Growing Your Retail Sales with a Bold Brand Identity with Brianna Cannon

Crystal Vilkaitis: This is a fun week for Rooted in Retail, because in January I got the opportunity to sit down in person at the Dallas Market Center and talk to two very special guests that you’re going to hear from this week. The first one is Brianna Cannon, founder and designer of briannacannon.com. And man, this episode, I feel like it was a session, like a masterclass session. Because Brianna brought it from a value perspective.

I mean, we are talking about brand. Go to her Instagram account, she’s got this strong, beautiful brand. As I am filming this right now, she’s got about 58,000 Instagram followers crushing it with her content. And in this episode, we are talking about brand and finding your voice. And we talk about social media and Instagram, organically, as well as paid ads.

Brianna talks about balancing both being a wholesaler and a retailer. She is both. She is a designer of her products. She wholesales through retail stores, as well as having a physical storefront. And she just has really great advice for our independent retailers in this episode, I know you’re going to love her.

Honestly, it was like a masterclass. It was so good. If you get the opportunity to watch this episode, you could go to rootedinretail.com and watch it, or watch it on YouTube because we are in person. And I just want to give a big thank you to the Dallas Market Center, we were filming on top of a pond, there were koi fish. People got to sit in and listen live. So that was a ton of fun. Before we dive into today’s episode, here’s a little bit more about my guest.

Brianna is a retail veteran of over 20 years with management experience with some of the world’s most competitive brands, including Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Neiman Marcus. After graduating from Texas Christian University, Go Frogs, in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising, minor in Entrepreneurial Management, Brianna developed a true appreciation for quality products during her time in the luxury retail industry. And cultivated her love for jewelry and accessories during her time with Neiman Marcus, as the manager of designer and precious jewelry.

When Brianna isn’t working, she could be found hanging out with her family in Plano, Texas area, attending Presswood Baptist Church, eating Mexican food, and watching college sports with her best friend, her husband. She loves spending time outside appreciating God’s masterpiece in nature. As a family, the Cannons enjoy hunting, fishing, and the older boys love attending Sky Ranch summer camp.

Brianna gives all her praise for the success of her business to God, she knows the doors that have opened and the opportunities afforded to her are a result of His divine plan. And she faithfully follows His lead, fully accepting that where He leads her is where she is meant to be. You can learn more about Brianna at briannacannon.com. And like I said, go follow her on Instagram as well, and let’s dive in to this episode.

Welcome to Rooted in Retail. I’m your host, Crystal Vilkaitis. Here we have engaging and informative conversations with successful indie retailers and industry experts. Together, we learn, connect, and grow. Don’t miss our live after the show every Tuesday night in the Rooted in Retail Facebook group. All right, here’s today’s episode. 

Welcoming Brianna Cannon live from the Dallas Market Center

Crystal Vilkaitis: Welcome everybody. We are doing another Rooted in Retail podcast interview right now. I am Crystal Vilkaitis, and I am so excited that you are here. If you’re here live with us, or if you’re tuning in, listening or watching later, I’m with Brianna Cannon, who we’re going to have a really good conversation about brand and e-commerce and wholesale.

I want to give a big thanks to the Dallas Market Center, which is where we are live. If you’re watching this, hopefully you are. We’ve got a really cool setup sitting on top of the pond and fish and we have turtles. So, it’s so fun. Brianna, let’s kick things off here. Will you just share a little bit about your store and wholesale line and how you got started?

Brianna Cannon: Yes, of course. So we have been in business for going on six years, and we have a physical retail store in Plano, Texas. So that’s where we’re based. We also have a warehouse in Plano, Texas. We’re actually a brand. We create our own products, and then we sell them retail and wholesale, so we have a few different components to our brand.

We have an officially licensed game day part of our brand, which is a really cool big part of our business, and then we also have our fashion, accessories, and apparel piece of our business. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: I love it. I really re-commerceend everybody to follow you on Instagram ’cause you have such a bold, vibrant brand. Really great content. 

Brianna Cannon: I love Instagram. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Well, and it shows. You’re creating great content, and you pull in, obviously, your company name is your name, so you are a personal brand. But you could tell that you have this look that is very bold. And I think even on your Instagram bio, it’s like.

Brianna Cannon: We say that. 

