268 – How to Conduct Your Own Virtual Shopping Show with Vicki Adrian of Adrian’s Boutique

Gift biz unwrapped episode 268 I woke up in the middle

of the night and I thought what's really stressing me out

is those racks and racks and racks of clothing,

Attention, gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue and I'm so happy You're here with me today.

This is the last of a special four part series on

business owners who've gotten creative to manage through the current times.

Of course,

as I continue talking with business owners,

this will always be a topic that comes up.

Times have changed and business will look different.

I don't want you to think of this in a negative

sense though.

This is an opportunity to try new things,

to find even better ways to expand your reach and sell

your product.

That's what all four of these past guests have done.

I'm so inspired by the ownership and control of your destiny

that so many of you are exhibiting and the solutions that

are being devised are genius.

It's also exciting to know that some of these concepts are

working so well that there'll be incorporated into the plan long

term. My goal for these four episodes are to spark ideas

for you.

If you're just starting out in your business there ways to

attract customers or creative services to offer that you may not

have considered yet,

and if you're an established business,

these examples may trigger another idea to use now or in

the future.

Speaking of established businesses,

I've heard from a number of you asking how to get

into maker's MBA.

This program is created to take a brand new business dreamer

from concept to profitable business in a proven step by step

manner. But I'm hearing you because the truth is even when

you have a business up and running,

things can get messy and important foundational elements like websites and

email marketing.

It can be forgotten or never set up in the first

place because you're busy and interestingly,

we have many people who have gone through maker's MBA who

were already in business but wanted to join for just this

reason. So I've created a new option for you,

my established business listeners who've had your business up and running

for two years or more.

It's called maker's MBA accelerator and it fast tracks you to

a area of your business that you know needs attention,

but you haven't had the time to focus on it.

If this sounds like something you'd be interested in,

please head over to gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash makers MBA there you'll see a link for established

businesses where I ask you a couple of questions and you

can be in the maker's MBA accelerator program quickly from there.

Let's talk now about today's show.

I've caught Vicki while her shop is still locked down,

so not even social distancing in the store is happening for

her yet the pandemic left her with a couple of problems,

the obvious nobody can walk into our store,

but Vicki also sells at large women's shows and she sitting

on a lot of inventory that's going to be out of

season in the next few months and could even be out

of style if she held onto it to next year.

So in true Vicky form,

she found her solution in online shopping shows.

She's going to walk you through exactly how she does this,

what it's meant for her business and no surprise how she

sees it continuing in the future.

I can actually see all of us doing some version of

this for our businesses too.

Let's get into exactly how she does this Today.

I am so honored to have Vicky,

Adrian of Adrian's boutique back on the show.

She is one busy woman lately,

so I am so,

so happy that you're going to have the time spend with

us, Vicki.

The craziness is all outside the office door.

There you go.

So let me fill everyone in about you before we totally

get started here.

Vicky is a 38 plus year veteran retailer in a tiny

Kansas. Adrian's boutique has gone through many transformations over the years

and is continuing to evolve and adjust to our new normal.

Vicky is committed and very involved with store owners in the

gift boutique industry and runs a select mastermind group of 12

stores from around the country.

She also serves as vice president of Southwest buying group or

retail group with over 300 stores represented married to her Kansas

farm boy for over 40 years.

Vicky has two married adult children and four awesome grandchildren.

Vicky, thank you so much for being here today.

Well thank you.

As you know,

I listen to you all the time and I just continued

to be odd by what you're doing for all the crafters

and the creators and the people out there.

The bakers.

Yes, all of them.

Well, you know what,

and especially right now,

I feel like we all have to tap into where we

have specialties and just do whatever we can be doing to

help people.

Right? Absolutely.

I mean it's just such a crazy time.

So give biz listeners,

if you want to hear Vicky's full story,

you're going to have to go way back in the gift

biz archives to episode number 48 which was in March,

2016 wow.

It's so crazy that it's so long ago.

It is.

Time flies.

It sure does.

But that's a great episode.

So again,

I would love for you guys all to go back and

listen, but I also,

since it's been so long,

Vicky, I want to hear once again about your motivational candle

because maybe it's changed.

Are you up for it?

I am.

And you know,

this may have been my quote back in the day because

this has been my quote for a long,

long time and that is luck is where opportunity meets preparation.

And I try to live by that all the time.

But I have a quote for these times right now that

we're in and that is,

it's living above my computer right above my desk and it

is action over anxiety and I am living that every single

day. Every single day when I start to feel anxious,

I just glance up and it's very fancy.

It's on the back of an index card,

a used index card at that.

So you're so funny.

So it does not look very creative,

but action over anxiety is what we're working really hard to

do. Yeah,

just keep moving and even better if that action is going

to be able to help you out now and in the

future. Absolutely.

I think a lot of people naturally understood this idea of

action because what did people do?

Right? As soon as this happened and we were all sent

home, that's how I like to say it.

We were all sending home was what was I going to

do? An organizing some type of action movement doing something.

Absolutely. So I think you're absolutely right in those of us

who are working on trying to hold onto our businesses,

what better than to take action in some area that we

had never had time for before?

