Why Dead Inventory Is Costing You and How to Fix It

All right, guys, I know one of the biggest challenges that you have in your business is what do you do with unsold inventory? Contrary to popular belief, inventory doesn't age like fine wine. Although I know we wish it would. We've got to have a solution to get it out the door because cash is king and it's just our cash sitting there. So maybe in the past you've had great luck with your aging report and restyling and reshooting and reposting and moving out that unsold inventory. Maybe you've used the Hub's inventory exchange or different destash groups on Facebook to sell it to other retailers. Well, until recently there really wasn't another option and that's why I'm so excited. The Boutique Hub is partnered with Max Retail to offer a solution to get your inventory to multiple third party marketplaces across the web and get it out your door. So get ready to meet my friend, Melody Vanderbond, the founder of Max Retail. And we're going to talk all the things that you need to know about your inventory aging, your turn rate, and exactly how pushing this unsold inventory can save and make you a great ton of money. Let's get into it. Get ready to meet Melody Vanderbaen of Max Retail. Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. 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. I can't wait to nerd out on this topic today, all about inventory. So Melody, I've really been looking forward to having you on the show. Thanks for joining me.

Absolutely. I love Boutique Hub and your whole community.

Oh my goodness. Well, we love you as well. I love seeing your name dropped in the group and success people are having. So let's go back to the beginning of. Of course we're going to talk all about Max Retail, how it works, what it is, all the details. But how did you get here in the first place? Tell me the backstory that led to the development of Max Retail. Sure.

Well, I actually started out in this industry as an independent rep. So I was one of those girls in their young 20s with a sprinter van full of the clothes of the designers I represented, and I had a really great time. I loved driving city to city, boutique to boutique, and showing the collections. And yet, without fail, every store I went into, my buyers would point out what didn't sell from the season before, and they'd say, mel, what can you do about it? And so the brands didn't want to take back the inventory. But I knew that if I didn't solve the problem at that moment in time, my retailer was going to write a smaller order or no order at all. And so I began to pay attention to what retailers were doing well with in other parts of the country.

Yeah. Yep.

So if I was standing in Baltimore at one boutique and she couldn't sell a size run of Henley dresses, but I knew another store in Birmingham was blowing out of them, I'd call her up and I say, hey, Leah, I have more of those dresses. They're not coming from the brand. They're coming from a retailer, but they're the ones you're blowing out of. How about some more? She'd say, send them on over, honey. And it was really helping my retailers out. So it was completely unscalable, but necessary. And this continued on for years. And then in 2012, I opened my retail store in South Florida, and suddenly I had a sale rack. And no one was helping me. And yet I knew that the inventory on my sale rack, somebody somewhere wanted it, and they just couldn't reach into my store and grab it. And I was in a small town. Palm Beach Gardens is a very small community. And, yeah, there was this stigma every time I put something on sale that someone bought at full price. It was such an uncomfortable conversation. And yet, you know, as I moved further on into my years, I started using management one for inventory planning. And they helped me understand what a turn was and. And why my inventory needed to turn. They got me more comfortable with markdowns, but it was still hurting the relationship between my customers, even though, as I call it, it was a necessary evil. So finally, in 2016, I cried uncle. And I said, I have just got to try to solve this problem, because I know I'm not the only one with a sale rack. And yet this inventory was adding up to $100,000 a year of financial losses. So I've been on this journey ever since, Ashley. And today we support over 2000 retailers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, and we're helping them get an average of $2,200 back a month on their past season inventory. And, yeah, it's been really meaningful.

It's so incredible to watch. I mean we live, we eat, sleep and breathe this problem at the Boutique Hub from all angles. And it's funny because even back when we started the Boutique Hub in 2013 and it was the first inventory exchange Facebook group on Facebook, like it was the very first one and now there's all kinds of d stash groups. But retailers were so thankful because nobody is helping solve this problem until your site came along. So I just think that's so necessary, so needed. So tell me this, the average retailer that you speak to, what is the process like getting started, onboarding, just figuring out how to first start listing their inventory?