How Brianna developed a bold personal brand for her retail store

Crystal Vilkaitis: Exactly, so will you talk about how did you develop that brand? 

Brianna Cannon: Sure. It’s interesting because I think that as we’ve been creating products, I had a different direction at first. And as we’ve evolved as a brand, I just felt better designing things that I would wear and so now that is my guideline. 

If I won’t wear it, I don’t make it. And so I love color so we just use a bunch of color. I think at the beginning I was trying to make products that I felt were maybe marketable. And they were cute products as well, but we’ve done so much better the minute that we actually did a rebrand about a year into my business and used my name.

We had a different name originally. We changed and used my name, and then started really focusing on just products that I love and that I would wear. And the minute that we became authentic in that way, it really was beneficial for us. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: No kidding. Well, I think a lot of people can learn from that because we think sometimes that we have to be a certain way, right?

And to your point, you thought this could be marketable. This is going to be what’s it. It’s okay to change, it’s okay to pivot. You use one of my favorite words, evolve. Your brand evolved, let it. I think it has to; it has to. And you did such a good job of not staying in that box and asking questions. In that first year, did you ever feel like it’s something’s not working here?

Brianna Cannon:. I mean, we had a lot of success in our first year, but I think I’m always looking to the future and how to grow. And I think it was obvious to me at that time that I was going to be challenged to design and challenged to create new and different products and to continuously be creative and come up with new things.

If it wasn’t something that was just totally authentic to me. The other reason that we did our rebrand is because we found it beneficial when our customers could connect to me and like our family, like they knew who we were and felt connected to us. Also, changing the name because we were creating a more diverse product assortment.

We weren’t lacking success in the first year, but I thought for future growth, it made sense. So, it was really more of a decision to look forward to the future. 

How Brianna created a strong ecommerce presence and grew her online sales

Crystal Vilkaitis: Smart. Yeah, look ahead. Now, as we were talking a little bit, very briefly, we just met here and we were talking yesterday, you have a strong e-commerce presence.

And so, will you tell us a little bit about how did you create that? Because a lot of our listeners probably have an e-commerce platform and some of the people in the audience here, like you probably have e-commerce, but maybe they’re not seeing a lot of sales from it or they’re not marketing it. How did you grow your e-commerce business?

Brianna Cannon: Well, it’s extremely important, first of all, especially if you have a product that’s specific. So, I would say our brand, while a lot of people absolutely love our brand, it is a specific consumer. Not everybody wants to be as flashy and as colorful and as girly as we are. But with our e-commerce platform, we’re able to find all of those people.

They don’t have to live in Plano, Texas. They can live anywhere and we can reach them. So, e-commerce is wildly important. Photography is wildly important for e-commerce. So I think going back to the content that you’re talking about, we first reach them on social media and then we direct them to our website.

 We do budget for ad dollars. That’s extremely important to me, is making sure that we have a constant presence with advertising, but also that we’re consistent in fulfillment. That’s very important. So our customers trust that if they order something online, they know they’re going to get it quickly.

Just being consistent and consistently exceeding expectations with e-commerce is very important. Because the minute that you miss on expectations then you lose trust a bit. And there’s so many places to shop that you really just have to make sure that you’re delivering on customer expectations. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah. Especially, I mean, there are so many choices that the customer has. And so to your point, you really have to make sure that you’re able to fulfill. So are you on Shopify? Yes. 

Brianna Cannon: Yes.

Crystal Vilkaitis: A lot of our retailers are on Shopify. 

Brianna Cannon: I love it. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: It’s so easy. Do you also have a Shopify POS in your in store?

Brianna Cannon: We do. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Okay, awesome. A lot of retailers like to know how everybody’s set up. From your ads perspective, we have an ads agency. I’m a big fan of ads too, because organic reach is so low. So are you advertising on both Facebook and Instagram? 

Brianna Cannon: We advertise on both. We’ve explored TikTok, but it’s like another thing for me to learn. So I’m not sure about that yet, but we understand that it’s important to be where our customers are. We see the highest reach and engagement with Instagram, but we see the highest conversion with Facebook. So it’s really interesting. So we do both.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Okay, I’m glad that you do both. I think you would kill it with TikTok. You would.