So we can come out of this existing number one as

a business and then even stronger as we go for the

future. You're so right.

I mean,

we're trying to reinvent ourselves again and like I said,

we have reinvented ourselves over and over and over again in

38 years and we're no longer selling little blue country ducks

that we were selling when we first opened and we've transformed.

So why should this time be any different?

We're just going to transform into whatever the new normal is,

whatever our new reality is.

And we don't have a clear picture of that at the

end of the line.

Because as everything business is constantly changing,

no matter what business you're in.

And so I think you have to take times like this

as an opportunity to decide,

make the decision that you're going to be here when it's

over, and then take whatever steps it takes to do that.

To work through whatever the system needs to be and to

be creative.

I think too.

Absolutely. I'm doing this four part series now,

trying to spark other people's ideas.

Let's start with hearing a little bit about what has gone

on with you the last three or four years.

Well, we have continued to be in business.

We've continued to grow here in our little town.

We have added a lot of other fashion items that we

had just dabbled in previously.

We've now added shoes to our mix,

done a lot more in jewelry,

a lot more in clothing.

We've added the Brighton line,

which has been a big change for us and so things

were just rolling along in the gift world.

We do gift,

we do kids,

we do gourmet foods,

we do clothing,

all kinds of accessories and so it is always a busy

time here at Adrian's.

Yes it is,

and I hear the phone ringing in the background and you

know what?

I think we're just going to let it roll because this

is real life.

You don't have as many people there working right now and

we've got to catch you while we can and you have

to work.

So get busy listeners.

We're just going to let it roll this way.

We're just going to let it go.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, because we will never finish if we don't.

So, and you know what,

it's great to hear because there's action and activity happening over

there. There is definitely.

So you've already adjusted,

you've changed your product line a little bit and then you

continue within the apparel section obviously to adjust to trends and

what you see people buying and not buying,

you know,

all that,

all the fun stuff.

So that's all happening.

Things are going along as usual.

And I want to remind people that Vicky is in a

remote area.

So I mean,

I remember from our last conversations,

people will take like a whole weekend day.

They'll make it into a family trip to come and see

you. Right?

So anybody who's thinking that they're out in remote land and

can't do the types of things that Vicki is talking about,

I will suggest to you to reconsider.

Absolutely we are a destination store,

although I would say things have changed in that area as

well. We're finding less like groups of ladies that will drive

here from an hour and a half,

two hours away because I feel like that is,

I mean it hasn't gone away,

but it has definitely lessened as more and more people are

buying via the internet.

And I talked to one of the gals in town that

owns a little restaurant and she says the same thing.

I mean it used to be like large groups of ladies

would come,

now it's four to five to six ladies.

And so that was already changing before this all happened.

And so we were making adjustments there where we were getting

more and more things online,

but we certainly aren't,

I would not consider us yet a true online store.

We have lots of products on there,

but we just keep adding daily to our online presence.

And again,

it's just another way of adjusting.

So we were in the process of doing that over last

two years.

Also Sue,

I don't know if I've talked to you since we started

subscription boxes because I think that was three years ago and

so we have built a subscription box business in addition to

what we were already doing.

I did not know about that.

Briefly describe what's entailed with your subscription box.

Well, we had a friend,

a really good friend,

Jean, a vineyard in Wyoming and at the Atlanta market a

couple of years ago or three years ago in January she

did a little workshop and it was to be on how

to build a gift basket,

which you're very familiar with.

Yes. It's something that I just wasn't doing and so she

held a little 30 minute workshop for some stores from our

mastermind group and a few other stores and I came away

with that thinking,

huh, I could do gift boxes.

I am never going to be artistic enough to do a

gift basket.

Never, but I can definitely build a box.

And I came home from Atlanta market in January and said

we're going to do a February box and our goal was

to sell 24 boxes and we ended up selling 144 boxes

in February.

This isn't a turnaround time of about two and a half

weeks. We pulled everything for those boxes off of our store

shelves cause I had only ordered enough things for 24 boxes.

So everyone got different things in that box.

I mean it was just crazy.

So was it just kind of trust us with what's going

to come,

but it will all equal X value,

something like that?

Yes. We did a 50 to $60 value charged $42 for

the box for a one time purchase or 35 if they

would become a subscriber.

Our prices are still the same today.

So that has all happened and that helped us kickstart our

Shopify platform where we were selling those online mostly to our

own customers,

but it just made it easy for them to subscribe and

have recurring invoicing and all of that kind of thing that

it takes to do a subscription business.

So that's all happened since I talked to you,

but that could be a whole other subject.

Yeah, that could be a whole nother subject.

But let me just ask you one thing about this and

then we'll move on.

Your current subscription boxes,

are they still mystery box or are they specific products this

month? Some of them are mystery boxes,

right? No,

we purchase for the boxes at this point and so we

are purchasing,

right now our numbers are generally 168 boxes through the year,

except like may and December.

So mother's day,

Valentine's day is a big month.

Mother's day is big and Christmas of course we do more

than that.

And so I mean it's just a new part of our

business that we've worked in to keep our girls busy.

