Advice from the Retail Pros – Live Panel from EVOLVE 2024

Crystal Vilkaitis: Ooh, you are going to love this episode of Rooted in Retail. I did. It was a live panel discussion. I did at our conference EVOLVE in April of 2024. My panelists we’re fire. And I don’t know about you, but I just absolutely love panels when I go to conferences. I really love hearing different perspectives and stories.

And in this panel, there was even some disagreements, like just different thoughts on things. It was a really diverse conversation. We talked about things like what is the biggest challenge independent retailers are having right now, and how can they overcome them? Very timely information that the panelists shared.

A success story of a client that they work with on how retailers are really seeing success and how they got there, which is super inspiring. We talked about how there’s so much noise online. How can a retailer stand out? Really good tips in that section. And then also, you know, the digital landscape is constantly evolving.

And so I asked my panelists, how can the retailer prioritize? Where should they be spending their money or their time and what technologies should they be using? And then also, we did this really great exercise at the beginning of EVOLVE called You 2.0 and I have all the attendees close their eyes. We play some music and I say it’s a year from now you’re walking into EVOLVE.

You’re so excited to be here. You cannot wait to share all the things that have happened. What things did you accomplish and what did you do? What did you achieve? How do you feel? What are you excited for now? And then really kind of embody that You 2.0. Then what I recommend is that they write a letter from their future self and read it every single day.

And I got that exercise from my mentor, Jen Gottlieb, who also spoke at EVOLVE. And it was really powerful for me. It really changed me on how I show up daily. So, I asked the panelists to give advice for our attendees, as we’re all sitting here a year from now, what are the attendees need to know to help them achieve their 2.0?

So I didn’t plan on rhyming, but that was really fun. So I know you’re going to love this episode. I loved it so much. You might even listen to it a couple of times. Let me know your feedback in the Facebook group. Search for Rooted in Retail on Facebook and let’s dive into today’s episode.

​Introducing our Rooted in Retail panelists live from EVOLVE

Crystal Vilkaitis: I’m going to do something special here, and this is like a live interview for Rooted in Retail, so we’re going to share this on the show. I have my retail experts here as well as Natalie, who is a retailer and yes, and is a retail expert because she’s a retailer. And to kick us off here, I need a big round of applause like we lost our minds on price.

Yes, yes. There we go, love it. Okay, so if you each could take a minute or two here, share who you are and how you got into the retail world and Nick, I’ll have you start. 

Nick McHenry: All right. Hey everybody, my name is Nick McHenry. I am the founder and CEO of a company called OneShop.

Before that I spent over a decade in retail and mainly in wholesale on the corporate side as a vendor selling to many stores like yourselves. And I started OneShop with the kinda whole mission to help stores like yourselves use technology to drive customers back in store through smart loyalty, email, text, and everything in between.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Awesome. Thank you.

Cathy Wagner: Hey there. I’m Kathy Donovan Wagner and I opened my store. I was an accidental retailer. Any other accidental retailers? 

Nick McHenry: All of us. 

Cathy Wagner: Exactly, right. I started out great. We did incredible business the first year we were open.

So we thought, “If one is good, two would be so much better.” Until it wasn’t, and we were almost bankrupt. And honestly, we found Management One and I was one of the very first clients that they ever had. Mark Weiss, the founder of Management One, was my coach. And it turned everything around.

I found that I just loved it. I thought seeing that the transformation we had, I wanted other retailers to have the same and so I sold my stores and founded Retail Mavens. It was one of the first experts that Management One had and, now what we do is we help retailers get more profit and better sleep. Which everyone can use, right?

Can I get an amen for some more? Amen. Really at the end of the day, it’s about evaluating those daily metrics that Dane talked about, and then creating space for some of those massive ideas. And taking those ideas and creating action plans so that you can literally live out your dreams. That’s what we do. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Awesome. Thank you, Cathy. 

Vi Wickam: Hello, I’m Vi Wickham. I am the founder and managing partner of Wizard of Ads Online. I have been doing ecommerce, retail, marketing, and the whole internet stuff since my first site was in 1998. Well, way before Amazon or Google shopping existed. It was a lady who was importing pearls from China and selling them online out of Brooklyn, New York.

And I’ve been doing web development and digital marketing ever since. So what we do is help businesses grow using digital tools. 

Natalie Gardner: Hi, I’m Natalie Gardner. I co-founded and am president of Dr. Doug’s Balms. With that guy in the back, Dr. Doug himself, who I came to see today. 