Brianna Cannon: It’s another thing to learn. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: And with TikTok Shops releasing in April of 2023, they’re putting a massive emphasis on shops right now, like really investing. And it’s actually funny because if you use TikTok, like I was scrolling yesterday and a guy was yelling, like, “How do I not see shops anymore?”

Because there’s so many shops that TikTok’s pushing through the feed. From a retailer perspective, that means its free organic reach, like this isn’t paid ads. This is a way to really get your products out there. And I think especially in gift, home; that can be such a strong place. So anybody listening to this here live or the recording, TikTok Shops. I’d love to see you launch it.

Brianna Cannon: There have been so many people that have gotten so big, so fast on TikTok. So, the exposure is really interesting on TikTok. I feel like it’s not overwhelmed with an algorithm quite yet.  

Crystal Vilkaitis: It’s very true.

Brianna’s practical advice for getting amazing photos without needing to do professional shoots

Crystal Vilkaitis: Going back, you mentioned photography. You do have stunning photos. This is another reason why I say go check out Brianna on Instagram because you can see the look. How are you taking those? Do you have somebody? Kind of break down how you do your social content.

Brianna Cannon: Well, I’m glad you asked that because that’s something I wanted to talk about because I think some people feel overwhelmed with that task. 

But honestly, when we saw the greatest response on social media was during Covid when I could no longer get models together and do professional shoots, I was getting models together and using a professional photographer and taking photos in a studio. But when Covid hit and I couldn’t do that, I went on my front porch and I used a ring light and my iPhone and I took pictures of myself in natural lighting.

And just model the product myself, and because I was able to take photos more frequently, I would do it daily or whatever. And I was able to show the product more frequently, in more diverse ways, with different outfits styled differently, and I was using my phone, and my front porch, and a ring light, and we had way better response to those photos than anything else.

Granted, I do think that I have skills of just editing, and I love photography in general. I’m not a trained photographer, but I do think I probably have an eye for it, but I do think it’s something anyone can do. Lighting is everything. Color is everything. So, if you’re using natural light and just go outside, take a photo. It’s going to be better than not.

It’s so important, and then you’ll have more diverse ways to show your product and just more photos are better. People want to see it in more ways. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: They want to see it in more ways. And I love that you said that because I think a lot of people feel like they do need the model. They need to look perfect, right? 

A lot of retailers can compare themselves to the store that’s doing great. They might even look at your content and be like, I could never have that. 

Brianna Cannon: You totally can. We are, we have lately honestly, in the past three months we started using a professional photographer. But honestly, I would say that in almost in five and a half years, I’ve only used a professional photographer a few times.

And really it was just me with a ring light, mostly on my front porch, sometimes in front of a backdrop. So, it’s not necessary to have a professional photographer. You just have to make sure you’re brightening the photos. They needed to look very bright.

 And the color needs to be accurate. So if you’re looking at the product on a table, and then you’re looking at your photo, try to edit the photo to look like the product. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Another great tip. And I even think, to your point, the phone is enough. These phone cameras are great cameras. They’re better than what Hollywood used 20 years ago to film movies.

It’s crazy, so we have the power. You can watch some YouTube videos and understand some basic editing if you don’t know. But I think that’s really encouraging for people.

What strategies are working the best right now to generate foot traffic into the store?

Crystal Vilkaitis: So, you have your retail store and then you also sell online, right? And then you have the wholesale. We’ll get to wholesale in a second.

I’m curious to know, what is working the best right now to generate foot traffic into the store? 

Brianna Cannon: Sure. Well, our retail store has been open for a year in November, so it’s fairly new for us. But I’ve worked in stores in retail for about 20 years. So, I’m very familiar with store retail, although it is new for our brand.

And so, generating foot traffic for us has been a lot of focus on events, call to action, and then also just creating a very consistent experience for our customer. I want every single time they come into our store to feel like they know the people who are working there, they have a personal relationship with the people working there, and they want to come back because they feel like it’s a friend.

Our store manager who runs our store, I can’t tell you the number of messages and comments that I get on social media saying, ” I love her.” And so it is, really, like hiring is exceptionally important. Making sure you have the right people who can connect with the customers, making sure that the interaction feels very genuine, and I have a very structured. My background is luxury retail, and so like, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and there was a very structured training program for how to service those customers.

