Boost Your Boutique with Emily Benson

0:56.8: I always say focus on one store first, grow that, and then add. 

2:39.1: They do local pickups, things like that. That's actually, I think the best-case scenario for opening a brick-and-mortar because you already have this built-in customer base locally. And then they're going to say to their friends, Hey, let's go to this store. I think it's really different.

3:10.8: Let's say you have been selling online and you're sending orders all over the country, you do want to be sure that this location is going to have your people at it. Like, do demographic research on the area.

4:42.9: So if you are focused on building a brick-and-mortar boutique, the online business is going to suffer. Unless you have an online boutique manager who is going to continue to maintain that business.

6:46.7: The hope is that obviously they follow you and you are still selling to the same customer that you sold to online. Now, will they buy the same things? Yes and no. 

7:29.7:  Just because you open a brick-and-mortar does not mean that you need fillers. 

9:19.7: The thinking is different. You want to make sure the store looks great. So people walking in want to buy things that are gonna pay your rent, pay, you know, all that jazz. 

11:23.3: There’s going to be the shift in your marketing that needs to happen is you're just going to make everything local now, okay? With anything paid or organic. Every single post is going to have your location. 

13:00.7: So if you have a brick and mortar, it is also still important to make sure you have a good amount of your inventory online so people can really get a preview and get an idea of what the prices are and what the selection is.

15:28.3: These are the types of things that build community, build a sense of loyalty over time, and building those genuine connections, honestly, I think that is why brick and mortars are doing well.

17:12.2: The brick-and-mortar model has been around forever. So if you have the right concept in the right space with the right marketing, and you're the right person for it, like, those things can line up. 

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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Black Friday Masterclass Access

Head here: www.blackfridaymasterclass.com You'll Learn A 5-Step Holiday Specific Strategy that Will Increase Your Sales Between November and January (post holiday) By Up To 40%. Includes video trainings (90 min+ sessions) and a 23-page workbook * Video 1: Pick a Plan we will chat about the 'Superbowl' weekend of retail and then outline a plan that is specific to YOUR boutique business * Video 2: Create a Plan Having a profitable holiday season means that you need to plan your day-to-day Holiday...

1:30.5: If you are someone who feels overwhelmed often, or you can't handle lots of people, then going to market or a show might not be for you.

5:48.2: So the intention of going to a show would be to hopefully place orders, but to touch and feel and try on and meet the vendors and maybe meet new vendors that, you know, every vendor isn't on Fashion Go.

6:47.1: You'll find is generally organized in a way where the buyers that are coming to that show are all buying for the same kind of customer. 

8:37.4: If you're online, you are never going to like touch and feel things. You're taking a gamble every time you place an order. And that's okay. It's an educated risk. 

11:38.6: Each show is going to be a little bit different. The off-price show tends to sell things that are, they would call the margin builders. So they're lower-cost items.

12:05.2: So it's a good thing to go through the vendor list before you sign up for one of these events.

12:30.9: For someone who is neurodivergent or maybe has trouble with crowds or bright lights or music, something like magic could be really hard. That's a downside as well as going to a market center or a show.

14:13.9: You don't have to, like, be dressed to the nines with your perfect hair and your perfect purse, you're there to do business, you know? And so, whatever that looks like for you. 

14:34.8: Remember, at these shows and at these markets, you have all mixed goods as well. So there's a lot to see. There's a lot to do. , you also can get education.

16:55.8: The coolest part about it is really getting to be immersed in it. Immersed in the industry that you've decided to start a business and there's so much benefit to that. 

18:03.2: You don't have to buy anything and what you buy, you should love it. Like, love, love, love, love, love it.

18:57.8: whenever I bought what I absolutely loved, those were the things that sold out first. 

20:27.3: Make sure your deliveries are going to work. Make sure the retail prices are going to work and then either place an order or. Take a step back and say, you know what, I'm going to just take pictures and take notes on this and I'll follow up, give me your business card. 

21:36.9: If and when you do place orders, the vendor should give you a sheet, an invoice. You're going to take those sheets. You are going to guard them with your life. You're also going to take pictures of everything you ordered with your phone or a camera.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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Overbought Webinar

OVERBOUGHT: A FREE Webinar for {Boutique Owners}...

