Customer reviews play a huge part in helping to promote your favorite businesses. So how can you take advantage of Small Business Saturday®, and make an impact buying small and supporting local?
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Did you know that 97% of people read reviews of local businesses? And that 90% of buyers read reviews online to help them make a decision about a purchase?
Customer reviews play a huge part in helping to promote your favorite businesses. So how can you take advantage of Small Business Saturday®, and make an impact buying small and supporting local?
During How To Leave A Customer Review, you will:
About your event host:
​Chris Guillot is a retail expert, teaching independent retailers and makers how to improve profit in simple, achievable steps. With over 23 years of experience, Chris has taught thousands of retail merchants how to combine industry strategies with emotional intelligence in order to remain compelling in an ever-changing market. She’s the Founder and CEO of Merchant Method, and host of Retail Charm School, a live video show that helps small business owners master the art and science of merchandising. Chris has been featured by Business Insider, Shopify, Vend, Big Commerce, and Total Retail.
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Field Guide For Retailers & Makers: Context & Insights from Retail Charm School Interviews7/16/2020
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." This African Proverb has been displayed throughout this season of interviews on the Retail Charm School video show.
We know that hindsight is 20/20. But when you need those insights now, it's no wonder that we look outside of our businesses and past experiences for teachers and new lessons.
During this fifth season of the Retail Charm School show, I've come to learn a lot about you:
When I was thinking about how to contextualize this season of interviews, I wanted to do two things:
If you want to put your passion to work, then it's important to ask the question: What else do I need to know?
In the ongoing fight against bias and racism, which is pervasive in retail customer service, it's important for small businesses, micro businesses, and solopreneurs to consider how we can use our small and mighty platforms to align passion and purpose.
Listen, if you want to stay nimble in an ever-changing environment, then stop scrolling and pay attention right now.
What I’m about to tell you could help you transform fizzled business plans into future business success. (I’m banking on it to help me with mine.)
Managing different product lines across multiple seasons is enough to throw any new merchant off their game. That’s why a typical onboarding timeline in our industry is one whole year!
It’s takes the operational repetition of four major retail seasons — winter, spring, summer, and fall — to get the hang of what it’s like to manage the lifecycle of products.
During a time when every merchant and business owner I know is setting big goals for the new retail season, I'm doing something else.
I’m focusing on habits and think you should be too. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking the value of goal setting. I do it myself. I even teach merchants how to do it more effectively. But I do think you’ll have an easier time reaching your goals if you focus on the mundane, repetitive, perhaps boring habits that make achieving your goals a foregone conclusion.
When I started consulting over six years ago, one of the most popular types of business questions I’d get asked was about marketing. It’s remains one of the top five questions I’m asked about every year.
Marketing, as a critical business function, is just as broad a practice as it is deep — meaning, there are many important moving parts. Luckily, for the both of us, there are also plenty of valuable resources for small and medium sized businesses. Yet despite the tips, tricks, and tactics available at our fingertips, Merchants continue to struggle with marketing their businesses for one main reason — marketing is NOT merchandising.
Whether you're ready to share this publicly or suffer in silence, you probably feel that you need to somehow up your marketing game — whether it be getting more attention on social media, driving traffic to your ecommerce site, or developing new contacts now that might turn into business later (read: business development).
Amiright?!?
I have a podcast episode you have to listen to!
The podcast is called Design Goggles, produced by the multi-talented architecture and design firm Board & Vellum. This one is fun and full of business advice for retailers and makers! This week’s podcast episode is about how to design a foolproof brand experience. The episode is The Seattle Retail Experience but don’t let the title fool you. I work with brands throughout the United States (and beyond) and here’s what I know to be true: The challenges with designing an irresistible retail experience and positioning a brand are the same regardless of location. If you’re interested in growing your business, you’ll find this interview valuable. As you listen, I want you to pay attention for some very important topics:
After you listen, leave a comment and tell me how you shape your unique experience. ​Thanks for tuning in!