Most of my career was actually in the biotech and pharma world. And I got here, basically, I always chose things I was passionate about to really represent in that world. But when Doug first started making these products for himself to keep away blisters and chafing during endurance races, and then I started using them, my sister who’s a dermatologist started using them. Saw them just doing amazing things for people’s skin with seven organic ingredients. It was really a no brainer. 

It was time to move onand be able to help people in a different way. And these products have made such a difference. So that’s really how I got to where I am. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: I love it. Awesome, such a good panel we have here today. We can give it up for the panel. Yes, yes, yes. And I didn’t say who I am or Crystal Media is yet, so I’ll take a minute. My name is Crystal, I started a company called Crystal Media in 2012. I was working for a startup technology company called Snap Retail, and my job was to teach social media to retailers.

And I left that job in 2012 and started Crystal Media and kept teaching social media to retailers because they needed that help and support. And now today, I have the best team, as you know. And we do Facebook and Instagram ads management, listings, insider membership. We teach, we speak, and we just help you with growing your business using these tools.

What is the top challenge for independent retailers currently and what tips do our panelists have for tackling it?

I want to kick things off here and talk about what we’re seeing the biggest challenge for independent retailers right now. And I know we could pick a lot of different things, but I want to know what is the biggest challenge and what advice do you have to help them overcome it? And I’m going to start with you, Cathy. 

Cathy Wagner: Sure. Actually, I just spoke to someone in the back. We were talking about how she says, “Well, I’m pretty sure. I mean, I think,” and I was like, “Feelings are fiction and they lie.” Thank you very much, Dale, for adding that. Because really data drives decisions and that is it.

So many people think they know what they’re doing. The chicken little was sure the sky was really falling, right? He was really sure of it. But he was wrong. The data wasn’t there. And that for sure is the biggest challenge that they face. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Totally.

Vi Wickam: I’m gonna say product differentiation or brand differentiation. So, we live in a world where you can buy anything online, and you can buy it at any number of places. And if you want it to not be all about price, you want to be able to compete with places like Amazon and eBay, you need to have a brand and clear messaging that tells your story in such a way that people are connecting with you. And they’re not just thinking about the product, they’re thinking about who they want to buy that product from.

Natalie Gardner: I actually think the biggest challenge as a retailer is really keeping top of mind and consistency and communication is just so important, right? Customers are so different based upon what we’re selling, but when I think about how do my customers communicate? And being consistent. I can’t do it all, right. And that’s why we hire great teams like some of these, these guys have here, but pick one that your customers really resonate with and just really be consistent with it. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yes, and that’s a big challenge. But yeah, that’s important to do. So good. Nick? 

Nick McHenry: I think that the most challenging thing for retailers right now is everything. And what I mean by that, more specifically, is if the business doesn’t seem like it’s changed that much, but if you fast forward to the beginning of my career when opening a physical store, it was like, what do you need to do to be successful?

Open on a good plate, on a good location, have good product, have good service. And if you did those things, you would be a successful retailer, let’s say. Now, it’s like: start a website, do TikTok, do Instagram, do Facebook, run ads, launch an NFT, layer AI on top of that, do everything. And I think the demands of the noise, of like how many different strategies you could do to grow your business, is forcing retailers to have to learn so many skill sets. That maybe is not the natural skill set the industry has always done.

I guess the second part was advice, right? I guess my advice to that would be to try everything but fail super fast and drop things super fast. So, don’t be afraid of, you know what, this week, I don’t know, we’re going to go live or we’re going to do this new thing.

And then figure out what the goal is. Try it, figure out how well it worked, but be okay dropping it and moving on to the next thing. And then when you find the thing that works, find the two or three things that are really driving the needle and then triple, quadruple, double down on it. 

Cathy Wagner: Then the importance of that is not being afraid to fail.  Because, I don’t know, does anyone wake up in the morning and say, “Oh, I cannot wait to completely screw things up today and fall flat on my face. Heck yeah. That’s gonna be awesome.” Right. I love saying that the word fail actually stands for first attempt in learning. And so I think that’s really true.

Because I think that, I know what happens in my business too, is not only do I try everything, but then I’m also so fast to rush to the next thing. Oh okay, this should be better, this should be better. And you have to stop and see what you’ve learned from it and then move forward. You’re right.

Nick McHenry: Yeah, and don’t be afraid to fail and revisit it either, right? Absolutely. So it’s like, I mean, just because it didn’t work now doesn’t mean in six months. Like, constantly be running these experiments to figure it out. 

Cathy Wagner: But taking the time to reflect. That was something I learned from the VIP day yesterday.

Was about not just judging but to look at the numbers of how many looks are you really getting on your Facebook Reels? And how for you guys, it was tremendously more than the other ones. I mean, that’s crazy, right? I think you’re right, and that’s the only way that you know if you’ve truly lost or not, is by seeing the numbers.

