EP. 4: Grow your sales in 2022 with retail expert Catherine Erdly (The Resilient Retail Club)
What’s this episode about?
Want to know what the key retail trends for 2022 will be?
After a bumpy start to this year, many businesses are wondering what 2022 has in store, and what that means for their business.
Relevant for both product and service businesses this episode is packed full of practical strategies and useful insight to help you kickstart your 2022 sales.
Episode key takeaways:
In this episode Catherine talks about:
- 5 ways you can navigate the current consumer mindset (including pricing, the key reasons people will still buy and looking at your business model)
- What this means for your business
- The key actions you need to take as we move into the 2nd quarter
INTRODUCING: Catherine from The Resilient Retail Club
Catherine is a small business retail expert, founder of The Resilient Retail Club, a Forbes.com contributor on the subject of starting and scaling a product business, a judge of the Good Retail Awards, on the Editorial Board of Modern Retail, featured as an expert commenter in national newspapers and radio, and a frequent writer and speaker on the retail industry at various trade shows and industry-led events across the country.
KEY LINKS:
WEBSITE: resilientretailclub.com
INSTAGRAM: @resilientretailclub
FREE WORKSHOP: 'Grow Your Sales 2022' Free Online Workshop
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Read the transcript:
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Hello, and welcome to growing pains. The marketing podcast for parent and baby brands who want to grow and get more consistent sales, but without the overwhelm of feeling like you have to be online 24 7, I'm Sophie, your host, and a Facebook and Instagram ad strategist who specializes in parent and baby brands as well as a mom of two.
Join me each week as I alongside some wonderful guests, she had practical tips and advice about how you can use and combine marketing strategies to get more impact for your effort. A quick warning, before we start, I can get a little bit sweary, so just be careful of any little ears listening along. So today I'm thrilled to be here with Katherine from a resilient retail club. Catherine is a small business retail expert@forbes.com contributor on the subject of starting and scaling a product business. A judge of the good retailer. [00:01:00] On the editorial board of modern retail features as an expert commentary national newspapers and radio, and is a frequent writer and speaker on the retail industry at various trade shows and industry led events across the country.
Sophie: She is the definition of an expert on retail, and I'm absolutely thrilled to have her here with me today to talk all about growing your sales in 2022. So Catherine, welcome to the podcast.
Catherine: Thank you so much for having me.
Sophie: I am thrilled. You're here. That is the official intro. But let's talk a little bit more about you before we get stuck in.
So what's your like work family life set up and everything.
Catherine: Yeah, well, I am very fortunate to work from home. I live in Southeast London with my husband, my 14 year old, my 11 year old and my crazy cat.
Sophie: Oh, lovely.
Catherine: I started my own business in 2018 because I had done a decade as a full-time working mother. So after my children were born, I had my maternity leave, but then I [00:02:00] went back and I worked full time.
Full thing, you know, dropping him off at the breakfast club before the breakfast club running to the train station, commuting into London, coming, running back to pick them up from the afterschool pick up. The whole things did that for 10 years. And.
Sophie: I think that it's like, you lasted a lot longer than a lot of people. I think it gives me palpitations. Just thinking about like that rushing back. Like, am I going to make it, am I going to get charged for the extra 10 minutes? I'm going to be
Catherine: And the late. fees and the, you know, they're always, the last ones picked me up.
Sophie: Yeah,
Catherine: And the time that I went to the school to pick, to pick my daughter, I had the day off and I picked my daughter up from this class. And the teacher said to me, who you here, you hit pick up
Sophie: Oh, bless
Catherine: my child.
Sophie: child. Yes, I'm the mother. I just don't make it very often.
Catherine: So I did all of that.
And I think just ultimately we got to a point where it was just exhausting. My husband also works full time, works in the city long commute, the same thing. So it was sort of a bit like that [00:03:00] moment where I'm sure everyone knows it, you know, like the child's sick in the morning and you just look at each other and you're both like, Well, I've got this, this, this, this today, and I've got this, this, this, this, so which one of us is going to blink first type thing.
So that was, that was to be honest, a big driver behind her, but behind starting my business. So now I work from home. I tend to try and really dial it back in school holidays. I tend to really try and have that time. So I'm wrapped up by, in time to make a nice family dinner and. Yeah. and be there when the kids come home and they're older now as well.
