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The Ali Dee Show
For product-based business entrepreneurs who are looking to build a mega business so they can create financial freedom and a rich life from the inside out. Learn how to make big, bold, moves and stand out from the competition while bringing in sales 24/7 as you tap into proven marketing, sales, and mindset strategies from 7-figure business owner and industry expert, Ali Dee.
The Ali Dee Show
Ep 88: The Key to Building Your Dream Business
Ready to transform your mindset about what running a successful business really means? In this candid episode, I share the unexpected journey that took me from answering questions at my store's cash register to building a thriving business coaching community.
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Hello, welcome to the Allie D Show Hope you're having an amazing week. I am really excited to spend some little QT with you, some quality time. I have so much that I want to talk about today and I just get so excited to get. This is like my me time, like when I get to record a podcast. So, for example, right now, here's the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:I'm currently sitting in the parking lot behind one of my properties, where I can see both my warehouse and this cute little new house that I bought, that I painted turquoise just for fun, just because I wanted to right, and my warehouse is pink. It's an iconic pink building here in my small town. So it's kind of funny because the town mainly consists of beige. So it's kind of funny because the town mainly consists of beige old beige buildings. And then you have this random freaking pink warehouse and now you have next door to it a random turquoise house. But why not bring a little color right to the thing here? So that's the behind the scenes. I'm sitting in the parking lot, parked under a shade tree. I'm looking at both of my properties. I just finished eating my lunch and I've got my laptop open. I'm sitting inside my car. So this is nothing fancy here, okay, but what I wanted to say was I, for the whole time I was eating my lunch, I was just thinking about Trent and Sutter and thinking about this community and thinking about how this was just not even existent a couple years ago. I've only been a quote-unquote business coach for just a couple of years now, but for the decade prior to that I was fully entrenched as just straight-up CEO business gal.
Speaker 1:And the way that this whole thing started just to give you a little backstory, if you don't know was I was sitting inside of my brick and mortar one day. I was at the cash register in between customers. I love that little noise when people walk through your front door of your store and it's like cha-ching. You guys have a little bell at your front door if you have a brick and mortar and that little bell jingles. It's like we have this joke we used to say smiles everyone. Here we go. It's kind of funny, but anyways, it was in between little door cha-chings, which you guys know. You get the phone cha-chings, which is just as exciting.
Speaker 1:But I was sitting there at my cash register thinking about how so many times I've answered the same questions from a lot of business owners, and maybe it's just because I'm that person that loves to talk about business. I was always being approached whether it was like a Dallas market center, and maybe because people saw the longevity you know that I had been there for so many years they're like, okay, this girl's still doing it, she must be doing something right. So I would get all these questions, whether it was from boutique owners or other store owners, brand owners, some of the vendors that were in my brick and mortar, like I was continually DMs texts from random people that are like so-and-so, told me to call you to ask you about this. Friends in the industry, peers. I was always answering business questions and again, it's not like you know, it's because I don't know. You know, I got like a Harvard MBA, it's because I've been in the trenches for so many years and that is worth way more than any kind of business degree, which I have none of.
Speaker 1:But as I was sitting there thinking about okay, so I was at the cash register chilling, waiting for my next customer to come in, and I was like you know what? I am going to start a TikTok account and just start answering some of these questions or things that keep coming up over and over again on a TikTok page, and I just thought it would be something fun, because I just felt like there was nowhere where women could get these kinds of answers real life answers, not theoretical, not, you know, like um, I don't know, join this Facebook group and, you know, with other business owners in it that are all like you know, uh, I don't, I don't want to say the word, but B I, t, c, h-ing each other. You know about the, the, the business Cause. I knew that that mindset, if you're just bitching all the time and complaining, that's not going to get you anywhere in business. And I didn't really feel like there was a place where business owners could come together and get real, true knowledge and information from someone who's been in the trenches for years and years and years and years. So I was like you know what, let me just start this little TikTok page. So I started it and at the time it was called Texas boutique owners, cause I was thinking I just a place for women in Texas. You know, there's a lot of boutiques, a lot of brands in Texas and just a place to gather them.
Speaker 1:Again, I was sitting in my store at the time and I thought, oh, this is going to be so great, we'll have this community. Well, guys, this thing took off far more than I ever imagined. Like I think my very first TikTok post was a post about me talking about re-merchandising or merchandising something along those lines. I literally just pulled out my phone, started a TikTok account and posted that very same day and then away we went and I just been posting consistently for years. Now I think it's been two years. I need to go back and look, but I think it was like 2023 when we got started. I'm pretty sure, um, like maybe January, february or something of 2023. I need to know that exact timestamp. So, um, I started that page.
