Salena Knight 0:00
Hey there, and welcome to today's episode of The bringing business to retail podcast. The team and I are back onboard I have been on fire I have recorded some brand new podcasts which I have sent off to the editor that were ready to go live next week. And today I thought I would share with you a little, little mini episode a little replay of a Facebook Live that I did as I was sitting in the airport lounge waiting to head off to the retail Academy live. So picture this, I have a arrived at the airport, I have pulled up at the valet I have pulled out that's that's part sounds very, very swanky. But I have hauled out this giant we call it the dead body bag. So if you can imagine a dead body bag filled to the brim with we had display walls, we had stand exhibition standard pieces, we had all of the activities, and we had the exercises for the retail Academy live. So I hold that out. But I only had to pull it out of the car. And in fact, I could have had one of the guys from valet do it for me. But you know, I didn't even think about it, I just kind of hold it out, threw it on the trolley. And off I went and dropped it off and flitted myself into the business class lounge to have a glass of champagne. And to celebrate the fact that this great event was about to happen. I was flying into Melbourne to meet my team, some of which I have never met in person before. Even though we talk every single day, I had never met them in person. So I had flown them in to Melbourne for this event, I had dinners planned, the event was planned I there was so much that I was just looking forward to the lounge was actually very empty. And you're going to hear when I'm when I'm talking instead of being my usual loud exuberant self. I sound like I am, you know, kind of talking under my breath and a little bit whispery. The reason for that audio is because I was sitting in the lounge with just a handful of people. And I was I was so excited, I was just really grateful for where you're not saying I'm not always grateful, but really grateful for where I was at, in my business. And everything that we had planned, I had my team flying in from all around the globe. And I was I was just in a really, really great mood. And I felt really grateful and really proud of what I had achieved what our team had achieved and what we'd help other people achieve. So as I'm sitting in the lounge with my glass of champagne, and my fancy peanuts, and cashews and almonds, I decided to go live to talk about how growing as a person has really changed and no new business has really changed the way that I value, money. And little bit of background, I'm a title as I don't like to spend money if I don't have to. But there are some things I will spend money on. And that is what I'm going to share with you in today's episode. But I wanted to walk you through why these things are important to me, and why I've changed my tune on a lot of these things. Because as I'm learning these things, it's just a handful of things. Because now for me time is valuable. And I'm sure just like you, I've put a lot of effort, so many hours, blood, sweat, tears, so much money into creating a business that gives back in so many ways. And you know what, we should be rewarded for that. It's not selfish to reward yourself. I mean, that's what we're here for. That's what we put all the effort in, to have the nice things to live the great life. And it's taken me a really long time to be okay with spending money. And you know, sometimes there are cobwebs in my, in my wallet. Because there are some things I just don't value and so I won't spend the money on it. It's always a running joke as to I love really nice hotel rooms, but I don't like to pay lots of money for them. So I will always find the best deal when it comes to really nice hotel rooms. Other people on my team value different things that I care about the hotel room, maybe they just want plush towels, or the really nice shampoo and conditioner, or a really nice comfy bed when it comes to hotel rooms. We all value different things. And as we go into this episode, I want you to realize that it's not about gloating, and it's not trying to rub any thing in anyone's face. It's trying to make you think about what are the things that you can splurge on what are the things that you deserve in life because this is what you put all the effort in for to be able to reward yourself to be able to have the nice things and the nice things for you might not be the same nice things for me and that is totally okay. But I would love to know what are you going to splurge on and reward yourself with what are the little luxuries that you Things are okay to spend money on. Now before we jump into this episode, just a quick reminder, I think I've mentioned this on the previous podcasts that I am going to be like going live with a five day challenge in just a few weeks. And in that five day challenge, I am going to give you a complete framework on the things that you can do to scale your business to the next level, whether that is to get to five figures, six figures, seven figures, eight figures, it doesn't matter. This is the same process that I work with, through work work through with, with my one on one consulting clients, and I'm going to be sharing it all with you, we're going to work through it together over five days. So if you want to get on the waitlist for this free challenge, head over to Selena night.com forward slash challenge puppy details in and you will be the first to know when it goes live. Alrighty, let's jump into today's episode of the little luxuries that I like to splurge on. Hey there, and welcome to the bringing business to retail podcast. If you're looking to get more sales, more customers, master your marketing, and ultimately take control of your retail or E commerce business, then you're in the right place. I'm Selena and I, a retail growth strategist and multi award winning store owner whose superpower is uncovering exactly what your business requires. To move to the next level. I'll provide you with the strategies, the tools and the insight you need to scale your store. All you need to do is take action, ready to get started.