Sure. So you know, first off, the retailers who are successful on Max Retail, they carry brand name inventory. So I jokefully say, hey, if you've heard of it, we can sell it. And so, you know, I know that Boutique Hub has anything from a mid tier to a contemporary retailer using your services in your community. And so we have a lot of crossover in that area. And so for instance, it's going to be a mid tier retailer that probably carries 5, 5 or 10, like really noteworthy brands and then they're doing Fashion Go for the rest. We can still help sell Fashion Go. We do have a couple sales channels relevant for that. But I would say generally speaking, like brand name inventory sells apparel, footwear, accessories, men's, women's, I would say those are really like the bread and butter categories at Max Retail and it's pretty easy to use. So what you can do is if you're on Shopify, for instance, you can just connect to our integration there, tag the inventory that you couldn't successfully sell in store or online and that's going to send a product feed to Max Retail from there. What's special about our platform is that last unit of the jeans in Dallas, Texas, in la, in South Florida, it all gets combined back together on Max Retail and now we have a size run again. That's the power of Max Retail is we're virtually aggregating the onesies, twosies, what we have left over. And we're making it a powerful assortment. And then what we do is we distribute it to e commerce sites and resale marketplaces depending on its age, depending on the customer bases of those sites, to get unsold inventory in front of the largest number of customers we can to get it sold. And then when it sells on any of our marketplace partners, we just send the order back through Max Retail. Retailer approves it, gets a prepaid label, ships it out and the money is dropped into their bank account for their wholesale cost minus our 15% fee.

Got it. So it's not even just selling to one another, but I'm assuming it's like Poshmark and going to all kinds of different marketplaces.

Tell me more about that.

Like where might they see it? Or where might, like if another retailer is like, ah, I want to go, you know, find some of these places or marketplaces. What are they that you partner with?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, I think what's interesting about Max Retail is, you know, first off, unsold inventory. We all know it's kind of like our dirty laundry. We don't want anyone to really know how much we have.

Yeah.

Which is why the core pillar of Max Retail is discretionary. When you list inventory on Max Retail, there's no tie back to your store.

Got it.

Okay.

So it's all anonymous. You don't know that you're buying it from a certain retailer.

No, no. And, and why that's so important is because with Max Retail, there's also no returns. So once that inventory that you've had in your store way too long to begin with finally gets out the door, you don't ever have to worry about seeing it again. And so, so anonymity, no returns. These are super core pillars of Max Retail. And these partners that we have today range anywhere from gilt. We work with the Bay in Canada, Reitman's in Canada. We work with Tiendemi in Latin America, Shop Simon, which is owned by Simon Property Group, Poshmark, ebay, and a variety of different plus size sites. We're going to be launching sales channels in Australia and in Europe soon because, you know, really the goal is to get unsold inventory as far as we can, but we also work with very classic ones like Walmart. Shein has been a really strong partner. They came to us and said, we understand we need to improve our sustainability. We want to help your independent retailers sell their excess production. And so that's been super exciting to just see someone like Sheen be like, instead of me making more inventory, let me help those who have inventory. And actually, that's been a really successful sales channel with us this year, is just being able to help our fashion go brands. Right. That, that size run, that pre pack that bombed get into the hands of end consumers.

Got it. So the people who are listing on Max Retail aren't even just retailers, but do you work with wholesale brands and their overstock as well?

I would say 95% of our customers are independent retailers.

Got it.

5% are brands. And the reason why is because a lot of smaller brands don't have enough recognition for us to be able to effectively sell their stock. And that's just being totally honest with you. And the big, big, big brands don't need us directly because they have whole divisions for this. So it's really the independents who are buying these mixed assortments, you know, curating their, their inventory from each brand. But in their store, their sale rack ends up being a bit of a hodgepodge. But when it's on max retail now, it's no longer a hodgepodge anymore. It's reunited with the inventory that's like minded and can, you know, really get in front of a bigger audience.

It's so fascinating how that works. And for the brands that you do work with, I mean that's such a benefit on the wholesalers perspective because they have unsold inventory just like the retailers do. So absolutely.

And I say now that we've launched for instance like Target plus, we are taking more brands that can sell well on Target, right? And so we are saying yes, as we unlock distribution that we know we can be successful with even for the boutique hub Ashley. Two years ago I said to Sarah, hey, we're not a good fit right now because our primary outlets were contemporary designer sales channels. But over the last two years that's changed. And that's when I came back to Sarah and I was like, okay, good news, we can now serve your market. We can now serve more of your market. And so that's been super exciting. And I would say I mentioned our Shopify connection, but we also have a Lightspeed R series connection. And so any retailer on Lightspeed R series, it's the same thing. They can connect with us, tag inventory and then send us that product feed. Any retailers on other point of sales, they just list manually on a spreadsheet. And then we will still find all the images on their behalf, write the descriptions on their behalf. We will do everything for them if they'll just give us basic product information and promise to keep their inventory up to date if they happen to sell it in store before we can sell it for them.

