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Work with me in The Sales Lab, DM me SALES on IG or TT for the deets
Follow the Retail Success Club on TikTok and Instagram @retailsuccessclub
Join us inside the TRENDSETTER membership here.
Work with me in The Sales Lab, DM me SALES on IG or TT for the deets
Follow the Retail Success Club on TikTok and Instagram @retailsuccessclub
Hello, welcome to the Retail Success Club podcast. I'm so excited to be here today talking about one of my favorite things in the world. It's how to sell your shiz online. And this is probably the main reason that I started the Retail Success Club because I know from personal experience that when it comes to selling online, it is hard. It is not easy. And if you are listening to this podcast, If you have tried to sell anything online, you know, it can be a frustrating place because you think you're doing all the things right. You're posting content, you're showing up and you're still not moving the needle when it comes to actually getting inventory out the door. This episode is going to be lovingly for you. So I want to say that this is a podcast episode that had to be recorded. Like this was a must record and I am really just thrilled to be creating this episode because one of the questions that I get probably the most, whether it's in my DMS or in comments or just on social media in general is people will say to me, Ali, you know what? I have a store. I can sell in person, no problem. Or I do popups. They go great. I have events that I attend or trade shows or whatever that may be for you and your store, your boutique or your brand. But then when it comes to selling online, I just can't figure it out. And I kept getting this question over and over again. Over and over again. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to create a podcast episode that is solely based on how to sell more of your shiz online. And by shiz, obviously I mean your products, your inventory, what you have for sale. This is what we need to help you figure out how to do online. And one thing I really want you to know is that selling online, selling online is a skill. It is a learned skill. So this is not something that most people just. Transcripts naturally can do, meaning just popping up online, pressing that little record button, trying on a new arrival, trying on some of your products, posting that content, and then just expecting the sales to roll in. That's simply not how it works. And if you're anything like me, you've done that over and over and over and that hasn't worked. So I quickly knew that I had to figure out what is the strategy to move product online. And now that I figured it out, I've sold millions of dollars worth of product. And it's because I know. Know that there is an exact way. You have to set up your content if you want your inventory to move. So as we know, or maybe we don't know, content is literally the heartbeat of your business when it comes to moving product. When it comes to selling product online, it all comes back to your content. Your content has to be framed in the perfect way to actually get people to go to your website, add to their cart, and actually check out. It's a whole thing that you have to learn how to do. So in this episode, this is gonna be a two part series. So this is going to be part one of teaching you the skills that it's going to take in order for you to sell more of your shiz online. And in this particular episode, I'm going to go over two main things, but I'm going to assume that you already know who your ideal customer is because in order to sell anything online, you have to know your niche. You have to know your ideal customer. This has to be super duper extremely clear or nothing that I teach you over the next two podcast episodes is going to work. So if you don't know your niche just yet, you have to figure that out. If you need help with that, just DM me the word niche. I've got a program called niches to riches where we work on figuring that all out for you. And it's not just like, what age they are and you know, where they live. Like we go so much deeper in order to have content that actually converts and gets you sales. You have to go so much deeper into all of the qualities that make up who your ideal customer is. So that's like, before I even get into anything, if you don't know who your ideal customer is, you gotta get that figured it out. It's the non negotiable. Okay. So know your ideal customer. I want to talk about why selling online is actually so much harder. It's harder than selling in person and I will die on this hill because it's just a fact. When you're selling in person, let me just paint the picture for you here. When you're selling in person, let's say you have a boutique or you're at a pop up event and you've got your little booth set up or you're at a trade show, whatever that looks like for you and your events that you do or your store that you have, your customer is coming into that space already in the mindset of I'm here to look around, maybe Maybe shop, maybe buy something, get the experience. They're already in that mindset. You get to create a mood with what they see in your booth, what attracts them in. Maybe it's you, your personality, your smile, you're hanging out in there. There's some, for some reason attracted into your store or your booth and they want to come see what you have for sale. They know that you are selling things. They have their purse on their shoulder. Their cash is in their pocket. It's, it's a. It's they're already in the mindset of wanting to shop. So this would be what we call like a warm audience, right? Or a hot audience. They're ready to spend money. They're ready to see what you have there. They're wanting to have a shopping experience. So you're already steps ahead when it comes to selling product, right? Because the person walking into