So they're both secondary school, so no longer have to do that school drop off, which is quite crazy.
Sophie: Yeah. Oh, I've still got a lot of years left yet. Mine are in a five and 18 months. I'm just the beginning of that journey.
Catherine: But even, so I'd say, even though they're that much older, it's been very helpful. You know, my daughter starting secondary school and my son just to be around in the mornings, help them sort of stuff out. And there's always like [00:04:00] some crisis, like the PE kids gone missing this kind of thing. So it's definitely really beneficial for me to then to be able to, to basically make the business work for me and make the hours work for me.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so relatable. I think that's why so many of my audience kind of go into it just because you've just got to fit it around the kids.
Catherine: Yeah.
Sophie: Brilliant. Okay. So now we're getting into the really important stuff. The quickfire rounds we can get to know you and what you like really quickly.
So we'll start with tea or coffee.
Catherine: Oh, I do like both. I'm going to go with coffee though, cause I pretty much have coffee every day and tea most days, but it's always coffee.
Sophie: Yeah. Coffee's like the non-negotiable. That's what we're starting with dogs or cats.
Catherine: Oh, that's a hard one. I mean, I've always had cats lost or cat that we got to SaaS. We got married sadly left us a couple of weeks ago at the age of 20 though. I mean, she made it to 20, which is crazy. And now we have the crazy one year old cat. So I've always had cats. I do love cats, but I do love dogs as well.
[00:05:00] So I I'm going to go with cats, but both really.
Sophie: I'm the, you know, we've got two cats and, but I've always said, like, I am a dog person. Like we like cats just a little bit less high maintenance aren't they like, at the time of our lives, we were like, yeah, we don't want to not be able to let go way. We've got them before the kids. Like, so yeah, I've got cats, but I'm a dog person bagels or crumpets.
Catherine: Oh oh gosh, you didn't tell me how hard these were
Sophie: I know these are the hard hitting questions.
Catherine: I think bagels and specifically my husband's American and when we go and see my sister-in-law in, in New York, New York bagel, everything bagel toasted with smoked salmon, just. Heavenly and I have actually made bagels I've I've made them quite a few times actually. Just quite, Yeah.
yeah. Yeah. It's quite an undertaking, but
Sophie: I can imagine.
Catherine: You have to boil them and bake them. I've never made crumpets. I have thoughts about it though. It just seems a bit, I don't know. Quite, not quite [00:06:00] sure how that would turn out.
Sophie: And they are pretty good straight from the pocket as well. Aren't they? So beach or pool?
Catherine: Probably Paul, to be honest,
Sophie: too.
Catherine: not, not a huge fan of sand. And the see makes me nervous.
Sophie: Yeah, I am. So with you, I liked like a walk along a beach, like, you know, like a sort of some SETI, like nice walk along a beach. And I like, and I really like the pool and I do not like the sea, especially if you can't see the bottom or touch the
Catherine: No. And if they're a big waves as well,
Sophie: yeah.
Catherine: and with small kids, I just feel like when we went to the beach with this little kids, I basically just spent my whole time being like, don't drown. don't drown. Like, hold on, hold on tight. Hold on. Really tight to them. Just like don't get sucked away by way. Yeah.
Sophie: whisked away. Absolutely. Then with you summer winter.
Catherine: Oh I'm going to say summer, because I like the lighter evening from the lights and mornings. I don't really [00:07:00] like getting up in the dark fundamentally, but I don't really like really hot weather. None of me and my family. We're all just not really built for heat. So I don't like it. You know, there's always that week in August where it's ridiculously hot, that I'm not such a fan of, but I'd say in general summer, I do like it when you can go out and you don't have.
Sophie: Yeah, me too. I actually own 2020 gave birth in that week of insane heat, 36 degrees just casually giving bath. Oh my God. It was horrific. I would say I've said, I think when this comes, this question comes up. I've said this a few times now, but I, I do have an ideal temperature and it's about 23, 24.
Like that's where my vibe is. Like, once it tips over 24, I'm a bit like, oh no, I'm, I'm not interested. But then. Like I don't like it to be too cold, either.
Catherine: No, I'd say I really like my favorite weather. It's really bright sunshine, but not actually hot.