What those numbers are, and so often because there’s so much to do and we’re wearing so many hats, we’re racing on to the next thing. Because you know that you meant to look at that, but then someone calls in sick today, so now you’re working on the floor and you know, yada yada. So, it’s like scheduling that time for reflection.

Vi Wickam: The other side of everything is learning to focus on the things that are going to produce results for you. And not being distracted by the things that are just going to waste your time.

Cathy Wagner: If only we knew how to how to identify those from the get go. 

Vi Wickam: It sounds like you’re going to talk about data. 

How can an independent retailer be memorable in a sea of forgettable?

Crystal Vilkaitis: So Nick, you mentioned the word noise, which is so true. And there’s a lot of noise out there. I’d love to hear how can an independent retailer be memorable in a sea of forgettable?

Nick McHenry: That’s a really good question, geez. I would say two things. One, I think that there’s different layers of where you need to be memorable. Most of the folks out there, just show of hands, how many of you guys have a physical store? Basically everybody. In a physical store, if you do it right, being memorable is basically your circle.

So you could be the only toy shop on that street, which means that being memorable just means being the best dang toy shop to that neighborhood, best service, best product, smiling faces, I know the people in the store. That’s differentiation. Now you go to Instagram and it’s the entire world of differentiation.

I’d say the wider you go, the more you have to identify. Then I’m gonna give you a little bit of advice on how to find your true core strength. And that’s different for every single person. So, it’s hard to give straight, overarching advice for differentiation. But I would say, if you’re quirky and wear cat ears to every single show, lean into it.

Go for it. If you are a great writer, lean into it. If you speak too fast and are super high energy like me, lean into it. Find that thing and then just double down once again. 

Cathy Wagner: That’s really, that’s really powerful. I think it’s so important that you know who you are, that you know who you are and that you literally stand for who you are.

And you maximize that. I’ll never forget working with three women’s clothing stores in a block and a half in Chicago. And you’d think, “Oh my gosh, aren’t they all competitive?” No, no. What ended up happening was that was that they were all trying to copy each other in a little way or not.

But instead, I was able to sit down with one and, “Okay, look at the data,” I do have to throw that in, and she was excellent at accessories, so we completely grew her business and had her focus on what she was good at.

The other person was great with special occasion dresses, and then the other person was much more of a lifestyle store to store. So, at the end of the day, they saw what they were really good at. Once it became obvious to them, all of them succeeded and all of them grew.

And you can’t be afraid to do that, no matter what it is. I’d love to talk about Green Monkey in Raleigh, North Carolina. They are a set of guys who is proud of, of, of being gay and is proud of what that stands for. And because they have stood for that, and they do so much to support that community, that has grown their business because of that.

So, whatever it is, whoever you are, stand for who you are. And the thing is that sometimes I feel like we can’t see it ourselves. Because to your point, you go online and you start looking at, “Oh my, that Toy Story, oh they’re doing that so great, oh I should do that.” “Oh my gosh, look at what Marie is doing. That’s what I have to do.”

And you can’t do that. And so, make sure you ask for, ask for advice from it. And I bet that you, your own people, your own friends know you even better than you are. Ask them tonight when you guys are together, what do you think makes my store different?

Because every single store is different. And sometimes we just can’t see it ourselves. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: So true. I love the saying, and I know you do too. “You can’t see the picture when you’re in the frame.” And so having somebody look out and reflect that back to you is so powerful. Vi, what about you? 

Vi Wickam: The other version of that is you can’t read the label from inside the bottle.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yep. 

Vi Wickam: So, echoing some of the things that have already been said, but you have to find the elements of your character, of who you are, that make you interesting, and turn up the volume on those things. Don’t shy away from the things that make you different, weird, or unique. Turn up the volume on those things and lean into them.

Because that’s what people will remember you for. And then you have to carry that through all of your messaging. So, when you do things online, whether you’re on Google or social media, or on your website, all those things should be consistent messaging. They should be consistent personality, and they should let yourself shine through.

Let that personality shine through. If you want to run radio ads, let that personality shine through, because that’s what people will remember you for, and that’s what people will bond with. That’s what will set you apart. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, so good. Natalie? 

Natalie Gardner: Be you. Be genuine. Embrace that and be consistent, but your energy that you put out and being your genuine self, it will draw the people to you and it will draw the people who truly are meant to be your customers to you.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, that’s such a good point. Cause I actually think sometimes we can become something else, or we’re comparing ourselves to what everybody else is doing, that we do lose ourselves. And then sometimes we feel like that’s how we’re going to get all the clients. If I’m the most entertaining person on social media, then I’ll really grow my business and be like that person.