your store, the person coming into your booth is already in the mood to spend a little money, buy something for themselves, get a little retail therapy. So you're already. We're going to be talking about how you can get your first sale way ahead of the game when you get to sell in person. And I always said when I had my, when I opened my first pop up shop, the first time I ever did one, I was like, holy crap, this is easy because they're literally just walking in and handing you money. And it's that simple. Like, as opposed to what I was used to, which is selling product online, which literally takes so much skill and so much refinement for every single sale. And I'm not saying that to discourage you or anything. Or to get you frustrated, but totally in the opposite. I'm telling you that to empower you to know that you can learn exactly what it takes to sell online. You can do it. And what I'm teaching you in over the next two episodes is going to be the basics for you to actually start making sales. So that's it. That's why selling on in person is so much easier. Now let me set the stage of what it's like when you're selling online. Okay. When someone is, let's say scrolling, tick tock or scrolling in Instagram or Facebook, it's 10 PM. They've had a long day at work. They're kids. They just got them into bed. They've got school in the morning. They've got a lot going on in their lives. They got to get the laundry done. Like whatever it is, they're setting up their schedule for the week. People hop onto social media, usually first. Or like mindless entertainment, right? To kind of chill the F out after a long day or just to like, get away for a second, have a laugh, watch some Tik Toks, watch a reel, just kind of escape whatever is going on. And that's just the reality. You know, you're hopping in bed, you're looking at Tik Tok, you're like, Oh, let me check out some, some reels. Let me just have a couple laughs or be inspired or whatever it is. People generally are on social media for that reason, kind of just like as an outlet, right? The mindless entertainment. So what that means for you as someone who is trying to sell something online, that means you have already a super cold audience because they are not popping online, looking TikTok or Instagram or Facebook as their first thoughts. Like they're just hopping on there to just chill and just have fun. So you're already fighting an uphill battle because in person, remember you've got a warm or hot audience, but when you're selling online, it's a cold audience. So what that means is you have to figure out how to interrupt the pattern that they're in the middle of doing, which is just scrolling, scrolling, swiping, swiping, mindless, mindless, right? Your boutique, your brand has to figure out a way to actually stop the scroll, interrupt. Whatever they're doing and pay attention to you. That is not an easy thing to do if you don't know what you're doing because you just end up posting things that you think you, maybe you look around, you see what other boutiques are doing and you're like, okay, I'm going to try posting that kind of content. It seems to be working for them or that kind of seems to be what's with this boutique over here is doing. So you kind of start looking at what everybody else is doing. You lose focus. You just get content up to post and you don't really know that actually. actually in order to stop the scroll, there's a bunch of strategy that you need to have in place. Because again, you're going against a cold audience. You have to figure out a way to grab their attention. This is why knowing your ideal customer is so important in the first place, okay? Because when you know your ideal customer, you're already steps ahead in figuring out how you can stop the scroll because you know what's going to catch that person's attention. You know what to say or what to add to your content to immediately capture their attention. I'm going to be doing a video on how to sell in person and how to capture them. That's the game. When you're selling online, you're trying to capture attention. That is literally the whole point of our content. At first, we just need them to notice us. And it's again, it's not easy. And that's why you may feel like, okay, I could sell in person so easy, but when it comes to selling online, I don't know what the heck to do because I just can't seem to make it happen. It's because there is a lot of strategy that goes into it. Okay. So I wanted to really, explain to you the difference between selling in person and selling online and why that feels so different and so much more difficult. Again, I hear this time and time again from boutique owners and brand owners that it just feels like they throw spaghetti against the wall and nothing ever sticks. And I'm here to tell you, let's figure this out. Let's learn how to sell your shiz online and let me start getting into the actual nitty gritty of what you need to do. Now, remember the way that we sell inventory and move product online is through our content. Content has to be the top priority for your business when you're selling online. Like it can no longer be at the end of the day when you're like, okay, I guess I'm going to Some content now, you've already done a million other things in your business. You're tired. You know, you just, you can't even really get it together to press the record button. That's not the mindset you want to be in when you're actually trying to move product online. Okay. content has to be your priority. So whenever you feel your best and you have the most energy and you're feeling the most inspired, whatever time of day that is for you. Maybe you're a night owl and you're like midnight, I'm making content, whatever it is for you. That's when you need to make sure you're scheduling your content creation time. Okay? So that's just like a little pro tip. So now