Gift biz unwrapped episode 48.
This is the single best thing I have done in the
last eight or 10 years.
Hi, this is John Lee Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,
and you're listening to give to biz unwrapped,
and now it's time to light it up.
Welcome to gift biz,
unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop
and grow your business.
And now here's your host,
Sue Monheit.
Hi there.
I'm Sue and welcome to the gift of biz unwrapped podcast.
Whether you own a brick and mortar store sell online or
are just getting started,
you'll discover new insights to gain traction and to grow your
business. And today our guest is Vicki Meyer.
Adrian McGee is the owner of Adrian's boutique,
a retail store in Bueller,
Kansas that has been in business for,
are you ready?
You guys,
33 years,
that is a huge accomplishment.
Their current product mix is 50% fashion twenty-five percent gift and
25% kitchen and gourmet products.
But Vicki will tell you that they are really in the
people business.
Their number one priority is to earn customers' business through exceptional
customer service,
a well-chosen product and a team that is committed to excellence.
Additionally, Vicki is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs reach their next
level in creating a successful business,
using relationship marketing,
email marketing,
and social media marketing.
This is all bundled under a business called remarkable retailer,
which focuses on B2B relationships through a podcast,
weekly Periscopes and individual coaching.
Wow, Vicky,
welcome to the show.
Thank you so much,
Sue. I am a huge fan of yours and we're so
glad to find you now a couple of months ago,
actually, because I just didn't find very many people in the
gift industry using Periscope.
And that's how I originally found you.
And then I became a podcast listener.
I believe I've listened to almost every single one.
And so I've been so impressed with you and I just
feel like we have a lot in common actually.
Well, Thank you.
First of all,
for those wonderful comments and you're right.
I think we do have a lot in common and we
certainly share the same space in terms of our customers and
those that we're working with.
Absolutely. So I'm just going to dive right in.
Cause we have just so,
so much to talk about as our listeners know the way
I like to start each conversation is aligning it around the
life of a motivational candle.
So the light shines on you,
Vicky, while you open up and talk to us and share
with us all of your experience and expertise,
are you ready to light it up?
Absolutely. I was born ready.
You were born ready,
right? Let's talk about your motivational candle.
If you were to pick one and just create your very
own, what color would It be and what quote would be
on that camera?
Well, you know,
I don't have to go very far from my office here
to find a candle because I have a gift store.
And so the color of my inspirational candle would,
there would be no question.
It would be in the coastal or beach tones of Aqua
blue because like the ocean being in business can be calming
or refreshing.
And at times it can be very challenging and invigorating.
And so that would be the color of my inspirational candle.
Probably be fragranced with the ocean theme too.
There you go.
So, and then as for a quote,
I have a quote that I absolutely love and it is
called luck is when preparation meets opportunity,
this quote is attributed to a Roman philosopher Seneca,
and it reminds us that we make our own luck,
that the difference between lucky and unlucky people is all in
our perspective.
And so I feel like you just have to prepare to
be lucky.
And that's what I try to spend my business week doing.
I prepared to be lucky week by week in our local
business. I love that because a lot of people will see
someone who's successful and say,
Oh, well,
they just were lucky luck just happened to fall upon them,
but we have to put ourselves in Luxe path to,
you know,
you can't sit behind a door and say,
okay, look,
come to me.
You have to be out there.
So you're crossing that path when the opportunities come about.
Absolutely. I totally agree.
Okay. So in our pre-conversation Vicki,
we talked about how we're going to handle this and there
is a lot to what you were doing.
So I thought what we'd first do is talk about Adrian's
boutique and the evolution of that business.
And then later I want to jump over to the remarkable
retailer. So we're kind of going to cut it into two
places so we can get all of your information available for
our listeners.
Okay. So let's start back in the whole world of retail.
And I know your story begins before Adrian's boutique.
So I'm going to let you take it away in terms
of how you got into and were exposed to the whole
business environment.
Well, I would say like so many of your listeners that
I'm an accidental entrepreneur.
I never set out to run a business in a very
small town.
And to do that for over 33 years,
this would never have worked.
Had we done our research and written the business plan ever.
I started out way back in the early eighties when the
country blue and peach,
it was the little wooden country duck era.
If you remember that my mother-in-law had a small card and
antique shop where I was able to sell my creations.
And at that time I was cross-stitching and I was doing
tole painting and making t-shirt,
embellish t-shirts and all of that kind of thing.
