The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices

Welcome back to my analysis of the 2021 Resilient Retail Product Business Survey.

Last weeks episode was all about the numbers, and hopefully, you were able to draw inspiration from some of my key takeaways and use the statistics I shared to help you benchmark whereabouts your business currently stands and what you can do to help it grow. In today’s episode, we take a look at one of the most important elements of running a small product business - marketing!  Marketing is a subject that I’ve discovered can cause a lot of stress to small business owners - many founders report being concerned over how to best approach showcasing and sharing their goods with potential customers, and with so many different avenues of outreach and audience engagement it can be tough working out where to begin. So in Episode 35 of the Resilient Retail Game Plan, I’ll be looking at where people are selling their products, how much they’re spending on getting them in front of people and how this all affects turnover. We’ll look at the power of social media and discuss which platforms see the most success; the correlation between time invested and sales made; and whether businesses are effectively leveraging email marketing and paid advertising.

Get your copy of the report at www.resilientretailclub.com/survey

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

I’m excited to announce that this episode marks the start of my deep-dive into the long-awaited results of my recent product business survey. There’s a number of reasons I wanted to run a survey, partly to see whether certain patterns had changed since my 2019 study, but namely, it’s because there aren’t many benchmarks out there that convey the true reality of running a product business. It’s easy to get disheartened, or misled, by a lot of the messaging aimed at small businesses, so it’s with the information kindly provided to me by over 300 respondents that I hope to give you some useful statistics and a clearer picture of the world in which you work. We’ll look at everything from conversion rates to what selling channels are most popular, as well as the mix of roles and products that make up people's businesses. I also review the importance of taking into account the age of a business in relation to things like turnover and how paying yourself is possible if you just commit to it!  Get your copy of the report at www.resilientretailclub.com/survey

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

Today’s episode was requested by one of our listeners, and the challenges it speaks to are something we’ve touched on in previous episodes - it’s a question that I’ve heard many times from Small Business Owners - to paraphrase - “How do you make life easier for yourself when you’re wearing so many different hats?” I’ve had many conversations with creatives, makers and retailers, just like you, that are actually scared of promoting their businesses because of the impact a flurry of sales, and their subsequent fulfilment, has on the demands of the rest of their business, such as marketing and social media. This is actually a good indicator that you’re at a stage where you can grow the business, so it’s in episode 33 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan that I want to give you my tips for staying sane and on top of everything during those sales peaks and periods of growth. We’ll discuss the importance of focusing on consistency rather than quantity when it comes to marketing and sales platforms, and we’ll get realistic about our time constraints and the value of reviewing and prioritising our tasks as well as elongating time-scales where necessary. We’ll also cover the disruption caused by ‘context switching’ and distractions as well as identifying the biggest time-sucks that might need external support. Just a little reminder to grab a brew and take 5 mins to complete my small business questionnaire of 2021! ⠀⠀⠀ https://www.resilientretailclub.com/survey⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ It's so important that our voices get counted, and that we have accurate data on what it's like to be a small product business owner. When the results are in, we’ll have some accurate benchmarks that no other data provides, and you can fact check those against wildly unrealistic claims you see out there and see how you're REALLY doing.

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

Finally, the roadmap for lifting the current (and hopefully final) lockdown in England has been laid out and there’s plenty to review, analyse and dissect. With non-essential businesses being given the green light to reopen on April 12th there’s a lot of things to consider - whether that’s pivoting from online sales to shifting your focus back to your physical store or trying to get your head around the new post-Brexit EU shipping regulations. It’s been a tough start to the year in general for retail, but projections suggest there’s cause for some optimism moving forward into 2021. In episode 32 of The Resilient Retail Game plan, I run through what we do know about the conditions set out by the government relating to retail, the questions that remain and the themes and forces that are shaping the industry in 2021. We’ll discuss how the £125 billion pounds currently held in savings could translate to strong consumer spending once things return to normality; I’ll cover the relief packages, grants and assistance available to help you with reopening and covering your rates; and I’ll also detail how the growing desire for consumers to support small, independent and local businesses should see retailers like you secure a bigger piece of the consumer spending pie. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

A Break-Even Analysis is an indispensable tool for businesses of every shape and size, and reaping its benefits only requires inputting a few simple figures, pulled from your outgoings and income, to help you better understand where your business is and what you need to do to take it forward. I know going over the numbers may not be the most exhilarating part of running your business, but it’s imperative that you know what it takes to keep everything running and what your levels of profitability are if you want to be able to cover your costs and pay yourself. In episode 31 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I break down Break-Even Analysis. We'll cover the simple and effective equations required to help you get a handle on your profits margins as well as identifying the vital difference between product costs and overheads, and how growing your average profitability doesn't always have to mean generating more orders. By the end of this episode, you should have a better idea of what's coming in and going out of your business and will be able to use that all-important information to set yourself the sort of targets that will help you and your business thrive.