Speaker 1:It started to grow very rapidly and there was women joining, like the community, the page following this Texas boutique owners page from all over the country and they would be like I'm not from Texas, but I'm here for this, like help, I need help, I'm in South Dakota, I'm from Cali, oh, I'm in Australia, like literally connecting people from all over. It was so cool and so at some point I changed the name and I was like Ooh, you know what this is more, retail success club. So if you're like a retail success club you know, old schoolie, you're an OG here in this community. You remember this too. I changed the name to retail success club and that way I could. I felt like it was more inclusive for more women all over the country and they didn't feel like, oh, I can't be a part of this because it's for Texas only. It was giving me Texas, only vibes the name. So I changed it to Retail Success Club and it lived as that for over a year and then just recently I changed it to Allie DCEO, which is me. You know where the advice is coming from.
Speaker 1:So when I started this community, my intention was not to become a business coach. It was not to build an entire secondary business. Listen, I was maxed out on my time beyond belief. I didn't have another minute in the day, but what I noticed happening was I so loved this so much. Every morning I would wake up and go oh my gosh, I can't wait to post on TikTok today, I can't wait to talk about this and that I have so much to say. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to read the comments, I can't wait to answer people's questions, and I was like fully, fully, 1 million percent entrenched in this community that I had created around this topic. It's something that I feel like I could talk about for hours and hours and hours, and it's probably why I got so many questions, because when people would ask me a question about business, I was not going to give them a freaking fluff answer. I was not just going to give them like, oh well, as long as you're consistent, you'll love it. It's like okay, if one more person says I just have to be consistent, like consistently doing what Right, consistently posting what, consistently selling how. Someone needs to teach this stuff. So this is how this whole thing started.
Speaker 1:And then I started to like put together little like booklets like here's TikTok for boutique owners and here's how to, what to do if you want to get your boutique off the ground. Like these little, like cute little booklets that were like $27. I remember the first one I sold. I was like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing in the entire world, because it was different from what I was used to doing, which was like products, like you know, creating products for sale. This was, this was different. This was like putting my knowledge to paper. So it was a different thing.
Speaker 1:I felt so fulfilled, so like I cannot believe that I get to do this every day and I somehow, with no time in the day, carved out more and more and more time to what has now become this business. So just creating a business from a place of like love. I knew nothing about the business coaching space. I knew nothing about like being a teacher, so to speak, or anything, but I did have a wealth of knowledge that I wanted to share with the next wave of women coming up in the industry. So you, and even if you've been in the industry for a while, there's a lot of information that we have to sift through to find the good stuff. And I was like I am not going to be that girl, I'm not going to be the girl that's going to try to sell you some fast, quick fix. You know that's going to tell you that like, oh, with some, you know, viral hook is all you need. Like that, like, maybe that's for some people, but that's not the way that I built my businesses and that's not the way that I wanted this community to feel like they had to build their businesses, because I wanted you guys, I want you to build real businesses that provide actual wealth, and not only wealth, but time, freedom. Time is your most valuable asset. It always has been, it always will be.
Speaker 1:I actually saw an interview the other day. I can't remember what this was for or how I even came across it. Oh, it was someone talking about Warren Buffett and they were saying that Warren Buffett, who's I think he's 95 years old, worth billions and billions of dollars, that he would give it all the way to trade with someone who was in their 30s with no money, because time is the most valuable thing. So if he could say I'm going to be 30 again and have no money, he would do it. And this is the whole reason that I am so obsessed with helping this community understand you have to build a business that's in it for the long haul. You can't just keep pushing these quick fixes or quick wins. I want you to think long-term, real foundations, real business growth. And isn't that fascinating to think about that? Like you can't buy time, like Warren Buffett can't buy, and there's no money in the world where he could buy the ability to be 30 years old again and to have all that time back. So when you get to start your own business.
Speaker 1:I want you to think about your time. You getting precise and focused and honed in on skills and strategies to grow your business gives you back more time. You cannot buy that. So that's why I need you to learn this stuff, because I want you to have more freedom with your time. I want you to be able to work four hours a day if you want to, or 10 hours a week. Whatever the case may be you. You can't get to these precise, like small increments of time that you work in the day.
Speaker 1:If you don't develop the foundations cause you're going to feel like all day long you're constantly chasing your tail trying to figure this thing out and I was like I'm not letting that happen to this industry. I'm not going to let all of these women out there feel like they have to work 24 seven, work their butts off day in, day out, have no lives, never see their husbands like be at their stores 24 seven or be at their warehouses 24 seven. If that's not what you truly want, listen, maybe when we're in our twenties, okay, we're like, yeah, I want to go, like I'm going to stay at the warehouse like 12 hours a day, like I want to grind it out. I'm a hustle and grind and that's great and that's fine. But once you start like having kids and a family and there's other things you want to do, like you want to go on vacation which, by the way, I'm going to be taking my first vacation soon. This is very exciting. I'll talk about that another time. But this is what having a business based on strategy that's repeatable and systems that are repeatable, that can work for you 24-7, this is what it leads to. It leads to a life of you dictating what you want your day to look like.