But what we really want to attract, once you are you, you’ll attract the right kind of customer that will want to shop with you. And that’s who we want to work with too: our PCGs. Perfect Customer Groups. They’re perfect because we love working with them. And so those people, but you don’t find them until you are being you and really leveraging the unique abilities. 

Cathy Wagner: I do think that part of being you means that you’re also knowing that you’re not for everyone and that is a scary thing to say. That’s a scary thing to stand for, but honestly what I love about who you are, Crystal, is that you are abundance personified. Really that there are more than enough customers for everyone. And there really are, you guys.

There really are more than enough customers for everyone And so you don’t have to be afraid of your competition. It’s all about collaboration. I was talking to Kathy Cruz about that today. She’s like, it’s just amazing. She’s The Savvy Shopkeeper, you guys check her out. She’s amazing at what she does.

And she said, “I think it’s fabulous that Crystal invited us all here because you’re a sponsor. You paid to be here.” I was like, “No, there is enough for everybody. Shockingly, there might be somebody who doesn’t like me.” No, but I get it. Everybody’s different, right? And that’s the beauty of it. It’s so true. 

Vi Wickam: You gotta choose who to lose, you know? When you’re authentic and true to yourself, people who resonate with that will be attracted to you and others will go a different direction, and that’s perfect, because you don’t want to work with those people anyway that are a pain in the butt.

Crystal Vilkaitis: So true. 

Nick McHenry: I also, I also think to clarify like with this differentiation topic that we’re talking about. I mean guys, the bar is really low. We’re here talking as if you gotta be this huge thing on your street or whatnot. I shop a lot, and the service level is just insane.

Like, the amount of stores I go into that just don’t even greet me or don’t ask how I’m doing, or stuff like that. So, your bar could be we say hello to everybody that walks in the door. That could literally be your differentiation, and like, boom, you’re differentiated.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, did you guys write that down? That’s a good tip. 

Cathy Wagner: One of our team members had a store too, and he used to say, “I’m the friendliest store on the street.” And he said, people would come in and say, “Wow, you are? That’s incredible.” How did that happen? I declared it.

Real-life examples of independent retailers who reached their goals and the steps they took to succeed

Crystal Vilkaitis: Exactly, it’s so true. Okay. I love success stories and, and I think we can learn a lot from successful retailers. I’d love for each of you to share an example of a client you worked with, a retailer, what their goal was. How’d you help them achieve that? Natalie, you’re obviously a retailer, so you’ll share a success story for you of what’s working for you, and I’ll have you go first.

Natalie Gardner: So, email is one example that I can give that is the most effective for our company. When we are consistent with email and actually have the time to get them out, the sales come. That’s really an example that I was thinking of. We just have implemented more email sequences and newsletters, and it makes it makes a huge difference. I mean, I can see it that day when it goes out. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yep email.

Natalie Gardner: A great one.

Natalie Gardner: If I can give one more example. One of the retailers who sells Dr. Doug’s in their store, she was one of the first. She’s gotten really consistent with every Wednesday doing a video.

And people watch for them, but she just does what’s new in her store, kind of shows a few things. People can just comment back to her and say, “Hold that for me, I’ll be in.” But her putting her energy and enthusiasm in it, but that’s what she does. She has found really has worked for her retail store is just talking regularly.

They know, every Wednesday, she’s going to have a Reel on there. 

Vi Wickam: One of the things that comes to my mind is I’ve got a fishing gear retailer. Who’s been a client of mine since about 2005. And we recently redid their Google ads campaign. And took them from six to eight times return on their ad spend, which is pretty darn good.

But now they’re at about 14 times return on their ad spend after we were reworked everything. So, they’re spending $6,000-7,000 a month and generating about $130,000 in revenue. 

How Vi Wickham managed to double one store’s return on ad spend using Google Ads

Crystal Vilkaitis: Dang, that is awesome. And what’s one thing that you reworked with their ad campaign to make it more effective?

Vi Wickam: Well, I mean one of the things we did was we went through a lot of their Google Merchant Center. Which is where you can synchronize your products to Google. And so there’s free listings with Merchant Center that, if you just set up the synchronization, you’ll get a certain amount of free traffic from Google. But then you can run shopping ads on those as well and so one of the things we did was we changed our bidding strategy to be a return on ad spend targeted bidding strategy.

And to do that you have to have all the integrations with Google for the revenue to be reported back to Google on each purchase. There’s a lot of work that goes into making everything work right, but that was one of the big things we did was a lot more money is going in that direction.

Not the only thing, but I don’t want to spend a half hour just telling you everything we did.  