And I love doing it.

For me.

It is a creative thing.

I design all the cards that go in the boxes.

I design the labels that go on top of the box

and choose all the items that go in the box.

Ooh, I'm going To go take those boxes.

Yeah, you can look at them online and see what we're

doing and more fit into whatever your business is.

Wonderful. Okay,

You're continuing going,

you have all of this in place and then what happens

And then covert 19 hits and I kept thinking it's a

city thing.

It's an older person thing.

You just think it's not going to affect you until the

minute that it does.

And I think the minute that it really hit me is

one of the girls in our Southwest spine group,

she's in the San Francisco area with seven stores.

She had one hour to get out and she,

as of this recording has not been able to go back

and even check on her stores.

So I think of her and try to support her in

any way that we can because I know how our stores

are, our babies.

Sure. And to not be able to go in and just

check on things and I mean to leave in one hour

was crazy.

Then I had a friend in Texas,

in Arlington,

she had two hours to get out and we never faced

that. We have always come in the back door,

worked on the inside of the store.

We're just not open to the public for walk in traffic,

but we have been able to actually do work inside our

store. Now.

A lot of our friends around the country who were in

the situation where they could not go to their store are

just being so creative with doing live fashion shows.

One of our friends is doing live fashion shows from her

guest room closet.

So there's a way to do it.

It might be an unconventional way,

but there's a way to do it.

Right. You know,

and I think the discrepancy here too is every town,

especially when everything started,

like we got a notice on Friday that all 90 central

businesses had to be closed by Saturday at 5:00 PM so

at least in our area we had a little bit of

planning, a little bit of notice,

way more than an hour,

that's for sure.

But then some people who are essential could still go in.

I was always able to come in as an essential worker

because to fill online orders we have to come in.

Like I don't have all these rolls of ribbon and printers

at my house.

Right. So I was always luckily considered essential,

but my heart goes out for people like I can't even

imagine all this time not being able to be here even

if I wasn't conducting business.

But just to check on things,

inventory and like all of that.

That's crazy.

It is crazy.

Hopefully we're starting to see a turn here at the time

that we're talking and your show will be coming a couple

weeks after this,

so we'll see where we are at that point.

But I do want to get into how creative you've been

and what you've been working through in this time,

but so tell us.

Okay, so this became real to you.

You knew what was happening,

what happened with Adrian's boutique?

Well, I started working really hard to be even more in

touch with our emails and with our Facebook posts,

trying to lead people to our website.

And one night I woke up in the middle of the

night and I thought what's really stressing me out is those

racks and racks and racks of clothing.

I don't know if you'll remember from our previous interview,

we also do retail shows,

large women's retail shows.

We do eight large shows a year.

We had come off of two in February,

but we still had product,

I mean quite a bit of product,

getting ready for our summer shows,

so I have lots of clothing and that was just eating

me up that how was I going to sell clothing because

I think I had gone probably two weeks without selling a

single item of clothing,

not one In the very beginning.

In the beginning when it was first hitting,

because clothing isn't something I focused on for our website just

because of all the sizes.

Every brand runs differently.

So that's not where our focus was to get clothing on

our website.

We were doing more gifts and gourmet and toys and baby

and all that other things.

Right. And I would say that you can confirm this because

you're the expert,

but this is the season for summer clothing to appear.

Oh yes.

So if you wait two,

three months,

people are going to be starting to look at end of

summer, fall.

Right. And you're going to have all that money stuck in

inventory. Some fashion might not even be the style next year.

Absolutely. I mean fashion comes and goes and it had to

come and go.

So like I say,

I woke up in the night and thought we have got

to do live fashion shows and of course I already follow

a lot of the stores in our group and there were

a handful that were doing live fashion shows such as the

one I've mentioned that was doing them from her guestroom closet

walk in closet and I thought okay we do live every

day anyways.

We come on in the morning,

we pop on at nine 45 we just do a show

and tell of things in the store,

maybe new arrivals.

So our customers are used to seeing us almost daily.

You were doing that before the virus hit?

We started out doing twice a week,

Wednesday and Saturday and then we were adding this last first

quarter of this year we've been adding but we were pretty

consistent so we had built a clientele.

Well and that's perfect too because your employees are already there.

So you can do like some just little interaction cause it's

what, just a few minutes before you actually open the doors

during normal times.

Right. We go at nine 45 we open at 10 o'clock

and so generally we're done by 10 o'clock we always do

a giveaway to just keep people engaged.

And so they were used to seeing us online in the

morning. And that day I just said we're going to do

a live show this afternoon,

have no idea how to do it,

have no how to organize it.

But we did it.

And that first week,

I think our first one was on a Wednesday,

I think we did three that week and we've done three

to four a week for the last three weeks.

So you said I'm an expert,

I am not an expert in this.

I'm just flying by the seat of my pants.

But you have a system.

Like I didn't even know it until one day on the

phone. I saw that you were live and I caught your

show in towel.

And I guess because my life is also adjusted differently right

now cause normally I don't have time to stop my day

for these types of things.

But I saw it,

I looked and I'm like what is she up to?