Sophie: Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Even like today is actually a pretty epic day. Hair's like [00:08:00] 12 degrees, like clearly skies like brisk, but not like freezing. Yeah. Today's, I'm living my best life today. Color or monochrome.
Catherine: Color.
Sophie: Yeah, me too. All the way. Early morning or late night.
Catherine: Probably any morning to be fair. Yeah.
I quite like I'm not a super early riser, but I do. If I've got something to do, I like to get it done in the morning. I like to just get up and get on with things. And I don't really, I'm not a huge night owl and so I'm not hugely. I'm not, definitely not like the last person standing.
I'm usually the person that goes like, oh, when's it time for bed.
Sophie: Oh, my God, that's me. I'm like, yeah, like, should we, should we start thinking about heading off? Cause they don't really want to be in bed after 12.
Catherine: Sometimes a bit of a push for
Sophie: Yeah, me too. Yeah. It's I guess to buy like 20 passes, 11. Oh God. Really? 14 minutes. Oh, brilliant. Okay. So that's the important stuff out of the way. Now we're going to talk all things growing sales in 2022. And I think we've had a [00:09:00] little bit chat beforehand and there's so many different things playing into this year.
Isn't there, like there's a lot of change and there's been a lot been going on the last few years as well, but businesses have had to adapt to, and it's like, oh my gosh, we're having to adapt again. Oh, gosh. So I think we're going to talk through five things. Aren't we, that you kind of talking about the moment that the businesses really need to consider and think through, and as we're coming into court to start making a plan for the rest of the year.
Catherine: Yes. And I think that absolute it's, it's really hard. I mean, I feel like I've been talking about this every year.
since 2020. I say, well, this has been a really hard year. then the next year I'm like, well, this is a really hard year and 2020, I think psychologically was incredibly hard for lots of people, for lots of different reasons from the business having to pivot.
Purely online for a big chunk of the year to all of the concerns people had about their loved ones, about what nerfs happening in the world and then 20, but actually for [00:10:00] lot, especially online product businesses, I'd say a lot of them actually had phenomenal growth and phenomenal success.
Sophie: So many people in line buying weren't that like you stuck. And it was, I mean, I swear, I went through a period of having like at least one delivery every day of like, oh, it's not your delivery. Is it I'm like, yes. Today, like, I think it was just like throw money at the problem, like right. What can we do to entertain the children?
What can we do to do up the house? Right. I'm going to do a project I'm going to, or I'm going to redo the lounge. And I want all new staff and.
Catherine: I'm going to learn to macrame.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was literally just like, how can we bring stuff to us if
Catherine: Yes. Yes.
Sophie: that that was the reframe. Wasn't it?
Catherine: Yeah, totally. And there were really distinct patterns of why people were buying and people were buying to
What, what did I say at the time it was like protect, connect to distract. So protecting yourself and your way of life and connecting with other people and distracting yourself.
[00:11:00] Basically, those were the three big drivers and then 20, 21 came. And that was just like, what, what happened that year? I mean, 2020. So up and down. So it started fairly strong for a lot of people. Cause we were back in lockdown and then it was like, when the shops reopened, then, then it, there was a real shift, not just the shops reopening, but also things like hospitality reopening.
So all of that portion, that budget part, if you like was being reapportioned again. So instead of just purchase, having money available for purchases, then it was like, well actually, yes, but now I can see my friends and that's going to cost money and maybe I could go to the cinema. Who knew this kind of thing.
So that was really challenging. And then we've kind of arrived in 20, 22 after, and every time as well, the business has had to pivot and take account into these shifts. It takes a huge amount of energy. So really rethinking your business and re-engaging with it. It's like the first time maybe you're like, okay, yes, I can do this.
And then I think I [00:12:00] just saw it in 2021. I feel like I just saw a lot of people just got really, really tired and just really tired as well of, of balancing everything and the impact of having to her homeschooled or just not having had the support network that they were used to. And it so much, I think just caught up with people in 2021.
And let me start 20, 22 and we think, Okay. new year, new start. Cost of living crisis, the crane. I mean, it's just been again, like from a, for a lot of business owners, again, it's just yet another year where you have to sort of go right. What's on the plate this year.
