Salena Knight 0:02
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 Celina Knight, 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?

Salena Knight 0:52
Hi there, and welcome to today's episode of the brainy business to retail podcast. You know, there are always those conversations that for some reason, they just seem to stay with you. And years later, you can still recall exactly where you were, what the weather was, like. Even the sounds in the background, the music that was playing on the radio, it somehow those situations just seem embedded in our psyche. Well, the other day, I was on a podcast, and the host asked me at the end for a quick quote to finish up the episode. And

Speaker 1 1:31
I just said, the more money we make, the more people we serve. Well, of course, the episode did

Salena Knight 1:39
not end there. Because he then wanted to go deeper into the conversation like, why did why did I pick that? And can you tell me more about where that came from? The first thing that popped into my head was this time, it was maybe 2019 2020, we'll get confused with the whole COVID thing. The year before we got locked down in COVID. whenever that was, I was sitting in this train on the subway in New York. And I was on my way to the NRF show where I was going to interview Jane Liu from showpo. And you can listen to that episode on the podcast if you want to go back and find it. And while I was there, I while I was there, I was sitting there. And they were these two girls kind of standing up, just sort of next to me, but kind of behind me. And they were talking about how money is evil. And it was probably a good 15 to 20 minutes that I was on that. I don't know how far does it some way, it feels like it was a long way. But maybe I just had an all stop stream. But I'm gonna say it was maybe 15 or 20 minutes, because you know, in hindsight, you never quite remember the exact amount of time. But during this time, they pretty much just wrote off anybody who had money. I remember them talking about Kim Kardashian and how her life was so unattainable. This was free. The Kanye breaker if I'm correct, I'm not really Kim K fan. And then there was another celebrity that I'd never heard of, clearly, I am not your pop culture person. But they had said that about about her. And as I said, I don't remember her name that she had forgotten where she came from. And the whole gist of this story was really that money is playing evil, that I didn't say anything, which you're probably shocked at. I'm the kind of person who does talk to people on trades. But I was so completely swept up in this conversation. And I remember I was holding my iPad, reading my book in air quotes, and trying my best not to look straight at them. Because you know how, when you're listening, you're eavesdropping on a conversation, you actually want to look at the people and see what it is they're talking about. Well, I was trying to not do that I was very conscious because you know, foreigner on a train, very conscious of not doing that. But I find it really hard to I don't know the focus needs to be like when my eyeballs out. But anyway, so I was very interested in what they were saying. And I would not make a good spy because I was looking at them quite a lot. But they were so wrapped up in their conversation they didn't even notice. So I'm missing them listening to them. But at the same time, in my mind, I'm having an argument with them only in my mind about how great money is because here's the thing on the way to that show. I had flown first class from Sydney to New York. So that there is no way that anyone who has flown first class can ever say money is bad. Even better. I'd use my frequent flyer miles and it only cost me $120. So yeah, that was fantastic. And once you've flown first class, you will never want to fly anything else ever again. I was staying in a beautiful apartment. Once again, I'm going to say Upper West Side, Upper East Side. I'm not quite sure. Beautiful apartment marble, like a historic 1930s apartment, but beautiful marble bathrooms. And there was a doorman who got my Amazon parcels for me. Again, I paid for it with points hadn't cost me anything. So I was essentially on this kind of work holiday. And maybe I'd spent about $500 to get there. I had a press pass to go to the conference. So my outlay, I'm just like, okay, look, money is good. But it's even better when you can have all these things. And you don't have to spend an awful lot of it. So I was going to the conference, I had these podcasts lined up, and I was gonna learn a whole bunch of stuff, you might think I'm a little bit fancy. I am not a little bit fancy. I know people seem to think that, trust me, I walk around most of the day in my yoga gear, my gym gear, I'm the kind of person who would much rather go out for a really