Crystal Vilkaitis: There’s so much. Well, Vi and I did do a really great episode on Rooted in Retail, breaking down paid ads and organic. If you haven’t listened to those episodes, I would because they were filled with so many things that you can be doing.

And then also it makes me think who, not how. Hire help, find an expert. Especially, when we’re dealing with ad dollars and things like that. 

Vi Wickam: Just a word in that same direction. I just published a blog post on Wizards of Ads Online on the elements of a perfect landing page for products. So a perfect product page. Lots to learn there. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: When we send out resources, we’re going to send out some resources for you guys after the show here. So we’ll link to his blog post. Kathy, what about you? A success story? 

Cathy Wagner: The one that always gets me was the client who had opened her store and was really loving it, having a lot of fun and everything.

And she said, “I called you because my husband’s had an accident, and his disability ends and I have to replace his income.” And I was like, “Oh, all right then.” And so she said, “And I need to do it in seven months.” And we did and, in fact, now we’ve increased her business by about six times and I’m proud to say that she’s one of our Millies.

We started a thing where, once you cross a million dollars, you become a Millie and it’s because we talk about it, we celebrate it. Because did you know that less than 1.7 percent of all million-dollar businesses that do over a million dollars are owned by women? How ridiculous is that? 

Crystal Vilkaitis: 1.7 percent. I’m seeing some high fives, I liked that. Yeah, exactly. I want to see more of that for sure. 

Cathy Wagner: I’ve become so passionate now about increasing that number because it’s attainable. It can happen. You can do it. And the reason I believe that how she did it was because we knew the numbers we had to get to, and we knew the time period we had to get there.

And so when you were talking about how you guys all do everything. There was no time. I mean, we had to make sure we were absolutely crystal clear focused on getting that goal within the seven months. And I really believe that that’s why. So now we continue to do it. We call it a sticky number.

We gave it a name. And we call it a sticky number where you should come up with a sticky number, whatever it is for you, there’s no right or wrong thing. And then what are you going to do to get to that number? 

Crystal Vilkaitis: This is where I like having that vision and part of the You 2.0, what did you achieve?

Where am I going? Because there was a very clear vision of what needed to happen. When we don’t have that, where do we end up? And it takes us forever, like as long as we give it. Things take as long as we give them. So, you had seven months. That’s an epic story, Kathy. 

Nick McHenry: Yeah, when I think of success stories, I tend to actually think a little bit less of the people that made the most revenue or the most like breakthrough high number.

I think more of who had like an actual business breakthrough. It could be emotional; it could be something else. One story that’s always stuck in my mind is we had a customer a little over a year ago, who put their store manager in charge of their marketing, their email list, their product placement.

And they were nearby to me, so I was able to work with them a little bit in person and this store manager was terrified of sending out this messaging. They were just everything in the book. “I don’t want to bother my customers, they don’t, they already get a lot of emails from us, I don’t want to, I just feel like they’re interrupting them, they’re so busy.”

My favorite one, “Our customers in this area, they don’t like emails from us, they don’t want to get that from us.” So I went to the store, I was like, “Let’s work on it, let’s do the easiest email ever. This is the easiest email you possibly could do.” We’re gonna write a plain text email, so there’s no design to it whatsoever, and it’s gonna be, hey, Sue, or hey, first name, I’m the manager of the store.

I just wanted to reach out. I know you’ve bought from us in the last 30 days. I just wanted to see how it’s doing, how it’s going. Do you need any help? Can I help you with it at all? Signed, manager. He went into the fitting room, closed the blinds, to write it out, like just so petrified I sent him his email. 

We sent it out, and he called me the next day, and he was like, “You will not believe what happened. Five customers came in today mentioning this email. That was our entire day. They just said they were so blown away by the support I was giving them, but they came in and that was our entire sales day at an 85 percent open rates of this email.” And that was just something that just, if I could have that every day, I would just live forever.

There’ll be that just would motivate me forever. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, That’s huge. How many of you think that your customers in your area don’t like email? Yeah, we hear it. We hear it. Um, yeah, you got to be sending, you got to be sending. Those are all such good, uh, examples and tips in there too. 

How can small retailers make smart choices about technology and marketing investments to keep up with trends and evolve?

Now, the digital landscape is evolving incredibly fast with new technologies and consumer behaviors emerging rapidly. How should small retailers prioritize their investments in technology and marketing to stay ahead of the curve and ensure their business evolves with the times? Nick, I’ll have you start. 

Nick McHenry: I would do, this is a little bit of a cop out of an answer, but I’m going to go back to kind of what I had said earlier.