Sophie: Let's change my business. It's the business planning, isn't it like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm ramping up. And this is, and I think for a lot of businesses I work with as well. It's like, okay, well, this is what happened this time last year. And it's, you know, it's inevitable, isn't it? And it's like, actually for the last four, three years, the figures have looked totally different every year.
And it's really hard to then plan isn't it [00:13:00] with any kind of certainty.
Catherine: Yeah. So the seasonal distribution has been completely different as well. So one of the things that I tend to do when I do my talks, as I quite often will show graphs of things like the different sales pattern by month from across the retail industry. And, and basically prior to 2020, it was very consistent.
You would see the sales path throughout the year, then you'd have the peak at Christmas and it would just be. Uniform year on year and year, and then 20, 20 and 2021. It's just like, looks a bit like someone drops spaghetti on it. You know, it's all very much like, oh well that month was down. That was up in
Sophie: Yeah.
Catherine: 2020.
Christmas came super early and 2021, it came super late and it is really hard to get those, those those comparisons against the year. It's almost like we have to. We have to plan very likely in a way you have to create a framework. And this is what we think could happen, but you have to be really prepared that it [00:14:00] may very well may not happen because of one thing we've learned in the last couple of years is that things really are quite unpredictable.
Sophie: Really quite a large scale.
Catherine: Yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly.
Sophie: Absolutely. So, you know, we touched on it then really, you know, prices are going up, but you know, cost of living is rising. Obviously the war on Ukraine is not helping that it's kind of the patch will. Oh my gosh. Like it's, it's insane how that's like skyrocketed the last couple of weeks, but obviously that's an impact for your customers, but also on businesses.
Catherine: Yes. Yes. And I think that would be my first point about growing in 2022. I would say that you have to engage with the pricing element of your business, whether you're a service business or a product business, you have to engage with it because it's coming at you from several different ways. The first thing is, is that the cost of you doing businesses will be going up, whether that's from your utilities.
So for example, you know, [00:15:00] heating electricity in my own personal life, I was w my energy provider went bust before
Sophie: Oh,
Catherine: moved over to a new one, spent a long time, chasing them to try and understand what my new direct debit would be. Then of course, the double whammy of the removal of the cap on fuel prices turns out my new payment.
It's double what my old payment was. So that's, you know, that's just one isolated incident on one bill, really. But that's, so that's happening to lots of people who run businesses as well, especially if you've got a premises. I mean in my membership group, for example, People who have probably about 10 or 15% of my members have physical premises and just the chat about how much their heating bills are going up and everything like that.
Sophie: can imagine.
Catherine: the key thing really there is to actually engage with it. And if you've not checked, your prices checked your costs. Rather, I should say, in the last three months as well worth having another look or having a look now. Taking out those invoices, looking at those emails when they send them to [00:16:00] you and say your prices are increasing and you can't do all that now gotta file it.
Sophie: Okay.
Catherine: All right. But actually pulling it out, looking at it, really grappling with what that means, because you may well have. Look at reviewing your prices. And one of the things that I do for Forbes each year around sort of December time, I put together a piece about what's coming up in the next year, which is one of my favorite pieces to work on for the year.
So I contact lots of experts and industry bodies, and I asked them like, what's hap what do you think is going to happen next year? And the British retail consortium, one of the things that they said. You can need to have a plan about price increases. It wasn't like a, you might have to put your prices up.
It was, you need to plan how you're going to tackle this. So. If you've not increased your prices in the last three months, so you've not even reviewed your pricing, then have a look at what your competitors are doing, because you may find that the market has already shifted and people have already put prices up around you.
And you may actually even now be slightly lower. Than [00:17:00] other people, if you've not increased yours. So it's worth just taking that into account, making that decision and then deciding how you're going to communicate it to your customer. Some people are being super transparent and saying, this is what we're doing.
Price increases. Some people prefer to just put it up without a fanfare. I don't know. I think it depends on your, your customer. I think you have to make that decision, but I think it's knowledge is power. Really. I think you really have to understand what's happening to your own business, run the numbers, and then just start thinking about ways of mitigating that whether that's increasing your prices, whether that's about Jeff to swap out elements.
You know, it's usually my advice is like, can you find it cheaper from somewhere else? But at the moment, you know, everyone's prices going up. So you kind of have to balance that out. But I think that the key thing with that is, is part of 20, 22 is you have to, you, you are going to have to almost, before you make other plans, you have to address this elephant in the room.