good gluten free burger than a fancy three course dinner. I don't own a $2,000 handbag, I think I own two handbags. And the most expensive one of those was $200. And I basically use it as a laptop bag every now and then. And I love to DIY. I love saving money. And maybe it's because I grew up so poor, that so many small things can make me feel rich. But I will challenge anyone to not feel rich, when you have flown first class from one side of the ball to the other for $120. Right? Okay, me while I'm on this conference, my business is still ticking along. It's supporting my family is supporting my team. I'm here shopping, adding to the local economy. And I'm not a billionaire. But having lived a life in borderline poverty when I was younger, I live a nice middle class life now. And I can safely say, life is pretty good when you have money. You can support other people you can give to charity, you can make the world a much nicer place, you get to choose what you do with that money. And the great news is you don't have to be bitch in the process. And so much of the media portrays people with money to be rich, just like these two girls on the train. So your business is there to make you money so that you can live the life that you want, whatever that looks like for you. So to make more money, you have to do two things. You have to increase your profit margin. And you've got to increase your sales. Preferably. I'm hoping we can do both of those both of those for you on this podcast. I'm going to crop cover maybe the profit part first. Because I don't want you to end up growing broke. I have been there I have done that I've had to sell my house to get out of the crapper. You don't need to go there and make mistakes because you can learn from the mistakes that I have made. When I opened my business, my first physical business, I did because I couldn't buy the things that I wanted in Australia at the time. I had no retail experience. Well, I like a little bit of retail experience. I'll tell you about that in a second. I didn't even have sales experience. Like looking back. I had no right to open a store. Right. But the job that I was doing at the time and in fact, the job I had the jobs I had done to get to this point were I was an arborist. I was a horticulturist. And then I moved on to managing hundreds of guys. And before that, in terms of management, I wandered around people's backyards as a tree Preservation Officer for the local council. So I did have a little bit of retail experience. But that retail experience consisted of stocking shelves, in the phrases of a supermarket was actually a really great job because I would put my big Eskimo suit on and I would walk into the freezers, I would have four of these trolleys that I needed to get emptied in four hours. I would have little like beds with myself and it was always a bit of a bit with the people who worked in the freezer. It's like can you get four of these trolleys done in four hours. And you'd always leave a note for the next person so you know kind of game that you can play. You could listen to some music if you wanted to make sure that you kept a little beanie on. But my experience with retail was pretty much stacking shelves in a free in a freezer or sometimes stacking shelves out in the store. At the here I am passionate about making sure that you can sell more products to your customers and make more money in the process and learn from my okay I've been in this retail game for like Nearly two decades now, so learn from my experience. And the reason I want to do that is because I truly believe that the more we sell, the more money we make, the more people we help. So when I first opened my store, I had no idea how to price my products. So I did what I know a lot of people do. I simply Google the product, I saw how much other companies were selling it for. And then I had my pricing. So fast forward to say a couple of months into business. And, yeah, just as a backstory, I'm like really good at the backstories. And if you watch these videos, I kind of like move my head over to the sides of like, just come over here with me right now, as a backstory. When I opened my retail business, we were in the middle, in the middle of the start, I just say the start of the GFC, like 2007. So GFC was kind of 2007, eight, and nine. And I can say now that that situation was very similar to what we're seeing economically right now. So housing markets still quite buoyant. But people definitely tightening their belts and discretionary spending was tightening. And that happened for a few years. But I was selling products that no one else could buy. So my sales were increasing. But I think they have less money in the bank account. And I remember thinking like wtf is happening here. People are coming in, people are buying, I have no money.

