Creative Shop Talk with Wendy Batten

Do you ever feel like you resent your business? What do we do to continue to stay in love with our business? How do we get back to the honeymoon phase?

In this week's episode, I talk about resenting our business. I know this past year has been eye-opening. One of the things I discuss is the importance of being intentional about the business that we have and figuring out what we want from it. If we resent it, if we burn out, if we just try to do all the things all the time, we cannot grow our business. We need to take back our calendars and have systems, marketing, and processes in place.

If you want to take back your calendars and stop resenting your business, I want to invite you to join The Retailer's Inner Circle, a custom-made online community made for creative shop owners looking to learn and grow their business. Inside the Inner Circle you will find valuable resources that will help you fall back in love with your business. This is not a course. We offer a community & resources for retailers just like you! Click here to learn more.

I also want to let you know that this is our last podcast for this first season. I can't believe we have done a year of podcasting and I'm so grateful for everybody that has been here. I am sending you all the love and good vibes so you can stop resenting your business and start seeing your business grow. I'm here to support you in any way so you can get back into loving your business and finding that right path. Please remember to reach out. It is my mission to help creative shop owners feel better about their business. You can find me at WendyBatten.com.

This week on the Creative Shop Talk Podcast:

• Resenting our business
• How to fall back in love with your business
• Burning out
• Vision planning
• Importance of visualizing
• Understanding where we're going
• Taking back our calendars
• Personal development
• How to be vulnerable
• Firing yourself
• Asking for help

Our sponsor:

Online Course: Retail Made Simple - The Success Path for Creative Shop Owners

This is a four-week online program designed by and for creative shop owners. In this program, you will get the information and resources you need to simplify and lay the foundation for your creative retail business so you can get it going and growing.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

Welcome to 2021! I'm very excited about this year. How are you feeling? I hope you are feeling optimistic and confident about diving into 2021.

I want to thank each and everyone who joined me on December, 30th in my Rockstar Creative Retailers and Shop Owners Group on Facebook to discuss my four-part series Plan Your Best Retail Year Ever. I loved the questions and enthusiasm from everyone.

In this week's episode, I share four must-have ingredients that every creative retailer needs for a successful business in 2021. I also discuss some major shifts that we are seeing in the retail industry. One of the foundational ingredients I talk about is being a CEO. Often retailers just want to own a business and forget everything that entails. Being the CEO of your creative business presents you with a lot of benefits. Other ingredients I shared are being money savvy, being streamlined, and efficient. I also discuss how marketing and sales help creative retailers grow their businesses.

Have you joined My Inner Circle yet? This is a monthly group, one-of-a-kind community for select retailers only. Click here to join the experience combining coaching, training, and community support led by me, Wendy Batten.

We are in a niche of caring about people and caring about their success. I want you to be successful. So, I invite you to take some time, sit down, and think about what you can improve in 2021, where you can get more training, what goals you want to achieve this new year, and how do you feel about those four ingredients. In my Retail Made Simple - The Success Path for Creative Shop Owners we go over these four must-have skills in more depth. This incredible online program starts in just a few more days. Register now by clicking here.

This week on the Creative Shop Talk Podcast:

• Four must-have ingredients for a successful business
• Retail industry trends
• Our customers
• How our businesses are affecting our lives
• Being money savvy
• Understanding your numbers
• Ideal customer avatar
• Five pillar marketing strategy

Our sponsor:

Online Course: Retail Made Simple - The Success Path for Creative Shop Owners

This is a four-week online program designed by and for creative shop owners. In this program, you will get the information and resources you need to simplify and lay the foundation for your creative retail business so you can get it going and growing.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

Are you excited about planning your best retail year ever? Listen to this my friends: we need to celebrate the wins and acknowledge that we've been working hard throughout 2020.

In Episode 40, we talked about looking back and how to move forward by looking at what worked and what didn't work. Later on, in Episode 41, we discussed how an ideal 2021 would look like to us. Last week, in Episode 42, which was our third part of our series, we talked about what we needed to do to get where we want to be.

This week's episode is the last part of our "Plan Your Best Retail Year Ever" series. I'm sharing two things you need to know when planning out for 2021: how to put all the pieces together and how to build to move forward. We will identify how you can reach your goals and what you need to do to step out of your comfort zone. We're wrapping up the end of the year and you must end it strong.

Have you already started planning out 2021? Do you have questions or do you need guidance in any of the parts? Join my free Rock Star Creatives Facebook group. I'm hosting a coaching session and will talk about the four-part planning process on Thursday, December 30th. You don't want to miss it.

Also, I have a big surprise for everyone on the waitlist for my Retail Made Simple - The Success Path for Creative Shop Owners. A new session of this four-week online program starts in January and registration is now open (click here). This course was designed to simplify the business side of running a creative business and help retailers get their business going and growing.

