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Do you wake up every day and think, what should I post for my boutique business on social

media?

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How much should you post?

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Where should you be posting?

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And what should you be posting?

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Every day, if you're a boutique owner and you wake up and you don't know what these things

are, let me help you figure it out.

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I'm gonna walk you through what platforms to post on, how often to post, and what to be

posting for your boutique business, whether you're brick and mortar, online, or pop-up

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boutique.

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It's all kind of the same.

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We'll talk about a little differences in there, but I think the last step might surprise

you.

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So stay tuned.

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If we haven't met yet.

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Hi, I'm Emily Benson.

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I'm a retail strategist who's helped thousands of boutique owners start growing scale

their boutique business and I used to run my own business.

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Before I wrote my book, The Ultimate Boutique Handbook, I had a business called The

Fashion Truck here in Boston, Massachusetts.

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And yes, I would drive around and sell things out of the back of my truck.

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So you're welcome.

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That was really fun and really cool.

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When I had my boutique business from like 2010, 11 to 2016, honestly, social media was

just starting.

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Like we just had started to have business Facebook pages.

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It was not a lot.

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Now you have so much at your fingertips.

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for free, okay?

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So in this video, I'm only talking organic stuff.

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We're not even talking about ads.

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This is all organic things that you should be posting.

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So let's talk about where you're posting.

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Right now in 2025, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are still our three biggest channels.

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I mean, there's a lot of other things floating around, but to be honest with you, the best

way to get traffic to your site or to your brick and mortar store is social media right

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now.

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depending on your product and who you sell to, you might want to make some adjustments.

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with Instagram and Facebook, the meta platform has been pretty consistent in terms of

wanting to promote selling goods, especially like through their own Instagram shopping and

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their meta shopping things.

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So I always say if you have a customer who is millennial or Gen X or boomer, be on

Instagram.

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You can also be on Facebook too.

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I think they're a little bit interchangeable.

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I think you'll probably find a little bit more of a fashion savvy shopper on Instagram and

you'll find more of like a sort of basics, more well-rounded kind of gal on Facebook.

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TikTok is great if you have a product.

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I think that if you invented this product and it crushes it, that is a great way to go on

TikTok.

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I find TikTok to be a little bit harder for boutiques.

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because it is so random and because you do have rotating inventory all the time.

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So could it be good for you?

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Yeah, totally.

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Could it be difficult?

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Yeah, totally.

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For me, the safest place feels like Instagram.

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Okay, let's talk about the type of posts that we were doing, a video, carousel, all that

stuff.

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I have been saying this for at least eight years.

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Video is it.

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Like people want to watch videos.

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Do they want to watch long videos?

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Probably not.

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Do they want to watch quick videos?

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Probably.

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But video content,

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will always get prioritized in the feed.

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And so that's more why it's important than anything else.

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That said, the first three to five seconds of your video is the most important.

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So if you start off slow in those videos, you're gonna crash, okay?

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Video content is going to be what really kicks off.

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Now you can do carousels, but to be honest with you, one of the places that we've been

focusing on with clients is Instagram.

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reels and getting really really good at them because they are great for discovery.

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And why do I talk about discovery?

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I talk about discovery because everyone is coming to me saying how do I get new clients?

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How do I get new customers?

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I need new audience.

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Instagram reels.

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Instagram reels are designed to show your video to new people who they think that will

like your content.

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So the creation of these Instagram reels is pretty important.

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So let's talk about some easy content ideas for Instagram reels or TikToks.

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Okay, we're talking video.

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All of this can go on obviously Facebook reels too.

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But most of the time I see people posting on Instagram and it gets pushed to Facebook.

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The type of posts that I want you to be creating are centered on your products, what they

are going to do for your customer and how they can buy it.

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So streamlining that process from someone from when someone discovers you, maybe they do

click on the reel.

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Maybe they do comment, whatever.

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They're probably not going to buy that first time.

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They're going to buy maybe the next time they see you or the next time they see you.

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But it's incredibly important to get them watching.

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So the first three to five seconds, you want to give them something to be interested in.

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So who is your ideal client?

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I follow Shop Holly Girl, and I love Holly.

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She did an entire series on how to be a cool mom, how to dress like a cool mom.

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I want to say she did like a thousand videos, a thousand reels about

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how to dress like a cool mom.

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And it grew her Instagram following like crazy.

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It worked.

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She had that hook.

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It was something her people were interested in.

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It was something she was good at styling.

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It worked.

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The other thing we can do if you have a brick and mortar, easy content idea is being in

your store.