I loved helping her and being in the store.
And after just a couple of months,
I made my first trip to market and I started bringing
in products to supplement what could make and just to make
a long story short.
My husband and I purchased a building across the street from
our original location in about 1985.
We completely gutted it.
And I mean down to only the brick on the front
and the sides of the building and we added onto it.
So now we are a half a block deep.
We wondered how we would ever fill this store.
And if you see pictures of our store on our Facebook
page, you'll notice that we were able to do that.
And we started filling it with beautiful products that people liked
all along that way,
we were creating relationships with our customers and building a client
base, just one by one by one.
So the rest is history.
We're an overnight success,
only 33 years in the making.
So If you had any advice for somebody now,
I know.
So it's been a long,
long time since you started this store and clearly there's evolution
of the business.
Like you're saying,
but if anyone's listening now,
who's looking at starting in a retail space.
Are there any words of wisdom that you would give them?
Absolutely. I would say from the moment your front door opens,
and in fact,
before your front door opens,
you need to be building a client base.
And with today's social media,
six months before you open four months before you open,
you should have a Facebook page out there that you are
teasing your customers with your future customers with.
I will tell you that back in the day,
we started collecting names and addresses on a legal pad,
typing it in on our trusty Selectric,
IBM Selectric,
typewriter, and printing off labels.
And we started mailing our clients.
Thank you.
Cards, postcards,
invitations to events from the very,
very beginning.
And so today's entrepreneur has so many more tools available to
them than we did in the beginning.
And I think it's a great time if you're willing to
do the work a great time to start a business.
That's a great idea because you could also,
especially with social media right now,
have them participate in the startup of the business.
Even if you're building out the store,
like let's say you have your space and you've still got
to get product.
Maybe you have to remodel the whole inside.
You could do behind the scene photos of how the store
is coming together and be sending that off to people who
have opted into the list.
You know,
should we paint this cabinet white or cream or black or,
you know,
whatever, and have them really become part of the shop before
it even opens?
Absolutely. We actually worked with a couple of retailers are for
future retailers from Colorado that drove out here to observe our
store and how it ran for a day.
And we sent them back with some really good ideas of
things they could implement immediately.
Like the day that their store opened,
they already had a client base to help support Really valuable
information. Because when you start up a new business,
particularly retail,
because you have that extra cost of the rent,
you need to be making money right away.
I mean,
it just eases the path as you continue on adding more
inventory and getting the name out.
So getting that jumpstart I could see could be so valuable.
That's great information,
Becky. Thank you.
Is there anything else you would talk about in terms of
new startup,
maybe something that you've learned in terms of setup inside the
store or processes,
anything else along those lines?
Well, I would say that as you're setting up your store,
one of the mistakes we made in the very beginning was
we put our cash wrap on the wrong side of the
store. And when you walk into stores,
you are going to notice as you walk in the front
door, your cash wrap should be probably on the left,
unless your building is just an,
a unique shape.
Sometimes it's in the center.
One thing that we really did wrong at the beginning is
we tried to put our cash wrap on the right people,
walk in the door,
they moved to the right.
So if that's where your checkout area is,
they're not shopping there.
And it kind of stops them from shopping.
And someone gave us a great piece of advice.
They walked in another store and they walked into our store
and said,
get that cash wrap moved.
We did that.
And it's been on the left side ever since.
And it definitely works that way.
It's on the left side and in the front still.
Yes. Yeah.
I've heard even when you go to conferences,
natural human flow,
when you walk into the door is to proceed to the
right. So that just falls in line with exactly what you're
saying. Yes.
And of course,
this is not true for every single business out there,
but it is true for a lot of businesses.
And as you go looking around and shopping and retail stores,
you're going to find people that are doing it really well.
Definitely follow this rule.
So gift biz listeners,
if you are starting and you have a physical presence,
either have someone walk the shop kind of like how Vicki
talked about someone came in and mentioned it from their perspective,
but walk the shop even as a customer would do so
you can experience in the mindset of your customer.
Is it comfortable?
Is there good visibility of your different products is the way
you place your product within the shop confusing?
Or is it broken out into different categories?
So people who are coming in for something specific know exactly
where to go,
all those types of things in terms of a customer experience
in a shop,
we'll bring people back.
If people walk in and it's confusing to them,
or it's hard to understand,
they can't find the product or they don't know where to
check out.
