EP 9: 3 Steps to Starting an Online Boutique

In this jam-packed episode, your host Ali Dee, breaks down starting an online boutique in to three steps. Often times we overcomplicate things, and get too overwhelmed with all of the information out there, but from Ali Dee's ten-plus years as a retail business owner, she explains what it really comes down to and what you need to focus on to set you up for success.

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Transcript

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This episode of boutique success club is brought to you by boutique blastoff launch your dream boutique. have you been wanting to turn your dream of owning a successful boutique into reality? Let me introduce you to boutique blastoff launch your dream boutique. The ultimate online course designed to guide you. Step-by-step on your boutique journey. Hi, I'm Allie D your boutique bestie and chief cheerleader in this program, you'll gain the knowledge, confidence, and strategies to build a thriving boutique that stands out from the crowd. So what are you waiting for? Start the journey to launching your dream boutique today with. Boutique blast off. Head to boutique success club.com to enroll now. Welcome to Boutique Success Club. I'm Allie d, the founder of Boutique Success Club, your boutique bestie, and your chief cheerleader with over a decade of experience in the retail industry trenches. I'm here to help you skyrocket your store. Get ready to dive into insider strategies and educational resources that will transform your boutique business. No more guesswork. No more struggling alone. We'll be your partner in this journey, and together we will conquer all the obstacles. This is Boutique Success Club. Hey, Hey, welcome to another episode of the boutique success club podcast. I'm Allie D your host, founder of the boutique success club, your boutique bestie and retail biz expert. this episode I'm really excited about because I'm going to tell you how to start your online boutique in three steps. Really when it comes down to starting an online store, starting a boutique, I can break it down into three steps or three phases, even that are going to get you going in the right direction. So I'm going to go over each one of the steps today. We're going to take notes like. The good boutique students we are. And we're going to then start implementing this. So you can go ahead and get started on your own boutique journey, because I know this is something that's on your mind. You think about it all the time. You're sitting at work and your nine to five, you're staring at the clock and just thinking, oh, I wish I had my own online boutique because then I could be in charge of my fricking self and show up to work when I want to show up when I'm ready and try on clothes all day and do all the fun things. So that's what we want to get you to. We want to get you to the point where you're starting your own online boutique and you're getting going, making money. Obviously the faster we can get you to the making money point. The more you can really envision leaving that nine to five or leaving that other job and just focusing fully on what you were meant to do which is have your own online boutique I wish when I was getting started. I had someone that broke it down this easy for me, because sometimes we can get so overwhelmed with all the things we're trying to learn. We forget that there's really just a few things we need to get really good at and really nail in order to set up ourselves up for success. We can get distracted by all of the, like, Bright glitzy, glamorous things going on, and then just kind of neglect the things that are really important and that are going to get us to where we're making money on a regular basis. And this is a nice thriving business. So as we break it down into these three steps, I want you to think about it because. I know that there's a lot of information in your head and you may be struggling to figure out what's important or what first step to take or how to do any of this. And what I think this is going to do is really going to make it a lot easier for you to envision how you're going to get all this done. Even if you have no business experience, you have never taken a business course in your life. Like me. I ran as fast as I could away from anything that had to do with business in college. And I don't know if that was a good or bad thing. Looking back on it now. But I just did not. Like the idea of going to any kind of business class, it just wasn't for me. And so I kind of like had to learn everything. As I went and I feel like just knowing. Kind of the basics, not even, this is not business school basics. This is like real life basics. I've been there. I've done this. So I know that this is what it's going to take in order to set you up for success. So just kind of going through these three steps, these three phases. And taking notes or just saving this episode to make sure you can come back to it and refer to it over and over again because i think it's going to be extremely valuable for you Also by the way, this is something that I worked on all weekend long because I was trying to figure out. How to make. Everything that is starting your own business. Just simple to understand, really break it down to the most simple and easy to understand concepts. Because I think a lot of times when we're trying to learn things online from other quote unquote gurus, they use a lot of big words. They make it really complicated. They say a lot of things to try to like, I don't know, impress us or something, but at the end of the day, it's like, Really really simple what it all breaks down to okay you're probably thinking allie get on with it i'm thinking that too sometimes i can just ramble but that's okay that's why i have this podcast because i can be chitty chatty with you all right so how to start an online boutique in three steps let's look at step number one In step one, I'm going to call this your foundation or just simply getting started, right? Number one get started. So write this down in your notes. This is where we are really going to be focusing on building the foundation for your store for your brand. So this is where we're going to be doing things like. Working on market research. So looking at other stores out there that are similar to what you have in mind and what they're doing. Figuring out who your ideal customer is. So sitting down, making notes, doing the research. Figuring out who