if someone abandons a cart and then you also send a text message in the morning and a text message at night, you're in violation. And there are safe, there are smart sending, like safe sending, smart sending in most of these platforms. So you can set it like if you, if someone has received something in the last 16 hours, do not send a message. Right? And that's best practices for email. So that should already be in place on your email just to help prevent a high unsubscribe rate. But it's in place for legal reasons on the texting side. So if you ever think to yourself like, oh, I could be more efficient if I do this or my best lives are at 10pm that's great. But you know, maybe a great idea would be to do like a lead up, right? Or if you're in California and you're sending a text for a live, maybe it's 5:30, right? Doesn't seem all that late. That means it's 8:30 in Florida. In Florida you could only send messages or you can only receive messages from 8am to 8pm Florida's sticky. It doesn't mean they have to be a Florida resident. You could live in Texas, be traveling to Florida and if you're in Florida at that time and you receive a message out of compliance, it's still legal. Which is crazy. Like how are we supposed to know, right? There's no way to know. Because remember back in the day when you'd move and you had to change your phone number. Well, that doesn't exist anymore. Right now we got telemarketers. And you're like, you answer it, and it's some guy in another country trying to sell you refrigerators. And so you can have any number you want, Right? Also along that line, you have to have the name of your business displayed in the message. So that's another thing. Ensure that the company you're using will not allow you to send that message without the shop name automatically installed. Canada is different. You don't have to have it populated. For Canada, it is best practices. If you get turned in, if it's just one single person that turns you in, it's 500 bucks. If you get turned in and they push harder and they look back and are able to see your history, you can get charged $500 per occurrence. People can seek up. Seek out up to three times that amount per person. There's a guy right now who's suing FedEx and CVS, which we all get those text messages at 2am Right? Your package is arriving or, you know, you have a shipment coming. And a lot of them are, you know, they're in our industry. And we've all gotten those text messages late at night or early in the morning. So just be really careful because there are. There are financial ramifications.

So there's no better time, Angela, than now to have you on the podcast and talk about all the things happening at Roadrunners, but also just to, I would say, dispel some misunderstanding or information across apparel and home and gift, and talk about how the two of us can work even closely, even more closely in the future. So help me with this as we get started, Angela, talk to me about what is a definition of a rep and what's the definition of a rep? Agency for those who are not familiar.

Sure. So in the case of Roadrunners, all of our sales reps are independent contractors. They are independent sales reps. And what that means is that they travel through a territory and they help retailers find product for their stores. So our reps don't work for a single company. They're working for lots of brands. Some are a little bit larger, some are really teeny tiny. And so our role is to help retailers find products and at the same time, help those brands place their products throughout a geographical area. In some cases, it's a whole state, a piece of a state, multi states. Each territory is a little bit different. But we. We work through relationships, we meet retailers, we find out about their stores and they're all unique and different. So we actually, we really call our channel specialty retail, which really means any anywhere that has retail we will, will sell as a sales agency. The way that that works is we hire these independent contractors to work with us and we sort of curate and select suppliers that sort of meet a certain criteria. They actually have product, they can ship products. So we kind of do some of that dirty work in advance for you. So we're curating that collection of, of brands. We are burning the candles and testing, you know, the, the products in advance so that we can kind of feel it out and, and help retailers really select good, solid brands for their stores.

Over the years, as I've gotten to know many reps, I, I kind of feel like before boutique coaching really became a thing, I feel like reps were kind of the first group of boutique mentors. Because when you think about your business model, your job is really to be a great partner and a mentor in some aspects to the retailer because you're kind of seeing the forest through the trees for them and then bringing that information back to them. Right. Tell me about some of like the most successful relationships you have. When you look at them like a true partnership with your retailer.