And so, we have a structured training program for our sales associates where you immediately come out from behind the register, you immediately ask one of a few questions, it’s a consistent, but very warm experience.

So that’s important to me. In terms of foot traffic, I think it is also just being very involved in the community. We’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce. We’re a member of a lot of different organizations in our community. And I’m involved in the community, my store is where I live. The community likes to support us.

What strategies are working to drive online traffic to Brianna’s e-commerce store?

Crystal Vilkaitis: I love that. Okay, what’s working really well for e-commerce traffic? 

Brianna Cannon: E com traffic? , Social media. I really don’t know how I would survive without a strong social media presence. It’s really everything to our business and it’s primarily free. It’s amazing. I mean, ads aren’t free, but like social media, you can create an Instagram.

So , I think that just leveraging that is absolutely everything. You can tell the minute one of our ads expires because the traffic is down on our website. So, it’s pretty cut and dry. We drive them there, we post links, we post regular content all the time. 

Every day I’m sharing stories, user generated content. So which means like our customers reposting images that our customers tag us in. They love to see that and seeing it on real people. We have a whole reviews page on our website that our customers can upload their photo to their review.

And so our customers love to see it on other customers cause they want to know what does it look like on a real person? Quote unquote, a real person. They like to see that. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, I love that you brought up user generated content because there’s just something that almost sells the product differently when they are seeing it.

It’s very genuine. And sometimes it’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame. So as the business owner, you see it a certain way. But the customer might see it another way.

Brianna Cannon: That’s so right. Oh my gosh, I will think that we did a great job photographing a product or showing a product. And then I’ll hear from customers, “Oh, that’s so much better in person, I had no idea,” and I’m like, really? So, I guess we didn’t do very well on that. 

Why Brianna’s brand ambassador program generates more conversions than influencer marketing

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, and sometimes it can be hit or miss, but you have a brand ambassador program. We do. Will you talk about that? I think that’s pretty cool. 

Brianna Cannon: We do have a brand ambassador program and we use an app called UpPromote to do that.

So it’s integrated within Shopify, which is really cool. But it is basically, girls can apply, and we do have a person who runs that program, but we wouldn’t really need a person to run it. You could totally run it yourself. But essentially, we filter through applications and we find people, we approve people who look like our brand, who already maybe have some of our products.

A lot of our best customers become our affiliates. And they’re given a link to our website, they earn a commission on their products. They earn free products. And then in turn, they genuinely love it. They’re usually already customers, they’re sharing it with their audience. And then it creates a lot of content that I can share, which is really helpful.

So I love seeing how other people style the products. And this affiliate program is great cause it’s very grassroots. It’s like reaching people, we don’t work with massive influencers. Like I’ve worked with a couple and, to me, it’s almost like a commercial. It’s a great form of advertising, but it doesn’t necessarily generate conversion.

It doesn’t always turn into sales. It’s more like brand awareness, which is wonderful. But these more micro level, they’re not even influencers. These are like moms, like these are moms that just love our product and they just want to share with their friends. They generate greater conversion than the bigger influencers in my experience.

Crystal Vilkaitis: The moms are massive influencers. Like, man, they’ve got influence power, that’s for sure. It’s true. And that’s where I feel like with TikTok shops, you could be killing it with these, if these moms you’re convincing me had their shops too. Yes. I feel it would just be, you would just do so well there.

Brianna Cannon: Some of our affiliates are on TikTok and do really well. So I need to do it. There’s always something to be doing.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Right. 

What advice Brianna would give independent retailers about creating their own wholesale line

Crystal Vilkaitis: Okay, let’s talk about wholesale. If there’s any retailer that’s thinking about creating their own line, getting into the wholesale world, what advice would you have for them?

Brianna Cannon: Be ready to work and be ready to work hard. I love wholesale and I think that it is part of what has grown our brand quickly because the most important thing to me is that customers can touch and feel our product. I need people, I need it sitting in stores, so people can touch and feel the product because it’s better.

It’s better in person. Everything’s better in person, or it should be. That has been really necessary for our growth. We love working with strong reach. There are so many great stores. And the amount of customers that have found our brand through it sitting on the shelf in another store is just, so numerous.

