The Retail Whisperer

We are thrilled to welcome back Dale Rhodes, Senior VP with Katin USA.  Dale’s path to success began at 17 years-old, when he worked in the retail industry at MGA (Guess Jeans), Camp Beverly Hills, and Val Surf. It came naturally for him to style celebrities and work directly with clients. It was then – during the hot trend of Guess in the 80s – that Dale paved the way for his future accomplishments in the apparel industry.

This episode is in celebration of National Sober Day, which took place on September 14th. Millions of people suffer from substance abuse, and this day reminds them that they are supported and that they are not alone in their struggles. Take a listen as Dale recants his journey to sobriety and what led him there. 

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Nicole Swartz is the attorney and founder behind Sprout Law, a law firm for women business owners. She's also a business owner as well. In 2015, she started a skincare line that was featured in hundreds of stores around the world and even the Golden Globes gift bags. After two years, she had to rebrand the entire business because she didn't have a trademark. Now, she helps other women trademark their brands to avoid the same situation.

Nicole is featured as an expert in Forbes, the Washington Post, Girlboss, and speaks at events like Alt Summit, Craftcation, and South by Southwest. Plus her Reels and TikTok about celebrity trademark gossip are pretty darn fun:)

Michelle & Nicole talk about her journey into the skincare business, aspects of the trademark process, common mistakes & why trademarking is so important.

This episode sponsored by Fine Lines, a west coast wholesale rep agency with showrooms in Las Vegas and Seattle representing over 50 fabulous gift, fashion + home lines.

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This week’s guest Alyssa Benner has been in retail for 16-17 years. She has worked in boutique shops and corporate owned retail & has always moved up quickly in those jobs due to not only loving what she did but hard work. She is a creative person by nature so when it came to merchandising it came so easy for her. As she began getting further into her career, she realized that not everybody had the skill set to merchandise.

For job interviews, she would always lead with her amazing merchandising skill set and how it would be a great attribution to their business, learning later that not all companies realized the value of an amazing merchandised store and more importantly the actual value to the store.

Alyssa currently works as a home and beauty buyer for Cupcakes and Cashmere. From one merchandiser to another, Michelle & Alyssa talk the good, the bad and the ugly of merchandising plus offer tips along the way!

This week’s episode is sponsored by Sales Producers Inc., a progressive business to business company representing Gift, Lifestyle, Fashion, Personal Care, & Kids lines selling to retail stores with a mission to create long lasting, profitable relationships by adding significant value to our Customer, Vendor, and Team partners. For more information, check out their social media or website Sales Producers Inc.

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Marcie Pantzer is the founder of Dear Annabelle, a luxury paper goods brand that brings a whimsical wink to the classic art of correspondence. The brand was born from Marcie’s personal love of letter writing, starting when she went away to sleep away camp as a girl.

Her passion for sending and receiving mail was only rivaled by her affection for the tools of the trade — beautiful stationery and fine paper products. With Dear Annabelle — named for her daughter — she’s created her dream line of stationery, place cards, and note pads that celebrate joy, humor and connection.

Michelle had the honor of creating her booth at the Shoppe Object show and in doing so and familiarizing herself with the products, she knew she had to have her as a guest.

Michelle & Marcie discuss creating the brand, its packaging and how she figured it all out after never being in a creator or in a product driven business. Impressive, to say the least.

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On this week’s episode, Michelle Sherrier, welcomes listeners to her latest hustle, MC Design Academy! MC Design Academy is designed to be a space where Michelle will share her expertise with you, where you'll get to learn all about visual merchandising, design, display, retail, and everything in between.

Take a listen, head on over to MC Design Academy ...class is in session.

Then, make sure she stays tuned for this special combo episode where she then delves into the show season and talks all about her time and experiences so far this show season.

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This week’s guest is Sarah Schwartz, magazine editor, writer, podcaster and consultant.  She first started covering stationery as a market editor for the trade publication Gifts & Decorative Accessories in 1997, and in 2008, she became founding editor of Stationery Trends, an award-winning trade quarterly magazine devoted to all things paper.

She also maintains this site, podcasts at The Paper Fold, a five-star stationery salon.  Sarah is a frequent industry speaker who is occasionally quoted in the media. Aside from family, what makes her happiest is working with makers, boutique owners and stationery lovers — and becoming part of their stories.

Host, Michelle Sherrier loves a handwritten note, journals and pens, so having the opportunity to interview Sarah, she jumped at the chance!

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Located in Los Angeles, California, Chez Gagné letterpress was Founded in 2014 by Alex Gagné.

As a creative outlet from her job as a marketing director for an IT company, Alex started taking night classes to learn the art of letterpress printing. After finding success designing and printing wedding invitations and cards for friends, family and then friends of friends, Chez Gagné became a full-time venture. Today, Chez Gagné sells hilarious yet inspirational gold foil mugs, drinkware, candles, wine & spirit tags, cocktail paper clips and obviously greeting cards to more than 3500 independent boutiques in the US and Canada!

Michelle jumps right into it with Alex on how she started out, how it’s going and what the future looks like.

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This week’s guest, Kathy Shaw is the Manager of Seaside Gallery and Goods and the Pelican Courtyard.  Seaside has 15 small businesses working collectively and the Pelican Courtyard has 8 small businesses each in their own suite.

Seaside Gallery and Goods is located in the heart of Newport Beach's famed harbor-side dining and shopping district. Seaside is a retail collective of small business owners specializing in clothing design, fine art, beauty products, baby goods, unique jewelry and coastal inspired home decor.

Kathy started doing Open Air Markets in the Pelican Courtyard once a month before moving to Lido Village for a weekly market. When the space became available in the Pelican Courtyard, Kathy opened up a pop up shop with the vendors from the outdoor market & what started as a temporary concept, is now celebrating 8 1/2 years in business.

Kathy takes us through her journey from PTA mom to creating open air markets to managing a small business collective & all the moving parts involved with running a collective.

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Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a new jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world. She turned her hobby into a company and has been featured on Shark Tank, Oprah's Favorite Things and won over celebrity fans including Gwyneth Paltrow, Lili Reinhart and Chrissy Teigen. Kaylin was previously the first employee at media startup theSkimm, and is an alum of Barnard College in New York City. 

Michelle & Kaylin discuss JIGGY’s unique packaging, supporting female artists and what’s coming down the puzzle pipeline for JIGGY.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Sales Producers Inc., a progressive business to business company representing Gift, Lifestyle, Fashion, Personal Care, & Kids lines selling to retail stores with a mission to create long lasting, profitable relationships by adding significant value to our Customer, Vendor, and Team partners. For more information, check out their social media or website Sales Producers Inc.

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As we continue to celebrate our two-year anniversary, we’re bringing it back to our very first guests, Kelly & Lo Epstein from Kingfisher Road. Our favorite thing about this mother-daughter duo is the customer service both they and their team provide. Take a listen as we catch up on what’s new and things that peeve us. Hint: Competing with the manufacturers we buy from.

This episode is sponsored by Fine Lines, a west coast wholesale rep agency with showrooms in Las Vegas and Seattle representing over 50 fabulous gift, fashion + home lines.

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