My first act of holiday gift giving was already complete by Cyber Monday. A few weeks before, I had selected a wish list from a charitable holiday giving tree and over Thanksgiving weekend I dropped off the wrapped presents. This early practice left my heart feeling gratified, satisfied, and ready for plenty more shopping and sharing in the weeks ahead.
The holidays present a series of obligations and celebrations. We shop, ship, and celebrate throughout the season in phases. Don’t forget, we talk about ‘the holidays’ in plural for a reason! Holiday shopping comes in phases. As shoppers we know this — but what are we doing with this information as sellers? I can’t remember my first pop-up shop experience, but they were a fixture of my childhood. They ranged from a vendor at an open air market who sold just one product to my very own Tupperware-selling mom hosting a sales party in our living room.
No matter how you “slice it, dice it, cut it, or chop it,” — classic sales copy to this day — temporary retail shops have been around since the birth of retail. As a modern retailer, you should think about how best to take advantage of this sales model to help drive your business. Pop-up retail is not just a fad, it’s a sales channel. Modern pop-ups shops are a subtle art, and you can unlock incremental sales by really understanding this strategic channel. As we count down the days to Seattle Startup Week, the content-rich presentations and discussions aren't the only things on my mind.
Though it's been quiet here I've been answering interview questions all summer long. I still don't like talking about myself but I do enjoy talking about my first love: shopping! Each interview felt like a business retreat, an opportunity to revisit the places, products, processes, and people that inspire me and my work. I also got better acquainted with some of my favorite brands like Shopify, Vend, Big Cartel, and Dôr. This week two of these interviews published back-to-back. Though one's about me (I did mention I don't like talking about myself, right?), they both have you, dear Merchant, at heart. Click on a headline to read along: Behind the Counter: Chris Guillot, Merchant Method (Dôr Technologies) Don't forget to join me for Seattle Startup Week. I'd love to introduce you to the talented, passionate folks from Dôr. Joanna Rutter is joining me in a conversation about the state of the retail industry. Sean Lakind is sharing much needed information about the importance of understanding how weather impacts your store foot traffic and what to do about it. Serial Events: How to Build Community and Customer Loyalty (Shopify) I'm thrilled that our community event series has been featured by Shopify three times! This month I sat down with writer Alexandra Sheehan to explore what makes serial events sticky and why you should get your hands "dirty." Being well-connected can mean different things. For some, it means having influential and powerful friends. For others, it might mean having a large number of casual contacts. As independent retailers, our focus should be on finding our tribe and doing what we can to connect with them authentically.
However you choose to connect with others, when you can create and nurture your community, you will build more loyal personal and professional connections. This is the fundamental value of customer relationship management (CRM), which is focused on automation and software tools for enterprise businesses. Unfortunately, those tools are cost prohibitive for many small businesses. So, in the absence of a robust CRM system, how do small businesses create community, loyalty, and repeat customers?
We talk a lot about small retailers needing to stand out, but our customers are saturated with influencers, expectations are at an all time high, and our competitors are all hustling too. To help deal with all this noise, I’d like to share how surprise & delight can be built into small business practices to help you rise above it all.
I recently facilitated a conversation about this topic during one of our in-person events, and in this week’s trend report I share my personal takeaways from that discussion. |
#1 THE FUTURE OF RETAIL
#2 HOW TO DESIGN A FOOLPROOF BRAND EXPERIENCE #3 5 STEPS TO SELL SLOW-MOVING STOCK #4 CREATING A COMMUNITY (AND LOYAL CUSTOMERS) #5 LEARN WHY SHOPLIFTING HAPPENS AND HOW YOU CAN PREVENT IT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR MORE? When you do, you'll get insightful how-to resources, retail inspiration, and time-sensitive deals.
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HI, I'M CHRIS GUILLOT!
I made my first sale when I was eight years old and started teaching retail business classes at 20. Now, 23 years after guiding my first clients, I'm here to help you build more profit.
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LET'S STAY CONNECTED
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