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[00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the retail initiative. I'm excited for this one. Honestly, I'm a little bit fired up about it. I'm really active in the retail world. Like whether it's Facebook groups, events that I go to, I talk to retailers every single day about something. And one of the themes that I'm seeing a ton, in fact, I just got off a call with someone who in the very beginning of recall was like, you know, this year we've really struggled, but everyone's struggling right now.
[00:00:28] And then she just kind of [00:00:30] kept going and I circled back to it and I was like, well, what, what makes you believe that everyone is struggling right now? And she's like, well, I just see it all over the, this Facebook group that we're in. And you know, I guess, I guess, I don't know. I just assumed that we're all struggling.
[00:00:47] And this was a hard, a little bit of a hard conversation. Cause I was like, well, the truth is not everyone is struggling. Like there are people right now. There are retailers, independent retailers that [00:01:00] are crushing it, that are growing and they're dealing with like growth problems. They're not dealing with how do I get sales?
[00:01:08] They have their, their other pain points. And so the truth is like that we're not all in the same place, but I do know. And it's not lost on me that this is a difficult season. There are more people struggling right now than there were two years ago. Three years ago, four years ago, um, the [00:01:30] economy has shifted.
[00:01:30] The way that people are buying has shifted and it has, even though everyone's not struggling, I know that more people are. And here's why I first want to start with the fact that not everyone is. If everyone truly was. Why try if everyone was struggling, that means that it is not possible to not struggle right now.
[00:01:54] So why put forth the effort? Why not just get through it and get to the other side? But [00:02:00] if there are people that are crushing it right now, you can too. If there are other people that are dominating in their sales, you can too. If you just bring in the right approach. And so I thought through, it was like, I looked at our clients.
[00:02:16] I looked at people in some of these groups that I know are thriving in this, and I found a few common threads that I want to share with you, and I want you to. Think through. And number one, the first thing that I noticed, [00:02:30] and I come back to this one a lot, and I, like, I remember when I was early in business, I would go to conferences and people would talk about this and I'm like, Oh, not this again.
[00:02:40] Get to the good stuff. Then I started to notice that was the good stuff. I wanted the, tell me where to click to do the thing. And instead I realized that there was something else I needed to learn. And it's their belief. The people that are crushing it right [00:03:00] now actually believe that it's possible for them to be doing well.
[00:03:04] And they're like, yeah, I'm reading all this stuff, but I'm not even paying attention to it. Um, and they believe that success is almost inevitable for them. And so for you, and you'll see it a lot, like there's posts in the group that are like, yeah, I was really struggling. And then I changed my approach. I changed my perspective, translate that to, I changed what I believed about it.
[00:03:24] And then X, Y, and Z. Now, does believing it make it [00:03:30] happen immediately? Absolutely not. And does believing alone make it possible? Absolutely not. And does believing that success is possible mean that the issues are not real issues? No, like it does not mean that the economy all of a sudden is not a problem, but it changes our approach to it.
[00:03:50] What it says when we shift our belief that it can be possible is we can say, hey, the economy is what it is. And so far, my [00:04:00] response to it has not kept up to the degree. I'm going to take responsibility. I'm going to take ownership of that. And I now have full control to get where I want to be. And I believe that I can, and then we're going to find the pathway to get there.
[00:04:15] But we first have to believe that it's possible. And so there are two tactical things that I want to give you around shifting your belief. Um, if you're curious about this, I did an episode with my friend Crystal Rose. She is amazing at [00:04:30] the things that she talks about with belief, um, and really shifting your belief.
[00:04:34] Around this. Cause this is, there's some deep work with this, but two practical things that I want to give you is number one, control your inputs. And what I mean by that is the things that you let into your brain have a deeper impact than you realize. If you're reading in Facebook groups, I'm struggling, I'm struggling.
[00:04:54] I had nothing's working. No sales aren't happening. And I don't want to discredit those people. Like they're showing up [00:05:00] like they need to in a community that's there to support them. But don't flood your brain with those ideas. The brain, to get a little woo woo here, the brain attracts what it focuses on.
[00:05:13] So if you focus on, I don't want to forget this, I don't want to forget this, I don't want to forget this, I don't want to forget this, the brain hears forget, forget, forget. We want to focus on what we want. Remember this. Remember this. Remember this. And the brain focuses on [00:05:30] remembering. It's a weird, it's a weird thing that the brain does, but it attracts what we focus on.
[00:05:35] Even if we don't want X, Y, and Z, it's still attracts the thing. Cause that's what we're focused on. We're focused on what we're getting away from rather than what we're moving towards. And one of the easiest things you can do to shift some of that is to control what you let into your brain. So this might mean limiting your social media, not reading fear based news.
[00:05:57] And look, that fear based [00:06:00] stuff exists on both sides. Like. This isn't a political statement. I think that if you want to find fear and the world is falling apart, if this person's president or this person's president or whatever, like that exists everywhere, remove yourself from that. That's not serving you.
