Recording of Ashley Alderson (Founder, The Boutique Hub) delivering closing remarks at the 2017 Boutique Summit. She thanks sponsors by name, introduces a new initiative called the Boutique Awards (launching in July) to celebrate boutiques globally — covering Canada, Australia, the UK and all 50 U.S. states — with four categories per state plus an overall category. She also announces Boutique Summit 2018 (save-the-date: June 4–5) returning to Dallas Market Center and invites attendees to participate in the community and awards.
Questions this video answers
Launching in July (announced during the 2017 closing remarks).
Canada, Australia, the UK, and all 50 U.S. states.
Four different categories per state, plus an overall category.
Save-the-date June 4–5; returning to Dallas Market Center in Dallas, Texas.
Chapters
One thing I want to do as we draw our event to a close, since we've spent a wonderful two days together, is I once again want to thank the people that help make this possible. So for those of you that are here tonight that have helped sponsor the boutique Summit, I want to invite you just to stand up as I call your name. And Beth and Jesse, our fabulous team members at the Hub, are going to come and share a little gift that we have with you that hopefully will commemorate the first of, of a lot, a lot of boutique summits in the future. And then I want to just wait for two sponsors that I want to invite up here to the front. So first, I want to thank Melody of Rebel Roots Boutique Wholesale, Michael and jean of pine apparel in the back, stephanie schmidt of long extra trading, angel kameen of the off price show, morgan calhoun of sweet texas treasures, valerie winfrey of one word and free boutique. Barbara chigoda of southern mess wholesale, jolie beebe of crazy consuela, noelle and deedee of pink panache. Sarah and melissa of sweet caroline boutique. Your hands are getting tired, but it's totally worth it, I promise. Jennifer of rockin mama design, brittany of frogstones boutique wholesale, ashley of texas sweet teas, karen and susie of owen and semi boutique, the folks at sticker mule, the folks at naughty monkey and not rated shoes, mj of makeup junkie bags. Evan and Courtney at Sugar Sweat Cosmetics. Brandon with comments. Sold. And I also want to thank American Express and the Shop Small Movement for supporting us at the Hub as well. Now, two more quick sponsors I want to invite to join me up on the stage because they were our headline sponsors for the event. And the first one I want to invite up is Aspen Lane. You guys saw Aspen Lane set up. And Micah. She joined us on our wholesale panel. She also helped create the wine glasses and the tumblers and the stationary set. And the one thing we don't have yet, but it's coming, the Boutique Boss Trucker hats. So is Micah around? Oh, she must have to sneak out. Well, let's thank Aspen Lane. She was fabulous. She had cute, cute stuff. Now, if I can tell you another quick little story about manifesting something that kind of came out of nowhere. The first time I ever came to Dallas market, I came with Bling a Go Go. They invited me into their booth, put me as a member of their team on my badge, and allowed me to just stand there and hand out cards to boutique owners who knew nothing about what the boutique hub was and had no idea that it would actually turn into event here. So, Kim, with Bling a Go Go, please come up here. The fact that you are a headline sponsor at this event, that is a big deal to me. Perfect. I don't have. We run the clicker. Okay. Oh, you're so on top. He is so on top of it. So I told you guys I had something I wanted to share with you tonight, right? Two things, actually. The first thing is I want to ask you guys about the future of boutique discovery and where this is all going. We've talked so much about the boutique business side of things in the last two days. Let's talk about boutique style for a minute, right? There's a lot of boutiques in this world, but each boutique has their own individual taste and flavor and a reason that people follow them and celebrate them. And I think it's time we turn it up a notch, don't you? Right. Did you turn it up a notch? So I want to share with you something that we're launching in July. And what we're going to be launching is going to do three things. The first thing that we're aiming to do is we're ready to fuel discovery of the boutique community around the world. We're ready to give you guys the recognition and the celebration that you all deserve so much. We also want to invite your fans, your followers, your customers. We want to invite them to lift you up, to celebrate you, and to compete for you. And we also want to create something that no matter if you win or you simply participate, just by being a part of this movement is going to allow you an opportunity for discussion. Discovery. Because when one customer comes and discovers one boutique, there's a whole lot more there to celebrate as well. And we all have definitely proven in the last couple of days that this is community over competition. So I say, why not come together and create a competition that lifts all of us up? Sound good? So what I want to share with you that's launching in July is the Boutique Awards. The opportunity to celebrate the best boutiques in the world. And not just a couple of boutiques, but a whole lot of boutiques. We're about to celebrate boutiques across Canada, across Australia, across the UK and across all 50 states of the US each of the 50 states are going to have four different categories that we're going to be awarding, and we're also going to have an overall category because I think it's time that as we talked about the retail apocalypse that's happening, it's time that we replace that with something way better. Right? So this is going to be our opportunity in July. Are you guys excited to share something like this with your customers, allow them to celebrate boutiques? Yes. So the other thing I want to share with you is, sure, we could have an awards, but we should probably have another party to celebrate, right? Yes. So are you guys ready to talk about Boutique Summit 2018? Yes. So I want you guys to mark this down and save the date June 4th and 5th. And guess what? We're coming back to Texas. Dallas Market center was a fabulous host for us here, and I just can't thank them enough. And I think this is a great spot to have the awards. Certainly there's other places in the country that we're excited about having events and workshops, and we have events in Vegas, the Boutique Boss Dinner, and different things we do, but I think this is a pretty good fit for us. So you guys, as guests of the very first Boutique Summit, will get first dibs as we open registration for 2018. Because they kind of went a little bit fast this year, right? A little bit fast. We're not quite like sardines quite yet, but we're so excited to launch these two things and just to continue to listen to you, to hear what your needs are and to build this community up so that we make a real wave in this retail apocalypse and we start to shift the way people think about retail. So as we walk away tonight, I just want to invite you to remember what we talked about earlier today. It's not what you know, but it's who you know. And you guys are sitting at tables of fabulous people, and you have Facebook groups and you have a community that can lift you up and support you every single day. And when you look around the room, like we said, there is someone in this room that is at the exact same place you are in your business. So reach out to them. Make them your accountability. Accountability buddy. I'm going to have to tell my husband he's got to come up with a new word. Make them your accountabilibuddy. And let's grow this together. I want to thank you guys for coming to the Boutique Summit. I am forever grateful to you. Thank you.