Got it. How does the photography work? So are you collecting images? Like are you using the retailer's image or what does that look like?

So when a retailer is just filling out a spreadsheet or sending us an on hand report from their point of sale, we are doing that entire process, finding images, whitening backgrounds, decapitating models. We're talking the works we are actually just launching a product this season where we are completely manipulating models so that when we have retailers listing pictures themselves and it is them as the model, we will be able to take the garment and put it on an alternative model to safeguard that even further. So, so today I would say, like a Shopify retailer, if they're using their own images, we're always going to try to swap them out for an image that's not them. But we're getting even better at that as we build technology that can fully manipulate a model in the first place.

It's so important because that's a real issue across our industry, of our retailers that are offloading inventory all of a sudden, seeing their photo on a website from China or another retailer who says, I got this from a vendor. I mean, it's just everywhere. So I think that's really, really smart.

I agree. It's been something we've needed to work through. And what's fascinating about solving that particular problem is AI has only developed to the point where it can be done in the last few months.

That's wild.

It's so cool.

Okay, you've got to know about this if you have thought about being a member of the Boutique Hub, or if you're already a member of the Boutique Hub. This year we added something that I just can't wait to get into your hands. Okay, so if you're a monthly member of the Hub, awesome. Glad to have you. It's a great experience. But we were like, hmm. People who are really serious about their business and growing it into the future, they don't just join the Hub monthly, they join for the whole year because it takes more than a month to impact and make real, lasting change in your business. So this year, we have updated our annual offer for those of you who are members are thinking about becoming a member and joining for the entire year. You want to hear about it? All right. If you're an annual member of the Hub, not only do you get access to everything the Hub has to offer from all of the education, live training, every single week, all of our exclusive discounts, resources, wholesale brands, all the things. But now, as an annual member of the Hub, you also have access to some of our very bestselling masterclasses and handbooks. That's right. I'm throwing all of these crazy things in for free. If you are an annual member of the Boutique Hub, this includes our best selling Small business marketing Handbook, which is over 100 pages of content, calendars, live sale ideas, TikTok ideas, real Ideas, social media ideas for literally every day of the month, engagement questions for literally every month of the year, collections, event ideas to run in your brick and mortar, and so much more. The Small Business Marketing Handbook is a must have for every type of retailer, no matter what you sell. I guarantee it. We're also throwing in our Small Business Hiring Handbook, which is all the things you know to hire, train on, job descriptions, everything you need to know to grow a team. Plus our Holiday Marketing masterclass, our Content Sanity masterclass, Best of Our Boutique Summit videos, and so much more. There's over $1,300 added in courses, masterclasses and handbooks just for you. Plus, when you're an annual member of the Boutique Hub, you get access to join one on one coaching calls with myself and several members of our team. We don't give out an opportunity to do one on one coaching anywhere other than for our VIP students in Retail Bootcamp or those who are members of Boutique Hub Black. So this is a real opportunity for those of you who are a member of the Hub and you're like, hey, I just need to pick Ashley's brain for an hour. I need to pick Sarah's brain for an hour. What does that look like? You can book an annual coaching call if you are an annual member of the Hub. Did I say annual coaching call? I meant anytime you can book a coaching call only if you're an annual member of the Hub. So that's it. I'm excited. I'm rambling. I just want you to know if you're going to join the Hub, I this is the best opportunity to get the most out of your membership. If you're already a member, reach out to our team@happypeopleboutiquehub.com we can get you upgraded to annual. If you're not yet a member, scroll all the way down to the join page at the boutiquehub.com and click annual to join us now. I can't wait to see you inside and get you all of these extras. We're going to do a lot together to grow, scale, optimize and secure your business together in the next year. Let's get started. So what would you say as you look across the retailers that you've been working with? What do you think that the most successful ones have in common in terms of how they utilize your product?