[00:06:17] It's not helping you. You can stay informed in the news without putting yourself in that stuff. And then the second thing is to start practicing envisioning your successful future. And [00:06:30] what I mean by that is Get a pen and paper out and write a statement that's like, it is December 15th, 2024 and I just woke up and I'm about to do X, Y, and Z, then I'm going to go to our store and I'm going to focus on X, Y, and Z and my team is doing this and, and write it out as though it's present.
[00:06:52] And present tense and close your eyes and envision what does it look like? What does it feel like? What do you smell? [00:07:00] What things does it act like? What does it really feel like to have that level of success? But envision it, uh, and and get that picture so clear in your mind that it almost like it almost becomes your current reality.
[00:07:18] And then you can start to make decisions based on success rather than this based on fear. So thing number one that I'm seeing successful retailers do people that are not, [00:07:30] um, suffering through this, but are really thriving right now is they believe that it's possible their belief. Is in line with their results.
[00:07:39] Number two, they're shifting in their strategy right now. Consumer habits are changing and they are shifting. And one of the easiest ways that we can approach this is don't look for rules on like, where do I click? What kind of posts you're doing? Do I post to Instagram? If there's a Tik TOK logo, which no you don't, but, [00:08:00] um, you don't, don't look for rules, look for how to think.
[00:08:04] Look for how to think about what is your customer engaged with? What kind of content represents my brand? How can I tell a story around what my customer's thinking about rather than what's new, what's new, what's new. And if you can learn how to think about. Your strategy rather than obsessing over learning the rules.
[00:08:24] Well, it's going to make a plan. Like once you do get into some of the rules of social media, you're going to [00:08:30] be able to apply it in a way where you're going to take what works, but as soon as things stop working or, or they don't work at all, you can shift and you can shift much faster than if we're just obsessed with, well, this person told me X, Y, and Z.
[00:08:44] And so I'm doing that. And until they tell me otherwise, I'm going to keep doing it. It doesn't have to be that way. If we can learn how to think about it, it'll help us shift in our strategies much faster. Um, and then the last thing is they're [00:09:00] planning. Like they went into the holidays with a clear plan for November and December.
[00:09:05] They knew what promotions would be. They knew what their emails looked like. They knew what social stuff they would be doing. And I realized like where we are, it's too late to do that for the holidays, but it's not too late to do that for 2024. As you look to the new year, what could be different for you?
[00:09:24] What could be different in 2024 than existed in 2023? And a [00:09:30] massive part of this could be the way that you plan and then commit to the plan, which looks like prioritizing a lot of times we say we don't have time, but we really do have the time, right? Like we, the time's there. We all have 24 hours, but shifts is what we're willing to prioritize.
[00:09:47] One of my favorite stories is from Johnny Ive. He was the main designer for Apple under Steve jobs. So the iMac, the iPhone, the iPod, all of that was created by Johnny Ive. And Steve Jobs [00:10:00] was obsessed with focus, obsessed with only focusing on what we have decided we will focus on. And he would ask Johnny Ive, what have you said no to?
[00:10:11] And Johnny Ive, or Steve, or yeah, Johnny Ive would respond like, well I said no to this, I said no to this, I said no to this. And Steve Jobs would reply like, well of course you did, you don't want to do those things. What things did you say no to that you wanted to do? But you said no to it because you knew there was something better to focus on.[00:10:30]
[00:10:30] So for us going into 2024, what things are we not just going to start doing, but what things are we going to say, no, like, that's not, that's not my focus. This week, I had someone in my company bring some amazing ideas of things we could do in 2024. And as hard as it was. Cause I got really excited about it.
[00:10:51] I had to say, no, like, if we do that, we're distracting from the mission that we decided is going to not just move the needle for our company, but [00:11:00] really serve our community in an incredible way. And so we're, I'm like, Hey, that's Q3. We're not going to touch that in Q1 or two. Let's push that to Q3 and we can address it then.
[00:11:14] And so. That's what I want to leave you with is what does that look like in 2024? What are you going to focus on? How are we going to shift our beliefs? How are we going to learn how to think about these things rather than just what rules to follow? And [00:11:30] then how are we going to create a plan and commit to it?
[00:11:33] And I think if we can do those three things, 2024 could look significantly different for you than 2023. Now to give the shameless plug, which I don't do often. Um, if you are serious about growing your online sales and you want to know that you have the right foundation in place to drive traffic, turn that traffic into paying customers and keep people coming back.
[00:11:55] I would love to personally connect with you on a free strategy session [00:12:00] made by capital. com slash schedule. In that call, we're going to dig into where your business is like what's going on right now. Where do you need to focus? Where do we need to stop focusing to get where you want to go? We want to get crystal clear on your goals and then we can help create a pathway to get there.
[00:12:16] And of course, if we're a good fit, we'll share what that looks like. And if we're not, then hopefully I can get you pointed towards someone that can help you. Uh, so I invite you again, that's madebycapital. com slash schedule. [00:12:30] And I cannot wait to see you next week. Thanks for listening.