And then I saw your little question and I think that

was the one about are your toes flip-flop ready?

Was your challenge day.

So that was the day and I'm like,

Oh, she has a live show this afternoon,

one o'clock on the calendar.

I'm going to check it out.

But I had no idea.

But that's how I found it.

So that was a week ago,

maybe a week and a half ago.

And you had a system down.

So you say you're not an expert and maybe you continue

to get better.

But to me it looked like you were just rolling.

Well, I'm so glad it looks like that,

but it's also very casual,

right? Like you have a couple of other people come in,

you're going to tell us,

why am I telling you you get to tell what you're

doing. But I just think that this is brilliant and now

I understand even more.

Number one,

why you have so many great things to be selling because

it's all the things that you would have been bringing to

the shows,

but also it's a very casual,

fun, comfortable environment.

But also a way for you to sell that inventory that

you're not going to be able to sell unless you do

it this way.

This is almost the only way right now online,

Right? It's just a whole new world and I think it

is going to remain this way even when we can officially

open. So here's what I woke up thinking.

So I thought I can take,

our store is 18 feet wide and a half a block

long, so it is very difficult to set up displays.

We just have not any room,

but I woke up that morning and thought if I could

get a paint Terp and hang it from the ceiling behind

us. I just covered up close.

I got a 12 foot by nine foot paint tarp.

It was $17 we hung it from the ceiling,

hung a wreath on it,

pulled a rolling rack of clothes in front of it and

we were live that afternoon.

So this is how crazy it happened.

We already had a light ring that holds my cell phone

to do the actual recording on and I've had that for

years. Is it less than a hundred dollars so you're people

that think,

Oh, I don't want to invest in this.

It was less than a hundred dollars we do have a

mic that we hung from ceiling clips so that the girls

that were modeling,

you can hear them and that you can hear me.

Who's running the camera?

We didn't anything else?

I mean It was a paint tarp,

a wreath,

a rolling rack of clothes,

and our light ring.

Okay, so did you hear what Vicki did?

She didn't put any barriers in her way.

She worked with what she had.

She got scrappy and went live that afternoon.

I want you guys all to use this as an example

of how to just turn things around,

take action and make things happen.

We're going to take a quick break for our sponsor,

but then after this Vicky's going to go through and share

with us everything she did to go live so that you

can do this too.

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But I'm not sure where you want me to start with

our processes or how we're doing it or the system.

I want to know everything.

I'm going to get everything from you.

I'll ask you questions of things that are coming to mind

first. Okay.

So you go on in the morning,

you do the teaser,

you ask a question,

do a giveaway.

So you're kind of reminding everybody that there's going to be

a fashion show in the afternoon.

Yes. But it's not always only clothes either.

You do jewelry and bags and mother's day things and kids

think like all different types of things.

How do you decide how long it should be?

We have no parameters.

We have had one that went three hours and we still

had 70 people at the end of three hours.

It's crazy.

Well and people would probably jump on jump off if they

have to come back on.

Yeah, they jump on and jump off and I just finally

decided we're very real as you can tell by the phone

ringing off the hook.

The girls,

I know one of our girls said,

Oh don't post a picture of me without my shoes on.

You know,

we posted a picture of them doing the fashion show and

she had no shoes on cause she was changing clothes so

fast. It is very real and our customers know who we

are. We're not trying to be anyone else.

We cannot be the home shopping network.

We cannot be super professional.

We try to be very clear.

We try to give great feedback on,

especially on clothing as if they fit slim.

If blousey what the fabric content is,

where we try to give them as much information as possible

because they can't try on the clothes.

And so we have two models,

one who's very petite and then one who is less petite

and sometimes they put on the same thing so that you

can see it on different body types.

And I think that is really fun And share with us

who they are.

Sandy and Patty and Sandy is my right hand man here.

She does all kinds of things.

In fact today she'll be doing a cooking show at 1:00

PM cause we don't have a fashion show today.

So you never know what's going to be happening here.

And then Patty is a school teacher who is not physically

teaching school right now,

but she helps us for years on Saturdays.

And so our customers already know her and they know Sandy

well and they know me.

So twice a week Patty is here to do it with

Sandy. And then the other days Sandy and I do it

and sometimes we have a camera person,

but most of the time we don't.

We just have to let the comments roll and we come

back and check them.

So even if you're by yourself,

you can totally do this.

It just takes a little ingenuity to get it done.

But you definitely can do this.

Yeah. And you know,

the other thing that I think is just hysterical,

and Patty does this more than Sandy,

is she'll reach out to somebody who's watching and say,

Jennifer, this outfit would be great for you.

Well, she's a school teacher.

She'll go like us busty women.

This is call someone.

Jennifer, take a look at this.

This one would be great for you.

Right. Well again,

You're not going to get that on home shopping network.

I mean,

Patty has taught school here for 20 years,

25 years.

She knows everyone.

She knows everyone And she does this on Saturdays when she

works here.

She's like,

this would look good on you and she'll pull something off

the rack and get them to try it on.

Well I have to tell you,

it's not just like pulling up an outfit saying what it

is. I mean there's comedy in conversation and he wants to

see this on and which color should I put on of

this shirt?