Thank you for asking. Well, it's kind of like having a store. The more inventory you have, the more sales you have potential. And so I would say successful retailers on max retail Keep a steady volume of $10,000 listed every month. If you have a solid 10,000 listed wholesale value, you're going to see $2,000 in payouts a month, brand name inventory, minimum of 10,000, you will see the payouts. But I think the really important detail is performance. So our sales channels, that's the word we use for where we distribute products, they're super strict because you can imagine having declines on their site. It jeopardizes our relationship. When we're selling on any of these marketplaces, we are the sole seller on behalf of our 2,000 retailers. And if every retailer had a decline, we would not have these partnerships. And so the way we do this is we gamify it. So we say, hey, listen, if you have 100% approval rating, like if you're approving all your orders, you're going to get all the channels, you're going to get full channel access. But if you have 98%, we have to take away some of these top tier ones to protect the community and same thing, you know, so you get more channels, the better your performance. So I would say successful retailers who are making the most are understanding that performance is key. And so you might have $10,000 worth of inventory, but if you're declining 10 out of every hundred orders, your payouts are going to go down because we have to kind of gate the community. The other thing that's been really fascinating is we launched a price drop feature in the last six months where retailers can discount their inventory from wholesale. And what that does, it's kind of like, you know how Poshmark, you can boost a listing by dropping the price. This is like that on steroids. Because when you price drop on max retail, then your inventory gets boosted across all of our marketplaces, gets back to the front page with the new lower price.

Got it. Wow.

These retailers are seeing even higher, higher velocity of sales because they're doing like a markdown strategy and they're getting competitive, especially as we get towards the end of the year, Ashley, we see retailers saying, okay, I've had this inventory all year, I have got to call it right? And so really getting aggressive with their markdown strategy so that we make sure as much past season inventory is out the door before asset taxes come about on December 31st.

So yeah, oh my gosh, cash is king. And I think that's such a huge issue with retailers that don't yet have a really powerful markdown strategy. And you get to the end and you're like, oh, I could just squeak out that 15%. But could you. Are you better off just to put the cash in your pocket and reinvest it in something else that's going to be more powerful that you can get a full margin on?

Absolutely. That's, you know, the power of turns. Yeah.

And I want to dig into that in a second. But I have one more question before we go that direction. Go back to quality control for a second, because I was fascinated by what you just said. So basically, the quality control comes from the rate of review or how the orders are accepted. Is that right? Or is there any other way to control quality coming in from retailers?

I would say our retailers are pretty darn amazing. We don't. We don't have a lot of issues with damaged inventory, erroneous inventory. I think we have, like, a 2% incident rate. So for every hundred orders.

Got it.

There are two mistakes made. And I think that just speaks to the ease of max retail. Because when I send out our customers surveys, I say, what do you love most about max retail? The funny thing is they all say the order processing is so simple. We give a checklist. You know, make sure you remove your vendor tag, remove your store tags, but leave on the vendor tag, put it in an unmarked bag or unmarked poly bag or box, and use our prepaid label. Put the packing slip inside. And yeah, I mean, sometimes retailers will ship a shoe where they didn't wipe down the sole with a baby wipe or check for little garment stains or, you know, makeup. And in those cases, an end consumer will request a return, and that will have to go back to the seller if it's damage or error. Every once in a while, there'll be two left shoes in a box.

Yeah, exactly.

Which happens to us as retailers. Guys like, I was like queen octopus in my retail store, right? Like, forget about it. So when I look at 2 out of 100 orders having a mistake, I'm like, we're doing pretty darn good because we are busy women.

Yeah, that is so true. Oh, my gosh. It does happen to the best of us. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's get back to what we were just talking about, just inventory management in turn. Because I would say, I mean, for the most part, newer retailers, this is one of the first things they're like, oh, I've got to get my head wrapped around what is my turn rate? What is the most effective markdown strategy? How do I just keep more cash in my pocket? So what are some best practices you would share with those retailers?