I would do a blended approach. And everyone’s different depending on how much your team size is, how many people can navigate it. Everything new, I would do immediately. If there’s a new platform tomorrow, if Elon’s talking about bringing Vine back. If that happens, you guys are all doing 100 vines tomorrow.

Whatever the newest thing is you should just jump on it, even if it’s like Threads and like Threads passed away. I would just do the thing right away, once again back to my prior point, see what the results are, but we’re all here to make sales.

We’re all here to make revenue. There really are only two real options when it comes to digital, which is drive sales or drive awareness. If it’s not being one of those two things, then it shouldn’t belong in the mix at all. And usually, you don’t do both those things. Like, yes, driving awareness, then drive sales. Of course, you have a wrap around, but when it comes to the content or the channel itself, it’s like, am I just trying to get awareness of my brand, or am I trying to convert sales?

So, then figuring out what balance I need of that. We’re obviously biased, we’re an email platform, that’s usually the highest converting channel when it comes to driving sales. Versus like, TikTok has the best organic reach, even today, even though it’s going away potentially. Still has the highest organic reach, so that would be probably the channel I would be able to think about with organic, or with expansion.

Cathy Wagner: Threads is dead? 

Nick McHenry: It’s not tangible, yeah.  Technically it’s still alive. It’s there. 

Cathy Wagner: Alright, I didn’t know if you heard something today. It’s not dead-dead, but it’s dead. I don’t disagree with you. I don’t. But the thing that I worry about is that unless, the fact is that it’s a blended approach also, because it’s about making sure that your foundations are set.

You have to make sure that your numbers are set. That you know your numbers and that you’re good with them. And so, I don’t know, how else can you use technology to do that? I mean, you don’t have to count your inventory. You can go to talk to Hatchback.

They’re a brand new technology and they can make sure that the inventory number that you have in your point of sale matches what is on your floor. Would anyone be interested in that? Does anyone think that there is a difference between those two numbers, right? I would just challenge you to look at some foundational things like that to make sure the foundation is set so that you can then just blow up everything else.

So check your numbers. See what can you do with that? Check about your team. How about managing your team? Like you have to meet with your team regularly. And we hear all the time from people how difficult it is to get everyone together. Does everyone struggle with that? Well, why not use Zoom  to meet with your team, you know, use that. I mean, instead of getting in person, it doesn’t have to be in person. 

So often we get stuck with functional fixedness, thinking that things must be a certain way. We have to meet in person. No, you don’t. You can use Zoom and, oh my gosh.

Add on top of that. Read.ai, have that running, and that can also do a video of your meeting. It will transcribe your meeting. And hello, it’ll also create the action steps for you from the meeting so you can send out. 

And you do have to market. I mean, I’m not saying you don’t have to market. Of course you have to market too, but you just can’t forget about those other things. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Oh yeah. Well, because we were preparing for a Rooted in retail interview, Cathy and I were, and she sent me a transcription of her Zoom call that I could just quickly read and it was so much faster than watching the video. It’s a great efficiency tool and technology for sure. Vi, what would you say? 

Vi Wickam: I think the important thing to remember is all of these things are just tools. But all the new technologies, all the toys, everything that comes out that wants your attention, just remember it’s a tool and you can choose whether or not you want to use that in your business.

The other thing that came to mind is that Cathy brought up is measurement because you can only improve what you can measure. And when it comes to all things online, they are all measurable if you set them up to measure them. And very often that’s the last thing that gets done. 

So if you don’t have your Google Analytics set up and your tag manager set up and you have event tracking and goals set up, you’re not going to know what’s happening and what’s working and what’s not working with your email campaigns, or your Google ads, or your social media.

Having measurements set up is a foundational element to any kind of online marketing that if you don’t have good measurement, you’re spitting in the dark. You don’t know what’s going to land and what’s not. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: So true. 

Natalie Gardner: I would say first identify what you love to do, what you’re good at, and then find the right team, and find the right vendors to help you do the rest.

Because, I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like somebody’s tapping at my shoulder constantly. There’s always this next great new tool, so many great things that I would love to do. But we can’t do it all as small business owners, right? Figure out what you love to do, what you’re really good at, and then hire the right team.

And I’ll tell you, I’ve been burnt. I don’t know if anyone else in this room feels that, but they’ve hired this vendor because one reason or another and had a good feeling and it just was the worst. It makes me feel sick to my stomach about some of this. The money that I spent on these things. So being here and being in this room and meeting some of these amazing vendors who can help us keep doing that.

I love Crystal, what you’ve brought together and everybody here, because when you get to know people one on one, I mean, I will never do that again. It’s always going to be through networking and through meeting people in person.

