Ep 70: The state of the retail industry

What I am seeing and hearing about our industry from main street to wall street.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the alley D show. I feel like we have so much to catch up on. All of the podcasts you've listened to this week. I pretty much recorded and had them scheduled out and ready to go. So. What I like to do is kind of do them as I go throughout the week, because just connecting with you, dropping little tidbits of information or things that I'm thinking about, things that I know will help you as a listener of the podcast, where I'm like, Ooh, I got to tell my podcast girlies about this. That's kind of the normal way that I've been doing this daily podcast, but I knew that this week I was going to be at Dallas market center all week. So I kind of prerecorded a lot of the episodes for the week, had them ready to go. So I could focus on being at market because what happens is I get home late and then I don't want to, you know, forget to upload the podcast. So I just kind of got it all done and squared away in the beginning. So even though you may be listening every day, I feel like. I haven't had a chance to talk to you in days. Because it was Monday what I last recorded my podcast. So I just feel like I have so much to say, okay, number one. Just a little fun, personal tidbit. Um, I am, my husband would just die if I w if he knew I was telling you this, cause I don't be one of those people that talks about your diet, but I guys, I do want you guys to know this because I think it's going to be. Um, an interesting, you know, I'm always the Guinea pig over here. So I started, um, cutting out all processed foods and I'm really just doing, oh my gosh, my stomach is actually growling. I wonder if you heard that. I'm actually just doing meat. Dairy and fruit and some vegetables. So, um, I started that on Monday, first day of market. I was like this isn't really not a good time to start this. I knew I was going to kind of have like a hard time finding things to eat and everything, but I was also like, you know what? I'm fricking up for the challenge. There's never a good time, right? There's never a perfect time to start or try anything new. That's off your comfy zone or when you're shifting out of like certain things you're comfortable with like obviously in business and personal life. You kind of just have to go, okay, today's the day I'm just going for it. And it was probably like that when you started your business or really any time you try anything new. You just have to go all in. You just have to say I'm here for it. It's what I've been wanting to do. If I wait for the perfect time, I'm going to be waiting forever. Yeah, I could've picked next week when it's going to be a little bit of a slower week, but I also like more recently, I like challenging myself with these kind of like bigger decisions, like totally changing your diet. And going into one of the biggest weeks of the entire year, I thought it would be a great challenge. And you know what? It was a good challenge. I, um, was, you know, I've been able to do it by five days now, today was kind of the roughest day. And I was telling my husband that, and I think he said it's because I finally probably burned off all the crap Hola. And now it's like down to the nitty gritty. So, um, Meat dairy fruit. And the main reason why I'm doing this actually is just to get like really clean, energizing, super. Foods in me protein, because I know that I'm going to have a challenging year this year. I want big things for the business. And obviously our energy, our bodies, our minds. What we're putting in our bodies every day, what we're feeding it is so important to the output that we have. And I just didn't. I wanted to make sure that I was setting myself up for success in every way possible. Because if I'm wanting to do eight figures, I'm wanting to grow this business. I'm wanting to do millions in sales like this year alone. I really need to be at my best. And so I've been thinking about this for several months now. My husband's starting doing this about five months ago. And. He, um, like has been loving it. And so I thought, you know, what? I've been reading all the weird stuff about everything they're putting in our foods and our kids' foods and I'm just over it. And so I was like, I'm going for it. So it's been fun. Um, And definitely challenging, but. Nothing. That was like the hardest thing in the world, actually, just because I'm like looking at the benefits, I'm not going, oh my gosh. I just want to like eat my peanut butter Oreos that are in the cabinet, even though I do. But I also am kind of like, you know what, let's see what happens. I like the challenge of seeing who I become with this new diet. Okay. All right enough about that. But if you're, if you are also doing this DME on Instagram, let me know, like, what are some recipes you eat? What's like right now, I'm just straight up, like grabbing a hamburger. Patty and like an apple. So I'll probably need to up my recipe game soon. Um, okay, so let's talk about market. Let's catch up. Been there. Um, Uh, this week. And I kind of just wanted to give you the state of market and what my opinion was of where I see the industry right now, where we're going for 20, 25. How things seem to be varying from. Um, you know, the past couple of years, And, um, just give you like my state of the market address, my personal opinion. So, um, what I noticed at market number one, the thing that struck me, probably the most. Is that. There's an air. Of excitement. And confidence brewing. 