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On paper, Anna, founder of Anna Lou Jewelry, had a

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story that reads like the kind of trajectory every product founder

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secretly hopes for. You start making things at home. A buyer

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spots you, suddenly you're in Selfridges, then Topshop, then Harvey

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Nichols. Your pieces are popping up on celebrities.

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So it grew and grew and grew to the point where I was turning over

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almost £3 million but not making any profit. You're doing

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shows on QVC, journalists are calling. You have a shop on

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Carnaby street in London and the orders keep climbing.

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Welcome to the resilient retail podcast Game plan. I'm Catherine Erdly and in the next

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few minutes, you're about to get powerful real world retail strategies from

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insights shared both from my guests and myself, backed up by

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my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to learn how

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to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let's jump in

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with this latest episode. It

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all sounds incredible, doesn't it? It sounds like proof that the whole thing

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is working, because that's what we're taught to believe when you're busy, busy. Busy

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and you've got the pressure of making the sales back because you just bought all

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this stock, you're not grounded and you're not

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aligned with yourself. Big stockists mean success. High

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turnover means stability. Visibility means safety.

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But that's not what was happening behind the scenes. The numbers were telling a

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very different story, one that most business owners don't talk about until

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they're on the other side of it. And that's why I wanted you to hear

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Anna's experience directly from her. Not the glossy version,

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not the look where I ended up version, the real one, the one that played

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out underneath all the noise while everyone else assumed she was flying.

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But instead of starting with the highlight reel, I asked her to explain

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what the business actually looked like during that turbulent period.

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Financially, operationally, emotionally. And she didn't hold back.

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Here's Anna. I was actually a multi seven figure

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business, so it was actually more than a million. Yeah. And I was in Selfridges

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and Topshop had a concession in Topshop, Harvey

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Nichols, Liberty's Harrods, Issa Tan in Japan.

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I mean, the stores that people would dream of.

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And I have to say that I even had a show on

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qvc. I was quite young, but I was selling, selling, selling,

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selling, selling, selling, selling and not really looking

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at the proper numbers. And I was manufacturing.

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How it all started was when I first got into

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Harvey Nicks, I then slowly got into the other department

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stores. It's kind of a bit of a ricochet effect. Once you're in one,

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then sort of. The others tended to follow suit. But what

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happened was, is that I had an interview with another

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high street company called Reese. I think Reese is

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still going. I'm not sure if they still are. So they asked me to do

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a collaboration with them, which was obviously really exciting. And

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I had never made in China before, but what happened was I was

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making at home, in my bedroom, selling in

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these department stores. So I'll see my turnover wasn't massive. And then

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all of a sudden I get this meeting with Reese and they said, how

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many pieces can you make a week? And I just plucked out

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of the sky, oh, 50,000. I mean, I'd never made

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more than about. Probably 35, to

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be honest. Yeah, 35. Not 35,000, just 35.

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35, yeah, exactly. Well, maybe a bit more, but anyway, so this meeting

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went exceptionally well and then I received this massive order

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for 48,000 pounds worth of jewelry. And I thought,

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oh, my God, I'm going to have to go and get these made overseas. So

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I literally made the samples myself, took them over to China, because I'd

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been suggested some places to go and had the

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whole collection made over there, delivered back to Reese. So it

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grew and grew and grew to the point where I was turning over

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almost £3 million but not making any profit.

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Wow. Wow. So that was

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partly lack of experience. I was just really

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inexperienced and I have learned so much since.

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From the outside, that kind of growth looks amazing. On the

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inside, it was overwhelming. Stock everywhere, spreadsheets

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everywhere. And a business that only worked if Anna never

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stopped sprinting. I guess it's because you've got a

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spreadsheet of items that people are ordering

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regularly. You know, every day we've got new boutiques,

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people saying, oh, but I want that one in a pink and not a blue.