This week on the Creative Shop Talk Podcast:

• Planning your best retail year ever
• Putting all the pieces together
• Stepping out of our comfort zone
• Personal development skills
• Understanding cash flow
• Marketing is not just social media
• The domino effect
• Hiring a coach

Online Course: Retail Made Simple - The Success Path for Creative Shop Owners

This is a four-week online program designed by and for creative shop owners. In this program, you will get the information and resources you need to simplify and lay the foundation for your creative retail business so you can get it going and growing.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

Previously, we discussed five prompts for year planning in Part 1 of my "Plan Your Best Retail Year Ever" series. These helped us to look back before we can move forward. In part 2, we talked about three prompts that help retail business owners plan for 2021. These three prompts are related to our numbers and finances.

In this week's episode, Part 3 of the series, we are going to talk about what we need to do to get where we want to go. How do we get customers?

I discuss different ways you can make money and how to put a simple marketing plan in place. Budgeting doesn't have to be difficult if you have all the information you need, so I also share tips on how you can budget by quarter.

I know we talk a lot about managing money and planning for 2021 in these episodes, and you might have a lot of questions and doubts. I want to help your business grow. I'm excited to announce that I am hosting a free session inside my Facebook group Rock Star Creatives on December 30th to answer all your questions about this series. This group is a free and safe space where creative shop owners hang out and share business insights and tips.

If you would like to learn at a deeper level, you can join my Retail Made Simple workshop that starts next month. When you enroll in the course, you will learn and understand not just the process of planning a whole new year but how the retail business works.

This week on the Creative Shop Talk Podcast:

• What do we need as business owners
• Brain dump all your different revenue streams
• Different ways of making money
• Add eCommerce to your current website to generate more revenue
• Breaking it down
• How to budget
• Setting goals for ourselves
• How to get things done

Online Course: Retail Made Simple

It's a four-week course that I run every January for retailers to help them uncomplicate all the business stuff.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

We can't predict if we will have any more bumps in the road in 2021. 2020 has been a big mountain and detour for all of us, but at least we know where we're headed.

Everybody has been asking, how do we plan out 2021? Throughout 2020, many independent retailers are thriving. And that's fantastic. We all want to succeed. But before making plans for the future, we must look back at how our current year was. Previously, we discussed five prompts for year planning in Part 1 of my "Plan Your Best Year Ever" series - Episode 40 of The Creative Shop Talk Podcast last week.

In this week's episode, Part 2 of my "Plan Your Best Retail Year Ever" series, we are going to talk about looking forward. To do so, I share three prompts that will help you plan for 2021. What do you want the new year to look like? We talk about revenue and the importance of understanding how to read our financials. I also describe the process of breaking-even. Inside my Retail Made Simple course that starts in January 2021, you could learn more about finances as we talk about the topic in depth.

I want you to make enough money into this retail business. Let's start planning. Let's make life possible. You can join my retailer's Inner Circle for networking with other like-minded retailers.

• Planning for 2021
• 3 prompts for planning 2021
• Where do we want to go
• What would make us feel good
• Knowing your numbers
• What revenue do you need to get to where you want
• What do you want to be known for in your community
• Creating a marketing plan to feed in revenue

Online Course: Retail Made Simple

It's a four-week course that I run every January for retailers to help them uncomplicate all the business stuff.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

How do we plan for 2021 knowing that we don't want a repeat of everything that happened in 2020? With vaccines and political changes and all the things that have been going on in the world throughout this year, we're going to see a different climate again in 2021. So, how do we plan for that? How do we know what to do?

We all know that it's been a rough year. But what were the feel-good moments? What are you most proud of that happened in 2020?

In this week's episode, we're going to talk about planning out our 2021 and how to start planning for a new year. I'm going to have a four-part series through the month of December where I help you through the whole process of planning out the year in simple bite-sized steps. We also discuss how Susanne Spence Wilkins, the owner of Crazy 8 Barn & Garden, dropped a major revenue stream that made her profits go up.

I also share how my five prompts for year planning helped a client move forward into her 2021 planning. I'll be doing it inside my retailer's Inner Circle as well with my members.

• How do we plan for 2021
• 5 prompts for planning for a new year
• Celebrate and look at the good things that happen
• Look at your monthly numbers
• Identify what worked and what didn't and what felt light
• Looking at the present
• What do we need to do more of

Our sponsor:

Online Course: Retail Made Simple

It's a four-week course that I run every January for retailers to help them uncomplicate all the business stuff.

Subscribe, Connect & Share Your Favorite Episodes

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Creative Shop Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave your honest review. For more great content and helpful tips to grow your creative retail shop, visit our website. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and don't forget to share your favorite episodes with other creative retailers.

Bedsprings and Burlap in Topeka, KS will celebrate 8 years in business this November.

Jill Beam had always loved making things but realized there was only so much she could make for herself and friends or family.

Jill was a full-time teacher when she started the business and worked it as a small hobby hustle for four years. She consistently put money back into the business and bootstrapped as she went along.

Drawing on her years of teaching experience, Jill has made it her mission to be truly kind and encouraging to build her customer community.

Now Jill offers a variety of painted furniture, interesting products, and classes to offer her customers what they want while also maintaining profitable revenue streams.

Listen in to get truly inspired by Jill's journey. I promise, it is an incredibly relatable one.

Meet Jill and other amazing retailers in the Rockstar Creatives FB community!