Speaker 1:For example, for me, today it's Monday morning. I woke up, I went for a walk, I listened to a podcast. I, you know, had some moment like where I was thinking, like a lot of grateful thoughts and just thinking about what I've built and my family and where we live and just everything. You know you have to take time for this. Okay, you have to take time to think about how far you've come. Even if you feel like you ain't doing shiz, you are, you freaking are. Even if you haven't started yet, you're thinking about it. That's already a ballsy move, excuse my French. So I took some time to kind of think about that. Then I dove into a little bit of my own mentorship. Then I was on a podcast. Someone was interviewing me this morning.
Speaker 1:So I spent an hour doing that, finished with that, spent an hour with my daughter reading a book to her and my son outside and playing, and then my son went off with my husband and they went to tractor supply and I was like, okay, I have someone here to help me with the kids today. So I'm going to go have lunch and I'm going to record a podcast and I'm going to check on my warehouse. I checked my email. I had another uh, you know it's just insane to say, but like five figures worth of orders already today and it's Monday. So I know that you know it's just insane to say but like five figures worth of orders already today and it's Monday. So I know that you know the warehouse is under control. They're going to get those orders filled.
Speaker 1:I've recently also added someone on my team to help with like a lot of the um, email marketing and website stuff just stuff that I don't want to do anymore, I can do it. And website stuff just stuff that I don't want to do anymore, I can do it, but by them doing that, like me, having someone help with those specific things. Now that that's off my plate, it's a very it's a strategic process. I tell them exactly what to do. I'm like here's the framework, don't vary from this, okay, and that's it. They just, you know, it could literally take me 30 minutes and I could do it, but I don't want to anymore. I want to spend the 30 minutes. Remember. Time is so valuable. You know what I want to spend those 30 minutes doing? Working and crafting another brand that I'm going to be launching in August, so that just by hiring someone to help me get those 30 minutes back Now, I can put those 30 minutes into what I love to do, which is what I excel at, which is creation, innovation, visionary. That's my strengths.
Speaker 1:I could teach anyone on the universe to how to email, market and do it. You know. Here's my list. Here's the template. Here's how to do it. Here's what I want in it. If you have any questions, text me. Okay, like, have fun.
Speaker 1:So what I want to say is this could be your day, guys. I just watched a squirrel. By the way, if this is an ADD, I don't know what is, but I just watched a squirrel jump from my roof of my building to a tree that was like 10 feet away. Okay, but this gets. Oh, he has a friend squirrel he's visiting oh my gosh, squirrel. Like literally right, okay, but this is what your day gets to be like when you have systems in place and you've built a business on solid foundation, and not on hope and prayer though I love prayer and I love hope but it's part of the equation. It can't be all of the equation, right? This is what gets you to build the life of your dreams.
Speaker 1:This is why I'm so adamant about you learning these strategies. I don't care if you learn it from me, I'm happy to teach you. I would love you inside the Hot Sales Summer we're starting on June 9th. I would love for you to join today and immediately get inside the Trendsetter membership and unlock all these strategies and unlock an incredible community and unlock literally everything you need to know to build a business like this. I would love to have you in today, but it doesn't have to be with me. There's someone else out there that you like the way they teach strategy. I just you must learn this, otherwise you will forever be stuck in this rat race, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen incredible women doing incredible things but haven't yet solidified strategies, and so they are running themselves into the ground and then, once they do for example, after joining Trendsetter it's like I didn't even know this was possible, that I could, could, could, have this kind of time back as a business owner. And this is again. This is what this whole thing is about.
Speaker 1:It's why I created this because for the to be like totally real with you, when I first started my business years and years and years ago, I started it so I'd never have to have a real job. Why? Because I didn't want someone telling me, like, what time I had to wake up every morning and where I had to go and what I had to do and when I could go to the bathroom or when I could take my lunch break or when I could take my you know 10 minute break to do what I don't even fricking know 10 minute break to do what I don't even freaking know. That was a hard no for me, like it was a non-negotiable. My time was always non-negotiable, and a part of that was me just being stubborn. It wasn't me being lazy, it wasn't me being like, oh, I don't want to do cause I'm. I am like opposite of lazy. I worked my butt off but I just didn't want it to be under someone else's hand. All this energy and excitement and like vibes that I have about like life and creation and helping, like I wanted to be in charge of how I use that. So that's why I started my own business, cause I was like, if I can make some money just to get by, I'll be fine, just to pay my bills, to pay like my little. You know, I don't know probably had a $200 car payment at the time. You know my cell phone. I probably didn't even have health insurance, I don't know. Well, that was actually I probably did at that point. But you know what I'm saying Like this was like the priority was just getting by and that was fine, because all I wanted, my big win, was that I didn't have to go to an office every day.
