What is Retail Bootcamp? Testimonial from The Mustard Seed Boutique

Hey, fellow Hub members, my name is Sarah and I am from Midwest Wisconsin and I did this crazy thing last year. So last year I left my corporate job and decided to join my husband here at our business, a business that he started when he was just 12 years old as his FFA project. He started it with his dad and it's become a fantastic family business with like six different divisions. We're primarily in the green industry. We have a garden center, a growing farm, a landscape business, a wholesale portion of that. We have a cafe at our retail location that has been with us for over 10 years. And two, almost three years ago, we opened a women's clothing boutique at that retail location. And it has been a fun, crazy, awesome adventure. But I had no idea what I was in store for jumping in. And last June, So June of 2019, when I jumped on board, I dove head first into developing and continuing to grow and just launch our women's clothing boutique. We kind of flew by the seat of our pants with it for the first year. As many of you have, and as many of you can relate to your very beginning, you really didn't know what you were doing. We had a great year. We have a mix. We started with a mix of home decor as well as apparel. A big focus on local makers. Some local vendors were very local, lucky to have talented individuals within our community that we can help support and promote. And it was just a fantastic start. Our first year was fantastic, amazing, wonderful. But when I jumped on board, we kind of lacked a lot of that, like, intentionality and that process development, that fine tuning. And I applied as much as I could possibly apply from my corporate background and my experience in leadership just to defining roles and actually having like a marketing plan instead of like flat lays or mannequin pictures for three weeks solid, right? Or even just sales goals. We didn't have a monthly sales goal weekly, let alone a daily sales goal, or team building or a manual. Just so many things, right? So I did as much as I possibly could that I knew to do. And, and then about this time last year, I told my husband, I'm like, hey, honey, I really, really need some more, like, information that is specific to the boutique industry in particular. And he had told me when I first started in Dune, hey, we have this resource for members of the boutique hub. Definitely dive in, dig in. There's a lot of great resources there. And there was, there's a ton of resources. I kind of figured out the lay of the land and what we were dealing with the first couple of months. We even opened our online boutique last November. I got kind of this gut feeling, that's all I can call it, that I needed to launch the online store last fall. It wasn't supposed to be launched until this spring, spring of 2020, according to Kind of our plan, but we launched it last fall. And I'm like, oh boy, I really need to dig deep. And we did the holiday masterclass, which was fantastic. And it left me wanting more. More information, more resources specific to the boutique industry. And I asked for. The only Christmas present that I asked for of my husband and all my family was retail boot camp. And my husband kind of went behind me and coordinated with Ashley and surprised. Surprised me with that for my Christmas gift last December. And talk about the most timely gift entering into January through February and then March with quarantine and everything getting shut down. It was the most timely investment and the best thing that we could have done as a business this year. So not only did I feel like the hub was walking right alongside side of us, as many of you can attest to, through all of everything that spring through at us, we have applied so many golden nuggets from retail Boot camp that have just blessed our year and blessed our business beyond our wildest dreams. And we can't take credit for that. We feel that God's blessing and his plan was in that he knew we needed boot camp. He knew we needed to launch the website last fall and not be trying to launch it while we're shutting down and everything. That would have been a crazy nightmare. So we can't take credit for any of that. That's his and his alone. But you guys, one of the biggest blessings of this year has been the boutique cup. From every single post to every golden nugget that we have gleaned from boot camp and applied. And it's not one big thing that really changed our business overnight. It's all. All of these little things, probably 20 plus little things done one thing at a time. Not done all at once, but just one thing tackled at a time. And some of the stuff we tried, we decided, nope, that doesn't really work for us. At least not right now. We'll circle back and look at it a future date from now. But you guys, it was such an investment. From a worthwhile investment, from vision boards to financial to legal advice to marketing to figuring out who your customer really is and if you're buying appropriately for the customer that you are serving just everything, doing something uncomfortable, like every day. That's my motto. I'm a huge leadership book junkie and I just love that the hub is all about community over competition as well and supporting each other, supporting the local businesses within your own community. That is something I have a huge heart for. And I just feel like the boutique hubs motto, community this year is all about community. That should just be shouted out everywhere. Big old banners everywhere. That 2020 is the year of community and the boutique hub completely has nailed that. So we have been very fortunate this year. And I know it's everybody's at a different place. Whether you're a small boutique, a medium sized or you're full blown, you know, in that million dollar club plus right. Everybody's at a different area. But I feel like retail boot camp, if you haven't yet taken it or you're just starting out, I mean a golden opportunity to take it. If you're just starting out, you are going to get off your foot, off to the right start. It's going to be fantastic for you. But no matter how big, no matter how many years you've been in business, you will find golden nuggets that are going to transform not only your business and your team, but they're going to change you. So I just want to encourage you guys. Throw boutique boot camp. Throw retail bootcamp on your Christmas wish list. Tell all your family and friends. All you want for Christmas is to do what Retail boot camp and sign up for the January class. You guys, you're not going to be disappointed. It really was the lynchpin for us last year that catapulted us to have our best year that we've had yet in the boutique space. I'm super grateful for Ashley, for Sarah, for every member of the hub team. I'm fortunate enough to have a few of them living in my own backyard. And the hub has been so such a blessing to us this year and will continue to be. And I hope that this message, even if it just touches one of you, one person and encourages you to sign up or ask, you know, for someone to gift it to you or you know, just really go after it hard, you guys, because it can really change everything you're doing and make all the difference in the world. And if you haven't gotten a planner yet, you guys, that last year was my first planner. I loved it. You should see all my notes. I'm a bit of a nerd. Got all my numbers in it. It's a one stop shop. This is this year's planner. I'm so excited. My girls and I, we are going to dive in and do our 2021 planning meeting off site soon. And we are using these, you guys. So get a planner. Invest in retail Boot Camp. It will be one of the best decisions you made. Don't feel like you have to do everything all at once, just one thing at a time, one thing a week. It is the best 12, 13 week time investment that you will make for not only your business, but for yourself. So do yourself a favor, ask for it for Christmas. You never know, you just might get it. Have a fabulous, fabulous day. Best to everybody in 2021. And I cannot thank the Boutique Hub enough. I could have never imagined with being shut down for two months out of this year that we would be having our best year ever. I'm going to get emotional because I have some good friends who have businesses that haven't made it this year. So the community aspect and supporting each other is so important. And I feel like the Boutique Hub, it's the core of who they are and it's just amazing that they have even built this to be able to bless other businesses and in the boutique industry specifically. So guys, tap in. It is a worthwhile investment. I can't even believe we've surpassed our sales goal number for this year and we have a whole month left to go. And I would have never imagined that possible back in March when we had to shut down and it was very scary. But the hub was there for us and Boot Camp really held us together. So you guys go get it. Sign up for Boot Camp as soon as it launches. Be ready, set your alarm clock, ask for it for Christmas and have a fabulous, fabulous December.