Boost Your Boutique With Emily Benson

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0:54.6 If you're an influencer or if you are in a position where you are ready to start manufacturing your own clothing and accessories or you already do and you want a different take on it and you want to hear from people who are really in the day to day of what's coming next, they're a little bit right ahead of the curve, you're going to want to listen to this episode.4:24.3 We're now working with influencers, which is super fun and exciting and new. And I think that's the greatest part about the business side that I'm on now is every day is different. Every day we have different products that we're touching, different customers we're working with and really getting to adapt and continue to grow and evolve our business as our customer base changes.5:59.5 It feels like a lot of people who want to sell don't understand that a retail industry.7:15.9 I think when you're talking about selling to the masses and especially for what we're doing with these influencers, you know, it is about mass appeal still. And so

0:51.0 Our promise to you today is that we hope you will open your mind to adding more plus size to your retail store as a vendor and how to do it in a way that's going to make you money.3:08.6 I think sizing is one of the most challenging aspects of the plus size and extended market.3:36.7 Extra large is not plus size. No. So there's a different size grade to the plus size demographic. So a 1x is not the same as an extra large and that's a huge misconception. 6:33.4 Size grading is crucial. 7:26.7 If you are offering plus size, don't charge me extra. You don't charge the customer that's buying from extra small to extra large any different when she buys that size wrap. 8:42.5 I think as a retail community, we really need to push vendors to take more risks  in the plus size community.10:56.4 I hear these questions all the time. So,  I brought plus size into my store, Ashley. It's not selling. Why isn't it selling? Because the plus size girl is not going into your store because you've e

1:04.0 My name is Darlene Mitchell and I am a retail business strategist. And my strength really is around inventory and profitability. So I help business boutique owners. Understanding inventory strategies so they can have legacy, not just so they can have a business, but they can have a legacy business, a business that stays around. 1:32.8 I was in corporate retail for 25 plus years. And what I do now is exactly what I did in corporate retail1:51.4 I'm teaching my clients what I learned in big retail and fortune 500 retail.2:12.7 There's a lot of money. There's a lot of trajectory. Like it's a great career, I think for anyone interested in fashion or selling or like how products get to the floor.2:29.8 You are not born with this knowledge. Retail math is very different math than math. 5:43.5 So like a buyer or a merchant, like depending on what the company kind of called it, that's like the lead business person now who I think is like the most similar to like a boutique owner.11:06.2 I don't care

1:22.0 I use retail as a sort of the stepping stone to gain awareness about myself and to build capital.2:58.1 It's very important that I feel that the clothes that we make are just made for a woman's body, not a specific woman's body, but like just the woman's body. So I pay a lot of attention to where themes are and how long certain sleeves are to make it to make everybody feel like they can wear it and not be self conscious.4:06.1 I do think that the clothes you put on your body have a lot to do with how you leave your house.4:22.6 it's really hard for boutique owners to find  Quote unquote, cute clothes in curvy sizes.9:03.0  no matter how big or small can they know, well, hopefully they know, or are starting to at least learn what sizes sell best for their particular demographics. 11:01.3 We're not going to sacrifice style quality or anything like that, but I am willing to  kind of do what needs to be done to stay relevant in whatever changing market is happening or doesn't happen.13:

1:27.0 So when should you start an email list? Like Day one. Okay. If you don't have an email list or you only have a list of people who purchase from your boutique business, that's fine.1:38.4 Even if it's 20 people on your list, even if it's five, get signed up with an email service and get going.1:54.7 What are we doing with email? Why are we doing it? One, we're staying top of mind with customers.2:01.5 Email has the highest return on investment, somewhere like 38 for every email you have, like you get in return every time you send an email.2:20.0 Most people aren't going to unsubscribe. So don't feel ashamed or bad or whatever about sending emails.2:26.8 They signed up with you. Okay. And you're just communicating with them. You're saying, Hey, this is what's going on in my store. This is what you should know about.2:43.4 Now, how often should you be sending? I say at least once a week and please don't call this a newsletter. 3:15.5  Can't tell you how many emails I've gotten that have this tit

Mentioned in this episode:Sky's the Limit Boutique Business Accelerator in 2024Sky's Boutique Business Accelerator teaches a proven, professional level framework that has been revolutionizing how boutiques scale. What if in 3-4 months you could reduce your inventory liability, become more profitable and start making passive income? Sky's the Limit Boutique Business AcceleratorRetail Riches Free Workshop Does this sound like you? You work so hard. You feel so broke. You have racks, boxes, basements, storage units full of inventory. You never have quite the right items or quantities in stock. You feel disorganized and often overwhelmed at what your next step in your business should be. At the same time… You’ve told yourself that you’re all over the place and that’s just how every boutique or wholesale owner is. You don’t know how much a boutique or wholesale owner should make so you feel like you’re floating out there alone. You know your boutique or wholesale business is good, but it would be nice to hav