2023 and 2024 was rough on everybody. For me in particular, 2023 happened to be the roughest year, 2024. We started to kind of. You know, we had to adjust and pivot and figure out. Um, You know, end of 20, 23, what that was going to look like. I think we did a pretty decent job last year. Um, But what I am going to tell you is a lot of businesses were having big time struggles in 2023 and 2024. And maybe they weren't saying it, but I'm hearing it now as they're coming out of it. That's when they're starting to say yeah, 20 23, 20 24 was really, really rough on us. Um, So that seems to be turning the corner. People seem to be coming out of that. Um, I'm talking from both the. Brand owner side and the store owner side. So I deal with a lot of buyers. Um, in the past, you know, couple of days, And that's really what I'm hearing. From, you know, whether they're talking to me or my team or what I'm hearing in the building conversations that I'm having with people is things are on the up and up, especially after having the two rough years. So if you have made it through those two, two rough years, which I know you have, because you're sticking in it, you're in it for the long haul. You understand their cycles in business. You understand that there's going to be ups and downs and we're not going to let it totally ruin everything we've built. We're not going to go into a spiral. Like I have done before. Okay. We're not doing that. We know that we're in it for the long haul and having a rough couple of years happens in business. I also heard this from my CPA in multiple different types of businesses, whether you're a car dealership, whether you are, you know, a store, whatever the case may be, it was a rough couple of years, but things are turning around. I heard this not only from individual like boutique owners. But also from, um, major retailer buyers. So the big boys that come by and buy from us. That have anywhere from 30 to a hundred to 300 locations. And talking about how the past two years they were really kind of in a buying freeze. Because of the state of the industry, they had a lot of, um, restrictions placed on them. A lot of budget. Budget restrictions placed on them. And those have been loosened up. So for you as a business owner, whether you're a brand owner store, owner, boutique owner, whatever you are, you're selling physical products. I want you to know that you should start feeling. Good about the overall state of the industry. I'm literally in the thick of it, I'm telling you exactly what's happening, what I'm seeing in real time. So I want you to just, um, if you felt like things were a little bit rough, I want you to know. That, not only is it me projecting this, but also, you know, companies that are, you know, multimillion dollar billion dollar companies. Are also seeing the same thing. From mom and pops on main street, all the way to wall street, publicly traded companies that I deal with. This is the temperature. Of the market. Okay. So give yourself a little high five. You know, if, if the last couple of years were a dumpster fire for you, you were not alone. Um, I'm here to tell you let's put out the fire. It's time to move forward. There's a lot of positivity. Going on at market. Spending money, happiness. Joy. Uh, relief. I'm seeing a lot of great, great things. So that's another thing that I wanted to visit with you about. Another thing I wanted to just quickly tap into. As I'm reminded at market. And I talked about this a little bit inside the trends that our membership this week is how important your customer relationships are. Please do not. Have or not, please do not use. Your business. And play. The anonymity game or the anonymous game, that was kind of a rough sentence. But don't hide behind your business name. I want you to really start focusing on making real life customer relationships with real people. I don't care if you're a brand or a boutique. I don't care if the person spends$10 with you or$10,000 with you. I want you to really cultivate and nurture your customer relationships and focus on this. As we had more into 2025. Everything comes back to how well you have nurtured your relationships with people. And I'll, I'll tell some stories about market. In another episode where this was just so. Eyeopening. And so just, I want you to double, triple, quadruple down on your relationship building, because when you're coming out of tough times, it's not just you, the business owner, it's the customers. It's everybody like banding back together and like, yes. We're ready to party again. We're ready to have joy again. So don't be anonymous. Don't hide behind a non-entity. I don't know if I'm saying that word. Right. Nymity. That's a hard one to say, don't hide behind that. Don't stand into the shadows. I want you to step into the spotlight. You want to create a mega business. You want your name on billboards. You want to see your name in lights. You want to go to times square and take a selfie in front of like a billboard that has your fricking name on it. Let's do it, but you can't do it by playing small and hiding and staying in the shadows. You need to step into the fricking spotlight. And that means not only for you, but pulling your customers into the spotlight as well. Shining your light on them, bringing them joy, building those relationships, continuing to cultivate everything you built up until this point. Don't forget, people love doing business with people. And that's why I've been able to build this mega brand. This mega business that has survived ups and downs over years, over a decade. Strong hard as a rock, stronger than ever. Can I have my best year ever after having tough years. Where I was second guessing. The entire industry. But my customer relationships. Our what's now catapulting me. To increase crazy, incredible numbers. And I'll share more about that with you in another podcast. It's your customer relationships. Okay. So I just wanted to kind of catch up with you. I could talk to y'all forever. Um, if you have any questions on anything in this podcast, do you just want to chat about it? Shoot me a DM on Instagram. I love hearing your feedback. And one thing that would really help me. If today, if you have a second, like as soon as you're done listening to this, would you mind going and rating my podcast? Give me a five-star rating police. It really helps bump the podcast. So I'm told. Um, up into the, up the rankings and it allows more women that are interested in building their own empires, their own boutiques, their own brands who want to see mass exists success. It helps put my podcast into their suggested podcast and feeds and get more recognition. So if you have a minute, that's my big ask for you today. If you enjoyed this podcast, if you listen to it. When you're done here, just give me a five-star review. It would really, really help your girl. Okay. Having an amazing weekend and we'll catch up again on Monday.