Speaker 1:And if that's you out there and you're like I want this, I want my business to be part of my life. I want my business to be the reason why I get to live the life that I live, you're in the right place. Place because you're talking to the queen of this, okay, the queen of making it happen, and I want to make you the queen of making it happen too, but you've got to understand you have to learn some of those shiz Forget. What I want you to do today is forget anything that anyone has ever taught you about what it takes to start or run a business. Probably Okay, I don't know, maybe you've got some good advice, but I want you to forget it kind of and go cause a lot of times like, what people think or say is like oh well, you need to have, like, some business experience.
Speaker 1:You need to create a business plan. You need to have some kind of investors or a business loan. You need to have, like, you need to have a bubbly outgoing personality. You need to like lead with enthusiasm as in in in terms of like you know, you have to be like this, like super, over the top, happy, like kind of person. You need to be Like, you need to look the part you can't be like in your you know, forties or fifties. You need to be like in your twenties. If you want to show up on social media and like, you need to be techie and you need to like forget all of that BS, crapola. Do you know? You want to know.
Speaker 1:The only thing you need truly it's determination and I was talking about this today actually on the podcast like one thing that we see across the board of quote-unquote high achieving women is a sense of delulu, but it's not even delulu, it's determination like delulu to me is like a little bit of a term, because I feel like it lightens the actuality of no. What it is is determination. Delulu is determination, in my opinion. So while people are out there telling you you need to learn this, this and that, I'm like, really, actually you just need determination and then you. Then you learn strategy. But you don't need to know everything to get this thing off the ground. You just need to go for it and have the determination to stick with it for the long haul and not have wild expectations of like going viral overnight and like blowing this thing up. I mean, if that happens for you, great, but anytime I've seen that happen, it always like the other side of that is horrific, because they invest all this inventory and they're leaning a hundred percent on the TikTok algorithm to get their content out there again and it doesn't happen. And now they've got thousands and thousands of dollars worth of inventory sitting in their warehouse because they went viral once and they thought their lives were changed, but they really didn't know anything about running a business.
Speaker 1:So I say this all to say your determination is your most powerful superpower that you have as a business owner. I can teach you all the other stuff right here, but I can't teach someone determination. I just can't. I've tried. I've had some women DM me and I see that they have no determination. So I can't put my effort into someone like that Because, no matter what you do, you're not going to succeed if you're not determined right. If you're already defeated or you have a defeated mindset, there ain't nothing in the world that I could do to get you to win. But if you come in with rock solid determination like these are the women inside the VIP that I work with they have rock solid determination. Do we have questions every single week on strategy and what to be doing next and how to improve and where to grow, and mindset and how to feel better about this week than last week? And yes, but their determination does not waver. And I'm not talking about mind drama, where some days you're like, oh, I don't know. I just want to like second guess everything. That's fine, that's normal, we can deal with that, but there's an innate sense of determination that I cannot teach someone. So that's why, if you have the determination, you can do this. I'm going to say that again if you have the determination, you can and will do this.
Speaker 1:Jump inside trendsetter, jump inside the hot sales summer. By the way, I don't know if I've told you yet or not on the podcast, but we are closing doors to the trendsetter membership on June 10th, so that's literally like next week. So if you've been thinking about joining trendsetter, you need to jump in now, because I'm literally closing doors for a while and when I reopened them the pricing is going to be way higher, way different. But if you're in before June 10th, you will always be grandfathered in at that rate. So just a little like pro tip if you've been wanting to join, june 9th starts hot sales summer. So again, just go to imatrendsettercom, slash hot sales summer. That will lock you in for three months of coaching inside Trendsetter and then it'll just automatically renew, starting in September, at that grandfathered in rate. Otherwise, if you don't join before June 10th, you're going to have to pay a lot more money when you do join and you're not going to be able to join for a while because doors are closing.
Speaker 1:Okay, dm me if you have any questions about the membership. I'd love to have you inside. It's so super fun. Once you get in, you're going to feel the biggest weight just lifted off your shoulder, and the reason why I say that is because I see it time and time again and if you're interested in working directly with me on your business, like you want me coaching you every single week, dm me about VIP. It's super fun. Okay, I hope this episode was helpful for you to understand, kind of like my history, why I started this and why I feel so strongly in what you need to do to build your successful business. I love you. Have a great week.