That could be a reason why people don't come back.
So you want to look at that beforehand,
and obviously you can always adjust on the fly.
So something definitely to consider.
Yes, you definitely can.
And we change our setup all the time.
I mean,
we're always moving things around and giving things a fresh look,
of course,
Because you want people to come in and possibly see something
that might've been on the floor the last time they were
there, they just didn't see it.
Cause they didn't walk into that section or they weren't in
need of it.
Whatever. Absolutely.
How often do you Change up the floor?
It's really in constant flux.
So w just seasonally,
of course,
but just throughout the year,
we're changing displays all the time.
I mean,
it's something,
we have a girl that really specializes in doing our displays
and decorating and she works three days a week.
So every week she is here doing something fresh,
some of our friends up in Michigan have a great plan
that we've used called move it Monday.
And on Mondays,
every mannequin in their store gets changed with a new outfit.
New jewelry rest of the store also gets changed.
And so it's a way to just freshen things up,
wake things up and redo things after the weekend.
But I love that he called it move at Mondays because
it's easy to remember and we think,
Oh, it's Monday it's movement Monday.
We need to do,
we need to do some things.
And traffic is normally lighter on Mondays anyway.
Exactly. And the weekends were crazy.
So just like you said,
clean it all up.
Yes, absolutely.
After the rush and hopefully a good sales weekend,
That's what we love.
Absolutely. All right.
So let's talk a little bit about something that maybe didn't
go as well for you.
It's so easy when you're a successful business owner,
just to talk about all those great things that have happened,
all the successes,
but we learn best when there's something that was challenging.
It didn't work well.
So if you could tell us a story about something like
that, and then what you were able to do to overcome
the situation.
One of our biggest challenges has always been a geographical when
I actually grew up in Los Angeles,
which has quite a bit of population in case you hadn't
noticed. And I married a young man and moved to Kansas.
And the population of our entire County is only 64,000
people. Our closest big city is Wichita,
which is about 50 miles away.
So we have to be just laser focused on our marketing
to get people in.
So they plan an afternoon,
they get in their car and they have to drive here.
So our challenge is just ongoing.
Our number one goal here is to create long-term relationships with
our clients.
For us,
it's a non-negotiable standard for our staff members to ask every
single client for their contact information,
including their name,
their physical address,
their email address,
and all of that,
which we keep updated in our client base.
I feel like my most valuable asset in my store is
not the building and not the product.
It is our client list.
So we simply cannot have a long-term relationship with our clients
unless we're staying in touch with them.
So if you compare that to dating you couldn't date someone
more than one time without getting their phone number.
And so the same holds true for small businesses.
What most businesses would spend in higher dollar rent,
we pay an advertising.
So we use traditional forms of media,
such as television.
We do a seven minute radio show.
Every week we do newspaper ads.
We do several catalogs every year we do postcards.
And of course we have all sorts of digital media marketing
as well.
And so what we believe in is just that consistency of
weekly emails,
multiple daily Facebook posts.
And we also use things like Instagram and Pinterest.
What portion of your overall sales are call-in or online sales
versus walk-in?
Most of our sales are walk in,
although we are working on building a more interactive internet site,
so people can shop online.
We have a small presence online,
but that is a place that we are working on to
build our business.
But right now it is still walk in.
It's just that they have to make a plan.
They have to drive here and plan to come to the
store. They don't just drive by right out on a highway
or anything.
So You're more remote.
I mean,
you're definitely a destination location.
So you're using the social media just to keep yourself top
of mind,
to show people what new products you're getting in,
or to remind them of the reason they need to come
and shop.
And it sounds like just by the way,
you're describing the area,
people are used to getting in the car and driving quite
a few miles to get different places.
Yes, they definitely are.
That's just part of living in rural America.
Right. But it is a challenge.
I would say that is our biggest challenge on a daily,
weekly basis.
It is getting people to make that choice to come here.
I can tell you that online purchasing is huge in the
rural areas because you might have to drive 30 miles to
go get something.
And so it's much easier for them to just do it
online. Right?
And so what we have to offer is a wonderful shopping
experience. It has to be over the top,
every single visit,
every time that door opens To make it worth their while
to come in.
Yes. And it sounds like that online you've already identified as
an area of opportunity for you guys.
What type of promotion or what type of events are you
finding? Bring in the most people?
Well, we do a lot of promotions.