I would say the first thing is if I can give a small demonstration to make sure we all understand what we're talking about when we're talking about turn. We have investors at Max Retail. We have amazing, amazing venture capital firms backing Max Retail, really committed to our industry, understanding how important independent retail is. But I had to teach them what turn was first for them to understand why Max Retail was so necessary. So I came up with a good one. So let's say I have this makeup bag. Better late than ugly, and it's so cute. And let's say, you know, I. I'm a brand. I manufacture this for $5, well, probably 2, and I sell it to my retailer for 10. So as a retailer, I buy this today and I'm going to sell it for $20 in store and it's a hit. Tomorrow it sells. What am I going to do? I'm going to take my $10 of profit, put it aside, and I'm going to REINVEST My first 10, I'm going to buy another one, and I'm going to do this again. And for 10 days, I am going to buy and sell one of these bags. On the 10th day, I have now made $90 profit off of my $10 investment. But let's say I buy the same bag today for $10 and tomorrow it doesn't sell, and the next day it doesn't sell. And 10 days goes by and I sell it for 20. Did I really win? That is the difference of turn turn. The more velocity you have in your turns, the more profitability you have as a retailer. So if instead I took this and I realized on day three, and I know I'm saying day three, but say like month three, guys, like, we can even go call it like month three. On day three, I realized it's a dog. This ain't gonna happen. And I say I'm gonna mark it down to 10. I'm not going to try to get 20 anymore, but I'm going to go down to 10 and it sells at 10. Great. You know what I can do with that 10? I can go buy a different bag that's likely to sell and get me that velocity. I need it. And if I can't sell it myself at 10, then I'm going to go and put it on Max retail and I'm going to get 850 for it on day five, maybe even day four, and I'm still going to get back to my next turn.

Yeah. So helpful. And I think we all just think, like fine wine inventory is going to get better with age. Like let's not mark it down. The customer may come in tomorrow and no, you're. That was a great demonstration. That was so good. You need to come into retail bootcamp and do that demonstration for everybody.

But that's what we have to realize. What is our opportunity cost?

Right?

Time. Time is the most precious thing we have and it cannot be stored today and banked for tomorrow.

Yeah. Oh, I love it. This has been so good. Hey guys. As I do one on one coaching and audits for so many retailers right now in this economy and I'm asking what's working and what's not. One thing that I find in common with many of them in terms of what's working is they're all utilizing live selling. They are going live either to show product or they're doing actual live sales. Maybe they have a mobile app and they're going live there or they're maximizing clips and short form video. But so many boutique owners have this in common. So if you're not yet familiar with Comments sold comments sold, a platform that supports live selling and short form video branded mobile apps. And it's those apps that are also helping drive repeat purchases and customer loyalty. They make your video instantly shoppable. And it works for both those that are on the newer side of business, but also those businesses that are ready to scale. So if video and mobile are part of your strategy or you're considering it, I want you to check out commentsold.com or meet up with them if you're a member of the boutique hub inside of our groups. Either way, I'll link it up in the show notes for you today so that you can give live selling and going live an opportunity to support your business. Well, I have a few lightning round questions for you. Are you ready?

Ready.

Okay, let's talk about. Think about either yourself or again, the most successful retailers that you get to work with or maybe that you saw when you were a rep and you were traveling the country. And that's how we're going to answer these questions. So first one is I give you two hours back in your day to work on income generating activity. What do you focus on first as a retailer?

The first thing I do is I go to my point of sale and I run my list of top revenue customers and I look at the last time they've been in my store and I send them a personalized text message video where I have pulled from them the items in the store that I know they will love and I text it to them. And I ask them, let me know what you love, what I should put on hold for you, and when you want to come and play dress up with me.

Ooh.

The top 20% of our customers in every business team generates 80% of our revenue.

I love that. So good. Powerful. All right, how about, what is the unsexiest process in business that you think has the most impact?

So that has got to be inventory analysis. It's so boring to look at your cell bruise and to look at your on hand and to look at. I don't know, just to look at your inventory to sales ratio by category. Maybe some people are really into that sort of thing, but for me, I knew it was kind of like, mel, hold your nose and do it, or you're dead. It is. It is like drinking apple cider vinegar, which is great for your body, but on the way down, you're like, I'd rather be calling a customer or playing dress up.

There's so much truth to that. I love it. So good. All right. What has been the hardest lesson in business you've had to learn?

You could make me cry with that one. I would say you have. No matter how much you think you need that employee, they are toxic, and you're better off without them. You don't need them as much as you need peace and positivity in your store. And it's going to hurt for a little while, but I promise you're going to be stronger once you depart them. And it's going to feel like you're firing your sister. Right. And it sucks. And you will want to cry, and you might cry, and you're probably going to cry because I cry every time I do it. But you have got to protect culture. You've got to protect your store, and I promise you will be better off. So make the hard moves.

Yeah. Oh, great advice. Really great advice. All right. How have you learned to really set boundaries like, you're saying, protecting your piece? How have you learned to really set boundaries to protect your personal life while scaling this business?

