Making the Most of Retail ROAR

Catherine Erdly: Welcome to episode number 186 of the resilient retail game plan. Hi, I’m your host, Catherine Erdly. I’m also the founder of the Resilient Retail Club, which is my membership group and mastermind for product businesses. You can find out more about both at resilientretailclub.com. 

But today I want to talk to you about the Retail ROAR Free Online Conference. It is happening on the 29th of February to the 1st of March, and you absolutely do not want to miss out. If you head over to retailroar.co.uk, that’s retailROAR.co.uk, then you can sign up absolutely for free and you can also check out our amazing lineup. 

In today’s episode, I wanted to share with you some tips on how to get the most out of the online summit.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry.

and showing you how you can use them in your business. This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good.

Confidently plan, launch and manage your products and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

So the one thing that sometimes can feel like a barrier for people when it comes to signing up for an event like this is they feel they don’t have the time or they feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information that’s out there. So what I wanted to walk through with you today is just my thoughts on how you can make the most out of it while fitting around your no doubt extremely busy life and business.

First thing to say that there will be replays and they will be available for a few days after the live event. So if you think it sounds interesting, but you’re not sure that you can actually come along and commit to coming along live, then I would strongly suggest that you sign up so that you’ve got that option to watch on the replays.

Tip #1: Check out the lineup of retail founders. Find the stories and experiences that interest you. Mark the date/time in your diary to attend that session.

Catherine Erdly: I’ve got three main tips that I’m going to share with you in today’s episode when it comes to getting the most out of Retail ROAR. First thing is head over to retailROAR.co.uk and check out the lineup of speakers. We have got around 10 founders of retail businesses or brands, and we’ve also got around eight to nine experts as well.

So we have got a really broad variety of people. And my suggestion is that you start off by really looking at, for example, which founders particularly resonate with you. Are there brands there that you love, that you’d love to know a bit more about them? Or for example, would you just like to hear a bit more about the story?

Because it really appeals to you. It sounds interesting. Or maybe think about it from the perspective of whose product type is most similar to yours. 

Just to run through our lineup then, for example, we have Jemma Solomon. She’s a TV personality. She has a fabulous brand called The Label Lady, and she’s built nearly three quarters of a million size community of people all around her love of home organization.

She also has had investment from Lord Sugar into her business. And she’s going to be sharing how she built a business from her passion, how she built up this large, engaged, super engaged online audience. If you head over to Label Lady (@label.lady.1) on Instagram, for example, you can see how much her audience really interact with her and also what it’s like getting investment from Lord Sugar.

So it’s a great one to come along to if you’re curious what that might be like. 

We are also being joined by Jo Tutchener-Sharp. She is the founder and CEO of Scamp & Dude. They have been on a huge growth journey over the last eight years and are now in a phase where they’re opening multiple stores, which is allowing them to really connect to the customer.

Jo speaks so wonderfully eloquently about what it’s like to start a business from your passion, from this really deep held belief that she wanted to do better. She wanted to give back. She’s going to be sharing about charitable giving from her business. She’s also going to be sharing all about how it’s, it’s felt to grow and what her challenges have been as she shifted.

Lucy Greenwood, co founder of Lucy & Yak. She is also one of our speakers in the, in the lineup. She’s a great person to listen to if you want to know what the challenges are and the rewards of having a purpose led business. She’s going to be sharing their journey from her parents basement where they were dispatching dungarees to last year being listed on the top 100 fastest growth UK companies. And what that journey has been like for her as a founder. So can’t wait for you to hear her story. 

Yaw Okyere, he is the founder of Ava Estell, which is a skincare brand made with melanin in mind. And they had their first 10,000 pound day within about a week of them starting.

So this is an amazing story of rapid growth. And if you want to know what it’s like to build a multi-seven figure brand in under three years. Then you’re going to want to tune in and listen to what Yaw has to say. 

Brie Read, Snag Tights, another business that was on the top 100 fastest growth UK companies last year.

Brie Read started Snag Tights when she was frustrated about the lack of. Uh, tights that fit her basically. That was it. And on top of that, she has grown it to be a multi million pound global business with customers all over the world. And she’s also a really great example of how a leader can delegate, put trust in their team, and how do you manage that sort of growth and stay sane, basically, and also really empower your team to do more. 

We’ve got Ruby Raut. She is the founder and CEO of WUKA, which stands for Wake Up, Kick Ass, and she has an amazing accolade to her name, which is that she actually influenced government policy and got them to reduce and to remove VAT from period pants, which makes reusable eco friendly period products more accessible to more people.

So a great one to come along and listen to. If you have a campaigning element to your business and you’re curious about how she did it, how she kept that focus as well as balancing the challenges of being a founder and a campaigner and wrapping those two up into the business. 

We also have Ama Amo-Agyei. She is the founder of Plantmade, which is a hair care brand. Also started just like Ava Estell started during the pandemic and has seen explosive growth. First 100k in five months. So another great example of what fast growth can feel like, and she shares some really great practical tips around founder mindset and how she has developed and changed as a founder along with the business.

We’re also excited to be welcoming Eleanor Bowmer, who is the founder of Eleanor Bowmer, which is a textile design and illustration studio based in Manchester. She is another great example of someone who started at craft market stall and has grown and grown to now collaborate with all kinds of high street brands to have her products stocked in so many different stores and she’s going to be sharing her story and how she grew the brand and how it’s evolved over the years.

And we also have Matthew Hopkins. Who is the founder of The Great Brand Exchange, which is, an organization dedicated to helping SMEs get a foot in the door with people like John Lewis, Waitrose, Harvey Nichols and he’s going to be talking about shifts in retail in 2024. 