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And then have you got that one in more of a lighter blue, not a

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darker blue? You know, all of those questions that go on and in the end

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you realize, actually we've got far too much stock, we've got far too

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many options, we've got cells on spreadsheets. The cost

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of managing those spreadsheets of the staff

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was just not feasible for me. I got

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pregnant, actually, with my first child and I just thought,

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whoa, this isn't going to work, this is not sustainable. And I

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have to say, I did have options of getting investment and a lot

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of competitors that I've got now did take investment and

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they've grown and they're huge and they're Amazing brands,

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but that's a choice I chose to be a mum at home

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and basically pivot on. Keep the brand going,

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but making sure that it was online only

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and made to order. The other hidden piece here, and

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it's an important one, is what Anna was sacrificing personally to keep

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all of this moving. Not just financially, although that alone

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was huge, but emotionally, energetically, in

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ways that never show up on a profit and loss sheet, but are really real

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for founders. Because when you're running a business that looks wildly

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successful from the outside, there's this unspoken pressure to keep the illusion

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going. You don't want to admit, even to yourself, that you're not

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paying yourself well while you're paying staff, paying for concessions,

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paying rent on a shop on Carnaby street, paying to fix mistakes that

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other people made. You don't want to acknowledge how much of your time is being

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swallowed by admin, by stock issues, by the endless cycle of

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saying yes so people don't lose interest. And honestly,

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most founders don't even notice the toll until something forces them

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to stop. Pregnancy burnout, a big bill they didn't see

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coming, or simply the quiet realization that they haven't enjoyed

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their own business in a little bit too long. Anna hit that

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point. She didn't make a big, dramatic announcement about it. She didn't have a

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breakdown in a boardroom. She just saw it. She

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saw the gap between what she was projecting and what was actually happening behind

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the curtain. And then there's the values piece, the part

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we often ignore because we think it's secondary, something that you sort out later

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when things are calmer, except it never gets calmer.

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And meanwhile, she's making acrylic pieces she no longer feels aligned with,

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moving stock around the world because the wholesale machine demands it, and

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dealing with buyers who want 10 variations of everything but won't commit to any

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of them. At some point, it stops feeling creative, it stops feeling

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meaningful, it stops feeling like her. And that

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internal tug, the misalignment, the discomfort, the

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this isn't who I am anymore feeling, that's often more powerful than

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any spreadsheet or sales report. Because when your values start whispering

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that something is off, you can only ignore them for so long before it

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becomes physically exhausting to keep going. So, yes, the

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financial strain was real, but so was the emotional strain of running a business

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that didn't reflect who she was anymore. And that combination,

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the numbers and values colliding, is what ultimately pushed her into

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rethinking everything. That's the moment I Want you to hear next, because

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this is where the shift really begins for Anna. Here she is. Well,

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I really wasn't paying myself that much money. I was paying all these people.

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I had, like, nine members of staff. I had people working in the concessions

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and also just the managing of all the stock in all these different places, like

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Selfridges. I hate to say it, but they didn't really know where half the stock

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was and the cupboards would be lost. And it was very.

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I'm being a bit too honest here, but it was very, very

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stressful that in the end you just think, oh, my

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God. Like, this is. I've made some wrong choices and you just have

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to have a long, hard chat with yourself. I mean, that was one of

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my first rebirths that I would call was really

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hard because it was my baby that I had built from nothing

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but pure creativity and passion. And I just had to face up to the

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fact that I didn't have a financial controller. I had some

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people working in the shop that weren't particularly honest.

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I had a shop in Carnaby street, which was a really brilliant shop and it

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was packed, had loads of tourists coming in day in, day out. It

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was brilliant and it was popular, you know, it was in the magazines. We had

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celebrities wearing the pieces. We had Kate Moss, we had Lily Allen, we had

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Paris Hilton, Kylie Minogue. So many different people. But

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it just wasn't enough. You almost needed to have a lot more

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investment. You needed to have like a boost of investment to go

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really big. That's not an excuse. But that was something that I just

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thought, I'm not going to be able to get that investment because I'm pregnant with

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my first child. I won't be able to give the investor

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necessarily what he wants because I want to look after my baby.