Salena Knight 11:30
They probably were wondering where this is going, right? That I had no idea what it costs for me to operate my business. So I had no idea what margins I needed to be profitable. And if you'd listened. Last week, I told you about how I had a degree in business. And I didn't understand this stuff. I don't remember anyone ever talking about markup and margins in my four years of doing that degree. And I know we talked about business, and it wasn't necessarily retail. But I feel like that's an important thing no matter what you're selling. So if you've heard this story, just bear with me for a second. I remember a time when we used to sell these wet bags, and I'm looking around, because 20 years later, I still have some of those wet bags, I still use them to this day. And whenever I say them, I always look around like do I have one because I'll stick my laptop in one. But I don't seem to have one with me right now. But we have these wet bags that that that were great last forever. And we're used to it. And they're really, really funky. And we used to import them from America, here to Australia. And I remember, you know, the prices were going up, the exchange rate was fluctuating, it's kind of got back to where it is right now. So it cost me $1 To buy sort of 51 US cents. And at the time, we were selling one of one size of the wet bag for 2999. And we had to put it up to 3499, which is only $5. Right. But still even that the margins were pretty slim. But these were highly sought after products. So they used to bring a lot of traffic to the website, and a lot of people into the store to buy them as long as we had a really good variety. And not long after that, we then had to put them up to 3999. So we've got between nine 999 to 3999, at the time looking at the US website, and they were selling on the US website for 3499. I'm thinking Well, realistically, if you put took the exchange rate into account, I should be selling them for a lot more. But I knew that this was kind of the price point at which I would still be able to sell them. And people would people would still buy them. But it was a little bit pushing the prospect anyway. So there were only maybe four or five people in Australia who sold these bags. And one of them was my competition, who was Elizabeth, who now is part of our expert team. And the other person, it was someone I knew. And she had them on her website for 2999 Australian dollars. So I actually picked up the phone one day, and I was like, Hey, you have these wet bags on your website for 2999? Like, how are you doing it because I buy a lot of these these bags and I have tried to negotiate pricing with the supplier. I've tried to be the distributor, I've tried everything to get my price point down to the point where I would buy 200 bags to be able to fill it like the maximum I could fit into a box because I was paying for the box anyway. And whatever went into the box, if I filled it to the brim or I filled it half I was paying the same amount. And so she said to me, like that's what we've always sold them for. But with the exchange rate and the price increase, like how are you making any money like realistically 2999 with tax is almost our cost price. And so, it was that moment when she kind of realized like, maybe I'm not making any money. Get out of these bags. And I was like, Well, hey, you, do you but I'm not in this business to not make money. And so that kind of highlights the importance of not paying any attention to what other people are selling products for because you don't know their story. You don't know how much they're buying in, you don't know if they have deals with the suppliers, you don't know if they're doing parallel imports or gray imports. You know, no, you do you. Okay. So now that I have hammered home, the importance of being profitable, let's look at how you can price your products to increase sales so that you can get more sales, and we can get more people to buy your stuff. Alright, so to get more sales, we either need to get more people to buy our products, they've got to be new people, or they have to be existing customers. Now getting new people to buy our products can be expensive, but you do need to be filling that customer funnel. Getting your existing customers to shop with you more often is a really great way to increase your sales, because it is much cheaper. But it does come with the caveat of you don't want to fall into this trap of only marketing to your existing customers because I have seen this happen. And what happens is you exhaust your database, people get to the point where they don't need anything more from you at this time. And something that I don't see nearly enough retail and e commerce Store owners doing to increase their sales is are you ready for it here is number one number one way to increase to price your products to get more sales. Use subscriptions. Now I get my toilet paper on subscription, I get my hair products on subscription, I get my vitamins auto ship, to me, pretty much anything consumable like that can be a subscription product. So I did some research and in a global study, aside from food and beverage, which is the most popular thing for people to subscribe to 38% of people subscribed to personal care products. Like I just told you, my hair, my vitamins 34% of people subscribe to household products, I'm gonna throw my toilet paper in there. But this is things like I know that one of my friends subscribes to KO cleaning products where they kind of work out how often you need to buy their organic and eco sprays and whatnot, and then they ship it out to you 32% Subscribe to clothing. And that really surprised me that number is really, really high. And there's a lot of people in retail and e Commerce who sell clothing who are not in the subscription game, that 26% of toys and games and books and 26% of pet products like that really makes sense. Now that I've said that we have our dry dog food on subscription, big because as customers, we want buying to be easier. Like I have two greyhounds, they have a really big sack of food. And if someone else is going to deliver it to my door, and I don't have to go to the shops and slip it around and put it in the car and bring it up the stairs, I'm going to take that option. So the easier you make it for us as customers to buy, it's no brainer, right, we're going to stick around longer. And on average, it isn't research a customer's lifetime value. So that's how much they're worth to you over the time that they spend with your company that can increase when you put subscriptions in place by up to 200%. That is crazy. Now, what I really like about this subscription model is that it helps you to forecast your inventory. Like if you know that 300 units go out just to your subscriptions, then it's going to help you forecast your inventory. And it's going to give you what I like to call M AR. So in business speak M AR is monthly recurring revenue. It is the consistent amount that you know is going to show up in your bank account every single month. And my friends M R is literally something that you can take all the way to the bank. Sometimes when you see subscriptions, you will see a spend and save. So for example with my vitamins, it's subscribed to the vitamins and you get it 5% cheaper that you don't have to do that. And in my case, the 5% wouldn't be a make or break as to whether I bought the product or not. I simply do the subscription so that it turns up when I need it usually turns up like two or three days before I run out. But as we have all experienced people are tightening their belts and so sometimes that simple five plus said wish, remember, can double the amount of times that your customers spend with you. To me, that's a pretty fair trade off. Right? So subscriptions is one way, putting, you're putting a system in place where your customers could just have that product turn up, over and over again. So, if we take that model, and kind of flip the script a little bit, you can look at what I like to call tiered pricing. And you'll often see this with services, you know, you see the gold package, or the silver package or the bronze package. But we don't tend to see it too much in retail and E commerce. But