If you haven't addressed it already.
Sophie: Yeah, [00:18:00] absolutely. And something that's coming up quite a lot from my clients at the moment is the shipping costs as well. So really reviewing like. Although it's cheaper to get it made abroad the, you know, the lack of consistency or, you know, the ability to be able to confidently know when your product is coming in.
The, the fact that the prices could go up at any minute. I mean, my husband also works in shipping, so I feel like I'm like, oh my God. I mean, He works for big corporate and even they are getting like, gazumped at the last minute, they're like their prices. They've got incredible contracts and they're getting massive hikes.
And I think, you know, is it cheaper to then move it somewhere where you can get access to it better and you'd have to do long shipping? I don't know. I'm not if you're seeing that as well, but
Catherine: Oh yeah, totally. I mean the, the cost of a shipping container is just absolutely. Just skyrocketed and I, and I think it's, I mean, not to go off too far on a tangent, but I do think it's kind of re it's calling into question and reevaluate in the [00:19:00] whole entire sort of global economy of making it overseas in large volumes and shipping it at low price.
You know, those, those. Economies of scale. Just the balance is just tipping back into the more like, you know, made in the UK local production, that kind of thing, because you're right. The shipping costs are astronomical. I've always thought I felt, I've always felt, you know, it's my 22nd year. And the retail industry comes out with a lot.
of shipping companies over the years.
I feel like they always somehow managed to come out on top. There is like slightly, I don't know why they always seem to get the light. Do know what it is. They just always hold all the power, those shipping companies, but that'd be right.
Sophie: absolutely. But I mean, all of that being said, customers are still buying aren't they like, so yes, no money might be tighter and they might be considering their purchases more, but it's not like the whole economy has grown to a Holt.
Catherine: Absolutely And I think that that's the, that's the key thing. That was what, my second point, really. It was just about customers are still buying and people still having babies.
Sophie: [00:20:00] Absolutely children still need, you know, new clothes and yeah.
Catherine: Children need new clothes, people haven't birthdays. So don't, it can be very difficult and quite easy to get stuck in what I call the cycle of doom, which is sales drops. So you lose confidence. So you take less action to sales, drop and round around you. Go. It can feel like, okay, well just like pack it all in then
Sophie: Yep.
Catherine: prices going up.
It's just too much, you know, people are concerned about price and cost of living, but just, I think whenever people overall spending consumer spending is very much linked to consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is really linked to the degree of certainty that there is in the world. Anytime there's uncertainty, it's bad.
Basically. So of course we have a lot of uncertainty, so that does not help things at the same time though. People do still have real clear purchases, purchase triggers. And I think what we're all called to do as business owners at [00:21:00] times like this is to just get even clearer on what those purchase triggers are from our customers, what our customer actually wants and how we can offer them something, a product or a service that is absolutely perfectly tailored to their needs.
And the more that we dial into that. Then the better we'll be, we'll be set up for you know, for times like this, because people do still buy, they still have emotional reactions to things that they just really want and they really love, and they still have reasons for it. So. Where you might see a slight decrease in maybe sort of impulse purchases and that kind of thing.
You'll still see the purchases for the, for the occasions, for the birthdays, for the christenings, for the, for the, for Christmas, for mother's day, for father's day. And I think that in a way almost gifting becomes even more important for us to think about as business owners, because. That is really what is going to persuade people to buy.
And I always say that at any time, [00:22:00] when it, when you think about your customer, it's like, imagine their money is they're holding their money in their hand, quite tightly. And your job is to talk to them and persuade them to open their hand and give them your gift, give you their money. But at times like this it's like their hand is clenched, like extra tight because of the uncertainty, because of everything else they're thinking about, because they're thinking about the bills and their mortgages and their fuel and all the rest of it.
And so what can you do to really. Talk to them about what you can offer them or what you got that will make them unclench their fist and hand it over. They will still do it.
People are still spending, people are still buying, but it's just a question of you. I think we're just all called on to be better, which is, it's not easy when you're tired after a couple of years of really grueling time, but it's what we have to do.
And it's almost like, I feel like sometimes it's like, [00:23:00] Getting in physical shape for a race or something like that. If you can get through this, if you can work out how to really dial into what your customer wants at a time like this, you're going to be so fit for when things maybe are a little bit easier and maybe feel like things are easing off a bit more.
