The Business Conversation Every Couple Needs to Have

Hey guys, it's Ashley, back with another five minute Friday. And today I wanted to bring you a bit more of a personal conversation, one that I don't think we talk about enough and maybe one if it resonates with you, you bring your spouse into and you can maybe listen to this message or have this conversation together. I bring you this conversation from a personal place of I've been there, I have struggled over the years with spouse conversations about the business and the future of the business. And I just wanted to give you some relief or maybe some insight into maybe what your spouse is thinking and how you can avoid some of these challenging situations. So a little bit of history. My husband Eric and I have been together for, at the time of recording this, almost 17 years. And when we started this business, when I started this business, Eric was working a full time job. We didn't have much money, we were broke. I was selling baby cribs and everything I could when my kids were really little in order to have enough to pay groceries or to just help our family get by so that I could invest the time I needed when I really wasn't making money in this business to get the business to a point where it could produce an income for our family. Today this business has retired. My husband, he is our CFO. We have a team of 20 plus full time employees with which he helps manage and does all of the backend work here at the Hub. He's very analytical. He loves numbers and spreadsheets and projections and certainty. And I am creative and I love marketing and big ideas and chasing squirrels and so our brains are very different. And ironically, the more conversations I have with retailers, I find that to be very common where in our industry a lot of times the, the business owner, the female business owner is very creative. Sometimes I get a very analytical one, but more often on the creative side of things that's common. And a lot of times they are married to somebody or a partner with somebody who is more analytical. And what happened to Eric and I, and maybe has happened to some of you as well is when the business isn't performing the way that we think it should or hope that it could, it can create a lot of division in your family. It can create some animosity, it can create some resentment, it can create some of that well don't you trust me? Type of defensiveness. And I was definitely there when Eric was asking for numbers and analytics and things that from his corporate America background he knew to be standard things. From my small business background, I didn't have in my repertoire yet. Like, I. It was not standard for me yet. I didn't have those things in place yet. It created a lot of fights and a lot of, well, don't you trust me to get there? Like I said. And he would just say, well, don't you have these numbers and projections? And really what he was asking me was he just wanted certainty. Maybe not even. Certainty is maybe not even the word. He wanted a plan. He wanted to know that what I was working on was going to be fruitful for our family because we both were burning the candle at both ends. We were both completely burnt out. So he needed to know that I had a plan to cover that gap in the middle of where we were versus where we wanted to be. And, and I think that's true for so many relationships. We want to know what is the plan to cover the gap. The analytical person needs that. And the creative person, that is not your nature to have the plan. You're a little bit more like, I'll figure it out. Like, I see what these other people are doing. I know it's possible and I'm going to test this, this, and this to get there. But the truth is, the creative person, you have to be able to make a plan. This is important for you. It may not be your strong suit, but it is possible for you. And so I just want to give you some tools today to maybe help you have this conversation, but to help you come together and on the same page, help provide the thing that the other person is looking for. Creative person, you're probably looking for trust and support. And analytical person, you're just looking for a plan and an idea of when these things are going to start to unfold. So some tools that you can use to get there. Number one, the retail traffic formula. I'll link it up today for you. This is something we talk a lot about inside of Retail Bootcamp specifically. And the retail traffic formula basically tells you, hey, here's my sales goal in this period of time. And it divides my sales goal divided by my average order value, which gives me how many transactions do I need right now to hit that sales goal in this period of time? Transactions are measurable. Average order value is measurable. Well, then I take my transactions and I divide that by my average conversion rate. This is easy to find. All these numbers are easy to find. They're in your point of sale system and they're in Google Analytics. When I take my transactions divided by my average order value, then I know how much traffic do I need to run to my store or to my website at this conversion rate and at this average order value to hit my sales goal. Well, when I know those numbers, I have a plan. Maybe I'm not at the traffic that I need right now, but I can at least figure out how to get there. Whether that's organically through marketing, live videos, email marketing, Facebook ads, I can at least make that plan. So the retail traffic formula will help me get there. Now, I would also say there's got to be a plan with your team and with your own personal accountability to the to do list that you have in front of your plate. The retail traffic formula is important to give you those numbers. But I would also look at what am I spending my time on as a CEO that's going to help get me there? Am I working on income generating activities or am I just trying to get all of the shit done that needs to be done on a daily basis? So there's got to be a plan where I'm focusing on the things driving the needle that. But someone else is going to help me close some of these other doors or these gaps. Whether it's I'm trading for time or I've got an intern, maybe you already have a staff member. Maybe there's things your spouse can do to help you bridge that gap. So what are you specifically going to work on? On what days have that planned out? Because if I just show up as a creative and say I'm just going to do anything on my list today, I really can't be effective. I'm just going to be busy. And then finally I would say, what are the scorecards and metrics that I'm measuring each and every week? So each and every week, am I analyzing my average order value, my sales by different classification, my sales by vendor, my aging report, or my markdowns? Again, this is so this is everything we do in retail bootcamp, right? And there's many places to learn this inside the hub. But what is my scorecard in my metrics that I'm looking at every week? Because only a tracked number grows. If you're tracking nothing, you're aiming to hit nothing every single time. So hopefully the two of you can come together both creative and analytical. When you utilize the scorecard and the analytics in your business, it gives you a plan to be free and creative. And that's what I had to learn, is how do the numbers speak to me? When I know what the goals are, when I know what the traffic is, then I know, okay, how creative can I be in my marketing in order to hit that goal? There is a way to get there, you guys. And I wish you all the success in the world in these conversations. It's worth it. Your marriage is worth it. Your relationships are worth it. And if you want more on this, I know I've got a podcast episode with Eric and I talking about all of this. So go back in the show, notes in the history, find that podcast episode, and I know that the two of you can get on the same page. So wishing you all the best. Thanks for listening to this episode of five Minute Friday, you guys. I'll see you here next week.