1:12.3: 20% is a lot of money for a business. But it's also not that hard. So let's think about what 20% would look like in the next 30 days for you.

1:51.3: You need to make sure that you have inventory. Okay. If you don't have inventory, then that's okay.

2:32.6: If your customer is already bought into something that's really working, then you're in a position where you have the opportunity to buy more in a different color and a different print and a bit of a different style and potentially charge a little bit more for it.

3:34.5: But when you're pricing products, I find more often than not, people are pricing too low. 

4:22.6: So many people don't want to charge more for like an everyday item when someone's going to get way more wear out of it. They think, oh, well, I'll charge more for like a nice dress that someone would wear to a wedding.

5:00.9: I think that's the craziest thing because what you're doing is you're saying that the cost per wear of that item is going to be way better because someone might spend 30 on it, but they're going to wear it 30 times.

6:30.5: Look at the inventory you have and be honest with yourself. Did I buy this and it was a mistake? Did I buy this and I haven't really shown it enough?

7:31.6: I see so many boutique owners that are just like, well, things aren't selling and I don't know what to do. Keep trying. You have to keep trying. 

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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OVERBOUGHT: Break the Cycle of Overbuying Inventory and Maximize Profitability

Check it out here 👉🏼 https://www.boutiquetrainingacademy.com/overbought 7.30.23 8pm EST Live Webinar Hosted by Emily Benson Analyze Sell Off Reforecast It’s time to talk about this. Stop buying inventory if you’re reading this right now. Fire the person you hired to do your open to buy plan. Learn how to create your own buying plan for your store. Finally get control of your inventory and reduce anxiety.

Overbought Training

3:13.8: I was raised middle class in a blue state. And I think that generationally, I'm like two generations away from the Great Depression. And I am one generation, not even, I'm 10 years away from women getting bank accounts. 

4:09.2: I want to recognize that things are changing in the boutique industry, especially because it is a woman-led business, and I'm sorry, I'm a woman female-identifying.

5:07.0: I think this is a big piece of it is when you are starting to make more money, you have more access to things. You have the ability to really affect change when you have that economic power, when you have wealth when you have money, and for so many of my scale girlies out there, my scale people out there for you, you have so many opportunities to build wealth.

6:49.6: That's where this stuff, this Underlying retail mindset stuff starts to come up around us being wealthier than our spouse, wealthier than our parents, making more money than family members. 

6:56.5: The boutique industry is definitely a path to wealth, a path to building a sustainable business and a sustainable income for your family and a sustainable like this is not a hobby.

9:48.4: If we're not the change in the conversation, then no one's going to change for us.

11:10.3: I speak from a place of knowing where you're at, having worked through some of it and like still working through it with you on this podcast, like coaching myself as we go through this.

14:12.2: How does that power dynamic play out within society, within your home, and within your family? 

14:55.7: What happens when we do make half a million dollars a year, our husband gets to quit their job, wants to quit their job, and stay home and take care of the kids? Or, maybe doesn't stay home and fully take care of the kids, but is the lead at the house.

18:00.4: I think with an untraditional relationship and a traditional male-female identifying household partnership where that we have all been sold I do think that there are some unique things going on.

21:03.1: You've got to figure out how to navigate with your partner. Managing what you want, managing the downtime, managing your family time, managing that labor at home. 

22:18.3: A lot of insecurities can come up when money shifts and money gets different, right? 

24:21.8: You have to navigate in a way that works for you and not forgetting how powerful the money that you're bringing in can be and what it could afford you, what it could give in your life to your partner. 

26:33.4: There is an opportunity for us to start to embrace women as being head of household. 

31:18.1: But you are allowed to gently and firmly push back when people challenge your little business. Oh, yeah. My little business. Yeah, it paid for my new Mercedes. Oh, yeah. My little business that paid for our house.

32:20.8: Be okay pushing back, and then be okay with people not understanding. You are still allowed to be the change. You are still allowed to speak that things are changing. 

35:45.9: I want you to feel empowered. I want you to feel like you own a business that is successful, even if don't feel like that all the time. And I want you to start thinking about as you grow this business happens next. 

39:18.0: There's so many opportunities for you to make more money and make money with the power and the leverage that you have with your...