Well, you really hit the nail on the head because the beauty what a rep has the advantage of, that a retailer doesn't is all day long. That is what we do. We go from store to store to store to store. We're in big towns, we're in small towns. We have this network of other reps that we talk with. Our Southeast group does a weekly call. So we get together and we talk about what we're seeing, what the struggles are, what the trends are, problems that retailers are having. So we really sort of have this great high level visual of what's going on within the industry. We talk about when things are on the increase and when things are on the decline. So we can kind of help retailers go, maybe you shouldn't order 50 gnomes this time. Maybe you should do the smallest minimum order if they're still selling for you or on the flip to say, hey, no, you should order 50. I don't recommend 50 gnomes right now, but we do, we have have the advantage of seeing what's going on throughout the industry.

Can you tell me more about that? I'm just curious, like based on some of your calls, even recently, what you guys are seeing, you know, across different territories and, and what are some of the pieces of advice you're giving to retailers right Now.

So we're in a very interesting moment right, right this very moment. We had such a good year last year and a lot of retailers were really stocking up, stocking up, stocking up. And where we are right now is we're sort of hitting. We are back to the normal, not the new normal, but we are back to I think the regular normal buying pattern. And retailers right now are being somewhat cautious. I also think that they are waiting in anticipation of what they're going to find at market, that we are going to see sort of a surge of new. We sort of plateaued for a little while on new product because suppliers were being cautious and the cost to land goods were so high that they didn't have the product development dollars available. They were having to shift a lot of things around. And so I think that we're sort of in this moment of caution and I think it's going to be really short lived because I think there's going to be a lot of excitement back at market. So it's a softer time right now on our side. The beauty of that is this is the perfect time to reach out to a sales rep and just have some of those conversations of what are you seeing? What do you think is going to be hot? You know, what did I miss out on that I should have stocked up on? Because right now reps have a little more time on their hands as we lead into market season.

I love that.

I wanted to ask you, really, what you just brought up in addition was what are you seeing in terms of trends? Let's talk about trends that you see across home and gift, both for summer and immediates, but also what's happening now for fall and holiday. What do you see on the horizon?

Sure, sure. One thing that comes to the very top of mind for me is travel. We've been getting back to travel as Americans, but we're beginning to see more, more products related to travel. So whether it's something that solves a problem or something even as simple as luggage tags and in personal care, seeing brands that haven't done travel size products are now launching travel size products. So travel is just, is definitely something that is bubbling to the top. We're also seeing color and I think that that transcends right even into fall and holiday where holiday colors have been very traditional. Red, green, jewel tones, metallics. We're seeing a lot of color transitioning all the way into fall and holiday. Like lots of pinks and more vibrant greens, blues, lots of color. And that, that goes all the all the way across we're also seeing. And I, I was putting some thought into this because I thought you might ask me about trends. One that, that is very interesting to me is sort of this western rodeo motif. And I live in Florida, I live in the south, where everything is, is light and bright and we do have a showroom in Dallas. But I'm seeing this western thing everywhere. And I know you're seeing that in apparel as well. So those are sort of the main, main things I'm seeing today at this moment, just from the sneak peeks that we're seeing from our, our vendors. And there certainly are going to be some things that are going to, going to bubble up over the next couple of months, but those are the primary ones.

I love that the rodeo thing just makes me laugh because I like, I'm a rodeo person, right? Like we have horses, we do the whole thing. So to see that be such a mainstream trend, I'm. It's like you're trying to like live into the trend, but like be authentic to yourself. It's like a battle I'm having interpersonally with this whole trend happening. But you bring up a really good point. When I think about like these trends that are coming, and maybe this is a question a lot of people have about ordering in home and gift versus apparel is talk to me about the timelines when you're ordering home and gift. Do you have a lot of opportunity to order immediates or is it more advantageous to order ahead of time and get in on, you know, these early product releases?