We do a lot of in store events and we do
a lot of big events outside the walls of our store.
I feel like we are in the entertainment business as retailers,
and whether you're a salon owner or a banker or an
insurance agent,
you are in the entertainment business banks around here,
take groups of people on bus tours.
Insurance agents take people to ballgames.
I mean,
we are in the entertainment business.
So we hold spring,
fall holiday,
open houses.
We hosted Tahitian beach party.
Every June,
we have trunk shows,
fashion shows,
brunches lunches,
dinners. We host groups in our store,
such as PEO groups,
sorority groups,
Bible groups,
family reunion groups.
And we make an effort to serve very good food and
drinks. We try to capture their email address and tell them
we will email out all the recipes for everything was served.
And that just gives us one more chance to give value
to our customers that are coming in as specific promotion that
we've done.
That's a lot of your retailers could do is we have
found a very reasonably priced collapsible market basket or a tote.
And we sell them at a very low cost,
like five 99 or six 99.
And then let people fill them up and have 20% off
whatever they can fit in their basket.
And we consider this as a win-win promotion.
We hand the baskets to the people as they walk in
the door and we try a little card on the side,
telling them what the promotion is,
and they can use that basket to shop.
And then at the end,
they can either choose to buy it and get 20% off
or they can choose to not buy it and not get
the discount,
but they still had fun shopping with it.
Another promotion that we've done is similar in that we've had
a custom bag printed that we call our tote bag Tuesday
bag. And this idea came from our friend,
Carol Caplinger up in Overland park,
Kansas. And she's done this successfully.
I think this is either her eighth or ninth year.
It's a cute bag.
And we reprinted every year.
So it's always fresh and new.
There's a cart,
a bottom in it that says you get $5 off a
purchase of 35,
$10 off of a purchase of 60 or $20 off a
purchase of a hundred dollars or more.
And this Tuesdays are generally a slower day in our store.
And this brings ladies in.
Plus these bags are very cute.
So when you see them at the grocery store,
you just see them out and about in the community.
Customers can earn a tote with a purchase of $50.
And the other way we use that is we let them
use these totes every time we have a fifth Saturday in
a month.
So those that can't necessarily come on Tuesdays,
get a chance to come in and get that discount every
time there's a fifth Saturday,
which is usually about four times a year.
So that's been a great promotion for us that I think
some of your listeners can easily implement Both very creative too.
I have to jump in and tell you a funny story.
Back in my consulting days,
I was working with a business that was more of a
home improvement company,
and they did something a little bit similar in terms of
what you do with the tote,
but they were using a Brown bag.
And anything that you could put in the Brown bag when
you got to the register was X percent off.
Let's call it 20.
Okay. There was a customer who came into this store and
if they were bigger items,
they had paper tags with the price on the shelf next
to it.
This one guy put in one of the pieces of paper
for a whole garage door and came up to the checkout
and expected to be able to get 20% off the garage
door, including installation.
So doesn't that one either.
Oh my gosh.
That was a little bit challenging for them to work through
it. But it's funny story.
So yeah,
you just never know what comes up,
but thank you for sharing.
I really liked those promotions because they're very creative.
The other thing,
gift biz listeners,
did you hear Vicky mentioning when she had an event and
then she gets an email and she sends out the recipes
that they had prepared for the event.
That's a great way,
cause it's connected to the event,
but who doesn't want new recipes?
Right? So not only are they collecting the emails because people
are catching on that.
You know,
we want emails because we want to be able to communicate
with you back and forth.
And people are getting so many emails,
but providing something that's really valuable,
such as those recipes is a great way for people to
feel really good about sharing their email with you.
I love that you brought that up Well.
And so I know you,
that part of your focus is to work with bakers and
gift businesses.
And one thing that I just feel is so,
so important to is to be a receiver of those recipes
as well.
And we constantly ask our customers to share a favorite family
recipe. And a couple of years ago,
we even printed a 500 page cookbook.
And we have a library of about 700 recipes online that
we can always link to.
But we're constantly looking for new ones from our customers so
that we can highlight their name in our emails each week.
So it's not just recipes from mixes that we're selling.
We try to get away from just promoting what we're selling
and we try to promote our customers.
One of the ladies in our community for instance,
has won so many blue ribbons at the Kansas state fair.
You could not even count them.
She could probably wallpaper a room in her home with them.
