Reflecting on 2023 and Looking Forward to 2024

Crystal Vilkaitis

In this episode of Rooted in Retail, I want to say thank you. I want to share my wishes for you for 2024. Looking ahead, do a really quick high level recap of some of the things that I saw while I’ve been traveling all over the country and world this year, talking to retailers. I’m going to share the top five Rooted in Retail episodes with you so far today, as I’m recording this and a couple of things to get excited for as we look ahead to 2024 for Rooted in Retail.

So let’s dive in.

Welcome to Rooted in Retail, the show that’s dedicated to helping independent retailers thrive in today’s ever evolving retail landscape. I’m your host, Crystal Vilkaitis, and I’m thrilled to have you join me weekly as we explore topics that are vital to the success of your store from marketing to mindset.

Money to merchandising sales to leadership will cover it all. Each episode features interviews with industry experts and accomplished retailers who share their real life insights and actionable advice. Get ready for a great conversation on how to build your dream business with Rooted in Retail.

I’m solo here today. It is the last episode of 2023, which is just crazy. As I’m filming this, it’s the end of November. So we still have one more month to go in the year, which I’m grateful for because I feel like this year just flew by. This was one of the best years that I have had at crystal media.

I’ve had the company for 11 years and this possibly was, was the best. I had the opportunity to speak at 18 different shows, connect with so many retailers in person and do this show Rooted in Retail. Oh my goodness. I love doing this show. We have had some great conversations and as I’ve been traveling so much more this year, I’ve got to talk to a lot of retailers who tell me I love Rooted in Retail.

You all mean the world to me

Crystal Vilkaitis: And can I just tell you what that means to me? The fact that you listen, that you show up here, when you write reviews or share the show. Those two things are the best things that you could do for me. If you ever found value out of Rooted in Retail. And you can leave reviews, multiple reviews for like multiple episodes.

 When I’m reading those reviews, when I’m hearing from you in person and you’re just saying how much you love the show, it means the world to me because as you can imagine, if you do a podcast, I know some of our retailers podcast, it’s a lot of work to do this show, to find good guests and come up with good questions and produce the show and the whole editing and marketing.

Crystal Vilkaitis: So much behind the scenes that happens here. And I feel like we’re just beginning. Like the vision I have for the show is really exciting. We’re going to be doing some more in person recordings. We did some of those this year at the Las Vegas market. We’re going to be doing one in January, at the Dallas market which is going to be really cool.

The most talked about episodes this year

Crystal Vilkaitis: And I’ve got some plans for some more live recordings throughout the year. I just love doing the show. Hearing from people who love it too, I’ve heard people say how much they loved Matt Harris’s episode, The Pearl Expert. We’ll link to these ones that I’m mentioning here.

If you haven’t listened to them yet, you’re going to want to. Honestly, I think you should listen to every single Rooted episode. there’s just so much gold in each of them where I feel just so honored that my guests deliver so much value that they do. 

But Matt Harris, we talked about sales. He’s got some really great stories. And Matt is a friend of mine. We’re in the same mastermind. And we were at an event last week together or last month together. And I was like, Matt, I just think you should speak at evolve. He’s got such incredible experience worked at a jeweler for many years, worked for Warner Brothers stores, was responsible for opening stores, just a ton of retail background.

And he’s going to be speaking at evolve now. So I’m so excited for his topic, but people have specifically called out his session. 

Pete Moore was somebody that I’ve heard from people as I’m out and about at conferences that loved his. We talked about systems and processes and Pete is a shoe retailer and a retailer coach, and they love his episode.

Beth Rich was another one. Also, that was one of my personal favorites, really hard to pick favorites. Cause I love all of these conversations, but with Beth, you know she does over 70 events per year and has significantly grown her store mix it up in just four years. And so the things she shared was like, Whoa, I felt like she’s so pulling back the curtain.

If you ever want to be a fly on the wall of a successful retailer, this is happening on that episode. Like it’s such good information, Beth there’s also speaking at evolve, by the way.

Those were some of the highlights of people specifically calling out guests that they’ve just loved. 

Top 5 Episodes of Rooted In Retail

Now the top five, and if you haven’t listened to these, you have to go back.

Number one. Dane Cohen with management one when we talked about inventory management, which is critical to a retail operation, a retail store, you’ve got to have inventory management. Love that day was number one. That was such a good conversation. 

Number two, planning for holidays, strong concepts, storytelling, and wow moments with Michelle Sherrier of the retail whore podcast and MC design collab. 

We love Michelle because she also was number three with All Things Visual: Creating a Merchandising Moment with Michelle Sherrier. Michelle, her brain, how it works and how she can come up with these concepts and she really knows the trends and she can just make these beautiful in store displays. She gives such great tips. If you’re not following her show, you definitely should be. She’s the retail whore. I’ve been on a couple of times, but love seeing her in the top five. 