Speaker 1 20:37
I think it should be used more often. Or you should at least test it. And I know that one of the

Salena Knight 20:47
IT IS A CHAIN homeware store, but it's not, I'm gonna say it probably still independent, I'm pretty sure it's not tied to a big group. But one of the homeless stores near me, charges, a $100 signup fee for you to become a VIP member. And it's like, yeah, they sell a lot of high end products, their quilt covers are probably more than $100, they do some little decor items, they sell some furniture like beds and artwork and things like that. So when you join the VIP club, you then get generally between a 10 and 15% discount off everyday items, and then they might have their VIP sales and whatnot. But as a customer, once you have spent, what does that work has been maybe like $900 with them. Remember, that might be one bid. Everything after that is money back in your pocket, because the money that you've saved has paid that $100 fee. But now we have this tiered pricing. And you see these quite often you hear we call them clubs, just trying to think what the equivalent might be in the US. But essentially, you go into a club and you have a members price and a non members price. And that tiered pricing is usually you know, it's usually quite significant. But you might be thinking like, I can't afford to be giving 15% off everyone, just for the $100 I'm gonna get up front, I'm pretty sure that that nonmember price is stacked in the stores favor, like they're pretty much banking on the fact that a certain amount of their customers are going to be buying at the discounted price. So the non member price is probably I'm gonna say inflated. Now, one of the biggest mistakes that I see retailers making other than just charging what other people are charging is that they price their products based on how much they would be prepared to spend. So just taking that tiered pricing for a moment, we'd be like, but I wouldn't be prepared to spend $100 to be in the VIP club, you are not your best customer. Right. As retailers. Let's be honest, we are Tituss we are so used to paying wholesale for everything, that we have a completely distorted view of how much value a customer places on a product. And I use this example, really, really often. I like my Coke Zero for my caffeine fix because I don't drink coffee. So I can go into the supermarket here in Australia. And a warm bottle of Coca Cola on the grocery store shelf is probably $2 $53 I'm not sure I haven't bought it for a long time, let's just call it $3 A bottle for two liters. For you guys in America, that's about half a gallon. But if I want a cold can of Coca Cola, in a convenience store or in a service station, where I can just walk in, grab it and walk out again. And remember it's super cold than that can hear in Australia, it's probably going to cost me anywhere from three to $5. And so in a can here in Australia, we have 375 mils versus a two liter bottle what is that? Roughly 1/5 or 1/6 of the amount, but twice or more the price because I wanted it cold. And I didn't want to schlep all the way into a grocery store and wait in a queue to pay and take it home and put it in the fridge. Now, this is really important because pricing your products on convenience is something that most of you overlook. And I did a podcast with Dean psilakis from the party people, which is Australia's largest party supplies, think paper plates, hats, party favor bags, costumes, all those kinds of things. And on that podcast, I'll link to it in the show notes. He was telling me that they charge more than their competitors for their party staples. And he did comment on things like paper plates or Paper cups, party favor bags, and yet, they're the biggest party store in Australia. They're not suffering because they're charging more so where their competitors might be charging $6 for a packet of plates, they're charging eight, nine $10. And they can do that because their customers want the convenience of being able to buy the complete set of Dora the Explorer, the complete set of frozen. They want the plates they want the hats, they want the Party favorite bags, they want the pin yada, they want the tablecloth they will all the things they don't want to have to go off to five different stores to get all the bid. And maybe some of it doesn't show up. Because we're shipping it to us maybe that delivery gets held up kids birthday parties, right? We want the things that people can be Godzilla is when it comes to Godzilla is asking brides villas party Zilla, they can be potty doulas when it comes to having parties and not have all the things. So pricing for convenience is something that your competitors may not be able to offer because they don't have that convenience. Guys, if you have a bricks and mortar store, you can charge more. Because if I want something I talked about this not long ago, I needed a suitcase before I went to the UK a few weeks ago, and I needed it by the next day, I didn't have a choice of places to go. So I had to pay what the price was, I paid for that convenience. Now, pricing for your business is a crucial part of your business strategy. Because your overheads, your cost of marketing, your staffing, everything is going to be very, very different to