Oh, man. So, you know, Og Mandino has a book called the Greatest Salesman in the World, and what he says is, my family and my marketplace must remain divorced, and thus I can remain wed to both. And my husband even reminds me of this. When I am home, I am fully with my family, and when I am at work, I don't think of my family, and I have to keep them completely separate. And I've gotten really good at closing the box at the end of the day and putting a bow around it and putting it underneath the chair and not. Not coming back to it. That doesn't mean it doesn't come to me in my dreams. Because, you bet. In the middle of the night, just like those things are keeping you up, Just like that slow month is exhausting you. Just like you're worried about holiday season and Pink Friday and Black Friday and Christmas. Yes, it's gonna haunt your dreams, friends, but do not let it haunt your waking hours when you need to be with your family, because your children don't care about Pink Friday or Black Friday. They only care about you.

Yeah. So good. So true. So true. Well, on that note, what has been the best business advice that you've received that always sticks with you?

You have to love it, even when it doesn't love you back? I think that was probably the deepest thing, because days will be hard, but when things are hard, that is where you look for innovation. You don't look for it when it's good and easy. You look for it when you think you have no other way out.

Boy, that is so true. The best things in life don't come from the comfort zone. They come from the hardest moments. It's so funny.

I.

You know, this is just going to go on a tangent, but a dear friend of mine this week was diagnosed with breast cancer. And having been a cancer survivor myself, we were having this conversation about, you know, why hard things like why us? Why does this happen? And something that came to me when I was going through that journey myself and I shared with her was I just really believe that something good comes from every bad situation if you choose to look for it. And I think the world around us oftentimes doesn't make that choice. They choose the victim route versus the victor route. And all it is is truly a choice of how you're going to perceive and react to the situation and then what is the next action you're going to take? And you know, to your point, that is what the best entrepreneurs that I've ever met in my life have in common is they take that action when time gets really tough. So, great advice. Very well spoken.

I've learned to lean in, Ashley, when it feels so hard or impossible, instead of getting stuck in fear, I actually choose excitement.

That's like a sick game, but I like it.

It works. It works. I'll be like, I can't wait to see what comes out of this.

Wow. All right, well, I'm going to try that. I'm going to take a dose of that with me to choose to be excited about this challenge.

Yeah.

I love it. Okay, last lightning round question. What's your best advice on being a great boss?

Ooh. I. I. Okay, so I have a. I have a confession. I am a terrible manager. I am an excellent leader.

Tell me more.

And so I would say my best advice would be teach people how to think. Don't tell people what to do. Oof.

That's powerful. That is so powerful. All right, well, we're gonna drop all of the knowledge bombs that you've shared in the show notes, because there's been, like, 15 quotable moments in the last five minutes, so, so good. Well, Mellie, I have one last question for you, and this is kind of the big question that really, everybody on the show, I just. I want to hear from. From them truly what this life and this business means to them. Because, I mean, just like, unsold inventory, we aren't here in this business just to sell things.

Amen.

It's not about the widgets.

No.

So I would just love to know you get down the road, you know, Max retail continues to grow in scale, lives this incredible destiny. And you get 30 years from now, and you're on the front porch, like you said, with your family, it's completely separate family or friends. And you're looking back, and you're just reflecting on what it meant to live this life. What is the thing that you really want people to remember the most about you and how you chose to live this life?

You're going to make me cry, Ashley. Seriously, do you do this to everyone?

I do. It's important.

It's a thing I would like to be known for my ripple effect. And what I mean by that is the girls that have worked for me over the years, whether it was in my boutique, who have now grown up to be buyers at Maje, buyers at Saks off 5th, employees of Amazon. Right? And I've taught them so much. But I always let them know, this is not for you to keep. This is for you to share. And we lift while we climb. And here at Max Retail now, I have these young girls who I have the blessing and opportunity to teach them how to think and how to care and how to operate from a system of empowerment, not a system of fear. But it is not for them to keep. It is for them to share. And 30 years from now, I can't wait to see the ripple effect that goes out from my girls. And I just pray to God that Max retail will be a place known as where leaders come from.

That's so good. So powerful. Well, this has been incredible. It has been such a pleasure to get to know you, Melody, and just to hear your story. I've been really looking forward to this opportunity. So thanks for spending time with us and for your collaboration with the Boutique Hub and the way that you serve our industry. It's definitely needed.

It's my pleasure. Thank you for all being joint members of Max Retail and the Boutique Hub. We can do it all together, but not alone. That's the truth.

Thanks for listening, guys. I hope you took away all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show, head on over to the boutique and join the community. We'll see you next week.