Salena Knight (00:00)

It's Tuesday night, it's nearly ten o'clock, and you're on the couch with your laptop balanced on your knees, the TV in the background on, but nobody's watching it. You've got Clavio open on the screen with a newsletter draft staring back at you. It was meant to go out on Saturday. Last Saturday.

Salena Knight (00:17)

Sales seem have been a bit slower than you're expecting this month, and sitting there it hits you. You've only sent one email this month. By now, you would normally have sent three, because you send one a week. And you haven't posted on Instagram for three days.

Salena Knight (00:32)

Twenty minutes later, the newsletter is half written. There's a photo in it that you took on the shop floor on Friday, and

Salena Knight (00:39)

You know it's not quite right, but it's now 1030, you've been on your feet since seven, and you think, it'll do. Just get it out. Something is better than nothing. And so you hit send. And that's the email that your customers get. Not the one you planned, the one that you had time for. Hey there and welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. I'm Selena Knight and I help retail and e-com stores make more money.

Salena Knight (01:07)

Now, I would love to say that I am dramatizing that scenario, but I've had some version of that conversation with many of the retailers that I work with just this week. And if you're listening to this somewhere between September and Christmas, I'd put money on that being pretty close to what your week looks like right now.

Salena Knight (01:26)

Maybe it's not a Tuesday, maybe it's not the couch, maybe it's your phone at the counter thumb typing a post between customers, and you have to stop halfway through because someone wants to know if you've got that in a size 12. Or maybe the laptop's open, but it's got a list of orders on it that need to be shipped out on the screen instead of clavio. Different place, same feeling.

Salena Knight (01:48)

Because here's what I know from experience the next three months look like for most store owners. You have stock arriving, boxes and boxes of it. You have Christmas ranges to organize, you've got staff to roster and orders to send. The customer whose parcel has gone missing, who's emailed you three times and is now messaging on Instagram as well, just in case. The casual who didn't turn up on Saturday. And the regular marketing that was supposed to go out three days ago. There is

Salena Knight (02:18)

Always something more urgent sitting in front of you. And so the marketing goes on the I'll sort it out later list. And for a lot of store owners that I talk to, that is a real list. It is written on the back of a delivery docket, it is stuck on the side of the till with a bit of tape, or it's a note in your phone. And on that list you will find things like the Christmas gift guide, the email about the new range that you have to send out, plan my Black Friday, the reminder that needs to go out with the last shipping dates.

Salena Knight (02:48)

The post about gift cards, which you know has to go out in October. Every single thing on that list would make you money. And every single one of them is sitting there waiting for a gap in your day. A day that is already overfilled. One of the retailers I was talking to last week owns a fashion boutique, and she said something to me that I have heard way too many times. She said, Sal, I don't feel like I am going to be able to survive Q4.

Salena Knight (03:17)

If I am working in the shop this much. She's short on staff. She is busy hiring. That's just another thing that's on her to-do list. But it means that right now she is on the shop floor five days a week. She's doing the cleaning because the junior doesn't feel like it's her job. And given that she's already shorthanded, she doesn't want to rock rock the boat in case the junior leaves. In her words, she is at max capacity. She is doing everything. And it's only

Salena Knight (03:46)

September. The Q4 rush hasn't even started yet. And if you're feeling this too, you know how overwhelming and all-consuming it can be. You can see the busiest part of the year coming at you, and you already feel like you're running on empty. And when you are running on empty, something has to give. And here's what I know to be true: that something is nearly always your marketing. Instead of sending emails every week,

Salena Knight (04:16)

They drop to one, maybe two a month. Instead of posting every day on social, a week can go by and you realize that you never posted that last product drop. But with everything going on, that is all you're able to get out. Which is exactly where we started, the newsletter that was meant to go out last Saturday. And you can see that it has a knock-on effect. Just like our boutique owner, when she sends emails, she knows it brings in the sales. So less emails and less socials.

Salena Knight (04:45)

Means sales drop. And if that's you right now, I get it. You know what needs to be done. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do it. What you really want most is to get the business through the rest of this year with a good chunk of money coming in. But here is the loop you're stuck in. To get the decent money coming in, you need to do more marketing. To do more marketing, you need more time. And you don't have the time.

Salena Knight (05:12)

Because you're on the shop floor or you're at the packing bench. And so the marketing doesn't happen. And so the money doesn't come in the way that it could. So now there's even more pressure on every day that you're in the shop. And the marketing slips again. And around and around you go.

Salena Knight (05:30)

So I want to give you three simple tips for your marketing when you're this busy. None of them need you to find a spare week. They just need a few decisions that you need to make now before those busy weeks hit. The first one is to set a target and then check in on it every Monday. When you get busy, the numbers are usually one of those first things to just disappear. You tell yourself that you will just look at them once things calm down. And in Q4, things don't calm down. So set your target now.