Four was an evolve replay that we did. The most human brand wins with Mark Schaefer. One of my personal favorites as well, Mark delivered an epic keynote topic at evolve 2023. And it was just so good that I took it and put it on Rooted in Retail. So if you haven’t listened to that, you’re going to want to listen to it. Cause it’s all about really pulling the human side of your brand to the forefront and how independence, local businesses, you have the advantage over big boxes because you have you. It’s a really inspiring talk. And it’s also funny. I think you’ll laugh and enjoy it. 

And then finally we have social media transformation, overcoming fear and resistance for your business with Michelle Smith. Michelle is one of our scale clients. One of our retailers we work with Piccolo Mondo toys, love Michelle. And she’s just had this massive transformation over the years that I’ve got to witness. She never was on social media before meeting us and now she’s crushing it doing toy talk Tuesdays and live streaming and very much showing her personality through her reels and her posts and she’s crushing it.

And we talk about it in that episode. So I, out of my, out of five here, the top five, three of them are Michelle’s, which is really funny. But. Tune in we’ll link to all those. So it’s easy for you to access, but those were our top five. 

I thank you so much for listening to this show. 

Be a Guest on Rooted in Retail or Request a Guest

Crystal Vilkaitis: Please, if you want to be a guest, if you have a guest request crystalmediaco.com/guest is where you could send people to fill that out, or you could fill it out. If you’ve got a story to tell, the biggest thing is that if you can add value to retailer listeners through your story or tip or something you’re doing, or someone you know that just so fascinating or inspiring and can teach our audience. The more amazing people like we have on the show, the more rich the show is. 

And it’s my goal to create a free resource for retailers to help build your business. And there’s only so many people I know, you know, more, and you know, you too, you might have this incredible story. So apply to be a guest. 

We have really Epic episodes already recorded for January and February going into February. I can’t wait. I just can’t wait for you to listen. Really love doing the show.

My wishes for you in 2024

Crystal Vilkaitis: I want to share my wishes for you, because like I said, I have been all over the place speaking and talking to retailers, and there is something that is just so consistent, and I’ve talked about this on the show before,

In 2024 you have the courage to take your business where you want to take it.

Crystal Vilkaitis: where we have this fear of putting ourselves out there, or we are limiting ourselves, or we’re making excuses.

There’s so much resistance to going next level, putting ourself out there, growing our business, going all in, betting on ourselves, playing a bigger game. I’ve seen it at almost every single show I’ve been to with multiple people. I’ve had retailers crying because I say things that really resonate with them and I know where they’re at and I’ve been there as a small business owner of playing a smaller game and holding myself back.

My wishes for you is that in 2024 you have the courage to take your business where you want to take it. 

I hope that you find clarity on what success really truly looks like for you

Crystal Vilkaitis: Wherever and however success looks like for you, everyone’s version of success looks different. And we can sometimes compare ourselves to other people’s success and feel like we’re not doing enough or we don’t equal, we don’t measure up or, we’re not good enough.

Or we have an illusion of what it should be, but it’s not based on any data or real information. We might have this pull to create this business that actually gives us this incredible balance, work life balance. And that might mean scaling back or hiring and betting on ourselves and our teams to free your time up.

Whatever that version of success looks like for you, it might be multiple stores that you want to have. You might want to have this. Big brand. You might want to be the biggest next e com brand. You might just want to be the talk of your town and just be really integrated from a community perspective.

You might want to close your store. You might want to do something different. I know a lot of retailers that become reps or reps become retailers or work for vendors. There’s a lot of different crossover there. I just hope for you that you find that clarity on what success really truly looks like for you and you have the courage to make it happen because it doesn’t come from confidence.

You have to just have the courage to take the next step

Crystal Vilkaitis: It comes from courage and we will sit there and we’ll wait until we feel confident to do something. And that’s where resistance comes in. And whether this is feeling confident of marketing and using social and putting ourself out there, or feeling confident of opening another location, or feeling confident of changing our entire brand and like going in a different direction, or feeling confident in making a complete life change and pivot and, just doing a whole new thing, you’re never going to feel confident because you don’t know what you don’t know.

You have to just have the courage, and you take the step, and you take the step, and we learn from the unknown. We learn from the uncomfortability of it all. That’s where the magic happens, is putting ourself in an uncomfortable position. And that is my wish to you, that you have the courage, and that you find that clarity of what success looks like, and then you stick to it.

You have that consistency. You’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to show up for yourself. However, that looks for your business, for your team, for your customers, for your community consistently. And so that’s my wish is courage and consistency and also some balance. 