Speaker 1 26:40
your competitors, that it doesn't matter what you sell, you still have to make money. Yeah, they will of

Salena Knight 26:50
course be that crucial point like the wet bags I was telling you about where you might overprice something to a point where your customers no longer see the value. But that's the fine line. You have to be testing this out. Like what how far can you push that price up like dealing with these paper plates, and being able to charge 30% more for the convenience. And this is where something like in our programs, we have this thing called the perfect product matrix. This is where it comes in really handy. And if you're in any of our programs, you know how fantastic that thing is being able to map out margins on products versus sell through rate being able to work out which other products that had the highest turnover, and give you the most amount of money. Now, having a product that has a great margin, that maybe you only sell four of them in a year. And in my store, I could tell my stores at the time I can tell you what that product was. It was fancy ass baby bags, these beautifully designed and printed baby bags. Everybody loved them. I love them. Everybody came in and said they're amazing. No one ever freaking bought them. I'm pretty sure we've sold four of those in a year. In the end, we ended up negotiating with the supplier to take them back. That's back to like two to $300 each. And nowadays I cringe because literally how many 10s of 1000s of dollars did I lose as a result of having that or moving product in my store for so long. And so that leads us to psychology. And the psychological behavior of buying is something that absolutely fascinates me, I kind of consider myself a bit of a pop psychologist because I love reading all about it. And you've probably noticed that maybe you've got this in your store, too, that a lot of products are priced at 499 2499. This is something I call the penny effect. I'm going to borrow from the American tea here in Australia, we call it one cent. It doesn't really make much sense if I call it the cent effect, because you think oh, is it about smell? No, no, this I'm calling the penny effect. And in sales, we do this we make it 99 cents or 97 cents to make something appear cheaper than it actually is. Because in our brains $24.99 is way better value than $25. Even though there's only one penny difference, and we can argue it you and I you can say no it doesn't work for me. But seriously, so many studies have been done on this. Let me just assure you that if you have a brand and or you've have a range that is pitched at affordable, or value driven customers, and I say that when I'm using the word value driven as affordable, I'm going to talk a lot about value driven. But in this case, I'm talking about you know, the new you've been given me time on market I suggest that you try Changing out if you haven't already the price to a 99 cent 2499 5499. However, if you have a premium brand, and trust me, I have researched this for you. I love to make sure I fact check before I jump on a podcast. So I did this so that you can't come back to me and say, Sal, I went to the product site, and they use nine assets. No, they don't. I went to the product site, and a product reedition 1978. A small nylon backpack is in Australian dollars $3,358 $3,350. I went to the main website, and a trucker cap was selling for $1,045. The freaking hell is buying a $1,045 cap, not me. But someone is at the Louis Vuitton store, which I walked past several times to go to CEO club, there was a wallet in the window $2,770 There is no 99 cents in sight. And that's because these premium brands don't need to convince their customers to buy. Because the customers aren't buying on value, the only value to them is prestige, and aspiration. So you don't have to convince them to buy. So if you have a premium brand, this is something that you can really try out rounding up to a full number, or as a retailer, can you adjust your pricing to make those more premium brands stand out, maybe you might go to T shirts, one is a bit more premium brand. One is 2499. The other one might be 2999. Make it 30. Heck, I'm gonna go out and call it, make it 35. And let's see what happens. So being able to make those more premium brands stand out from those more affordable brands. And of course, this also works on those pricing tiers. So a pair of jeans, that $99.99 is always going to be perceived as a lot more affordable than the pair that is $120 Even though the difference is only $20. So if you have that in your pricing tiers your member versus non member, if the member is getting it for 9999, but the non member is paying 120. The perceived value is $120 is a lot more prestigious, and it has a lot more value, even though the difference is only $20. So before I get on to the next one and the last one, let's quickly recap where we're at in terms of pricing products to get more sales. So far we talked about Mr. So monthly recurring revenue, aka subscriptions, we looked at the tiered pricing, especially for you guys, the members versus non members, that's one of my favorites. The convenience factor, people quite simply will pay more to be able to get what they want, and quickly. And you've got my pity factor using that 99 cents versus whole dollars for more affordable, versus the premium rage products. And the last one, the last one that I have for you is my better than chocolate bundle. I was gonna call it the better than six bundle bundle. But I feel like that might have put some people like a little bit on edge. So I'm going to call it my better than chocolate bundle. So when I bought a new microphone for my podcast, and it's an F e 20 208, if anybody really wants to know, but when I bought this new podcast mic just recently, in fact, when I buy anything that is music adjacent. So a microphone is I use it for podcasting, but the store that I go to is a music store. So anything that's music adjacent is my kind of terminology. I always go to this particular store. They are not the cheapest, they're not particularly expensive, but they are not the

