Your Boutique Can Be Profitable: Everything You Need to Know About Profit Power Tools Big news! Today, I'm sharing my excitement about my new Profit Power Tools program and its why it's a game changing program for boutique owners, wholesalers and independent retailers. ➡️ Get all the details and add your name to the waitlist here! • Introduction to Profit Power Tools program: Are you a product business that makes sales but is struggling to become profitable? Profit Power Tools is the...

11:45.1 We did what we wanted.  We did it pretty professionally and we did it with like a level of class and style where people took us seriously. 11:58.2 We had access to these amazing creative tools, professors who really pushed us, who gave us Tons of access and free time to play and explore with our art. And like our minds were just so rich. And I think you and I, and our whole friend group, we were all just like reveling in this. 18:36.7 I need to get in to see a client. I need to...

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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...

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...

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 retail 1:51.4 I'm teaching my clients what I learned...

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...

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...

Mentioned in this episode: Sky's the Limit Boutique Business Accelerator in 2024 Sky'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 Accelerator

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 month 1:31.8 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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

8:35.0: I've been studying money and money mindset for a long time. I will preface all of this conversation. With a short legal disclaimer saying, I am not an accountant. 9:33.1: I want to speak to this idea of debt because especially in the United States this is something that Basically, our society has decided is bad and I'm here to kind of flip the script on that for you boutique owners.  11:00.8: So often as women, we give away our power around money. 11:48.3: Taking out a 300, 000 loan...

1:28.3: It's going to cost you some money, obviously, to have a point-of-sale system, meaning you need somewhere to sell it and accept credit cards. 2:13.8: If you're going to start a boutique, uh, whether it's home decor, gifts, children's, women's, men's, you've got to think about what are the things that people buy most often? What are the categories that they're buying?  3:55.7: Now people always say like, Oh, I should have something for everyone. No, you should have. Lots of things for...