0:24.5 You don't need a lot of money to start a boutique business.0:36.6 Let's say that the first way is through dropshipping. There are lots of dropshippers that are now connected through Shopify. So all you have to do is have a Shopify website.0:55.4 You pay for the good as the person buys for it, but it's a really nice way to start a business with very little money. You will have to pay the Shopify fee and sometimes drop shippers do have initial setup.1:08.6 Then you don't have a whole shipping station in your house. You don't have to worry about getting inventory shipped to a warehouse or storing anything. 1:22.4 Another easy way to start a boutique business with almost no money is to do it with your own clothing.1:28.6 Start a consignment store. If you can source really beautiful stuff from your own closet, from other people's closets, and leverage that to start a business, then you can start to make money. 2:19.8 You do need to design the merchandise that you are selling and you actually reall

0:41.2 One of the things that I know for sure across all of my clients that I work with as a boutique consultant is I want them all to relax.1:18.4 I think we need to set much better boundaries than we have in the past. And I think a lot of people just were hustling and that's like how they were raised. And that's what patriarchy tells us to do.2:25.4 So every time you expand, every time you make more money, you're going to have to put more support systems in place.3:47.8 So in for 2024 is relaxing and out is hustle.4:32.4 You've got to have a basic plan for your business. 4:50.0 You need to be examining your business at a really granular level. 5:47.0 A plan safeguards you against these feelings of things aren't going well.6:28.6 If you've been in business for a few years, you've got to stop looking all over the place at what you should be doing.7:01.7 What is out right now is looking at anyone else in boutique land, anyone else, what they're doing and trying to copy it.7:39.5 We have to stop looki

1:30.6 Pop ups are anything that are temporary or semi permanent. And the idea is that you're going there, you're testing the location, you're testing the audience, and you're seeing if it works for you.2:25.8 You've got to figure out what the vibe of your customer is going to be so that you know where they're going to be.2:48.6 You want to study the other vendors that are there. You want to study the ones that look busy. You want to see what they're doing.3:50.2 If you have good product and good branding, you should be okay at these events. So pop ups are really important. 4:44.4 So understand that getting out and doing these collaborative events with business owners could be so good for you now5:55.4 I put on a food truck festival in my town where my store was with my truck and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do an event for the town.6:19.5 I will say just the goodwill, the knowledge, the talking about my business, because I was a  running, it was so good for me.6:27.1 So don't hesitate to be

1:33.0 The thing about having a brick and mortar is you have automatic traffic If you pick a good location, so All the clients that I've ever had open a brick and mortar business, I'm always like pay for traffic, pay for good location, because that's something that you don't automatically get in a mobile business.1:56.1 If you're in a location that's really rural or has really specific zones where people go to shop, you want to exist in those places as a mobile shop. 2:10.2 I find that when people open mobile boutiques in the middle of nowhere, it's just really hard to find customers.2:16.1 If you're online now, I think the best way to think about whether or not it's more economical or not is what the traffic situation is.2:32.9 If you live in a place that's heavily dependent on brick and mortars and you could find a good location in a prime spot, honestly, opening a brick and mortar might be for you.2:47.2 Now I talked about mine being a 30 foot step van and that was huge. If I were to redo it, I would

0:24.0 I want to show you why your January negative self talk and your negative, in general, self talk about the economy is,  it's,  it's putting your boutique out of business.1:24.6 January is a trash month1:31.8 In the retail world, it is trash, which means you get to take time off. 2:24.9 No, the economy is not bad, your product sucks.  You have a bad product. No one wants it. People will buy products that they want.2:24.1 If there's something you want, you will figure out how to buy it. 2:47.1 So if you have bad product and you're complaining that you don't have sales, you have bad product. Okay. It's not the economy. It's not inflation. 2:55.0 Are people spending less? Yeah. Are they being more thoughtful about their spends? Yeah. Are they going to more events and doing more things outside that are more experience based? Yes. So your product based business has to be.3:13.3 Let's start to be more creative. Let's start to design our own stuff Let's get together with a friend a

4:09.0 January gets a bad rap. It really needs to be rebranded into January is rest, relaxation, rejuvenation. It's also like organizing, prepping, planning, and at a pace that feels gentle and tender and kind.8:27.8 So where I see retail and boutiques being really different is retail feels really big. 9:39.2 People that look like they're big time might not be making the money you think they might not have the influence you think, or they'll have the influence in the wrong space.11:29.5  And, you know, I do think if you are interested in doing white label product, beauty products, you want to go to a show that has like more stuff, maybe your general merchandise, maybe you have a gift store. This might be something that You want to come and look at, um, I will be on their podcast too, coming up soon here.12:37.0 I think one of the things that it's really nice to do in January is analyze your routines13:47.7 So we do talk about my plan and we do talk about Facebook ads, but we also talk about getting

1:30.1 This is one of the keys to, I think, the problems that happen among so many boutique owners is you just have so much space.1:45 But It allows you to overbuy and overbuying is one of the quickest ways to not scale your business to become very much unprofitable and to always be struggling to make the revenue that you want.1:56.9 So first and foremost, the conversation around assortment has to come from the fact that we don't want to overbuy.2:29.8 If something is really working in your store, you could bring something back in another color, in another print, in another material.3:31.3 Now as you start to grow and scale, you have to start to get comfortable with your assortment, understanding what is truly working and what is not.6:21.6 Now, value of items has been so diminished over the years because people are loving to give lots of discounts and have affordable pricing, which is fine, but like,  I just don't think it's going to work for much longer.8:50 The Gucci belt principle is that if you have