Crystal Vilkaitis: So true. And again, that’s why it’s amazing that we’re in the room where the magic is happening and connecting like this. 

What tips do our panelists have for independent retailers to reach their future goals? 

It’s so true. We did our You 2.0 this morning and visualized our future self. And I would love to know what advice do you have for our attendees to help them get to that future vision? Obviously, we don’t know what everybody picked. It’s more of a bigger picture on what do they need to hear? or a question, or what advice would you give them to really support them to get where they want to go?

And Cathy, I’ll have you start. 

Cathy Wagner: I was so hoping you weren’t going to pick me to start. I’ll be honest. It’s such a big thing. I will say that you have to stand true in who you are and make sure that you’re exploiting your strengths.

Exploit your own strengths and delegate those weaknesses. And demand a return from them, like you said, demand a return from those vendors, for sure. And if you’re not getting one, don’t wait. Right away, talk about it. Talk about it to them. Because you are the CEO of your company. It is you. You are the CEO.

So when you were wearing all, you can’t wear all those hats, don’t even look good on you. The only hat you want is that CEO hat, right? And you have to make some tough decisions. And to your point, Natalie, what can you outsource and what can you expect to return from? I tell you the one thing I go back to what I was sharing about my client and what I have found has worked for myself.

Look for that sticky number for yourself. And make it incredibly specific, and an incredibly specific timeline, and how you’re going to feel when you get there. Like this woman was panicked. She had no choice. She had to make that number. And it changed who she was in those seven months.

It changed the way she approached everything. So don’t pussyfoot around it, you guys. Don’t pussyfoot around it. 

Vi Wickam: I think there are some of you out there that get caught in the weeds and you’re taking this time to lay out that vision for what you want to be in a year and what you want to be doing.

Take a little time to step back, take a little time to breathe before you jump headlong into it and create that space for you to make decisions as to this is what I want to do. Is it me that’s supposed to do this? or should I have someone on my team be in charge of this? And don’t be afraid to delegate responsibilities or areas that somebody else is going to take care of this whole thing.

Not just delegating tasks. Because it’s easy to delegate, go do this one thing and get back to me when it’s done. It’s harder to delegate, you’re responsible for the results of this thing now. 

And I’m speaking as much to myself as I am for speaking to you, because all of us have this challenge of: I have this place I want to get to, and I need to be able to allow somebody else to really take this on themselves and run with it.

Natalie Gardner: I would say, continue to surround yourself with the right people. There are some great people in my life, and I love them. But when I go home and start to debrief from things like this and start to implement, they don’t really get it. So to have that support from those who are going through it with you, makes such a difference.

So my 2.0 next year is going to say, “Well, I’m glad I went to that EVOLVE. I’m, I’m glad I’m registered for EVOLVE 2025. I’m glad I joined that mastermind. I’m glad I met new people who support me even from afar.” So that’s my thought and advice. 

Cathy Wagner: I wonder if one of the benefits of being here is seeing all these people. And all these people that you’re with, I challenge you to add to your sticky numbers. Which one person, or maybe two people, will you partner with to hold each other accountable?

So that you’re not just sitting at home alone debriefing and not getting lost in the weeds like you should. I challenge you all to do that. 

Vi Wickam: Get yourself an accountability partner.

Crystal Vilkaitis: How many of you like that idea? I love that idea. Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted. 

I love it. Nick, what would you say? 

Nick McHenry: Yeah. I don’t want to come across as disagreeing with anybody on the panel here so I’m going to preface it with that. 

Vi Wickam: You’re disagreeable. 

Nick McHenry: I’ve been working on this myself personally, and I would say, the two things that I would take away when it comes to You 2.0 to A, be patient with yourself. I think that when it comes to goal setting, we’re all like one year from now, I’m gonna be an X. January 1st, I’m gonna work out every day, I’m not gonna drink. And by January 14th, all that’s gone, right? And what is a year from now?

It’s a date that we kind of randomly picked in time. One year from now to pick that we want to be at all these places. The way I like to think about it is to get really big in the long term and really tangible in the short term. If you’re thinking I want to be a $10 million store some day. But would you be happy with that if you did that in the next 10 years or 15 years? 

And you’re like, “Yeah, of course in 15 years, a 10 million store, I’d be happy.” Then really all that matters is in the one year time frame is we are progressing on the right direction towards that path So as opposed to okay 2.0, one year from now is the end all be all, I would look at it more as like, all right 2.0 is it where I want to get to? 

It’s good to have goals in a one-year time frame. But those should be in scope of a much longer time frame and not be upset in a year. It’s like, “Well, I want to do these 50 things. I didn’t do the 50 things. I’m a failure.” You get in this mental self-talk. And just be like, “Did I progress towards my you 10-15 years from now? Am I on that path?” 