Speaker 1 34:20
cheapest, but they will help me set up whatever I buy. So

Salena Knight 34:27
I bought a prompter pedal. So when I am recording videos that are scripted videos, I have my teleprompter and normally I would have to have like a remote or I'd have to have another person who control the prompter. And sometimes I go a little bit off on a tangent and so if I can't stop and start the conversation when I need to. It all goes a little bit haywire. So I bought I call it a prompter pedal. It is actually a music pedal designed to flip digital music pages. So if you Have a lot of music present a sheet music book is that what it's called, if you have the book that has all the notes in it that you have to play, and you have a digital one, if you press this pedal, it turns the pages. So for me, it stops and starts my teleprompter. And I didn't know which one to buy, I have a specific app that I use, it gave some suggestions, those weren't available here in Australia. And so I took my iPad to the music store. And they literally opened up the boxes, they tried to connect it up, one didn't work, we found one that worked. And I was able to literally walk out of the store. With it ready to go the minute I walked back home. Same thing with my microphone, I took my laptop, I took my little XLR box, they connected it all up, they adjusted it everything adjusted, that's great English. They adjusted everything for me. And I pretty much walked out with a plug and play system. And you might be thinking, well, Sal, that's what you paid for in the extra price that you pay for. And you know what, Sal, that's the kind of thing we would do in our store, because we're fantastic with customer service. That's what you're paying for? Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, Well, yes and no, what I was paying for is something that I value more, it's my better than chocolate, right? Something that I value more than potentially even the product itself. Like, I valued them choosing helping me find the prompter pedal that worked with my iPad, because I could have spent so much money on buying guns that didn't actually work. Or I could have spent $700 on the microphone and got it home. And it sounded crap. And let's be honest, if I don't get my podcast out, I waste time, I'll be annoyed, I'll be cranky with the store I bought it from my podcast probably won't go out in time, which means my whole team will be really, really cranky with me. So for me that that extra is better than chocolate. That is the thing that is almost more important to me than the product that I'm buying. I didn't care which microphone I bought, I didn't care which pill I bought, all I cared is that I could find the one that worked. And I could walk home and it would work for me. So how does this work for you? If you are a homeless store, and you offer to so many hardware stores do this, you let customers take a selection of cushions home and they just return the ones that they don't want. You and I both know, that can be a freaking nightmare. Because one, we never want to do refunds no one wants to do right, we don't want to see money coming out of the bank account. Those products can get stained or dirty in transit, if it's being shipped it can get lost in transit. And then your team have to argue with the customer. And you know, it's all just be a bit of a nightmare. But what if you had a service where people could upload a picture of this space, maybe it's their lounge room and their sofa, and then your team with that excellent styling, I chose the best selection for that room. Now that selection is probably not going to be based necessarily on price. Because if you guys are great at styling, you're going to find the best products for that room. And that is something that a shopper like me because remember, you and I we are used to buying things wholesale. And we are used to just buying not always the cheapest thing but them the best that you can make a do with. And so the difference to me is what works best in the space may not be the thing that I would have chosen, because quite often I would do something like that on price. Yeah. I'm not the kind of person who would spend $120 on a cushion. I can't see the value.