Speaker 1 6:48
Hey, there I am here inside of the business lounge, the Qantas business lounge, getting ready to fly to Melbourne to see you all for the retail Academy live. I am super excited. But a funny thing happened on the way in here. My husband said to me, he had a little bit of a chuckle. And he said to me, these are things that you would never have spent money on before. Like when I first met you like oh how you change and share with us. Three things that I now spend money on, even though I'm tired of out wherever possible, I tend to spend money on these things because I really value what they give me. Right. So on the way here, the first thing that I did well on the way on when picking my trip to Melbourne was I knew that I had a lot of luggage. Like I just made my bags one was 23 kilos, and the other one was 22 kilos, because they have the the props and things for the retail Kenyan live to be backdrops and whatnot. And I knew that I was going to have to purchase additional baggage. But I was like, Oh, well, if I find business, how much luggage do I get? Haha, I get two bags at 32 kilos each. So automatically, I knew that I would be I already knew that I was going to fly business because I use my points for it. Like, I don't know the last time I actually bought a business class ticket. But I pretty much fly business where, wherever I can. And it doesn't cost me anything. It doesn't cost me less than the time you pay taxes and stuff. It's less than a regular flight ticket. Because I put everything on my Amex card. So I have like, I don't know, 700,000 points, oodles and oodles of points. And so booking a flight to Melbourne. I don't know, what was it a business class flight 30,000 points, nothing. And I think the whole flight cost me $60. And it meant that I didn't have to worry about extra baggage. I could just drop it in there. I could wander up here to the lounge. I can have my glass of champagne. I don't have to pay for anything. I have a printer in the lounge if I need to last minute print anything. It's a quiet space. There's a noisy space, there's food. There's some TP there's PowerPoint. I can sit in a very comfy chair. I can chill and do nothing. I can read magazines like fun fact, when I was born, pretty much flew business because we have points. And once we did and we were sitting in the gate waiting for our flight and she kept saying to me, why are we not in the lounge. So one of the things I always do is point out and I always spend those points on flights and never spend them like you know the random things that they try and sell you with. Because again, I'm looking at flying to America to go visit a friend pagina and again it won't cost me eight anything because by the time I use my points, like a premium economy or business flight is 80,000 points, there and back, I still have hundreds of 1000s of points. And this is not financial advice. But if you are not putting everything through an Amex card that gives you points, you are seriously missing out. And so flying business is one of those things that, especially when I'm retired, and it doesn't cost me anything, is something that I always, always, always do. The other thing, this one is only just brand new. And I can't say that I do it all the time. But when I arrived at the airport, I literally dropped my car, outside the door at the valet, now I valet my car, this is the second time, Oh my freaking god, he's so good. Like, I literally got out the car. And remember, I had to 25 kilo bags pretty much. They got the bags out the car for me, they got the trolley, they loaded it up, I walked in, I showed them a little QR code, walked into the airport, dropped it. And I recognized on my car to the business lounge, the longest thing that took was the security because my shoes. Anything of I think it was maybe eight minutes. Now normally, I park in the lot. That is like when you catch the busing, because I'm a tie. That's right. And it's it seems like an awful lot of money. But the valet parking passes, even though they were double, it was still really good value. So I think, I think from memory, the lat parking was maybe $75. And the valet parking was $150 for the same amount of time. But $150 For are we talking five days to drop my car, literally outside the door and walk in, no stress, no mess, no fuss. I mean, if you guys have kids and not using valet, like seriously, I would highly recommend looking into it. And it's one of those things that I never really thought about doing because I always thought it was so expensive. But the funny thing is, when I logged into the airport to do the parking, this is very smart. I have to think about how we can do this inside of your eCommerce store. But it was really smart, because it used to just ask you to pick which one you wanted to park in. And I would choose that off airport lot. And this time, it just got you to say which flight you were flying, and then