Salena Knight (05:59)

before the season starts? What do you need this month, this week, even today? And then I want you to go and check in on it every Monday, just ten minutes. Where are you at? And where should we be? Because when you know those numbers, you don't have to stop and think about what to do. If you know you need five thousand dollars a day and you're not there, then today's the day that you make the time to send the extra email. Today's the day you make the time to send the extra text message.

Salena Knight (06:28)

That number is going to tell you. Crossing your fingers and hoping that the money is going to be there at the end of the day is not a business strategy. Okay, now you are going to put aside the time to check in on your numbers every single week for 10 minutes, every Monday. Okay? My second tip is to work out which things on your list actually make you money and do those first. When that boutique owner and I went through all of the things on her plate, it came down to just two jobs.

Salena Knight (06:58)

For her, it was fine staff and make money. And she needed the staff to make the money. And so that moved to a single spot in her calendar this week. Those emails that have slipped down the list, they make money. And so they come off the to-do list for later and they get a time in the diary today. The junior can clean the bathroom. The reality is there are only so many hours in the day. So when it's busy, you do have to prioritize.

Salena Knight (07:28)

You can't just say that you'll do it if you get more time, because you won't get more time, not in Q4. You have to make the time. So what are the things that are literally stopping you from moving forward? Even if something feels like an urgent fire, will it really burn the place down if a customer waits 30 minutes or an hour to get an email reply? The old saying is, when you say I don't have time, what you're really saying is this is not a priority. That needs to be your mantra.

Salena Knight (07:57)

If you are really really busy in Q4. Okay, my third tip. See, these are really, really simple. Really simple things. And none of them takes a lot of time. My third one is what I like to call double dipping. Now, if you are struggling to figure out what to post on social media, there is a simple fix. I want you to take what you put in your newsletter and turn it into a social post. You have already done the hard part. You've picked the products, you've written about them, you've got the photos.

Salena Knight (08:27)

So that newsletter can become three or four posts for the week. The new range, the gift idea, the reminder about the last shipping dates. Socials don't have to be highly polished. So a photo in the store or a picture of a box on a palette, it's what actually draws people in and it makes your brand yours. Your customers need to see an offer anywhere between seven and twenty-one times before they act on it. So that one email about gift cards, that's one. The post on Instagram, that's two.

Salena Knight (08:56)

The sign on the counter is three. The text message the day before it ends, that's four. The banner on your website, that's five. Now I know it can feel like too much. It can feel like you are going to annoy your customers, but you are not annoying them. You are just reminding them. They are busy too. They saw it once, they meant to come back, and then life got in the way.

Salena Knight (09:18)

So when you are flat out and you only get one email out, that is one reminder out of the seven to twenty-one that they actually need to buy. You are doing them a favor when you think about it that way. One newsletter, three or four days of posts, and you didn't have to come up with anything new. I know that if you just did more marketing, you would make more money. But I also know that it is a struggle to build it all. And that is the whole problem right there.

Salena Knight (09:47)

You already know marketing works. You just never get the time to do it. And because you never get to do it, those extra sales don't come in. And without the extra sales, nothing changes. You're still on the floor, you're still behind the packing bench, and you still don't have the time.

Salena Knight (10:03)

And the reality is it costs you your health, it costs you your sanity, it can cost you customers, and of course it costs you cash flow. So those three simple tips that will lighten the load when it comes to marketing in Q4. Start by tracking your sales. Then let's go back to that list, the one on the back of the delivery docket or the note on your phone. Have a proper look at it. Which one of those things makes you money?

Salena Knight (10:30)

And how many of them are just going to sit there waiting for a gap that is never going to come? I want you to put your big girl pants on and make some very hard decisions. Pick and choose what is truly important and honestly just focus on those. Yes, some stuff is not gonna get done, but let's make sure the ones that leverage this peak season actually do. And I give you permission to double dip. Is that just an Australian saying?

Salena Knight (10:58)

It's it's like when you put your cracker back into the homice tub after you've already taken a bite. That's double dipping. I give you permission to double dip when it comes to your marketing. I don't want you sitting on the couch at 10 o'clock trying to send a newsletter with a photo that's not quite right. That is exactly why I put together my free 12-week holiday marketing calendar. Every year, thousands of retailers download this very handy calendar, which has been completely updated for 2026.

Salena Knight (11:27)

It's there so that your marketing keeps going out, even when you're flat out. You don't have to sit down and work out what needs to happen next, or when Black Friday needs to be decided, or when your Christmas shopping dates need to go up. It's already worked out for you from the 1st of October right through till Christmas. So you open it, you do today's job, and you get back to business. No more 10 o'clock Tuesday nights, no more last minute Black Friday, just the right things done at the right time.

Salena Knight (11:56)

So the little bit of time that you do have goes on the things that actually make you money. You can grab that for free over at selenaite.com forward slash calendar. Because your customers are going to spend this Christmas. Let's make sure they spend it with you. You can grab my free 12-week holiday marketing calendar at selena.com forward slash calendar. Alrighty, I hope you enjoyed these three simple tips for when you are super busy in Q4.

Salena Knight (12:25)

I will see you on the next episode.