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I'm interested as well about the stock piece, because one of the things that I

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quite often run into is that people will say, well, I need to have the

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stock to make the sales. So they. There's a sort of mentality that

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more stock equals more sales, but then what they don't

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realize is that more stock also equals less cash flow. And

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it's like finding that balance between, you know, like you said, someone said, oh,

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do you do this in pink? And you were saying, yes, and adding it to

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the spreadsheet. Was there ever a point at which you thought, what if I just

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stop. And I

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actually

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realized that wholesaling was basically moving stock

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around the world so that that shop wasn't going to have it. Well, then that

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shop might have it and then that shop might have it. And in the end

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I was a bit like, we just like transporting stock from

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shop to shop. One, you know, this is all just a bit strange.

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...

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bringing

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more plastic into the world. I've made some interesting

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choices with this business because I love it still and I do still think we've

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got my handwriting. The plastic quirky products

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definitely were the things that gave me a name because they

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were bold and bright. Yeah. And then since then it's been

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letters and names and now I've kind of moved into

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much more, you know, wellbeing and personal journey

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pieces. From the outside, people still assumed things were great,

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but Anna had already decided to step back from a lot of that prestige

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and, and rebuild on her own terms. I've always been quite

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brutally honest and what I realized is that people didn't really need

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to know that we weren't in those stores anymore because

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they still had the database of people. It's not like, oh my God, big

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announcement. We're not going to be in Sally's gift shop

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next month. Right. We don't need to do that. I mean. And

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Harvey, Nick's just sort of slowly sort of dissipated and I just had

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enough of those. You know, the payment terms was getting longer and

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longer and longer and longer. And we just can't work with

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120 days payment terms. So you deliver them the stock and

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then it would be four months until you were paid.

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That

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was

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actually

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QVC Japan that said that it wasn't QVC UK. We did used to sell

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on QVC UK but it wasn't quite so strict. But you still have to put

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the stock up front now. I think I'm highly investable

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actually as an entrepreneur that's been through

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every possible.

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Mistake that you could possibly go on

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and still be around. You know where the hurdles

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are. If I was about to invest in someone, I'd want to use somebody

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like me who knows where not to go wrong. So what does it

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look like when you come out the other side of all of that? For Anna,

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it's a mix of very practical number watching and a much deeper

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focus on her own energy and alignment.

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And

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I buried my head in the sand with the costs.

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And I remember I had this shop in Carnaby street and then I just realized

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I couldn't really afford the rent. And then they said, well, you know, we'll

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give you a bit of an extension. They said it was like a pop up

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store rent, but it was like a long term pop up store rent. But anyway,

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in the end I just realized I just had to bite the bullet and be

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like, oh my God, like I haven't really been looking at the

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numbers properly. One thing that I've learned is that I have

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an accountant who is literally like in my pocket.

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Not a rich husband, but an accountant that is in my pocket.

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So, yeah, I definitely know that the numbers are

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absolutely vital and I'm looking at

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graphs all the time, all the time. However depressing it

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is just looking at numbers, looking at the data, looking at. Everything, looking

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at the costs right now. Looking at the costs way more than I even

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look at the sales, actually always looking at the other way

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around. To be honest, this is the part of the conversation I keep coming

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back to because it's one thing to say, right, I need to look at my

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numbers properly and quite another to actually change how you run

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your business day to day. Most product founders I work with don't struggle

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because they're reckless. They struggle because they are unfocused.

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They chase sales and keep running after shiny new tactics instead of

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focusing on what really makes a difference to the bottom line. And Anna did

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exactly what so many of us do. She focused on the exciting bits. The

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orders, the interest, the stockists, and ignored the

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extremely unsexy truth sitting right underneath all of it.

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Costs, margins, capacity, cash flow,

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the stuff that doesn't sparkle. What I love is that she doesn't

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gloss over it. She's blunt. She didn't look at the numbers. She didn't have the

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right structure, and she paid for that. But she also

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rebuilt herself around it. She started tracking the right things. She

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brought in an accountant. She learned the actual rhythms of her business

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rather than the imagined ones. And then this is the deeper bit.