the dates and it gave you all the different prices. And I would not have gone to the valet if it hadn't have shown me the difference in the prices because when I'm weighing it up, it was double. But realistically was 70 bucks. Like, yeah, that's an awful lot of money to not have to carry. I don't even know how I would have carried those two bags on the bus to the airport of the airport, find one of the little stroller things, put it all on log in it like that. I'm sorry, not happening. So first thing that I always do fly business class where possible, which is kind of why I'm flying. Now a little bit later in the day, I was hoping to get to Melbourne a little bit earlier and hang out with Joe Ed but no business class flights until Yeah. So hack those points, my friends, hack those points fly business, or if you can, especially international fly first. Once you have flown first class, you will never want to leave you always want to turn left when you hop in the plane. Okay, so finding one business class, I'm going to let's just plug this into account, business cards, I can have as many glasses of champagne as I want, I'll probably have one or two. But if I was in the bar downstairs, we're paying that $15 each $30 for like, all that stuff gone out the window. And it's funny that when you start to have more money when you start more money, the things that gets included in the package, kind of up level quite significantly. This is what I have noticed is when you get like the VIP version of something, it's not just a little bit better, it's a seriously lot better. And it's kind of why people who have lots of money, spend on memberships and stuff because what it affords them is quite fun time and time is worth money. Like let's think about it. If you got into the business now Julio, you could probably send an email out instead of like, I'm not gonna do that and convenience and convenience is something that people will definitely painful. The third thing as we speak, that I like clothes are not really like fashion. I am not a fashion forward person like I think I think everybody knows. Certainly not a fashion forward person. But what I have found is as the older the older that I've got is I will spend money on clothes, not always but I will spend money on things that I know I will get a lot of value out out of it. And it was funny because I was at a conference the other day, and I was wearing maxi dress. And someone said to me, oh my God, you're up on the screen. And then we realized, it was not me that day, it was me from like, five years ago, wearing a dress, still wearing a dress. And it's funny, I'm on a, like a bike swap sell for a certain designer, not this designer, not the same designer that you will be seeing at tra live and other designer, Australian designer. And as a dress that I wear, I kind of save it for special occasions now because it is 11 years old. And I don't want it to fall apart. And someone put a picture of the dress up in the size that I have. And so does anyone have this dress, I know it's a long shot, but I absolutely love this dress. And I recently got it ripped or something like that. And I desperately desperately needing that one. And I thought isn't that funny because I probably paid like $180 for that dress. It was it was 2012 and I still have that dress in my cupboard. And I still wear it because it still looks really really good. I'll be honest, I don't want the T shirts from Kmart in my wardrobe. But I also have this is one of the by Samantha maxi dresses. And she will be speaking at the retail Academy live. And I can't even remember how I found her because I'll be honest, she did not do a lot of marketing adult, she's built his cult brand on literally just I just saw her running ads a couple of days ago. I'll be asking her all about that. On Tuesday, she'll be speaking on Tuesday session. And I can't remember how I found her. I sort of seen her in a Facebook group when she first started out. But then I went looking for these dresses, I want to do some beautiful wrap dresses because obviously maxi dresses up on the screen. And the other designer that I follow sort of stopped making that style. And so I sort of stumbled across them. Kind of a friend of a friend who lives locally had some so I went over to her place and open up a wardrobe and oh

Speaker 1 17:04
my god she had I'm gonna say 60 Like I think I have quite a few dresses. She had literally a whole wardrobe of them. She was the same size as me so I try to fit one got the colors got the sizing she showed me all the different fabrics like complete diehard fan, I didn't even know that's me makes these dresses in different fabrics. There's like dry touch and slinky at the school here. Every single thing about every single dress. And that kind of stuff goes a really long way because of course her enthusiasm got me super, super excited about the brand. And I have quite a few dresses now.