We have put out several of her blue ribbon,
winning pie recipes on our emails.
And so we're always trying to provide value for our customers
for opening our emails.
And you're also building a real community,
connecting your customers with each other.
So you're starting to build this community that was created under
the umbrella of Adrian's boutique.
And so we've been doing that since the beginning.
We find that relationship marketing is the only way that we're
able to stay in business is building these long-term non salesy
type of relationships with our customers.
You know,
another thing that we do that may be some of your
listeners don't do,
and is one of the best things that we do is
we play videos throughout our store to sell products.
And I will tell you that for 2015,
seven out of 10 of our best selling SK use were
supported with a video playing all day,
every day in our store.
And there is a reason that bass pro has a video
on the end of almost every aisle,
selling fishing lures.
Many of our vendors,
and many of your vendors will have a video or we'll
even make Lin for you to promote their products.
So think of how many times you've been at market walking
down an aisle and you'll be stopped by a video playing
in a booth.
Those videos are usually available to retailers as well.
If you just ask for it.
And then something else we do is we link those videos
to our Facebook page on a very regular basis.
You know,
customers love to be entertained while they're in your store.
And the video definitely does that.
Just to give you a little bit more,
I love math and I've done some math on this.
Even figuring the cost of a TV,
it costs you about 22 cents an hour to have a
full-time sales person on your TV,
selling a product all day,
every day,
that's including the cost of the TV.
So I would say if you're listening and you're a vendor
or Europe product developer,
make those videos available and make it easy for retailers to
get those from you cash.
That is more than just one other tip.
Those are fabulous tips.
I really liked them.
And they're all in store specific,
which is spectacular.
And the thing about the videos too,
is how many people are really doing that.
So if you're a smaller shop,
there may be another shop right in your community,
that's doing the same thing,
but they don't have video you.
And then by you bringing that in,
you're changing up the whole customer experience from someone when they're
coming in your shop.
Absolutely. And I'll just give you a specific example for this.
So we have a company called Goldcrest distributing and they're from
Mexico, Missouri.
And I happened to be wandering the garden floor at the
Atlanta market.
And they were playing a funny video of a squirrel,
bungee jumping squirrel feeder.
I bought it.
I bought maybe 18 or so of these little bungee jumping
squirrel feeders.
Now, granted you read what our story is.
We're fashion.
We're very Chicky.
We're not a garden center,
but I will tell you that they have made it very
easy for us to sell over 2000 of these bungee jumping
squirrel feeders in our ladies boutique,
that is $29,000,
more than $29,000
at this point for a product that doesn't fit our store's
demographic. It doesn't fit our mix,
but yet this video plays all day,
every day,
it's all the way in the back of our store.
And so that's just one example of using a DVD to
sell product that maybe is a little out there on the
edge for you,
but it's certainly been profitable for us for now a couple
of years.
I've got to find out about that.
That sounds very curious.
I'm not going to take the time now,
but I'm really interested in what that's all about.
So we'll let everybody kind of figure that out on their
own. But I think the other thing from your story is
because you know,
your, your customers so well that even though that product is
of the range of what you normally carry,
it is something that you already knew your customer would be
interested in.
Well, it entertained me at market and I thought,
what the heck,
I'm going to give that a try.
And it just continues to sell and they have been great.
I mean,
they always make sure that I have an extra DVD just
in case something goes wrong with the fine.
They don't want it not playing even one day in our
store. Very interesting.
All right.
So I'm going to jump back a little bit,
because about two or three minutes ago,
we were talking about relationship marketing and how important that is,
and that is really the basis behind remarkable retailer.
So I think this could be a good place Vicki for
you to bring that up and talk a little bit about
what that is all about.
Sure. I love to talk about that.
I'm going to kind of start it off by talking about
a mastermind group,
which I think is kind of for both the retailer and
what I'm doing is the remarkable retailer website.
I believe in mastermind groups.
And I know you had asked me the question,
what are some of the most important things that we've done
to be successful and to stay successful?
And so this is my number one suggestion,
and that is to form a mastermind group.
And I will tell you,
I would have been out of business years ago,
if it would not have been that I became a part
of several larger buying groups.
Some have hundreds of owners in them.
Then I helped form a smaller group of about 40 stores
in it.
Then we niched it down to a mastermind group of about
17 people,
which represent 14 stores.
I am in constant contact with and share product ideas.
We work through business challenges together.