Speaker 1 38:55
Maybe you can. But maybe, just maybe that is because no one has shown me how good my sofa or my bed could look with the exact right cushions. So ask yourself and probably more importantly, ask your customers what extra thing would they want from your business? That would almost be of more value to them than the product itself. Because a strategy like this could literally double your sales over night. And I say that from experience.

Salena Knight 39:35
So speaking of which, that my friends is the perfect segue for me to talk about my upcoming five day challenge. How to double your sales in 90 days. Not only will you be getting strategies like BS on those sessions on how to create a predictable and repeatable plan to increase your revenue, but you will be rolling up your sleeves and taking action to change the trajectory of your business, you'll be working on your business. But you're also going to be working on yourself. Because right now, I bet that you are the driving force behind your business. So if you're feeling flat, if you feel like you're in a rut, if you're not coming up with great ideas, if you're not doing the marketing that you're supposed to be, then the business is going to suffer, right? So I'm teaching you the strategies, and the mindset changes that you need to make to double your sales. Yes, I know that it sounds bold. That is actually one of our core values here at the retail strategies, the three that we have bold, knowledgeable and insightful. So are you ready to come along and learn how to do it, I'll be giving you some real life examples that you can put into place in your retail or E commerce business, just like this podcast, if you take just one of the strategies away and implement it, how much more money could you make, how many more sales, how many more customers could you get by implementing not all five,

Speaker 1 41:05
but just one. But here's the thing, you got to do the work, simply listening to this podcast is not going to change a thing. You have to take action. So I

Salena Knight 41:18
don't want you listening to this on your phone while you're walking your way to dog or running on the treadmill at the gym, and they can. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I want you to commit to taking action. And it's going to be the same in this challenge, you're going to have to show up, and you're going to have to do the work, it is probably going to be confronting for many of you, I will say from experience, when I've run these sessions in person, they can be highly emotional, but that's okay. Because we are all about making changes to ourselves and our businesses so that we can grow. So what I will say is, it's probably going to be the smack in the face and the kick up the butt that you know that you have been needing for some time to help you get unstuck. So head over to sleep tonight.com forward slash challenge, because I want you to secure your spot, I will be teaching these classes you will hear or a whole bunch more mistakes that I have made and the strategies that are working for retailers just like you and how other brands other retail and ecommerce stores have implemented these into their businesses. Now, you guys know that I'm a straight shooter. So I am giving you a heads up now, I am creating this content for you in advance to prepare you to make a financial decision that is going to change your life and your business, just like these strategies that you have had handed to you on a plate today. So let's quickly recap them. So far, we have the mark MRR. So monthly recurring revenue, aka in my case, subscriptions for you guys, that tiered pricing the members versus non members is my favorite, the convenience factor, people will pay more to get what they want, quickly, the penny factor. So that 99 cents versus the whole dollar. And my last one, the better than chocolate bundle. This, my friends, is how you price your products to increase sales. Thank you so much for listening. And I would love it if you could send me a DM and let me know which one of these you put in place and of course the results that you get, because you might just end up being one of those real life examples that we talk about in the challenge. Thank you so much for listening. 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 Selena Knight. 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.

0:02 The relationship between profit and serving others.

2:03 Money's influence, personal experiences with wealth.

7:08 Pricing and profit margins for a retail business. 

12:27 Pricing and selling products in e-commerce. 

18:11 Subscription models and tiered pricing in retail. 

23:12 Pricing strategies for convenience and profit margins. 

28:54 Pricing strategies for sales growth. 

33:26 Customer service and product selection. 

38:56 Doubling sales through strategic pricing and marketing.