you think you can help the most, because at the end of the day, remember we're helping people buy things that they want. So there's gotta be a specific group of people in mind that you think you can cater to and help the most. And usually the trick to this is taking a little look, see in the mirror, because most likely your ideal customer is somebody just like you. So that's the easiest way to look at this. This is what, anytime anyone gets stuck on who their ideal customer is, I say most likely it's someone like you. So you're going to want to think about things like, you know, your hobbies, your age. Are you married? Are you single? What kind of lifestyle do you live? Um, What kind of job you have, what kind of education level? Like all of those things are going to go. Into figuring out who your ideal customer is, and just, that's just a simple pro tip. If you get stuck, it's probably going to be someone just like you. So what type of hobbies do you like? What type of clothes do you like to wear? Where do you like to go on the weekend? All that kind of stuff. We're going to figure out. In this step one, we're also going to look at branding. So now that we know who our ideal, our ideal customer is, we're going to start thinking about how can we brand our boutique to be appealing to that type of person. So if it's someone who's like super sophisticated living in New York city, you're going to want to have a sophisticated logo and sophisticated branding. Because if you come out with some kind of logo that looks kind of childish, it's got bright colors. It's like. Everything that New York city is not, you're not going to attract the right customer. Right. so you're going to want to think about that when you're creating your branding. A lot of brainstorming goes on in step one. it takes some time. It's also the most exciting part because it's just you living in your dream, thinking about it, creating, being a visionary on how you think you can jump into the marketplace and offer something unique and different. Another thing we're going to be doing in phase one is we're going to be doing inventory research. So this is also super duper fun. This is where I suggest you like hop on Pinterest, start making a board for different looks that you think are going. Going to be good for your style of boutique. Again, let's use our New York city one. We're going to find probably stuff that's like corporate chic. Stuff that people are going to be wearing to like nine to fives on wall street. So like sleek blazers, pencil skirts with some trendy flair, like very fashionable high-end New York city. Look, you're going to start wanting to pin some of that stuff. So you can visually see the type of inventory you need to buy. Because trust me, once you get to the buying inventory step, you're going to get very, um, bright eyed and bushy tailed, as they say, with all of the amazing options out there. So you have to stay laser focused on who your ideal customer is. Um, because there will be a lot of cute things that distract you in all kinds of different ways. Naturally as boutique owners, we are shoppers, so we love shopping, but we have to make sure we stay focused on exactly what we need to shop for. So we're doing our branding, our market research, our ideal customer, our inventory research, um, brainstorming our logo, Our boutique name, all that stuff is going down in step one. Everything in this initial step is setting us up, obviously to go on to step two, but we're not just brainstorming here. We're not just, you know, having Lala dreams. We're actually putting things into action in the boutique success bundle. I have so many like worksheets and workbooks and. Ways that you can actually take all your thoughts get them on paper and then start taking the small actions that i tell you to take in order to take a step forward so you can actually get your boutique ready to roll and you're not just forever and ever thinking and thinking and thinking so remember always say you have knowledge but you got to have action you can't have one without the other so we're getting all the knowledge that we're learning and figuring out and then we're taking the action to make sure step one is complete the foundation is done and then we move on to step Two. Real quick boutique bestie. I know you've been thinking about building and growing your own boutique. It's that beautiful dream that you have in your mind, but maybe you just need like a little push forward. That's why I created the boutique success bundle. If you are tired of the overwhelm, the guesswork, the confusion, then this all in one bundle is for you. I break down everything into modules. It's a step-by-step process where we are building the foundation, setting you up for success. It also has every single guide I have ever created right there and an easy to access dashboard plus Q and a with me, if you get stuck. So if you've been thinking about jumping in now is the time go to boutique success club.com and join us today in the boutique success bundle. Step two is find customers or be seen. All right, so we've got step one, done. We've got our boutique ready to roll. Now, what do we do? We have to find customers. This is where we start really diving into our marketing skills. We want to try to figure out how we're going to reach as many of the people that represent our ideal customer as possible. Remember, we figured that out in step one, we've got that done. Now we know exactly who we need to target. So what are we going to do? To draw all those people into your store. How are we going to connect with those hundreds of thousands of people out there that are exactly the type of person that are going to want to find stuff that your selling, this is where we find customers. I mean, essentially we're introducing you to random strangers on the internet, right? So that's what it boils down to. Hi. Uh, I'm so-and-so with so-and-so boutique. Nice to meet you. I mean, it's a totally random stranger interaction. So we have to set you up to make sure when you meet that random stranger. They're going to look at you and be like, oh, you look familiar. Do I know you? Like, I want to know you. I like what you're all about. You seem really fun. Like, whatever it is that we're drawing them into your store for, you want to make sure that that greeting when you're meeting the initial random strangers on the internet is going to work in your favor as much as possible. So in phase two, step two, When we're finding customers, we're