We meet in person at markets and several times throughout the
year with these people in today's economy with the market that
is just changing so fast,
you need more eyeballs out there looking for products,
recommending products,
sharing, marketing ideas.
There's just no need to be a lone ranger in business
anymore. Our buying groups are amazing and we get exceptional value
from these groups.
But our mastermind group is where the gold is.
I formally started this group about four years ago.
Although several of us in the group had already been working
together on a little more informal basis.
So each member of the group has been handpicked because of
their different knowledge skills,
and just all the differences that they have.
We feel like it's the differences in us that make our
groups so powerful.
The age range of the store owners in our group range
from 27 to 65 with every decade represented in between.
And this alone helps keeps us on our toes because you
know, 20 and 30 year olds think completely different than those
of us who are more seasoned in retail.
So some are single stores,
some have locations,
some were chosen because they're extremely knowledgeable about finance or they're
extremely knowledgeable about marketing or they're great at displays.
Some are really involved in their communities and have brought great
ideas to the group about being involved in the community.
We've got one that does a super job with HR.
And so this in itself has been fabulous.
We have a private face group that is for owners only,
and it is filled with lively conversation on a daily basis.
We insist on participation from every single member.
And of course there's a financial and a time investment that's
required every year.
We hold a two day in-person summit each year where each
person is expected to do a well-researched presentation on a specific
topic. And we have a different theme each year.
So some subjects that we've tackled have been finance heritage and
passing down a family business,
preparing for emergencies,
using social media,
such as Instagram and Pinterest strategies and systems that you can
put in place pricing for profit.
That was an excellent one that we had last year,
the disc profile and hiring the right team and a great
one too,
was design and layout for catalogs and print media.
So how to lay out your newspaper ads,
how to lay out a brochure,
how to lay out a catalog.
So there's just been all kinds of wealth of knowledge that
has come out of this group.
And you attested.
This is the single biggest thing that you've done for your
business, just to stay in business and to grow.
This is the single best thing I have done in the
last eight or 10 years is to reach out and become
part of these communities of retailers because let's face it,
your family,
unless they're involved in the business,
they're not speaking your language,
your friends that you go out to dinner with,
don't want to hear how many boot socks you sold.
They're not interested in that.
And so it's so refreshing to have a group of people
that are right on your same page and that are also
pushing you to grow,
to get to the next level in business and just the
professionalism that's provided in these groups.
Absolutely. And you guys,
when you're listening,
this does not mean that you,
if you're not already part of a group that you can't
create one yourself,
you can go right in your own community and it doesn't
have to be how Vicky's is.
It sounds like Vicky's,
they're all retailers,
they're all in the same area in terms of business,
in the same industry,
but you can go right in your own community.
If there are people that you admire that,
you know,
have knowledge that you don't have,
you can form your own groups,
even as small as four to six people.
The idea is that everyone brings in a different skill set.
So everyone gets value because everyone gets strengthened by the knowledge
that each other has.
And my only advice would be to really select your people
very carefully.
You get to a point Where you really trust people,
you share numbers,
you share challenges,
all different types of things,
but these types of masterminds are invaluable.
And you can set one up for yourself to date.
Yes, absolutely.
You can do this today.
You can start with two or three people.
One reason ours works so well is we're retailers from all
over the country.
None of us are competing.
Like you said,
we share our numbers.
We share everything in this group.
And it is so important that you hand choose those people.
And again,
we want to have a long-term relationship with these people as
well. Interestingly enough,
I have my mastermind group meeting tonight.
Awesome. All right.
So let's go through now and let's talk remarkable retailer.
Okay. Well,
for many years I've worked with retailers from around the country,
just helping them grow and expand their business.
Like we've talked about relationship marketing and just to help them
work through other challenges that they face as business owners.
And so about two years ago,
I decided to get out of my comfort zone and put
a name to the B2B side of me that just kept
growing by itself.
I called it remarkable retailers because we're all on that quest
for remarkable.
We want to stand out from the crowd.
We want to be remarkable.
And I wanted people that were on that journey that had
that end goal insight to come along on the journey with
me, people have said that I'm naturally gifted in becoming a
connector of people.
And I think that's true.
I think I've been doing this since junior high.
So I love to introduce business owners to other people that
I think will be mutually beneficial.
You know,
this has been a way to form groups of like-minded entrepreneurs
that are willing to give and take ideas from each other.