So that's an excellent question. And I'm going to give you lots of different answers to that, to that question. Because we represent such a diverse range of products, I'm going to give you like a couple of different examples of how you can buy in gift and home. So we are already selling fall and holiday. So we'll talk about early buy. I think you guys in apparel call them like pre book. And so early buy is a little bit different. It is typically offered by your larger, larger brands. It's typically not a smaller brand. So larger brands offer it so that they can sort of get a pulse on what's going to be hot so that they can go ahead and pre book larger numbers. They might think the pink is going to sell best, but lo and behold, it's the blue. So early buy in gift in home really is advantageous to take to do in advance as a retailer. And I think that's a piece that's really different. Typically you're Offered all kinds of perks for helping the supplier out by placing that order early. So typically the way it works, the larger your order, the larger the perk perks. And they offer everything from freight caps to free freight to discounts off of the goods to dating to free product. The perks really, really vary. And early buys sometimes can start as early as February to buy for holiday for the the following year. Which is great because it's fresh in your mind of what sold, what didn't sell, what you still have on hand that you want to re up or add in addition to. So there's early buy, then there are also monthly specials. So that's something that working with your sales rep that is like this big giant perk that you don't get when you're ordering directly from a brand. So every month we have what we call road specials. And these are things that your sales reps have that working with your rep, they'll say, hey, if you order $25 more, I can save you $100 on your freight. So there are those monthly specials and then just your regular everyday. Let's place an order that varies fairly widely. So we have some brands that are larger brands that will have a larger opening order, it could be 250, $300. And then we have brands that literally have no opening order. You can start with a brand by just ordering one case pack, which might be three salt and pepper shakers. So it varies greatly. And that's one of the reasons that you want to work with a sales rep too. If you have ex open to buy, maybe you're a really small store, you're an online store and you've got $1,000, maybe even only have $500 to invest in gift and home. If you work with your sales rep, they can help you really get a wide variety of products with a low buy in and a low number of items that you have to bring in so that you can expect experiment with.

Some products you go through Covid grew expanded your online right, which was such a blessing, so many people during that time. But then you hit a wall and.

You were like, okay, now what is.

This how I want to continue? And this is where it gets so interesting because really you had two paths. Like you could have said, I'll just close this down or I'll continue to run it, but I'll focus it online, I'll just try to hire it out. But you took a totally different approach. So tell me about the approach that you took.

So do you want me to go Back to when, like, it was the moment where I was like, I'm done.

Yeah, I want to hear that. I'm done. And then I want to hear like the franchise moment, because that's so.

Yeah, so that would have been. Actually we were in LA experience, which was the, the other big, huge, pivotal moment. And while I was in LA with my one store location, the landlord and I agree, we're going head to head in terms of my lease. And during the LA experience, she said, I'm not renewing your lease. You have to be out in a month and a half. And this was a store that was doing 90% of my revenue and I had nowhere to go. And so there's that thing, that spark inside me. I'm like, well, I've always wanted to do online, so here it is, right? But I panicked. I was panicking so much because I have this, this, you know, million dollar location and I'm about to lose it in a month, you know, and so I was grasping. I'm like, I'm gonna, I have to hang on to this no matter what we do. No matter what we do. Even though maybe this isn't what I want. Like, that was in there, but I was refusing to actually listen to it. And shortly after, I think it was February when I was at market, I just remember sitting in the hotel room by myself and I was just, just crying. And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And there was something going on I like inside me. And I knew it wasn't anything else. Externally, I could feel it deep within me that something was going on. And I remember reaching out to you because you had said you had worked with Crystal. And I met her when at Summit. And without question, I said, I'm signing up, I don't care, because there's something bigger going on here that I just don't know what it is. And I have to work on me. And I started working with her in April, I believe, and a lot transpired last summer. You know, my husband was looking at taking a different job that would completely move us. And this was probably end of June last year. And I remember walking and processing everything because it was happening so fast. And in, in my head I went, well, you know what? At least no one could be mad at me for shutting down my store. And I can actually focus on online. And it made me stop because I've never really had that thought before. And I'm like, I was using this as an excuse, you know, like this was my way out. And I'm like, whoa, like, there's something really going on here. And that was when I accepted, like, I just don't want the stores anymore. I don't. I wanted out. Like, it was there. It just randomly purged itself out of me. And all along I was kind of looking for this way out without me having to make the decision. I wanted my hand forced in it. I was so unhappy. And, you know, that's when everything started really kicking in. It's okay. Like, this is what I want. I was under a five year lease. I had no idea how I was.

Going to do it.