1:48.1 With seasonal change, the merchandise has to change. So whether you have clothes, whether you have garden goods, whether you have gifts, it's always going to shift based on the season, right? So that's why January and the J months have this bad rep because they're transition months.3:53.7 You see really weird activity in January. So you don't want to start your year off that like that. You want to know that January is an extension of the year before.4:45.2  If December 5th, December 6th, you're like, wow, I have extra money in my bank account. I should buy inventory for spring, for winter, whenever. No, don't do that. 5:07.2 Make sure you're selling down your inventory for the end of the year. You're getting prepped for January to be a bit of a hibernation period for your business.5:12.6 Do not think the world is ending because the first two weeks of January are slow.5:34.2 And these first two, three, four weeks in January in the new year to get grounded in what your plan is for the next year

2:17.6 This is the time to talk about it. This is the time to get people behind your cause.3:06.8 We've got to promote the promotions that we're doing, any sales, discounts, events. events we have to promote,  but we also can't forget that we have to educate our customers.3:36.8 What matters is how you show up for them. What matters is how you present your offer to them.4:39.6 ​​But the real truth is like we have to be more nuanced with our marketing. We have to be more  assertive, but make an offer.5:26.8  Be clear in your marketing. Be like so clear that it's like, duh.6:04.7 Let's really advertise what we're doing, what we're selling, making that offer for the product. 9:32.1 Remind people, you're a small business, you're a local business, you're a woman owned business, and with your inventory, reflect that. Talk about how you can't get it anywhere else.10:34.7 Because people need gifts. They want to shop small. They want to shop local. They want to shop minority, BIPOC, women owned. So

5:28.0: So I want to talk about the big picture that I want to talk about industry and then I want to talk about you, how you're feeling.7:47.2: From being a boutique owner to you being a human in the world, right? We are managing a lot. 10:54.0: If you can get yourself to 12 to 15K, you're good. You're in good shape. You know, like you're good. You're rocking and rolling. 12:16.1: It does feel like hate and division and the wanting to pit sides against each other and all this kind of like, it just, it's happening again, kind of like during COVID.13:53.8: That is what we've also been revealed to us is we need to be aware of what's going on. 15:20.2: Your work is going to always affect not only your family. That's the obvious, but your work does have an effect on the world. 16:45.9: I believe so much in every single person who's on the other side of this microphone who is I'm in your ears right now. I believe in you so much.20:50.9: I want you to feel validated. I want you to feel safe. I w

2:03.7: What you're about to listen to is a group coaching call. We include group coaching calls with all of our programs. So, we have three levels of programs. This particular call is for our Boutique Basics Bootcamp course. 7:07.0: If you think you can sell everything to everyone and have something for everyone. I've been preaching this for years.  And you're going to see it come true in the next six months, like harder than ever, because you can't just sell something for everyone because everyone is no one. 13:20.5: I am Arianne Braverman. If you don't know who I am, um, I am one of the coaches here at Boutique Training Academy. Emily and I go way back. Uh, but I also have my own boutique. It's an online jewelry and accessories boutique called Arianne's Jewel Box. 15:00.6: The reason why I love fourth quarter so much is because I love the energy. I love the spirit, the hustle bustle. Like it just drives me. 16:15.1: If you ordered anything special for black friday Make sure you kno

2:16.5: There's no one path to success.3:13.3: There's been some quick fixes or people who've started businesses really quickly and maybe seen some success. But this is where the short and longterm thinking in my mind happens because you have to be on the pulse and you also have to be thinking longterm.4:37.4: Size inclusivity has been something that we have been fighting for from vendors, from brands for so long. This is something that, you know, we want more cute clothes and inclusive sizing period. 6:22.4: We're just kind of, again, reinforcing the fact that women fluctuate sizes no matter what.7:05.4: And while we don't want to take our eye off the ball with making sure brands and. Vendors have inclusive sizing, also watching our customer base, watching our size selling, seeing if we're like something's changing because this might not affect you at all.7:29.1: I think we have to recognize that as boutique owners, we have to start being really flexible. We have to start understanding that our demograp

5:32.0: You know, there's a lot of people that just step into entrepreneurship and it's like not their thing and no judgment.6:47.0: Because let's be honest. Most people that own a boutique and you know, I know I have my dudes out there and I also have mostly women I'm chatting with, right? And we know we are tired like we were tired.7:48.6: I think we have to all really, really be honest about when we start a boutique. Like, what's enough? What's enough for you? What's not enough? What's worth it? What's not? 9:24.2: It's money and numbers that we in a capitalistic, like, society have been raised to look to for success. And I don't really believe that that's true anymore.10:59.9: I really feel so strongly that you should be afforded a business that can make you money and give you a really nice life. Whatever that looks like to you.12:28.4: I think we focus on all the wrong things when we start businesses sometimes because we think we just have to do all the things and it's not true.13:29.3: Billionaires