And it is so awesome.
I just love it.
So I got an opportunity from TJ Reed,
who is the owner of the fashion advantage specialty retailer magazine.
She asked me to start writing articles on small business in
her magazine about a little over a year ago.
Last summer,
she was struggling with some health issues.
She called and asked me to prepare and give an hour
long workshop at her live event at the wind show,
which is a fashion market out in Las Vegas.
So that was the first time that I actually got up
and did a live presentation for a group of people that
I did not know.
Now, of course,
I've been doing this with our mastermind group for a couple
of years before that,
but these were people I really did not know.
And it was a great way to connect with some other
retailers and I just loved it.
So I came away from that.
I had started the remarkable retailer podcast.
I love the speaking part,
but, but the technical part doesn't come as easy for me
as Sue and I have discussed earlier,
she's a rock star techie,
but I am a wannabe rockstar techie With experience.
You just learn it.
But you know,
a very natural fit came when Periscope arrived on the scene
and I started Periscoping last August and I am on,
I think I've done my hundred and 30th episode.
And so I feel like a teacher I teach on Periscope
live every morning,
about eight,
15 central time.
And the topics just generally go to whatever I am needing
to learn myself.
So I'm always preaching to myself.
So you can always tell what challenges I'm going through at
that time.
What was your topic this morning?
My topic this morning was email marketing because it's so important.
And I hear so many excuses as to why retailers are
not getting that email out the door.
It's so important.
There is no better use of your time than getting people
in the front door of your store.
What's the handle for your Periscope?
It's remarkable retailer.
So we've just got this little audience of listeners and they're
from all kinds of businesses.
So they're not all retailers,
but we've got salon owners and some restaurants we've been have
a bug exterminator guy that keeps joining us.
And he's awesome.
So back to the beginning,
we said,
we're in the people business,
no matter what you're selling,
you're in the people business.
It's been interesting.
It's been good.
And it's been challenging me if you don't do an episode
every day,
they, you fall off the face of the earth.
And so it's been very good for me to be disciplined
and be preparing for my Periscopes every single day.
It's been a good challenge and I have absolutely loved it.
Wonderful. All right.
Give biz listeners all of you,
if you are in the retail business or you think that
there's other information as Vicki has been sharing throughout this whole
interview, that you want to hear more of eight,
15 central time Periscope at remarkable retailer,
be there.
We're going to move on now into our reflection section.
This is a look at you and what's helped you with
your success along the way.
So what natural trait do you have Vicky that you think
has helped you to be successful this whole time?
I would say it's because my parents taught me to be
a lifelong learner.
I try to invest time into learning something new every single
day. The other thing is,
I'm a talker,
as you can tell,
and I'm naturally able to strike up a conversation with just
about anyone on the planet.
And one of my sisters says it best.
She says,
Mickey can blah,
blah, blah,
with any women.
So important for comradery,
specially in a retail shop,
you know,
making people feel welcome and comfortable,
and that they're special and valued for being in your home.
It's like welcoming someone into your home.
It is.
And I love to find out where people are from.
They do what things they like to do,
where they've traveled,
you name it.
I can find all of that.
All right.
And what tool do you use regularly to keep productive or
to create some type of balance in your life?
Well, so I love tech and I'm a total Apple girl
and I love my MacBook pro.
I love my iPad,
my iPhone,
and some of my best productivity apps are Evernote,
Dropbox, Wunderlist.
I love audible,
which I know you promote.
And I am such a huge fan of audible and my
Google calendar and my task list that I use on Google.
But my friend,
Connie from Texas just introduced me to an app that I
think a lot of your listeners will love.
It's called Flipagram.
And it isn't super easy way to make slideshows with music
from your phone.
We've done store tours with this little app and it has
been awesome.
So I think that's something and it's flipped up gram.
Wonderful. We'll have to check that out for sure.
And what book have you read lately that you think our
listeners would find value in?
I love the E-Myth by Michael Gerber,
which I've read twice.
I've listened to it on audible several times,
and I feel like it is a must read for every
entrepreneur. And then I love the customer rules by Lee Cockerel
and all of his other books as well.
He's the former EVP of Walt Disney world.
And he's fabulous.
And as you had referenced a little bit earlier,
Vicky, as you're listening to the podcast today,
you can also listen to audio books with ease,
just like the E-Myth and customer rules.
I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to
get an audio book for free.