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And I've seen some reels that are really verbal based and they're kind of boring.

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So it'll be like the camera goes up to the boutique owner and then they'll say, what's

your favorite thing in the store?

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And then you see them slowly walk around the store.

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I don't like that.

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It's boring.

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Like I want to watch this thing in 10 seconds, 30 seconds.

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Like our attention spans are shot.

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Mine is like, isn't yours?

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So you want to know that that first three to five seconds, someone gets hooked in, they

get like interested in it, and then they keep watching.

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So instead of doing a reel that depends on a lot of dialogue and like a person kind of

starring in this thing, don't do that.

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Let your store be the star of the reel.

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One of our absolute favorites here over at Boutique Training Academy is the POV.

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POV, you found your new favorite boutique in insert town.

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Like that is a killer one.

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And you just walk through your store, you walk through the inside, you show the outside.

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If you have a brick and mortar store, I'm gonna tell you right now, you're not showing

people your store enough.

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If you have an online store, you're not showing people the product enough.

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Like there's very rarely someone where I go to their social media and I'm like, I get it.

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Like I get what you're selling, I get your vibe and I know exactly how to buy it.

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Let's also talk here about what makes a good post, because I'm giving you ideas for good

content, right?

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But like the other pieces around it are so important.

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So geotag your location, add any text on the screen.

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It has to be readable.

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It has to be big enough that we can read it, but add text in your video to help people

understand what the item is, what it's called, what it costs, call to order, download my

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app, like...

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What is also the direction that you are giving people?

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So like if you have a brick and mortar, put your address, put your store hours, put the

name of someone that's working, a couple people that work there.

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So when they walk in, someone say, hey, I saw like, Carrie works here, is Carrie here?

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Like there are plenty of boutiques that have sort of social media superstars that

customers get to know.

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And like, we love that, whether it's the boutique owner or an employee, like it doesn't

matter, having the personal connection, making that friend.

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is the most important step to selling to that person.

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And if you have an online store, like please stop posting graphics.

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I don't care the quote of the day.

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don't care.

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Show me what you have to sell me.

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Just show it to me.

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I don't care if it's on your body.

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I don't care if it's on a mannequin.

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I don't care if you're holding it up in front of the camera.

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Doesn't matter.

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I want to see what you have for sale.

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I want to see what sizes you have.

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And then I want to know how to shop.

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So many online boutiques are saying, download the app, click on this order, go to our

website, shop our live sale.

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I mean like,

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Just give me one thing to do.

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It's too much.

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Like I know it's so good.

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You want to give people options.

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I get it.

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People are busy.

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But here's the thing.

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When you give them options, they get overwhelmed.

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And when they get overwhelmed, they don't buy and they don't click.

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They're like, I can't do this anymore.

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I have been known many times to be like, I'm walking out of the store.

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It's like way too overwhelming for me.

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Keep it simple.

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Tell people to download your app and that's it.

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or tell people to shop your live sale on Thursday nights at 7 p.m.

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on your Facebook page and give them the Facebook page link.

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You have to tell people what you want them to do so that they know what to do and so they

know how to shop.

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I think a lot of online boutis sort of get lost in this world.

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They don't really have like a launch sequence and they're confusing their customers by

telling them go here, go there, da da.

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The easiest thing to do on social media is confuse people.

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The hardest thing to do, I think, is to be so clear about who you are, what you sell, and

how to buy from you.

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Those three things should always be at the top of your list of things that you're doing as

a boutique owner.

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Just to wrap this up, if you haven't yet, please like this video and subscribe to my

channel.

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If you're looking for more help and more training around how to do Instagram reels

properly, we have a training called Reels for Retail.

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Comment below Reels and we will send you the link for it.

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But in that, I give you hashtags, I give you captions, I teach you how to do everything.

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Like Reels feel very overwhelming and video content can feel very overwhelming.

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My goal is to just really simplify it for you.

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All right, so social media.

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Hopefully you're feeling a little bit more confident about it.

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You've got some ideas.

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Listen, you can do the same thing every week all the time.

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That's called building a brand.

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Do not think you have to go outside the box.

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Do not think you have to do the next dance move or transition or whatever the kids are

doing these days.

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I know, I sound like an old lady.

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But social media is your commercial to the world.

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What do you want that commercial to look like?

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And how do you want that commercial to drive people to come and shop with you?

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That's all you need to worry about.

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All right, I hope this helped.

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Thanks so much for watching.

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I'll see you guys on the next one.

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Bye.