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She realized it wasn't just about spreadsheets. It was about her nervous system, her

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alignment, her ability to make decisions from a place that wasn't

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purely panic or purely yesing or pure external

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validation. Because you can have the best systems in the world, but if

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you're permanently overwhelmed or out of sync with your own business, none of it

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sticks. But when Anna talks about this, you can really hear the shift.

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She's not just a founder who learned financial discipline. She's a

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founder who learned herself. Here's how she explains it in her own

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words. One of the things that I do now is actually

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check in with myself before anything. So this is

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the first thing to just make sure that that stockist

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feels aligned, that everything that you're doing feels aligned. And when I

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say feels aligned, it's like when you're busy, busy, busy, and you've got the pressure

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of making the sales back because you've just bought all this stock, you're not

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grounded, and you're not aligned with yourself. And to

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me, that's really, really important, number one.

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And dealing with your own nervous system, actually.

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Because if we're calm and we're high vibe and we've got good

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frequency and we're eating well and we're sleeping well, then the business will

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take care of itself. As I said before, like, not to strip

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away kind of what looks good and have a

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look at what's actually making you the profit,

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which is easier said than done, because I have also been really guilty,

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being a designer, of going, no, I'm not taking it off the website

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because I love it. And then it hasn't really sold at

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all. But I'm so adamant that I won't take it off because I love

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It. Which is not

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great, but. But then I'm like, there will

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be that person out there that loves it. It is why they call it the

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art and science of running a retail business, because it's part science about the

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numbers and part of it is the art of picking the right product. Yeah.

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And you're so right about the science. And I think that that science is

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something that is. You can learn that science. And it's also. I think

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with investment, there's a science to investment as well. There's a science to

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all of it. And I didn't know that science before. I was just given this

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amazing opportunity and I ran with it. I remember when I was in

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Tokyo and I was with the British embassy and they'd taken out

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like six brands to showcase their work for the accessories embassy.

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Honestly, I think I did a million pounds worth of sales alone

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in that one trip. Wow. And I

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remember the ambassador, British fashion ambassador,

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she said, we've never seen anything like it. Like, this is

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absolutely unbelievable. And I was like, well, you know, I didn't think.

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I thought this was normal. But now when I look back, I was just so

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blase about it. And that feels like the right place

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to leave Anna's story today. Because where she is right now is

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such a strong place in terms of having created a business that works

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for her. It actually fits her with a focus on things that matter

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to her, like meaningful pieces that are aligned with her interest in personal

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development. She's taken control of her manufacturing and shifted her

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model from overproduction to made to order. And I think that's the

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real takeaway here. We spend so much time chasing things we're told matter.

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The big names on the stockist list, the perfect Instagram feed, the revenue number

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that looks impressive when you say it out loud. But none of that guarantees

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stability, and certainly none of that guarantees joy. And

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none of that guarantees a business you actually want to wake up and run every

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day. What Ana's story shows is that the pivot points, the

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uncomfortable moments, the pauses, the rebirths, they're not

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signs you've failed. They're usually moments when you finally see the truth clearly

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enough to do something about it. So whether you're at the start of your journey

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or you've been running your brand for years, I hope this conversation gives you

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the permission to step back and check in with yourself. Not just with your numbers,

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though. Absolutely do that. But with your energy, your capacity,

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and your values. Because the businesses that last are rarely the ones that grow

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the fastest. They're the ones built with intention, honesty, and a founder

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who's willing to evolve. If you'd like to find out more about Anna, you can

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check out Anna Lou of London on Instagram. That's A N N

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A L O U of London on Instagram, and we'll put

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all the links in the show notes. And if you're finally ready to get help

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with some of the challenges we've raised in this episode, you might want to book

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a call to talk about my Retail by Design program kicking off in January.

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Go to resilientretailclub.com and click on Retail by Design to find out

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more about the Focus Framework that I use to help you get

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in touch with the business that you really want to run. And I'm looking forward

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to talking to you next week in episode 281. That one's all

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about how to run a stock clearance sale. See you next week.