We’ve had retailers before who are like, “I want to be a million-dollar store by December.” And then we get to 700 K. And they’re so upset. They’re like, “But my goal was hit a million. This was the year I was going to do it.” 

But you grew every month at 5%. If you just keep going, who cares? You’re gonna hit it in 10 more months from now. Does it matter? Like you’re profitable. I think it’s just like we are too stuck on these short term deadlines that we kind of get mentally mixed up 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Such good advice and it’s so true. It reminds me, I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say we overestimate what we can do in a year, and we underestimate what we can do in 10 years.

I’m going to talk a little bit about what I’ve been doing for the past five years, or even five years. This is really good practical advice and a way to really, I mean, I loved everything that you guys said. I want to add that what has worked well for me, it’s similar to your success story, Kathy.

I put pressure on my goals and what I want to achieve. So, I’m getting married in September, so I’m a little more motivated to work out and have this wedding body that I’d like to wear at the start. 

There’s a pressure on my goal. I’ve joined masterminds where I’ve invested a lot of money in myself because I put pressure on myself because I’ll show up differently. So looking at how can I add some pressure because it creates accountability and that’s what’s really hard. This is where the accountability partner is so good because you need something to help keep you accountable to those dreams and that vision and those goals. 

If you had to start your business all over again, what’s one thing you would do differently?

We have a couple of minutes left here. I’d like to ask; we’re not going to do the resilience round. Almost all of you have been on the show and have gone through this, except for you, Natalie, we’ve got to get you on. But none of you have answered this question because it’s a new question to the resilience round.

So for those of you who don’t listen to Rooted at the end, I ask every guest six questions and its rapid fire. And I want to know if you had to start your business all over again, what’s one thing you would do differently. And we’ll start with you, Vi. 

Vi Wickam: Jeez, I’ve done this. The last time I restarted my business, I left my business with ten employees, and I decided that I didn’t want any employees for a while.

So, I just needed a break. I needed a break from being responsible for other people’s lives. And then at some point I was like, I think I’m ready to grow again. And sometimes when you start over, you need a breath of fresh air. You need to take a break and I’m not there right now, but if I was starting over, I would probably take a few months and just look at the lay of the land, see what’s out there, see what I really want to do, where do I want to focus my energy today?

Natalie Gardner: If we were starting over, I would first of all, make sure I have a great team to back, to back me up. But in doing that, make sure I’m not creating a 24/7 job for myself, but creating a business and building a business. And it took a while for me to learn that. But I would do that from the very beginning.

Nick McHenry: I mean, the short answer is I would do everything different. Literally every single thing I would do differently if I had to start all over again, now that I know what I know now. But from a single, tangible thing, I would focus on one step in front of the other. As opposed to thinking like, Oh my gosh, we could do all of these things, we could do this and this and this and this, there’s 50 things we can do.

All right, we’re gonna like hire people. We’re gonna have all these things kind of in parallel. I’d be like, what is the thing that we can do this week that’s gonna push the business to the next step? And then what’s the business? What’s this thing we’re gonna do next week and the week after as opposed to just trying to to do everything all at once?

Hoping I’ll get to the same same place as opposed to just one foot in front of the other over a long period of time. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: So good.  

Cathy Wagner: I would focus on fun, not fear. Some of you might know that, my husband and I are the proud parents of America’s most fun family. True story, we won a nationwide contest that was run by Money Magazine and the Game Cranium. And so we had our own PR agency. It was so much fun. I can see how this was such a download just right now from God for me because I can see how, I don’t know, I walk in fear too much. I focus on the fear. I’m afraid to stand out.

Anybody else feel that way? Like, if you’re really honest with yourself, it’s helpful for me. You’re afraid to take the big risk. Like I listened to what Girl Tribe did, oh my gosh. But when you focus on the fun and exploit your own strengths, you can get there, and you’ll get there faster, and you’ll have more fun if you just keep throwing that fear away.

Crystal Vilkaitis: So true. Well said. And you know, I have never answered the resilience round questions, which that’ll be an episode someday, but I will answer this one since we’re at EVOLVE because I think about this every time I ask my guests. And I would trust myself more. 

I would seek out advice from the experts and the mentors and the friends and what is the competition doing? I didn’t listen to me and what my internal knowing. And what I learned is that I know a lot and I’m going to know what’s right for me. I’ll know what’s right for me. And everybody’s gonna have their opinions, and they have great ideas, and mean well, of course, but I didn’t trust myself as much, and so that would be mine, if I had to start all over. 

You guys, let’s give it up like crazy for this panel.