All you have to do is go to gift biz,
book.com and make a selection.
Okay, done.
We are moving into my favorite part of the interview.
You haven't provided enough value already.
Vicky. We're going to go and see what you are hoping
for for the future.
This is our dare to dream question.
I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.
It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.
This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights
that you would wish to obtain.
Please accept this gift from all of us and open it
in our presence.
What is inside your box?
Well, this is such a great question,
and I love to hear what everyone says.
My box.
This beautiful box would contain the keys to a small home
in the country because I don't want it to take care
of a big home,
but it would have a large guest house where I could
host gatherings of small business owners from around the country.
And what we would do there is to have great speakers,
offer workshops,
and have a place to get away from the craziness of
running a business for a few days.
I love that.
I also have a recording studio with super high speed internet
as, as country girls out here,
struggle with reliable internet.
So I could podcast and Periscope with inspiration and encouragement to
other business owners from around the country.
So that would be my wish and my dream.
All right.
And let me guess,
there's going to be someone managing all the tech for you
there too.
I love this and one.
And once you do have that country home,
I want to be invited.
Absolutely. It could be a guest speaker,
so that would,
Let's start winding down.
Now, how can our listeners get in touch with you if
they want to learn more?
Number one about Adrian's boutique,
but also if they want to become involved with remarkable retailer?
Well, of course they can find me through email Vicki at
Adrian's boutique.com.
They can go on our Facebook page.
We all run under the same thing.
Our website is Adrian's boutique.com.
Our Facebook is Adrian's boutique.
And then over on the remarkable retailer side,
it's just Vicki,
V I C K i@remarkableretailer.com.
They can find us on Periscope on Facebook,
on Twitter anyway,
and I'll even give you my phone number here.
So it is (620) 543-6488.
I'm always trying to get my 20,000
words in every day and I love to talk shop.
And so feel free to give me a call.
If I'm not available,
I will call you back just as soon as I possibly
can. It sounds like there is no excuse.
If someone wants to get in touch with you,
they should be able to find you somewhere with all of
that. I think they can,
and they can see all of our previous episodes of our
periscopes@vimeo.com slash Vicky,
Adrian. So we've thrown a lot of links and phone numbers
and social media site at all of you.
But remember,
you can just jump over to the show notes page and
I'll have all of that detailed for you.
So you'll be able to get in touch with Vicky if
you'd like to in any manner that you wish.
Okay, Vicky,
we just have to talk about one more thing and I
have intentionally had the podcast go live.
Your specific podcasts,
go live this week because I believe you have something to
share with us.
Well, we were just Adrian's boutique.
Our retail store was just honored with our county's chamber of
Commerce's Reno County,
small business of the year award 2016.
And it just makes me so incredibly proud of our team
of ladies,
who they just bring their best skills and talents to work
with them every single day.
And I'm honored to work with them and just all the
people in our community that have supported us all of these
years. So that was actually very exciting for us to win
the small business of the year award.
We had to keep it secret until after the 29th of
February. That is so exciting.
I bet you had a huge celebration and congratulations.
I can say that on behalf of myself,
as I'm sure all the listeners to wish you congratulations and
much continued success,
and you're going to broadcast that all over now.
I bet as well.
You should.
All right.
Thank you so much,
Vicky. Oh my gosh.
You have provided so much good information.
We've talked a little longer than we normally do,
so I hope that's all right for you with your schedule
today, but I really,
really appreciate your sharing all of these,
not only your expertise,
but some really great,
great examples that everybody could take back tweak to make it
work for them and use right away.
And that is really,
really so helpful and really what we're trying to accomplish with
this podcast.
So thank you so much.
Absolutely. As we close off,
I know that I am joined by all my guests,
wishing that your candle always burns bright.
Thank you so much.
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the next episode.
Hi, all my gift biz peeps.
I'm always looking for new guests for the show.
So if you know,
somebody who has had an interesting journey in terms of how
they've identified the business they went into,
or has been really,
really successful with a business that's been established for a while,
I would love to know about it,
and guess what it might even be you the way to
let me know is to jump over onto my Instagram account
at gift biz gal,
pick a picture that you like,
and then comment on that photo with the handle of the
person that you think I should consider.
Again, go over to my Instagram account at gift biz gal
comment on a picture with the information and we can all
look forward to hearing about the exciting experiences,
journeys, and expertise of our peers here on gift biz on
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