let's talk about the meat and potatoes of your content. So what goes into content that actually sells? How can we sell your shiz online? And what do we need to do every single time we're creating content? So obviously I've already talked about, you need to know who your ideal customer is. That's like step number one, priority number one. Now, when you're going to actually craft your content, here's the first thing you need to look at. You're a step. your content is going to be the first thing that's going to pop on the screen of your ideal customer. The aesthetic is like, what's going on in your video? What's the vibe? What's the mood? Like when they first see your video, what's going on in the background? What are you standing in front of? What is the visual that you are using to capture their attention? This is the aesthetic and I, and you've probably heard that like, Oh, the aesthetic of Instagram or you know, your aesthetic needs to be pleasing. But really what it needs to be is it needs to be attractive to your ideal customer. So whatever that is for you, you have to make sure that you're setting up your content to attract your ideal customer from the first moment they lay eyes on it. That very first second or two seconds. That they glance at your content and see what it is, they should be hooked. Okay? So this is the first step in creating content that's going to get your ideal customer to stop the scroll. And I'll give you, I'll give you an example or two. Um, for example, let's use my business. So my ideal customer, Western women who love everything in the cowgirl lifestyle. So I make sure that the aesthetics of my video is very eye catching and pleasing and something that's going to attract them. So usually it's some kind of ranchy country vibe going on in the background 99 percent of the time. So there's going to be some kind of element in there that's going to attract my ideal customer with the scenery or the background, the vibe that's going on in the video is going to also create imagery of that cowgirl Western lifestyle. And I'll give you an example of one of my students. We were actually just working on this in the sales lab yesterday I was working on aesthetics and telling them how important it is that their content that they create is the actual Aesthetic that their ideal customer is going to love because a lot of times we don't know this We make content in our bedroom or like in the office random place that your ideal customer is not going to connect with at all. And you're immediately setting yourself up to climb an uphill battle again. And remember with a cold audience, we want to make things as easy as possible on you to actually capture their attention. So one student that I have in the sales lab, she is a Christian street wear brand owner. So when we were figuring out exactly who her ideal customer is, she was first in niches to riches. Now she's in the sales lab, by the way, the sales lab. It is a three month program where we go super hard on figuring out your sales strategy. We dissect your content strategy, all things to get you more sales online. So if you're interested in that, just DM me the word sales, um, on Instagram at retail success club or tech talk. I'll get you the scoop on that, but she is a Christian street where brand owner and her ideal customer is very edgy, very hip, very cool, very street where very urban. And so when she was going to create more content, I told her, I told her, I said, this weekend, your content needs to have that exact vibe. So it can't be something that's not going to connect with your ideal customer. So we talked about her going downtown, finding cool, edgy murals, like doing the thing, like really being in that element that we know her ideal customer, which is urban, chic, edgy, cool girl is going to love. So it was so exciting. So this is just the first step in setting up the success of selling online. Is getting the aesthetic done, getting that figured out, and then making sure every single time you post content, your aesthetic is aligned with your ideal customer. Remember, you have like one, two, maybe three seconds to grab your ideal customer's attention. So your aesthetic is going to be the first way that we're going to do that. It's just the visual thing they're going to see and They're like little eyes and little ears are going to perk up a little bit because it's something that they're interested in. You're already capturing what they like. For example, for my student who owns a Christian streetwear brand, she doesn't need to be making content out in the country like I am, right? It's a totally different customer. the content that she creates for her customer needs to be in the setting that we know that they're into, right? So that's just like a comparison of how totally different. And this, this goes for everybody. Totally different boutiques will have totally different aesthetics and should have, and the aesthetics should be unique to their own ideal customer. That's why you can't look around at what everybody else is doing and try to mimic it because we all have different ideal customers. That's what makes us stand out is being the big fish in a small pond. And the small pond is your ideal customer. That's why the aesthetic is so important. So that's the first thing I want you to tackle when you're creating content that's actually going to get you sales. The second element that is so important to getting sales online. And again, this is going to be a two part series. So you'll have to come back for the next part of this. The second thing that you need to look at is your, okay, now this, I can not stress enough how important your hook is and your hook can either be a visual onscreen text, what you're speaking or preferably both. Okay. Your hook. Is the first three to five seconds of your video. So remember the aesthetics is like the first one to