Topics Discussed:

• The importance of making your business partnership legal
• How to build an incredibly supportive customer community
• The ways that Jill got creative to keep business moving during the pandemic
• How Jill works to assess a new product line to add to her offerings

• Bedsprings and Burlap - https://bedspringsandburlap.com/
• FB - @bedspringsandburlap
• IG - @bedspringsandburlap

Join our Rockstar Creative Shop Owners Facebook Community

Are you liking the podcast and finding value from the content? I'd love it if you would share your review and give me feedback!

• IG @frontporchmercantile
• FB @wendybattenpaintpreneur

Hey friend, are you feeling frustrated by your low Facebook engagement or wondering how to showcase that amazing new stock when foot traffic is slow?

I've got the solution, and it is an absolute must-do for retailers of any size!

Today, we're talking about how important using email is to remain top of mind for your customers and keep serving them to the best of your ability.

So many of the retailers that I work with resist the idea of using email to communicate with their customers. They feel sleazy, or like they are going to bug people.

I'm here to tell you that this is not true. If your emails are useful, valuable, interesting, and helpful they will be opened.

What can you send that you're excited about and you can't wait to share with your customers? Think about it just as you would engaging and interacting with someone that comes into your store.

And if you haven't started building your list, start now. Don't beat yourself up about it, just get moving.

Now is a great time to remind people that you are a small, independent retailer. You are still here and part of their community, many people are looking to shop local this season.

This is your time to shine and make money during the holiday peek! Start mining gold from your email list by providing incredible value to your loyal fans.

So, grab a coffee and listen up, the full episode has all the details on how to do email right for retail.

So, my friend, are you using email to communicate? Come talk with us in the Rockstar Creatives FB community and let us know what's working or where we can help!

Topics Discussed:

• The importance of communicating with customers
• If you are not emailing customers you're leaving money on the table
• The types of information to send in your emails beyond just "buy my stuff"
• How often to send communications now through the holidays.

Looking for a small but mighty community of retailers to help you take your business to the next level? We only have three spots remaining in the 2021 Mastermind program, you can apply to become part of this amazing group here.

Join our Rockstar Creative Shop Owners Facebook Community

Are you liking the podcast and finding value from the content? I'd love it if you would share your review and give me feedback!

• IG @frontporchmercantile
• FB @wendybattenpaintpreneur

Sharvette began her journey as a branding expert at a friend's table about twelve years ago.

What started with web design has grown into a successful, multifaceted business helping female entrepreneurs to build online platforms so that they generate more revenue with an amazing personal brand.

She works with clients on visibility and marketing with one on one consulting, group coaching programs, web design services, social media coaching, and conferences.

As retailers, we so often provide a high-touch service for our customers. Sharvette explains how personal branding, storytelling, and cohesive experience help to make your business more liked and trusted in your customer's mind.

I'm so excited for you to drink in Sharvette's expertise and advice for artists and small retailers! Dive in to learn how to harness the power of branding to create cohesive, stellar experiences for your customers.

You can snag Sharvette's free Website Planner here: http://websiteplanner.biz/

So, my friend, how does your retail business use branding to shine? Share how you use branding in your own business in the Rockstar Creatives FB community!

Topics Discussed:

• How branding goes beyond just a good logo
• How to use branding to marry in-person and online experiences
• The importance of personal branding if you're a small retailer or artist
• A few important aspects of getting your website to look its best

Sharvette Mitchell - www.SharvetteMitchell.com

FB - @MitchellProductions

IG - @sharvettem

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sharvette

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/Sharvette

Retailer Shout Out

Collective Interiors - https://www.collectiveinteriorsnc.com/

FB - @collectiveinteriorsnc

IG - @collectiveinteriorsnc

Join our Rockstar Creative Shop Owners Facebook Community

Are you liking the podcast and finding value from the content? I'd love it if you would share your review and give me feedback!

• IG @frontporchmercantile
• FB @wendybattenpaintpreneur

Emily of Milkmaid Creations and Antiques is a farmer's wife and mom to three little girls.

She started her retail business after leaving her corporate job to be home more with her growing family. She's owned her business for over three years, where she sells antiques, home decor, custom painted furniture, and working to reintroduce DIY classes.

In the past year, Emily has hired an employee and a babysitter to help focus and hone in on growing her business.

When the pandemic hit, she took the time to get a website up and running, and made a major pivot to hosting online sales.

Listen to the ways that Emily has taken control of her business by digging deep into her numbers, surpassed last year's sales, and was able to reach a big goal that has majorly paid off in her business!

I hope you're feeling inspired. Come meet other amazing, creative retailers like Emily in the Rockstar Creatives FB community!

Topics Discussed:

• How Emily got started in her retail business
• The tactics that Emily has used to understand how to best take charge of the CEO of her business
• How starting small and slowly growing helped Emily stay focused on the right-sized stage of her business

Milkmaid Creations and Antiques - https://milkmaid.commentsold.com/

FB - @milkmaidcreationsantiques

IG - @milkmaidca

Join our Rockstar Creative Shop Owners Facebook Community

Are you liking the podcast and finding value from the content? I'd love it if you would share your review and give me feedback!

• IG @frontporchmercantile
• FB @wendybattenpaintpreneur