So we’ve got a phenomenal lineup, some really amazing people who’ve built incredible businesses.

I can’t wait to share them with you. And my advice is have a listen, which one of those stories is the most interesting to you, which one is really drawing you in and then find out when it’s going to be. Once you’ve signed up, you will get a schedule, which will tell you when each session is going to be.

And then mark it in your diary. Make sure you make a note and you get it in there. And if you can’t come live, also put a date in your diary when you’re going to be listening to the replay, there will be replays up over the weekend for sure. So a few days after the summit. So make sure you’ve figured out when you’re going to actually listen to those replays, because we’re going to have such an amazing opportunity to hear the inside story of some incredible businesses. And really get to grips with what these founders did that helped them not just build a business that looks good, but one that feels good to them, feels really good to them too. And that is the theme of the whole conference is building a business that not only looks good, but feels good too.

Don’t miss Catherine’s Opening Remarks on how to create a business that feels good.

Catherine Erdly: And that’s what my talk is going to be. On the opening talk on day number one, I’m going to be sharing with you my thoughts about what I’ve learned from all of these amazing conversations with these founders and how you can use those thoughts and principles to build that business for you that really, really feels good.

Not just looks good. That is tip number one. Go check out the amazing lineup of founders. Find the ones that speak to you and then make sure you put time in your diary. 

Tip #2: Go back to your goals for the year, and identify the experts that can help you move towards that goal. Mark their sessions in your diary.

Catherine Erdly: The second tip I have for you is, we have an amazing array of expert advice. We have the trend expert for Etsy. So Dayna Isom Johnson has been working at Etsy for 12 years.

And for the last six years, she has been writing their trend guides, which are used by hundreds of thousands of Etsy sellers and small businesses across the world to identify how the customer is shifting the way that they buy, she is coming to Retail ROAR and she’s going to be telling you what’s happening in 2024 and what product areas and trends to look out for, for your business.

We have Elizabeth Stiles, fashion brand consultant. Previous, guests on the podcast. She’s going to be talking all about social media that feels good. Social media success and how to make it feel good in 2024. 

Therese Oertenblad from Small Business Collaborative. She’s going to be talking about wholesale success in 2024.

Tamu Thomas, who’s an amazing holistic life coach and writer. She’s going to be sharing her tips to avoid toxic productivity, something that I’m sure a lot of us can really relate to, and talking about her latest book, which is called Women Who Work Too Much, that will be coming out shortly after the summit. So don’t miss out on that. 

Rosie Davies-Smith is the founder of PR Dispatch and she has Over 20 years of PR experience and has helped thousands of product businesses use PR to grow their sales. She’ll be sharing PR tips for success in 2024. 

Aime Cox, who’s the founder of Studio Cotton. She’s a small business website and SEO expert. She’s going to be talking about content that attracts and converts your customers in a way that really works in line with what Google wants to see from your business. And again, this is going to be real goldmine of information of how to get your website working most effectively in 2024. 

And Eman Ismail, who is the founder of Eman Copy Co and she is an email strategist and we’ll be talking about email success in 2024.

So we’ve got a really fabulous array of topics. Don’t miss out. Head over to retailroar.co.uk to check out the lineup and then going through the list of experts. 

If you think about episode 182 of the resilient retail game plan, we talked about setting your sales goals for the year.

So have a think about what your key goals are for the year. What do you need support with? What you’d like to find out some more about and then match that to the expert. So if you’re thinking about wholesale, don’t miss Therese’s session. If you know you want to improve your website, come along and listen to Aime.

If PR is on your list, find out when Rosie’s session is come along to that. And if it’s about email, come along to Eman’s. If it’s about social media, come along to Elizabeth’s. If you’re feeling like this is the year you really get that work life balance sorted out, come along and listen to Tamu and just really look at what your goals are for the business.

Match that to the session. Make sure that you’re signed up. Make sure that you make a note in your diary of when that’s going to be on. Come along and listen or make a note of when you’re going to be able to go in and catch up. 

Tip #3 – Don’t forget to network with other attendees in the Facebook group!

Catherine Erdly: So the final point then I’d like to leave you with, so we’ve got to have a look at the founders, decide which stories speak to you the most head over to retailROAR.co.uk to check that out and to sign up, have a look at the experts and decide which ones tie in most closely with your goal for the business or goals for the business this year. Make sure you’ve got those in the diary. Don’t forget to come along, listen to my talk on how to create a business that really feels good.

And then also the third one is don’t forget about networking. So the way that the summit is going to work, when you sign up say completely free, you’ll get the timetable of what’s happening. And then you’ll also get an invite to join a pop up Facebook group. So come along, join the pop up Facebook group.

It’s going to be activated. You’re going to be let into the group the day before the summit starts. We’re going to have opportunities for you to say hi, opportunities for you to share what business you have, what you’re doing, introduce yourself. And it’s really a great opportunity to meet other small business owners and to share what’s going on for you, what your thoughts are throughout the talks, we’re going to be having polls and what people are thinking about the topics you’re going to be able to interact with other people in the chat. So don’t miss out on that aspect. Not only are you going to hear from some amazing founders and some incredible experts, but you’re also going to have that opportunity to interact with lots and lots of other product business owners, e-commerce brands, independent retailers, shopkeepers, people doing the same thing as you looking to grow their business in 2024. And the whole purpose of this summit, it is to help you feel good, feel inspired, ready to roar in 2024. It is definitely a dopamine hit for you, for your business. And if you’ve been feeling a little sluggish or losing your motivation, You don’t want to miss this.

You’re going to hear some incredible stories, listen to some amazing experts, and you’re also going to have the opportunity to meet some other business owners. So don’t miss out, head over to retailROAR.co.uk and I will see you there.