I hope you find balance in your life and work

Crystal Vilkaitis: I know that we can be a little off balanced, a small business owners.

And I think when we find some of that balance in our life, we can just be better business owners and it’s better on our health. And that’s why I did a whole month in October around burnout, because I just think it’s really critical that we know about burnout. We know we have the tools to support us. So we don’t burn out because it can be hard to come back from.

So I’m just wishing you the balancing and courage and consistency and clarity and ultimate success and so much love and so much joy. 

I love doing this show. Like I said, I love having you be here. It means the world to me that you spend your time listening to the show. It really does mean a lot. So I want to make that valuable to you.

Looking forward to 2024 Rooted in Retail After the Show

Crystal Vilkaitis: And one thing that we’re doing in 2024 is we are doing after the show. I’m having people vote on this right now in our Facebook group. If you didn’t know, we have a Facebook group for Rooted in Retail listeners. So go join that. You could search on Facebook, Rooted in Retail and become a member.

I’m in there. I’m chatting with our retailers. We’re asking about wins and gratitudes and questions around that week’s episode. And it’s just really an awesome group of people in there. And so it’s either going to be Tuesday or Wednesday evening, and I’m going to jump on for 30 minutes and we’re going to talk about that week’s episode.

We’re going to go deeper on something. I might even have the guests join me after the show. You can ask questions. This is going to be a live stream event. So I hope that you can join live, ask questions, share your takeaways. And it’s my goal that we just have a lot of fun on these weekly calls. 

Like we get to hang out together live every week after the show and get deeper on the topics and just geek out about all the retail things and whatever the topic is that week. So I hope you can join me for those be on the lookout. We’ll announce after the shows on social and on this podcast and all that. So you shouldn’t miss it, but join the Facebook group.

That would be one of the best places for you to get information there. 

More in-person filming

Crystal Vilkaitis: And like I said, we’re going to try to do some more in person filming, whether it’s at conferences I’m speaking at or markets it’s my dream to have my own studio where people come in and film and maybe even fly in, or maybe I’m going to bigger cities and sitting down with people and maybe that’s you if you know of studios, you have a studio, anything like that let me know, DM me either on Crystal Media’s Instagram or Crystal Vilkaitis’s Instagram.

But I really love sitting down in person. I think that we create better conversations that way, and I’m really looking to explore that more in 2024. I think that will help you as the viewer to just create even better content than what we’re already creating. 

Oasis of Opportunity Retreat

Crystal Vilkaitis: And another thing that’s happening in 2024 that is not podcast related, but I do want to share it here to my rooted listeners, because you might be somebody who would find a lot of help and fulfillment out of something we’re doing at Crystal Media, we are doing a very intimate retreat called the Oasis of Opportunity.

It’s in Palm Springs, February 18th and 19th. And we’re only allowing 12 people to go to this. You’re going to work one to one with me, which I never do. I don’t work with anybody one to one. So this is very special. My team is going to be there to Steph and Pauline. Steph does our social media. You’ll get to learn from her.

Pauline’s my COO. You can learn from her as well with systems processes, things like that. Really intimate connection, an amazing group. And so if you want to join us, you can go to crystalmediaco.com/oasis and learn more about it there. And then you can apply. Because it’s so intimate and such a special container we are creating, you have to apply to go to this.

But if this is something like you want, you need help find that clarity, like I talked about that you’re trying to find and really get clear if there’s roadblocks that’s holding you back, like you’re willing to really open up and be vulnerable and think big, then this would be a really good event for you to attend.

And a really personal one, I would love to just spend more time. I’m just so excited to spend more time with our retailers. So again, crystalmediaco.com/Oasis, and we’ll link to that. 

I am wishing you an incredible 2024.

Crystal Vilkaitis: I am wishing you an incredible 2024. Here’s the deal. 24 is my lucky number. So I already feel like this is going to be an epic year.

There’s so much talk in the news about the economy and inflation, and it’s going to be a, here in the States, we’re going to have an election year, and so it’s going to be crazy, but can we just be here together? Our rooted group, we can be rooted in love and education and growth mindsets and abundant mindsets, not scarcity mindsets.

It’s all about how we choose to handle situations and choose to think and about perception and perspective. And I want us to have this container where we are here to provide for our customers and our community and show up for each other. So I’m here for you. I would love for you to be in that group and have that same kind of mentality too.

And again, the Facebook group’s a really great place for you to be. And then I hope you tune in every Sunday and I hope to see you on the live after the show. Let’s have an incredible 2024 together. And I am just so rooting for your success. I will see you next year. Have a great week ahead. Bye.

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 crystal media, co. com slash rise to join. And don’t miss the newest episode of Rooted in Retail, which drops every Sunday morning.