Like it's a riot,

but it is also,

I'm going to call it friendly.

Professional. Thank you.

I like that you're still,

you're showing what sizes that you've talk about who the designer

is, what the fabric is.

The descriptions are great but it's also very comfortable and fun.

So anyway,

so enough that we could just chat about that all day.

Cause can you tell I'm a fan.

Well it's fun.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you guys enjoy doing it.

It sounds like you love it.

It comes through.

It's for sure comes through.

All right,

so share with us.

So most people now are going to go and watch,

I'm just going to say that,

but haven't yet.

So share with us your process and how this works.

If you were to describe to somebody for them to be

able to do it themselves,

like with the numbers and like how you do the all

the magic.

Okay. So I did the first couple of shows without any

programs running in the background.

They were nightmares.

I'll just have to be honest.

We had over,

we'll have three to 600 to 700 comments and the first

couple of shows I was going back line by line by

line with a ruler trying to figure out who bought which

item, who got it first nightmare.

And so I just started Googling programs to run live fashion

shows and one of the ones that came up is called

loyal shops.com

loyal shops.com

and they have a program called live assist and it is

nine 99 a month and I was never so happy to

sign up for something ever because it gives you a live

comment feature that you can download and I know now know

exactly who got each item first.

It also gives you a sales history of who got which

items in alphabetical order.

So I can go through,

I can print that out at the end of a show

invoice, all of those people and I invoice them on square.

You can do PayPal.

Some people have a way they can do that through their

own store POS system,

but we use square because that's what we use to ring

up people at all of our shows and so I'm very

familiar with square.

So the process is,

the prep for the show would be the first thing and

I think the first thing is we decide on what the

theme is going to be.

So this last week we did one called feeling blue and

we picked all kinds of blue clothing.

We had Judy blue jeans,

all other kinds of jeans as well.

We did blue tops,

blue cammies,

we had shades of blue handbags and then we had complimentary

colors, things that would be a mix that would have a

little blue in it.

It was a beautiful show.

It was just a really fun show.

We're going to be doing one called tickled pink and kind

of the same thing.

We're going to be choosing things with a theme and the

reason I choose the theme first is it helps us to

narrow down what's going to be in that day's show because

it really can get overwhelming when you look at an entire

store full of product and you're just thinking,

Oh, I'm going to Willy nilly pick items.

This gives it some parameters to choose wisely.

Yeah, and there's some cohesiveness as for the viewer too.

Sure. It adds another layer on top.

It does.

We did do wild Wednesday,

which is where we had kind of a Mishy mashy of

things. We had a lot of animal print,

but as you know,

people either love or don't love animal print,

so I wanted to have things that were not just animal

print on that show.

That was yesterday.

It was yesterday.

Yeah. I'm still waiting to see if I got what I

chose. We'll go through the buyer thing because we need to

tell everybody how they can choose to,

well, this is true.

You keep going in your prep.

Okay. Sorry,

I'm just trying to think through it in an order.

So we prep for our show,

we pull a rack out and we put all the clothing

on the rack.

We try to get it in size order and that it

makes sense.

So we'll have tops that will go with a pair of

pants and then,

or a consistent,

like everything is honeymoon or everything is Ethel for a little

while, just because of all the sizing and how different it

runs. So we organize our rack and then we usually have

a table or two of other products and we arrange that

in the order that we're going to be showing it.

That's kind of what our prep is.

Next. We ordered numbered hang tags from Amazon and in the

beginning we were doing index cards,

writing numbers on it,

slitting it with a paperclip and putting it on each hanger.

Let me tell you,

that is not the way to go.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Yeah. So we number every item.

Then I open up a Google doc and I make a

spreadsheet that has the item number,

the description,

the size,

the price,

and what the sale price is going to be if it

is on sale.

And so we have a full Google doc with every item

in it.

Then we do the show and we go in number order.

Of course we try to break it up where we'll have

some clothes and then maybe a half a rack of clothes

and then items from a table and then the other half

of the rack of clothes and try to keep it interesting

for our customers to keep watching.

It's been anywhere from an hour and a half to three

hours, which is just nuts cause I couldn't even sit still

that long.

But our customers,

like you said,

they jump in,

they jump out,

they have to take a phone call.

All of these things are happening.

Well the shows are going on,

so once the show is over,

we have these racks that have all the numbered items on

it. I come back into the office,

run a report of what has sold.

Then I go through the invoicing process and at this point

I am still doing all of this because we're down to

two people basically working at a time.

And so my goal is to have them invoiced within 24

hours and we ask them to pay within 24 hours so

that we can pick and pack that order and ship it

out the door so that we can free up our racks

for the next shows.

And so we have quite a few racks that were moving

in and out all the time.

Oh, I can only imagine.

I wish I could give you a visual of this because

our store is a retail store with beautiful displays and now

it is.

All the aisles are filled with these racks of clothes numbered.

You could not walk in here if you tried.

Well, that's what I was just going to say is it's

probably a good thing you're not open right now.

Right. It's a disaster.

It's a disaster with products that have sold.