I remember telling Crystal, I'm like, it's, it's fine. I'll suck it up for another four and a half years. You know, I can do this. And then we'll go online. And she's like, sarah, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You know, you are so unhappy. There has to be another way you can do this, that you can get out, that you can chase with what you want. And I was. I don't know if this happens to you. I was on another walk. All my epiphanies come on walks for some reason. So I'm walking and I'm trudging up the hill and I'm like, what am I going to do? And I was like, well, you know, I have Olivia and she's. She's was my store manager. She's been with me for years. And she's amazing, you know, but she really can't afford this. She just got out of college. Her and her, like, fiance are just getting married. I'm like, but man, what if, what if she franchised it? You know, what if it was still Joe and Co, but she owned it? And I'm like, that would be really cool. You know, that'd be really cool for her, who's worked so hard, who's been by my side through everything, to be able to pass on something that I still love. Like, this is still my brain. This is still my baby. This is something I've spent so much time building. But the way I'm doing it, I don't love it. And she loves it. She thrives off of the merchandising and the customers. Like, that is what she loves. And if I could pass on, I could support her and then she could support her family. I'm like, that's really cool. And I get to pursue what I want to do, you know? And it just hit me and I started doing research and I put together a proposal for her. And she was like, she. I still never. This is ingrained in my brain. We got on a meeting. She had no idea this was coming. I was like, I just want to touch base with you. And you go over a few things, and we're on a zoom call. And I just. I lay everything out on her and I tell her, you know, this is what's going on. We're probably going to have to move. I want you to buy the store as a franchise. And she just looked at me and started bawling. I mean, crying. And she's like, are you serious? And then I. I mean, it was a tear fest, but I told her, I'm like, there's no one else. I would rather pass this on to no one. You deserve it more than anybody I know. And if I. I have 10 years of experience of doing this, I could open a store with my own eyes closed. Like, I got you. I will mentor you through this. I want you to be successful. I will help you. I will give you that guiding, guiding hand that I didn't have when I started this. That man, I wish I would have had. And you know what? Like, you get to pay yourself really well for doing this. Like, really well. And there was no question. I mean, she's like, sign me up. Let's do this. And that was, I want to say, August. And we closed on it December 31st of 2022.

So update me, like, since that's happened, like, it's going well. She's growing in this position. And then you, like, this has given you the freedom and space to pursue what you really want to do. So tell me about your day to day and how you focus now on online while she's focusing on. Yeah, it's.

I mean, it's a whirlwind. You know, I don't know what's going to happen with the franchise thing. You know, I never. I tell people, if someone would come up to me today and say, I want this, I wouldn't say no right away. You know, Olivia and I have had those conversations of, how could this expand? What would that look like? You know, who would take it on? But for me, that's not where my passion lies anymore. You know, I wanted to get very granular with my customer and who I was trying to reach. And I think everyone can agree when you have a brick and mortar, that's very hard to do because you're. You're in your community, which influences that. You know, you have ages 16 from 75 coming into your store different Price ranges, you know, different lines, different needs, everything. And I was finding a lot of that didn't bring me joy. I wanted to get very granular on who I wanted Joe and co to be, to become. And it's been for the last, you know, I want to say since August, it's been not only changing who we are, you know, in terms of operating the company, but we have a new customer, we have a new brand, we have a new style. And so we're going through all these changes, and I'm simultaneously losing customers, who I've had for years, but also gaining new customers. And every day it's. It's a change. Every day it's learning. Online is a totally different. Totally different, I mean, behemoth of taking on compared to the stores. And when I had the store, I never looked at online as this beast. It was more as like a marketing channel. And now being on the other side and seeing how much hard work it takes, I have a whole new respect for people who operate online only because it's not easy. And it's a completely different strategy than having a brick and mortar. And, you know, I come in and honestly, every day. I mean, there are days that are still hard. I don't want to say that, but I will say I feel like I'm glowing from the inside out. You know, I come in and the. The clothes that come in, the buying, the styling, the creative, the branding, like, every part of it. I'm sorry. So in love with Versus Before, I never felt. I didn't feel that way. I lost who we were, and I needed to find that again for myself. And now, you know, it's opened up this whole different creative channel that I didn't even know I wanted.

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Sam.