Sophie: Yeah, that's such a good point. And I think as well, we're talking about lots of practical things today that you need to look at and dial into, but mindset is quite big as well. Isn't it? And like how you approach these sort of times.
Catherine: Yes for sure. And I think that there's, there's two different ways that people approach this at any time that there's uncertainty, because there have been crises before there have been. Even during the years that I've been working in the retail industry, I've seen different crises from the 2008 financial collapse.
For example, that had a very similar feel in terms of people just had no idea what was. And I was working for a men's suiting company at time when half of the financial industry was being made to redundant.
Sophie: [00:24:00] Yeah,
Catherine: Yeah. We really saw like pulling on the brakes of a lot of things,
Sophie: Yeah.
Catherine: but I think there's always two types of response that you can have.
And one of them is like that freeze and.
Sophie: Okay.
Catherine: So just thinking, oh my goodness. Right? That's it, this is all like, in a way, like this is it. This is another blow. I just can't take this anymore. And then there's the people who get curious. Okay. What does this actually mean? Are there any opportunities here? And it may sound impossible to say all there'd be opportunities in, in a year like this, but who.
Which people do you think really thought there would be opportunities in a pandemic? You know, the, that some businesses would flourish in a way that they just couldn't expect. So I think being open-minded is really important at this point as well, and just trialing things, trying, trying different oil, you know, from an ads perspective, trying different creative, trying different messaging, trying different products, putting different things in front of your customer, [00:25:00] offering them up stuff.
And if that doesn't work, then trying something else. But I think there's two real ways of looking at it. There are the people who find it very, very hard because they feel like it's a personal rejection. If their sales drop totally get that. Because a lot of us, for a lot of us, we're very meshed with our businesses.
We're like we are our business,
Sophie: Yeah.
Catherine: but actually there's another way of looking at it, which is a more objective scientific way, which goes, okay, let's say I just put. And let's just put to one side the idea that it's all my fault.
Sophie: Yeah, I love that. Let's just put that to a side just for a
Catherine: Yeah, let's just put that over here. Right. For right now, not the saying, you know, might not revisit it later, but let's say, I just said it wasn't my fault. Let's look at this from an objective point of view, what can we try? What can we do? What can we just do? Almost like sometimes when everything's not working, you have to just start throwing other things at the wall and see what sticks.
So having that real, I think there's a real marked difference in my mind. [00:26:00] And how I see people's businesses developed between the type of person who just, who retracts, who kind of goes inwards, who says, right, well, I must've messed this up or other people doing way better than me, and I'm just doing terribly and the people that go, okay, that's interesting that didn't work.
What can I try now? And I think that at a time like this, that, that curiosity and that objectivity is more important than.
Sophie: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think something we were talking about before, as well as like leaning into. Your customers that you already have and what are they looking for and what are they buying and how can you kind of build those relationships as well? I talk about a lot in terms of ads, like the bigger, your pool of warm audience, the cheaper your ads are, the easier it is to kind of sell to people that already know you.
And I think that's something that you talk about quite a lot, as well as them.
Catherine: Oh, yeah, for sure. And I think that it's the fact that one of the things that small business owners I'm hugely generalizing here, but the, [00:27:00] one of the things that I'd say small business owners are very guilty of always looking to get more people, right. Bigger audience. I want me to grow my, grow my presence.
Sometimes I even say to people like people would be like, I need to grow my presence and I'll be like, what does that mean?
Sophie: Okay. Talk to me a bit more about that. Yeah.
Catherine: It's not about vanity metrics. It's not about number of followers. It's about engagement, it's about community. And I think that that's almost like the new brand loyalty is feeling the sense of community feeling sense of fandom. In fact, in a way like. You don't need to have that many people who are crazy about what you do to have a successful business.
You, we can think about, oh, I need to have a hundred thousand followers. Do you? Or do you need to have even a hundred people? Who just are actually crazy about what you do. And this is a great essay and I can't remember who wrote it. It's called a thousand true fans. And I definitely definitely worth reading that, but the base, the sort of the, the idea behind that is that imagine if there were a thousand people who would [00:28:00] buy anything.