So not so bad,

but it is.

It just looks like a bomb went off in the story,

even though it's organized chaos.

But we know where each day's group of items is.

You have a system because if you do have a system

would a nightmare And you probably go from the latest show

up to the most current show.

So you're just keep processing in time.

Right? Absolutely.

So then you ship it out and then if somebody doesn't

pay within 24 hours,

they've kind of forfeited their product.

They lost it.

And then do you go to the next person in line

who had requested it,

who might not have gotten the product?

If there is somebody?

Yes. Um,

so with loyal shops it tells you who got it and

then it gives you a second place and a third place.

We don't go farther than third place because either the first

person or the second person is always going to get it.

So how does somebody get it?

Let's go through that.

So if I'm a viewer,

I'm watching and I see Patty in this really cute dress

and I want that dress,

what do I need to do to be on the list?

And hopefully first,

Well you have to type fast and you type the word

sold with a space,

then the item number,

then a space,

and then your correct email address and that puts it in

the system.

And so whoever does that first for that item is going

to get that item and it pops up on my computer

with a blue ribbon that says congratulations,

Sue got item one 65 and it might pop up with

a second name with a red ribbon,

letting them know that they're in second place.

So if Sue does not pay her invoice within 24 hours,

it's going to go to the next person.

Got it.

Okay. And so the sold space number and every number,

like if there are three or four different sizes,

each piece gets its own number,

each piece gets its own number.

Right. And then the email is so that you can contact

somebody, Right?

Well, we have to be able to invoice them through email

and it's just the way the system works.

So we have to have that for each item.

You can't make multiple purchases on one comment,

Right? So if you're making multiple purchases like I did that

one day,

you have to enter it for each purchase with maybe,

which makes it on your end nice and clean.

And obviously that's then what triggers your system too,

Right? Our robot,

which we talk about Rob a lot,

our robot,

we have to speak in his language and so it just

has to be done that way.

And so we will tell people online if they just write

sold and their email,

they're not going to get anything.

So we're watching that live as it's going through and we're

constantly talking to our customer as the comments are rolling in.

Right. Well you say hi to people who are just coming

in that you see who are there.

Oh yeah.

And I think you do periodically remind people how they need

to do it.

What if you don't put in your email,

what if you just say sold?

And the number.

If I know the person personally,

I can go into our store system and look up their

email. But a lot of times maybe they have a different

email that's their most current email.

So that does not work well.

I do get a record of like blooper kind of comments

and so we do our best.

But if it's not done in the language of the robot,

it's very difficult Trying to do this manually.

It would be a nightmare because I'm just thinking like you're

going through,

gosh, it's gotta be probably 200 products a show.

Something like that is,

it may be even more.

Oh yeah,

two to 300 sometimes even more.

Crazy. Crazy.

But so now that you've done this for a while,

so you have how many shows under your belt?

Like three weeks.

right? All right,

so now you have a system.

Are you feeling more comfortable?

And I know it's still time consuming,

not just doing the show,

but then all the backend and fulfillment of all the orders.

But you guys feel like you're in the groove now.

We are somewhat in the group.

I know there's areas to improve and I think Sue,

that you know me well enough to know that I love

to dig in.

Like if I'm going to use a program,

I want to understand that program all the way through with

loyal shops.

I'm sure they have all kinds of other things that I

could be using that would even make it easier,

but I haven't had a single second to even dig into

that to see if I can maximize that program.

Right now I really need to hire someone to help me

invoice and ship because I'm in here till nine o'clock at

night. I'm here by seven in the morning trying to just

keep it all going.

And here's the difference.

In the old days,

from six weeks ago or two months ago,

people walked into the store,

they browsed around,

they picked what they wanted,

we run them up.

We may be gift-wrapped 40 50% of the items.

They went out the door and that was it.

Now we prep for every show.

We number,

every item,

we put everything in a spreadsheet,

we go live.

We have the people,

our girls here to go live,

we do the live show,

then we come in,

run the reports,

invoice everyone,

wait for those invoices to be paid,

pick, pack and ship the orders.

So it is very labor intensive and I just don't want

to put it out there that Oh this is so easy

and it's great and everyone should do it.

I think that you should do it with your eyes wide

open. It is a great way to stay in touch with

your customers.

And I think it is the future in a lot of

retail is it's taking it online one more step and it's

that personal touch.

It's that relationship you have with your customers that is just

done in a new way.

Absolutely. And I'm also going to suggest that other people who

in the past have relied on shows.

Maybe you do have your website,

maybe you sell pampering products.

You don't have just one off of everything because you make

your soaps,

your lotion,

right? So their adjustment of your plan might be a little

less cumbersome than what you're having to do.

So think for yourself what your product is.

If this could make sense,

because I see this as an excellent opportunity for you to

keep your business open,

attracting new customers,

all of that.

Even if you don't have a brick and mortar shop like

Adrian's boutique is.

Right, right.

But Vicky,

the other thing,

like I'm thinking of the pros of all of this,

besides the obvious that you're still selling and you're not just

shuttered, but also often in the shows I'm seeing that you

have one of something,

so I'm guessing that's something that hasn't sold from either a

past show or is just inventory that you had.