3:13.7: I'm worried that so many boutique owners think there's one way to do things. 

3:44.7:  It's just so important to be your unique self and only do the things that you want to do.

6:34.5: One of the biggest things I see across the board and boutique land is this turnover. 

8:16.2: This is a good double-check on, do I really need to buy this? So many of you are overbought. Even working with people who are helping you with buying plans. I'm shocked to hear how many well-established companies are having people overbuy.

11:57.5: It's an opportunity for you to re-examine your business. What days you're open, how it's structured, what you do in your business. Do you do more events, uh, and have fewer store hours open, right? Do you teach classes on something that you're interested in?

12:32.8: I think you're going to have to have a multi-dimensional boutique business. You're going to have to be able to scale up to the point where the business can support you.

14:49.6: We need to continue to challenge vendors to actually like fit things on plus-size women so they fit. There are some vendors that are doing it really well and there are other vendors that need to get it together. 

15:53.9: Remember, all of these beauty standards, these fashion standards, aren't necessarily originating from women. 

16:39.8: Do something that like feels like a passion project and might make you money.

20:00.5: When you're in a regulated nervous system, when you've taken deep breaths, when you've had a great night's sleep, when you're in a position where you just feel really good, what sounds fun? 

20:27.0: Especially in your business where you have complete control. If you don't want to be open Mondays, don't be open Mondays. If you only want to be open in the middle of the day, just be open in the middle of the day.

21:08.6: A buying plan is so imperative, even if it's not perfect. 

25:52.4: I think that as you become a more established boutique owner, those are the things you're thinking about more and more. And because you're thinking about that more and more, some of it you've masked. 

29:00.0: What I will say is that being in a community and having the support. What I will say is people are uplifted by it. They're motivated by it. They get to the point where it feels really good to them.

34:01.0: is the demand there? Yeah. But also are we kind of like creating the demand ourselves by producing so much by offering people so many options and so many choices?

35:07.0: Maybe you honestly open up your store because you're like, I want to dive into this and help people like me or I love fashion and I want to show my unique style. 

38:30.4: I'm showing up in the ways that I can. And I'm pouring my heart into the spaces and places where I can, because that's what I have the bandwidth for. What do you have the bandwidth for? 

40:40.8: Be careful with shackets, please. And I would also say, like, maybe be careful with sets, like, two piece sets. I think that people are still going a little too hard on two piece sets, so I just want to, like, warn you.

41:37.4: I want you to remember that there's still the woman just like you who needs to get dressed for every day, not just the Taylor Swift concert, not just the Barbie movie that they're going to with their...

3:31.1: I turned 40 a week after my daughter turned one. So I currently have a 19-month-old at age 40 which most people would say is super old. I actually love it.

5:02.8: I honestly think that women's healthcare after having a baby is ridiculous. The fact that they talk about baby blues and postpartum depression and anxiety and rage and all of that, like only being up to eight weeks after 12 weeks after you give birth, like. Oh, no way.

6:31.3: I think the motivation to want to work after you have a baby is also not always high for people. 

9:29.4: Focus on how you wanna grow your family. Because growing your family could happen in a lot of different ways, and it's gonna happen how it's meant to happen. So just focus on growing your family and that really reframed my headspace.

16:27.5: I didn't realize how tough recovering would be, regardless of how you choose to feed your baby.

20:01.4: I am still running a business, and that business is the backbone of our family. Like this business financially supports our family. My husband does not have a traditional job. Like a nine-to-five job. So in a lot of ways that's great because he has time to help. He has time to, he's with her 30 hours a week right now because we don't have, we're not doing daycare yet.

21:21.7: In a lot of ways, having a business has really helped me. Be a mom managing everything, whether it's like nap schedules, food, bottle choices, toys, clothes like knowing that she's hitting her milestones, all that stuff.

23:16.8: Like you're gonna have those days like you just are, and the added pressure of having a business and feeling motivated to work on your business it's a balance. I think having flexibility in more ways than one is gonna serve you so much better.

27:16.2: When you have a business and you've started one and you grow one and, You have so much ability to adjust it, and I think what you have to do is give yourself the permission to adjust it and pivot and figure things out.

29:52.2: I think you have to allow yourself to pivot to what's gonna work for you now. Because like you said, what used to work doesn't necessarily work. So what is gonna work for you?