If you put something out for sale, but people would set their reminders and go and buy it. Like for those businesses, that would be enough to move them from a small business to a medium sized business. So we think about this, like more, more, more, but actually. Don't forget about your customers that you've already got, and nobody's more likely to buy from you than someone who's already bought from you.
So if you're going to look at where it makes sense to be putting your time and effort and energy, putting it into your warm customers, your repeat customers, building relationships with them, nurturing them, looking at how can you make them super fans. Then that's actually. Especially at times like this, that's just what people need because people do still, if anything, more than ever people need community, they need that sense of belonging.
They want to feel like they're shopping from a business that shares their values and beliefs. And all of it is just so, so important and helpful when it comes to, to growing your sales in a year like this.
Sophie: [00:29:00] Absolutely. And I think, you know, this does for my audience who generally sell to parents either for themselves or for their children. A lot of them are parents themselves. And I think we naturally like, do have that affinity with like other mums who've created something either because they saw a gap in the market or because they're really passionate about it, or they want to kind of add something positive.
Like that's a really good word now, a really good time to like, lean into that. Isn't it. And like, Like surround yourself with people that are kind of on the same kind of journey as you are
Catherine: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. and also just the fact that you do have huge amount of affinity with your customer. A lot of people start businesses because they want to create products and services for people like themselves or people who are experiencing the same issues they're experiencing. And that's such a powerful driver to why people start businesses.
And I think I will say to people sometimes, you know, you need to focus on you and your customer and they'll say, well, how am I supposed to know what my customer's thinking? And I say, well, what are you thinking?
Sophie: Yeah.
Catherine: And you're probably [00:30:00] thinking you might cover, you've seen the price of petrol,
Sophie: Yeah.
Well, exactly. Yeah,
Catherine: you know, so it's not that big of a leap for us to think about what our customers are thinking about.
Sophie: Yeah, no. And we've touched on a little bit in terms of like pricing and costs and, you know, a thousand fans, but knowing your numbers and kind of like how many I talk about this, quite a lot of ads. Like how many people do you need to get on your website every day? And you know, what's your conversion rate and it's so important, isn't it not to just kind of bury your head in the sand.
Catherine: Yes, definitely. For sure. And And one of the things that I've been doing, one of my big projects this year is I'm writing a book, which is
Sophie: Oh, that is exciting.
Catherine: halfway through the first draft, which will no doubt need a huge amount of editing part. The fact that I'm halfway through a draft is 25,000 words in this, right?
So I think. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is this idea about is, did you feel a bit like your businesses or tiger? You know, it feels a bit unpredictable. You're not really sure what you got yourself in for. [00:31:00] You feel a bit nervous. Sometimes you kind of see it. I mean, you hungrily and you're like, okay, what's going on here?
Sophie: look it straight in the eyes.
Catherine: And I think that. Really what happens is often with our businesses. If you are feeling overwhelmed, which let's face, who, who isn't feeling overwhelmed at the moment, really, to be honest, then it can be easy to think. Right? Well, I just won't look at these things, but actually the way to sort of tame your tiger is to, to know what's going on is to.
Dan's exactly that like how many people are on my website? Where are they coming from? What are they looking at? What are they purchasing? What's a high converting item for me, what isn't converting, what are my best sellers? What are my customers telling me that they want? And they want more of what are they telling me?
They want less of what, what are my best performing social media posts, even? What, what did I think, what do I think, realistically, I might take this month? People get people often confuse planning with the, [00:32:00] they say, well, I can't planks. I don't know what's going to happen. The post purchase of a plan is not to be right.
It's not to say at the end of the month, you're like tick. I said I was correct. I said, I was going to sell 125 pounds and I did, or whatever number is it's about having a framework that you can then assess, am I ahead or behind? So I was going to be, what are some things that I can try to get back on track and also to be able to celebrate the successes.
So when things do go well and you do hit your numbers, that you can actually celebrate, because if your plan is just simply sell as much as I can, how do you know if you've ever achieved that? And small business owners are also, again, huge generalization, not terribly good at pattern themselves on the back.
So. So the more that we can do that, then the more helpful it is. But then also just the mod in general, we feel in control, we feel clear. We just feel able to kind of ride the ups and downs. When we understand what's going on in our business, I'm sending the numbers and we feel confident [00:33:00] about it. We don't feel like it's just totally unpredictable.