So I'm thinking this is a great way to clear out

some things that maybe haven't been moving either.

Oh absolutely.

There are many things that we would have only one of

them. A lot of them would be things that we took

to the first two shows we had this year and we

still had that one remaining piece.

Many of the things that we've been showing,

no customers have seen it in our store because they would

have come in right before this all happened.

And now it's brand new merchandise that our customers haven't seen

except on the live show.

So yes,

it has been a great way to move not only existing

product but our new product as well.

Is there any advice now that you are experienced,

you may not say you are,

but you experienced,

are there any other tips besides the ones that you've already

given us?

For someone who would be starting out and trying to do

this? I would just say that just try it start,

I mean maybe not start with a hundred items,

but start with 30 or 40 or even less.

If you think that that's too much.

Start with that.

Start small and just do it.

I have a great friend in Texas.

She was doing a live happy hour,

about five 30 to six every evening showing all these products

and I just said,

Oh my,

you need to sell them.

Just let people comment.

Don't worry about having a big system in place.

Just let people comment and go through the comments.

And she was shocked because here she was putting in all

the time of the show and tells instead of a show

and sell and all of those.

I mean she sold a lot of product.

Oh that's really,

really good advice.

So you're doing this all on your Facebook page?

Yes. Okay.

So Facebook page and then do you share it over to

your personal page?

Do you have anybody else sharing or why are you laughing?

Really good idea,

Sue. You know I would say there's so many things that

I could do to make this even better,

but we're just in the midst.

I mean you are literally getting us as we're learning every

day. Different things to do.

I will throw in a tip I just thought of though

because I think it's really important and that is we also

have a texting club and our customers are used to getting

a text from us at least once a week and we

try not to bother them with like a text every day.

But we do go at least once a week.

We go live that I have a text prewritten and I

grabbed the link from my live Facebook page,

use Bitly to shorten that link and just pop that into

my text message.

So within two minutes of going live,

my customers are getting a text saying join us live right

now and I think that is a great way to grow

it. And this isn't for just the show in towel.

This is for the real show or the long show or

both. Oh,

this is show and sell the long show.

Yep. Only for the long show.

Okay. Like I say,

I don't want to over text our customers,

but especially on the Wednesday and Saturday shows,

which tend to be longer shows.

I want them to just be able to click a button,

click that link and join us live.

Right now they don't have to go to our Facebook page.

They don't have to do anything except click one link.

Got it.

Okay, so overall successful?

Yes, definitely successful as far as moving out product,

existing product,

because you know,

right now we don't have product coming in.

And then the other thing is just building a relationship with

people that we have never,

they're not in our system.

They have never shopped with us before.

We've had people from all over the country,

including this chick from Chicago that bought things.

And so I think it's opening up some new avenues for

us, especially being in a small rural community where our supply

of new customers is somewhat limited.

I'm not going to say it's not possible,

but when you've been here,

as long as we have,

most people have shopped here,

they're on our list.

So this is a way to grow outside our own geographical

area. How do you think they found you?

We have no idea.

I have not done,

like I say,

these all fall into things that I would love to do,

but I haven't had time.

Yeah. No,

I'm not faulting.

I'm just curious.

No, I don't know.

I don't know how they found us.

I don't know if someone tagged them or if they're just

searching live fashion shows.

I have no idea because we have not done any advertising

whatsoever. Maybe you could tell people to share it out.

We do that.

We do ask them to share it out so that could

be where it's coming from.

There could be a few,

but yeah,

I don't know.

Well doesn't matter right now.

You know it's like you can't know everything.

Right. And as long as it's working for you let it

roll. That's right.

So when things get back to whatever our new normal is

going to be,

do you think you'll continue with these lives?

I think the lives will continue in some form.

I'm not sure how that's going to look.

Probably not three times a week.

I don't know.

It's possible.

I mean it just depends on the team that we have

in place,

how we can use our facility better because I can see

doing this going forward.

It is a totally different way to do business.

But like I said,

we've been transforming for 38 years now and we're going to

continue to transform.

People are loving it and yeah,

I don't have the answer to that question.

I really truly don't.

I'm trying to work it out in my head,

but I know we'll be doing it at least through next

week before we can sort of open.

So we'll see.

Right. Well and some version of this,

perhaps, maybe not exactly this,

but some version of it,

you're seeing enough value,

it sounds like that this is something to keep on the

table for the future.

Oh absolutely.

And I knew before this started,

I knew that's the direction we wanted to go.

We experimented a little bit in October,

November, we did a couple of live sales,

but we just did not have a system in place.

And so it was much more difficult.

Well you were already sensing and understanding that you needed to

shift more online,

but this is the perfect option.

Instead of like you're saying,

you know,

every single time you get a new outfit in,

you're going to put it online like cumbersome.

That would be,

yeah. So this is the perfect solution to that.

Yeah. And I think that Customers don't want to,

especially with the fashion items,

they don't want to wear what everyone else is wearing.

They want their own unique look and we rarely ever get

an item back in to our stock that's the same item.