Salena Knight 17:44
I love them.

Speaker 1 17:44
They're great for traveling. I love traveling in a maxi dress, we can just be there's so much fabric you can just kind of like you need to keep your legs moving around. It's like you don't have to worry about slashing anything. It comfy. Like Jay when I wear jeans, they my belly like floats in the plane. Lets people have that. So I don't have to worry about that. I feel quite stylish. I don't feel solitary often. Because most of the days I walk around, walk around in my workout gear. I'm one of those athleisure people. And so I feel like I put an effort I got a blazer there for looking fresh and super easy. And the thing is these dresses. So I'm gonna go with I think a maxi dress is about $250 you can resell a maxi dress in her bicycle upsell group, I don't know if it's her boss or group in her brand new boss workflow group for in the 220s lead is not uncommon. And so understanding how someone has built a brand where people are reselling the product for like 90% of its value. I am super excited to see how she's done it, how she has managed to do all that and share that stuff with you. And so that is one of the things that I will spend money now is clothing that makes me feel good clothing that I know will like last the test of time. You know, I try not to do fast fashion. Yes, I do have some Kmart T shirts just for slouching around the house. But even my like athleisure wear athleisure with my yoga gear. It's stuff that I have had for quite a few years, it still still looks as good as the day I bought it. But when you pay 8090 $100 for a pair of leggings, that you know you're going to wear several times a week, then it is worth splurging. And probably the last thing that my husband doesn't know about because he doesn't really pay attention to what happens in Parliament debates. But you know, he listens to everything that I'm saying. But the last thing I suppose John is working with people, it was really the best way to say it's working with people who will take my business to the next level. So if you listen to the podcast I've talked, I've talked about this a lot over the last 12 months is really changing. Not changing my team but we How much of my team left sort of about 18 months ago for new people in to change their business model, the agencies that we worked with, really making sure that people that we're working with can get us to the next level. Because what I have found is that, and I've said this before, is what got you here won't get you there. And people can be really nice. That nice, doesn't necessarily pay the bills and nice, it's not profitability. And so I've kind of had to get over that, which I think a lot of you guys have the same problem to had to get over that. Sacking, sacking, or stopping working with somebody who I've kind of grown out of or the business has grown out of and I was, it's not uncommon for me to spend 5000 US dollars on working with someone for a couple of days, who can fix a problem or can increase our conversion rate, or run ads or so whatever that thing is, is a little heart palpitations. But I just dropped 18,000 US dollars on working with a coach for 90 days. And what it has done for our business has, like literally been game changing. And that was really, really scary. Because you know, Australian dollars versus US dollars, which is why we believe US dollars, because we do work with people all over the world. But it's probably one of the biggest one off commitments that I have made for a very, very long time. But it has paid off. I would say that I've at least five ext my return on investment in less than 90 days. And so yeah, so that was four things I said three, but four things. So four things that I now as a class will spend money on. Well, maybe they'll spend that I will indulge in. Definitely a better term is business class flights, pretty much because I don't pay for them. Valet parking, because value driven, it is extremely valuable. In terms of value, use very high ROI. decent quality clothes that will stand the test of time and investing in the people that I work with. And the people who work with us to get a better return on investment. Okay, all right. I'm gonna go and enjoy this trip before it goes warm. And it might very fancy smokes nuts. If you've ever been in the Qantas international first class flight. We have the best smoke out of this world. These ones are not those but they're okay. There's Macedonia's us and my fancy when there's a lack of Daliah. Right. Okay, if you are heading off to tre live, I am super excited to see you there. And if you're not, then stay tuned. Listen to the podcast and we'll catch up. I'm sure we'll have snippets going alive right through the two days. Okay, guys, have a great day. Thanks.

Salena Knight 23:00
So that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode, and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Selenite and make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently, or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action. Then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review on your platform of choice. Because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and E commerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale. And when that happens, it's a win for you. A win for your community, and a win for your customers. I'll see you on the next episode.