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

Firstly, a quick PSA - The Resilient Retail Game Plan has hit 10,000 downloads! Thank you so much to all of you that have, and continue to tune in - your listenership is hugely appreciated!

Now, as I discussed back in episode 12, I’m a passionate advocate when it comes to the subject of paying yourself from your creative product business. Whether it’s a monthly allowance, an annual bonus or something as simple as buying yourself a delicious cup of coffee, I believe you should be committing yourself to setting a specific salary goal that’s achievable and non-negotiable. The last year has been rough for retail, but that doesn’t mean you can’t reward yourself for all your hard work.

In episode 30 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I detail the key points you need to grasp to help make your salary aspirations a reality. We’ll cover the importance of understanding your business’s profitability and how setting a sales plan will help you set realistic wage targets - and we’ll also look at controlling and reviewing your expenses so you can be as prepared and profitable as possible.

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

The Trading Mentality is an approach that is prevalent within the inner workings of some of the worlds biggest retailers. It’s an ideology that harks back to the days of market stall trading, with the message at its core being to “always be dissatisfied”. This mantra has been used as a tool to motivate businesses to pursue relentless sales growth and to endlessly maximise their profits, which is why the concept has become somewhat synonymous with some of the more ruthless and cutthroat business practices of retailers like Philip Green of the currently struggling Arcadia Group. It might then seem that assuming a trading mentality would be antithetical to the goals and direction of a small purpose-led business - but that’s not the case! Companies like Patagonia and Lush are two great examples of businesses with strongly held beliefs as well as having a strong trading mentality -for them, the two approaches work and support each other in tandem. So, in episode 29 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I want to discuss why the trading mentality is relevant to you, how it can help you think about your business differently and help you grow. We’ll break down what actually constitutes having a trading mentality and what it means for the ways we plan, review and react to changes in the marketplace; and I’ll cover how if we want to push for positive change in the retail industry that we should be focussing on establishing a strong ‘triple bottom line’ of people, planet and profits.

To reserve your place on the free online Stock Management course mentioned in this episode, please head to http://www.resilientretailclub.com/stock

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

From eBay to Etsy and Stripe to Paypal, there are a hundred different options when it comes to selling your creative products online and getting paid, and it seems a new sales platform or marketplace pops up every week - so where do you start and how do you know which platform is right for you and your business? In episode 28 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I cover the benefits and pitfalls of some of the most popular third party selling services, the importance of having your own web presence and how to get your priorities in order when it comes to getting your products in front of people. We’ll look at the power of leveraging social media to help kicks things off for those just starting out and how to make sure that you’re putting your time and money to the best possible use when It comes to generating traffic and sales - and I’ll give you my recommendations for what I believe are the most robust e-commerce platforms that will give you the analytics and scalability that you need to help grow your business. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify

Postage and packaging is one of those funny issues that you don’t really have to grapple with until you have to do it yourself - but as a creative product business, receiving an item is probably the first experience a customer will have with you and your products, so ensuring that the delivery experience is good, and that you make a good first impression, is almost as important as the product itself.

In episode 27 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I want to break down the nuts and bolts of P&P so that you can streamline the process of getting your items out to your customers and avoid the pitfalls of material costs and abandoned online shopping carts. We’ll start by looking at packaging and the importance of the unboxing experience, as well as how to test the safety and security of your packaging options and how to ensure those materials aren’t undercutting your profits - and we’ll look at how to underpromise and overdeliver on postage, where we can use statistics like average order values to help set smart postage limits to encourage people to move all the way through the checkout experience and make that all-important purchase.

Mentioned in this episode:

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With a lot of people struggling to juggle life, work, homeschooling, side-hustles, relatives and self-care right now, I want to spend episode 26 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan on my six steps to being more productive. I’m a self-professed productivity nerd and am always looking at ways I can tweak and better manage the needs of my business as well as my own. 

The best place to start is to be realistic - being productive is as much about how you feel as it is about your business processes and you can’t focus when you’re overwhelmed and anxious.

So, we’ll start by freeing up some mental space by getting your tasks down on paper (or an app) and out of your head, so you can start prioritising tasks by urgency and importance and blocking them out into achievable time slots. We’ll also discuss identifying how you work best and how to work better so you’re firing on all cylinders for those high-focus tasks without the inference of all of today's modern distractions. And we’ll look at the importance of creating clarity in the following days, weeks and months by planning ahead, being kind to yourself and remaining flexible as things so often change.

Mentioned in this episode:

Capify