two seconds. Now we're going into the actual hook, which is something that's going to really capture their attention. So maybe like their eyes opened a little wider, their ears perked up a little bit, but once they hear the hook, it's like eyes wide open, ears ready to roll. What does this person have to say? Yes, I want to know. I want to stop my scroll. The decision has been made. That's. That happens when you have a good hook. So I don't care if you do anything else in your video, you can fail at any other piece of this, but you cannot fail at your hook. So we need to make sure that you have perfect, great hooks that are crafted exactly to do what we want to do, which is stop the scroll of your ideal customer. So again, the hook is something that you're saying within the first three to five seconds. What are you going to do to capture their attention? What are their needs and wants? Remember, this is again, All about your ideal customer. How can you help them today? How can you give them something that they are interested in actually watching? It's what's in it for them. Remember it's not about what's in it for you or how you can create a piece of content to make someone buy something from you. You have to get out of that mindset. It's all about creating content. That's great at connecting with the needs and wants of your customers. And that's how you sell your shiz online. That's the bottom line. So when you're crafting When you're crafting your hook, I want you to think about the needs and wants of your ideal customer. And I'm going to give you an example or two here just off the top of my head so you can really understand what a hook is. And there can be different types of hooks. There's hooks like POV, where you are giving like a point of view of what it is that your ideal customer is about. Like POV, you're a stay at home mom that has five seconds to get ready in the morning for herself. And you want Some clothes that are cute and trendy and don't take any time when it comes to actually picking them out. So that would be like a POV, right? Or POV. You're a cowgirl who loves everything Western and the lifestyle and the cowgirl spirit. This account is for you. That would be like another example. And that would be on screen text, right? Um, you could be saying that, but generally POVs are something that's written on screen on the video. So that would be one example of one type of hook. Another one would be like a spoken hook, Which would be something like, if you're a mom who's trying to find a pair of jeans after having your babies and you know, things just don't fit the way they used to, I have the perfect pair of jeans for you that are actually mom approved. So that would be like a hook that I would be saying to capture my ideal customer's attention. If my ideal customer was moms that have had multiple kids that have had, that are trying to like get back to how they felt before they had kids and all the things, right? So that would be a very, very specific ideal customer that I would be trying to grab with that particular hook. So that's what I mean when it comes to having that, that hook, that sentence, that's what it is. It's one sentence that you will present in the very, very beginning of your video to capture your ideal customer's attention. And something that I see, and this is just another pro tip. If you are. creating your video in Tik TOK or in the Instagram app, or you're using your, your camera roll, like your actual camera on your phone to create this content. However it is that you do this, you need to cut the beginning of your video so that when it starts on whatever social media platform you are on, there is no pause of you like pressing the button, taking a few steps back and then starting. Because remember you've already lost them. That three to five seconds that is resumed. for your hook has been wasted with you pressing the button and taking step back and they're onto the next thing. They've already decided they're not going to stop the scroll because again that one to five seconds that you have to actually get them to pay attention to you. We've wasted in what I think people have called like the millennial pause, like that awkward time of when you're hitting the red button and you're actually going. So please, please, please edit your videos so that as soon as it starts on the screen, is right there, ready to roll in their face. Okay. All right. Well, this is the first part of how you're going to sell more shiz online. I'm really looking forward to sharing all the rest of my tips with you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening today. If you haven't already, please subscribe. Please be sure you subscribe to this podcast. Give us a five star review. And Oh, I love when you share on your stories that you're listening to this podcast because it gets me so excited. I love to share it on my stories. Please DM me. Let me know you listen to this episode. My community is serious about you. I love how you guys tell me like, yes, listen to the podcast today. It was amazing. I love getting that feedback. Let me know if there's anything specific you want me to talk about as well. And also don't forget if you're interested in joining the sales lab or the launch lab, maybe you're getting ready to launch your boutique and you're doing all the research. You're watching all the things you're like binging all my content. And you feel like you want my help throughout your entire launch process. I actually have a program for that as well. It's called the launch lab. So just DM me the word launch either to my Instagram or my Tik TOK. I always prefer Instagram because we can do voice notes and I'm a chatty Kathy. So I could just voice note you back about all the questions you have, but yeah, hit me up on Instagram, Tik TOK. Love you. Thank you so much for listening and let's go sell more stuff.