It’s not even, I have no idea how many. But it’s hard. It’s hard work. Its very relationship based. Every single store, including my own store, we want what is different. We don’t want what everybody else has. So it’s just a different set of challenges to make sure that every store is happy, every store feels important, every store feels that they’re valued, and also that they’re representing our product the way that we want it to be represented.

So we do provide displays and a lot of things to try to help with the way it’s presented, because I want to protect our brand at the same time, and I want it to be merchandised in the very best way, so we try to provide tools to make that easy. Yeah. I love wholesale. I think it’s awesome, but it is a whole separate beast. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: It really is. I’m very impressed with what you’re juggling because you do have such a strong brand. You have the physical store and e-commerce, like it’s a lot. It’s a beautiful business though, where it’s very well rounded.

We have a podcast interview that’s coming out soon with The Product Boss, Jacqueline, who helps businesses get into wholesale. Did you have any kind of coach like that or program or did you just figure it all out on your own?

Brianna Cannon: No, actually before launching my brand, I had a retail consulting business that I started when I left retail.

Like when I left working in stores, I started a retail consulting business where I was helping retailers. I mean, there’s always something to be learned from other people. Always, of course. And there’s so many people who’ve done this longer than me, but I did feel well equipped to do this.

Brianna’s resilience round

Crystal Vilkaitis: That’s awesome. Yeah, you had some good experience to help get you to that level. Are you ready for the resilience round?

Best business book

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yes, let’s do it. Best business book.

Brianna Cannon: My favorite book’s the Bible. But then after that, I don’t know. I don’t read a lot of business books, but I would say Truett Cathy. He’s the founder of Chick fil A. He has a book called How’d You Do It, Truett? And I love that.

Best retail technology

Crystal Vilkaitis: Awesome. Best retail technology, like an app or software. 

Brianna Cannon: Shopify and Instagram.

How do you keep up with the ever changing retail landscape?

Crystal Vilkaitis: It has to be. Yeah, I agree. How do you keep up with the ever changing retail landscape? 

Brianna Cannon: Being in it hands on. I mean, if you step away or if you’re watching from afar, you’re going to get passed by really quick.

What’s a retail foundational best practice?

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, it’s fast. It’s moving fast. To help retailers be stronger, more rooted in success. What’s a retail foundational best practice? 

Brianna Cannon: Definitely being genuine, authentic with your customers, but also keeping customers first. I’ve seen brands and stores, when you experience a level of success, just feeling like certain things are less important and you can never stop putting the customer’s needs first.

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

Crystal Vilkaitis: I completely agree. If you had to do it all over again, starting from scratch, what’s one thing you would do differently? 

Brianna Cannon: Well, we worked out of our house for about four years, and that was a beating. Maybe focusing on moving towards a physical store and a warehouse, and maybe not working in our house for so long.

But, doing that made us also able to open such a beautiful store and a warehouse and it set us up for financial success and sticking it out through those tough years. So, I don’t know if I’d change it, but it sure wasn’t enjoyable. 

What do you think the future of independent retail looks like?

Crystal Vilkaitis: That’s tough. That is definitely tough. Finally, what do you think the future of independent retail looks like? 

Brianna Cannon: Oh, I think independent retail is growing and stronger than it’s maybe ever been. I think that everyone wants to support small and shop local and support independent retailers. I think that it’s the best time to be an independent retailer.

I think it’s actually very tough to be more big bucks right now. So I think independent retailers, as long as you’re leveraging all the things that exist, the opportunities are really endless for growth. I think everyone loves shopping independent right now. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: I so agree. Brianna, how can people learn more and connect with you?

Brianna Cannon: Instagram is my favorite platform. So @briannacannonofficial on Instagram and then our website is just briannacannon.com. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Brianna, I love this conversation. You’re so inspiring. You’re going to inspire a lot of retailers. So, thank you so much for being here and sitting down. Thank you. Thank you to the Dallas market center for having us and everyone. Remember that I am rooting for your success. Have a great week ahead. 

Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. Don’t forget to join the Rise and Shine newsletter, which is social media news. You need to know sent via email every Monday morning, go to crystalmediaco.com/rise to join. And don’t miss the newest episode of Rooted in Retail, which drops every Sunday morning.