If we really tune into those numbers, I think we can learn a lot more than we think we can.
Sophie: Yeah, no, absolutely. I I'm a big advocate for knowing your numbers, but I also know that it can be scary. So I think, I mean, I know you've got a membership haven't you? And I think it's that kind of getting support as well. Isn't it? And like having someone to guide you, like you're just reeling off all of those things that you can look at, actually having someone to guide you, I think can be invaluable comic
Catherine: Yeah, for sure. And we do that once a month in the membership, we have a planning session where we get together on a zoom call and we go through a template and everyone's looking at their own bits for their own business, but I'm there and facilitating it. And if people have got questions they can ask.
And I think sometimes even just knowing what to look at is really helpful.
Sophie: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cause I think sometimes there's also a bit of a danger. You could almost get too into the numbers. Couldn't you like start obsessing about the, and we'll go like two and [00:34:00] you kind of got to zoom in, but then come back out again and have it you and keep perspective and like keep moving forwards.
Catherine: Yes, for sure. Absolutely.
Sophie: Brilliant. Well, it's normally at this point that I just link back our topic today into Facebook ads. So I will do that now. We've covered so much great stuff and we've kind of talked a little bit about the ads throughout the whole episode, but just to kind of summarize it, you know, costs are going up for people.
You really need to look at your pricing of your own things, but also looking at those margins. If you're running ads already and they're costing you. In a certain amount to acquire a new customer or to get purchase. You need to have a look and see, is that still okay? Is that, does that still make it profitable for me?
And if it doesn't then go back to your numbers, have a look and see which products, you know, do have that margin I could use, which ones could I maybe bundle up together? So I've got a higher order value so that you could get a little bit more opportunity there. So really having to think about like the, the money side.
Customers are still buying. Ads are still working at that, [00:35:00] had a bit of a bumpy ride the last year as well. But you know, they do still work. And as I talk about quite a lot on here, warming up your audience, getting that foundation and building your email list, making sure your socialist, engaging that community side of it.
So creating those warm. People where when you do launch something, you can run an ad to them. You can send an email to them and you can launch it on your social media. And the three are all working together in synergy to get you those sales and convert people. To you so that you actually start, you know, moving the dial and kind of feeling that confidence.
And I think, you know, curiosity of like ads are not always going to work and it can be scary. When you put money on ads and they don't work, but ads are not a finite thing, they don't just stop and start. You can test a new image, you can tweak the copy. You know what Catherine was talking about, dialing into really what, you know, what problem are you solving?
Like do you need to have a look at your language? You know, change that a little bit and see if that has an impact on your ads. Like stay curious and don't [00:36:00] freeze up and just turn your ads off because they're not profitable. And again, and also get support where you need it from someone like me, because I think, you know, it's sitting there looking at them on your own.
It can feel really scary and you don't necessarily know what to do to make them better. And actually there's so much support out there that you can get to make sure that you're kind of getting the most. So we have covered a lot today, loads of strategies, loads to think, but I'm sure everyone's brains are taking over.
But as we all know, it's really easy to take in lots of information and then sort of feel a bit overwhelmed. So at the end of every episode Catherine, I asked my guests, what's the one thing you would really recommend people just do today just to get themselves started.
Catherine: I think the key thing is really check your numbers, check your costs. If you haven't checked them in the last three months, I'd say definitely time to check them again. Same thing with the pricing, competitors pricing. So getting your kind of pricing nailed and reviewed and in the current climate is [00:37:00] the really the key.
Sophie: Yeah.
fantastic. Lovely. Well, if you've loved listening to all of Catherine's tips and advice, and you want to hear more.
The best way to do that is on Instagram, which has at resilient retail club. And if you want to delve into the topic that we've talked about today, so growing your sales in 2022, Catherine has a free talk on her website, resilient retail club.com forward slash grow at 2022. And I will put that in the show notes as well.
Thank you so much again, Katherine. That was absolutely brilliant
Thank you so much for joining me before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you ever enjoyed these podcast episodes, I'd really love to ask you to leave a review in apple podcasts reviews are one of the major ways that apple ranks their podcasts, and it only takes a few seconds, but really does make a massive difference to new people.
Finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of growing pains, see you next time. [00:38:00]