using different marketing strategies that are going to promote awareness for your store. Growth for your store. We're building your audience. We're finding your people. This is so fun. And this can be scary for some people, because this is when you are finally putting yourself out there into the universe. And you're like, Hey, I have a boutique. Let's go. I'm ready to roll. And it can be so intimidating and so scary. But really, truly, this is the most special moment for you because you've done all the tough work in step one, getting things ready to roll. And now when you enter into step two, you're actually getting to meet customers. You're actually going to make relationships, build. Truly loyal, raving fans, people that love everything. You have to sell people that are going to buy everything. When you show up with new arrivals. That's who you're going to meet in this next phase, this next step. So finding customers and being seen obviously is so important to the success of your store, but there are so many cool, amazing free ways to do this now, especially online, especially with the internet and social media, it's just at our fingertips. We just have to do the work we have to be consistent. We have to show up. We have to find the platforms that are going to be best for you. All of this. We do go over again in the boutique success bundle because I want to make sure that you're not wasting your time. On different platforms or spreading yourself too thin, like let's focus on exactly where your ideal customer is. For most people, I'm going to recommend tic talk as this visibility platform. This is where you're going to find the most people, the fastest that are going to like your stuff, because Tik TOK is actually optimized to help you. Unlike some other platforms out there like Instagram, Facebook, it's so hard to reach new people, but on Tik TOK, it's really not. It's just about knowing the tick-tock SEO, how to play the game, what to post, how to grab attention, how to stop the scroll. All of my favorite things to talk about. That's what we're going to be doing in order to find you customers. I always say find two, maybe three platforms max, but when you're getting started, really one, like going all in. On one platform. I can really be the best way for you to see the fastest growth, because it's so hard when we start, well, we want to be over here. We want to be over there now we're repurposing and now we just make so much more work for ourselves. Instead of just focusing on really nailing one platform and growing there as much as we can. I think that's a great method for new people just getting started, or again, maybe to like take talk and Instagram, but there's so different, right? Like Tik TOK and Instagram just has a totally different community. So the way that you're going to speak and find customers on Tik TOK is very different than how you're going to do that on Instagram. So just keep that in mind, when you're thinking about what type of method you're going to use to be seen. And to be found. Um, because that's going to really. Map out how you're going to be successful and grow the quickest. so just comes down to your marketing, right? So is it going to be Facebook? Is it going to be tick talk? Is it going to be Google? Like, are you a Google SEO Wiz? Like maybe that's what you do right now. And you're like, I know how to out SEO anybody like we're going all in on Google. Everyone has different unique skill sets. Maybe you already know how to nail it on Instagram. So there's just going to hop on there and kill it. Maybe you are like a Pinterest superstar. So that's where you want to find your initial customers. It's really going to be up to you. What you love, what you feel comfortable with, and you don't have to do anything that's like feels icky or like uncomfortable or awkward. Do what you know, you're going to do best. So that's going to be highlighting your personality on one or two social platforms trying to gain awareness and growth and find your customers So step one, we've got your foundation, building your foundation, getting started, getting all that nailed down. Step two. We're finding your customers. We're figuring out how to be seen to grow our visibility and awareness for our boutique. And then in step three, this is where we're going to make sales. This is where we're going to convert people who have found us through our amazing marketing skills that we have in step two. To convert them to actual paying customers buying from your boutique so now that you have customers that have found you, it's just a matter of getting them to trust you. And to know you and to feel comfortable with you and like you are legitimate business. You're showing up every single day, you're in the top of their feed. You work consistently marketing to them with different strategies. All of that stuff is where it actually starts to help convert into sales. In the boutique success bundle. I really focus on. Helping you figure out how to make sales. And I know we even have that online success store checklist that I've put out, so you can make sure that you're setting yourself up for success. And what do I say over and over and over again, it all comes down to building trust. So why do people trust you? They trust you because they see you every day online. They see you selling things that they like, they feel comfortable with you, you're their type of person. They love your personality. So these are the people that already know who you are. Maybe they've already joined your email list. Maybe they watch your Instagram stories every day. They, they see you on their feed. They like stuff they interact with you. These are the people that are going to be most likely to buy from you because they're already building a relationship with you. You're doing a great job at building trust. You're doing all the things on the checklist. You're making sure your website is set up for success. Really our whole focus here in step three in the make sales step is nurturing your audience. So you've created this foundation. You built everything to the best of your ability. You've used all the tactics we learn and talk about in boutique success bundle. You've created amazing branding. You've done the research. You have the perfect inventory. You figured all that part out. Then you used all the skills you've learned about marketing now, and you're finding customers. You're figuring out how to be seen on these platforms. Forms you're growing and building an