32:41.2: It does get a little easier in some ways, but also again, harder in other ways because now she's also a runner.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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0:32.2: I really want to help you understand that starting a boutique is not for everyone and going into it with a full scope of understanding what could go wrong and what could go right is really important. 

1:01.5: I think one of the things people think when they have a mobile boutique is that things are gonna be easy. Like, oh, I'm gonna just pull up and sell things. And that's not at all what happened.

1:58.2: My perspective is totally unique and I'm gonna show that perspective in my retail store, and so I'm not gonna worry about competition. 

2:40.9: I think one of the things that I would not do again, would be to get obsessed with having this beautiful website if I had a brick-and-mortar or a mobile boutique.

3:52.1: I think too many people think, oh, I'm gonna open an online store and have a brick-and-mortar and it's gonna provide the same amount of revenue as my brick-and-mortar. And to be honest with you, that's just not really how it goes.

4:33.9: If you're going to do one thing, don't feel like you have to be online. And if you're online, don't feel like you have to open a physical something.

5:20.4: In the entrepreneurial world, most of the time partnerships don't work. They say partnerships sink ships.

5:49.8: Having someone that's like sort of a higher-up person rather than a partner I find is really good.

6:48.1: If I were to start a boutique again, I would be really focused on one particular style or one particular lifestyle. I would be really narrow with my assortments starting out, and then I would expand.

7:58.6: I would make sure that everything I brought in was something that I'm like, I absolutely love this.

8:33.8: You don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to buy all this stuff. Just buy what you absolutely love, love, love, love, love.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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50.7: A lot of people are getting into this business now, and they're not realizing the impact that it's gonna have on their life and what they're gonna have to do to be successful.

1:01.6:  An online business obviously requires a lot of technical stuff. 

1:33.4: If you're not tech-savvy, that's okay. Just know going into it that you're going to have to at least be adaptable and open to learning all this new tech stuff because once you learn it, you can totally do it.

1:49.4: You have to be willing to be a DIY person and go through the tech, the struggles, and the annoying little things that happen 

2:24.4: You're gonna have to plan your product assortment. You're going to want to identify your ideal customer, and you're going to wanna have a point of view if you don't have a fashion point of view for the person that you're trying to sell to. 

2:42.2: And I think it's important to know that the stronger your point of view is, the more you have a direction with your assortment and, and what you're doing and where you're growing and who you're catering to, all of that really matters these days. 

3:09.9: When you have a boutique having five core items that are just really good items that put a uniform together.

3:38.3: It's important to know though, when you're online, you have to be the face of this or you have to hire models.

4:32.1: It's important to know though, when you're online, you have to be the face of this or you have to hire models.

6:09.0: Social media is like having free newspaper and magazine advertising at your fingertips all the time. 

7:00.7: But for you as a boutique owner, it's also important for you to show up how you're wearing your own clothes.

7:39.0: You are the best influencer for your business.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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Boutique Brilliance Classes

May 15 Training

Boost Your Boutique with Emily Benson

BONUS Mid-June Boutiqueland Updates

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1:33.0: It's really important when you start your kid's boutique or children's boutique to focus, you cannot sell newborns to tweens. All of the things in between boys, girls, gender neutral, wherever you're headed with this, plus toys, blankets, it's a lot. You guys, you've gotta focus.

2:14.8: I think that opening a children's boutique is a no-brainer because you're always gonna have customers. There's always babies being born.

4:24.4: Is the wholesale high? Can we only get sometimes a 2X markup? Yes. But there's going to be places where maybe you can make more.

4:52.7: Don't be ashamed if you have to charge what you feel like is a lot of money for kids' clothes. You have to find the right customer for that item, but I guarantee you will find those people.

5:40.9: But from my perspective, children's inventory can be hard to find. But when you do find it, there is some really good stuff out there.

8:43.1: Really, I want you to make money with your children's boutique because it's important, it's necessary. It's definitely a needed thing in the boutique landscape.

Resources:

Visit Boutique Training Academy - If you want to make more money in your boutique or retail business you're in the right place. We'll guide you step by step in your journey through Boutiqueland.

NEW BOOK #TheRetailMindset available on Amazon

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