And so people are getting a chance to just get these

one and only,

so maybe I only got four of an item and two

sold in Oklahoma and I have two left.

It's a fun way to stay unique.

Yeah, for sure.

I absolutely love it.

Yeah. I mean I sat on one of your three hour

shows. Like I had my phone,

I had the sold word ready to go.

So I pop in that number and I had to also

do some other work on the side.

And so like juggling,

I was trying while,

Oh, believe me,

I didn't get much done,

but I tried so cause I wanted to be ready when

I saw what I wanted.

Boy and I will say your turnaround was unbelievable.

Well we try really hard.

I think I was on last.

Yeah, I was on last week's Wednesday,

I think it was the Wednesday one.

Okay. And I had my items Monday.

Oh wow.

Good. Oh yeah.

I had my invoice Thursday.

I paid that baby right away so I didn't lose my

things and I had my stuff on Monday too.

I can't wear it yet cause it's all for the summer.

It's too cold.

But that's coming.

That's coming.

Oh my.

Any final inspirational words for our listeners on what you're doing

and ideas for them or comments for them about someone who's

just going through the same time with you?

With all of us actually.

Well I really think that you bring your own energy every

single day and if you,

you've got to give yourself a pep talk.

If you're just down in the dumps,

it goes back to that action over anxiety,

do something,

it might fail,

but then do something else.

Do something,

be in touch with your customers.

This is a great time to be emailing them about maybe

things that you have in your store that have been there

for a while,

but you haven't really highlighted it.

This is a great time to do that.

Do some creative things.

Like we've had Sandy doing a cooking show.

She loves to cook.

She ran a restaurant,

a small little like a diner for many years.

And so we've been having her do in a cooking show

on Thursdays.

And that started before we were doing the live shows.

But we kept it because it's a great way to just

connect with our customers.

We're not trying to sell them anything at all.

We're just there to have fun.

We always tell people,

grab your favorite frosty beverage and learn something new.

Find something new to make for dinner.

She did a little series on all those pantry items,

like cream of mushroom soup that you bought and cleared all

the shelves of what are you going to do with that

stuff now that it's in your pantry,

because it's probably not the way you're normally cooking.

So she went back to a blast from the past and

did some her,

her mom's recipes with canned goods and shelf items and they

were delicious.

So I would say whatever you're doing,

you know,

if you're a Baker,

show how to make your famous cookies.

Show how to frost a cake.

If you do crafts,

show how you're making masks for people,

but show what you're doing and just talk to your customers

through the live platform,

which is so awesome to use right here on Facebook.

And I love what you just said.

It's not with the intent of selling,

but just staying connected.

Yeah. You see all the things you're doing for selling,

but this is a whole nother way of using live just

to stay connected.

Absolutely. That was our original goal.

We keep telling our customers we want to be here when

this is over.

And so we're just reaching out.

We're just saying hi and we let them know that we're

here to help them with anything we possibly can and just

remind them that we're still here.

And you've done a further extension of that today by helping

us understand what you're doing and give his listeners,

if any of you pick up with this and experiment and

actually do this for yourself.

Will you let Vicki and I know,

yes, that would be so fun to see and understand and

maybe we will Come on and watch what you're doing as

well. Absolutely.

And as always they can call me.

I mean I am here,

your phone rings,

podcast recording and all my phone rings.

Yes. And,

but I'd love to talk to other retailers about what they're

doing. It's how we get ideas and our mastermind group,

which you came on and spoke to our at our mastermind

summit a couple of years ago,

which was so,

so nice of you.

That was so I would do that Again.

I love that.

Well our summit would had to be postponed this year,

so we were supposed to be in Colorado for this year's

summit. But anyways,

form your own group,

collaborate with other store owners from around the country and keep

going. Just keep on keeping on.

Absolutely. And I think that's a great place to end because

we all have to keep on keeping on.

Thank you again so much for being here.

Vicky, You're so welcome.

Thanks for inviting me and we'll look forward to seeing you

pop up again on our Facebook live.

Oh, you know that's happening.

Buy, buy,

buy, buy the magic words sold.

Item number,

email. I just love how Vicki moved into this new way

of selling.

Without hesitation.

She could have put up all sorts of excuses.

The shop doesn't have an acceptable background for video.

I don't have the right equipment or I don't know how

to do this.

Remember how she said she just jumped right in and is

perfecting it as she goes.

What I really want you to remember is it wasn't perfect,

but Vicky was still selling product.

The key is she got started,

so I want you to think this through for yourself.

You can make what Vicki does into your own version of

a shopping show and if you do,

please let us know over in the Facebook group,

gift biz breeze.

That way we can all be there to support you.

Up next week.

We're talking SEO.

Yup. The behind the scenes magic that comes with search engine

optimization. One thing we've all learned these past few months is

how important our websites are.

Now let's get yours working on super drive.

I've learned a lot during this interview and can't wait to

share it with you too.

See you next Monday and Oh,

when you subscribed to the show,

it automatically downloads to your phone.

Why don't you do that now so it's ready and waiting

for you.

All right,

I'll see you next week.

Bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week I have to say where

I invite all of you to share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt.

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