audience. Now, the next step is nurturing that audience. That's what the make sales step three part is all about going deeper. So making sure you're using things like. Email marketing. This is huge for nurturing your customers. You want to make sure you're showing up in their inbox every single week, talking about your new arrivals. Don't be scared to feel salesy. Okay, because at the end of the day, it's no surprise. You're selling us stuff. You're a boutique. I mean, what do we expect? We expect you to sell us stuff. We want to see what you have. We want to see your new stuff. We want to, we want to buy from you. If we are the type of people, the right customer, and you've drawn us in, we want to buy from you. We decided to follow you. We decided to give you our email address. We're like ready to roll. So a lot of times I hear new boutique owners go, oh, I just feel so salesy. I don't know. And I think, well, Hello, that's our job selling clothes. That's what we're doing here. So, yeah. And, and that's just kind of part of the process. And especially when it comes down to converting into customers, we got to talk about our products. We got to make sales. Another way you can do this. And maybe not feel so salesy is by using like reviews, customer reviews, posting testimonials, people that have purchased from youth before. What was that process like for them? And if you're not getting these reviews, you can always ask people, especially in the beginning. Shoot them a DM on Instagram and be like, Hey, I saw you got your jeans. What did you think? Like, how did it go? And then they'll write you like a little note back on the DM. Right? Got the genes. They're so great. I absolutely love them. Perfect fit, great stretch. Um, you know, thanks for recommending them or whatever. Now you have a great review that you can screenshot and add and show your people who are still trying to trust you still learning what you're about. That you've made sales and that the customers are really happy, like social proof and reviews go a really. Long way, and this is a big part of making sales and step three is making sure you're showing other people out there that yes, people have purchased from you. Even if it's your family in the beginning. You just want to make sure you're getting some kind of social proof out there. So people understand that you are a real business and you are really selling things. And they're just going to continue to. I feel nurtured and feel like, okay, this is a company that I'm, I'm feel comfortable buying from. I mean, it's like, look at your own buying behavior. When you're shopping online, like especially me or anytime I see like an Instagram ad or a Facebook ad. I'm going straight to the reviews. I'm going straight to the comments I want to know. Is this true? Is it too good to be true? Is this person legit? Like where are they located? What's going on? Are they going to take my money? And I'm never going to see the item, like all those things cross our minds when we're shopping online and especially. Nowadays, there are so much like scamming and craziness going on nowadays that it's going to take even more than it did in the past to make sure people feel comfortable with you and trust you. And how do we build trust? Again, we build trust by showing our faces, showing up online, telling them what we have telling them what we're about, connecting with them on a deeper level. And, um, you know, Instagram stories is a great way to do this. Instagram stories is an amazing way to connect with the people that are already following you. Remember? No, one's going to find you. You're not going to get new customers from Instagram stories. But the ones that are already following you, this is a great way to go, like deeper with them. Show them what you're doing. Show, show some behind the scenes. Um, talk about something new, talk about how it's going to benefit them. All that kind of stuff can go down on Instagram stories and can really, really help build a relationship and build trust with the audience that you've already gathered up. I hope this made it really easy for you to understand that starting an online boutique doesn't have to be extremely complicated right there. Doesn't have to be. Uh, zillion bazillion things. You're trying to figure out if you just break it down into these three steps, it's really going to help you actually take action and press play and creating that dream life you've always wanted with your dream boutique. So just to review. How to start an online boutique and three steps. Number one is our foundational step. That's getting started. That's doing all the pieces of the foundational puzzle to set your store up for success. Number two, you got to find some customers, right? You got to be seen. So that's the second step. And number three is make sales. You got to convert the customers. You're finding in step two into actual paying customers. That's it. That's all it is. And that's what it's going to take for you to set up your own online store and start getting some results. All right. Thank you so much. Boutique bestie for tuning into today's episode. I really hope it helps. This is something that is so important to me. If you only knew how obsessed I am with helping you make your dream come true, like it is something I think about 24 7, and it's really cool. It's really exciting for me because I've been in this business for so many years in retail. In so many capacities and now getting to pass my wisdom and my expertise onto you is just, this is a dream come true for me. So thank you for even tuning in. When you guys send me comments and messages and DMS. It is like the best for me. So don't ever think you're bothering me or your questions are too simple or anything like that. I truly love to hear from you. I love when you all tell me I got the boutique success bundle. I'm starting my boutique in 30 days, or my plan is to launch in November, like getting those messages from those of you that are purchasing the boutique bundle and then actually doing the steps, taking the action and then fricking launching your own boutique. Oh my God. It just is the best thing in the entire world. Okay. Enough of that, thank you all so much. And we will see you. Next week, have a super amazing day. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of the boutique success club. Don't forget to subscribe and give us a five-star review. It really helps us grow and reach more boutique besties. have a great day and go get them.