There's a question that I see pop up in retail and e-commerce Facebook groups constantly. And I mean, constantly. It goes a little something like this. Sales have really dropped off. Is anyone else experiencing this? What are you doing to get sales right now? And every time I see it, I do the same thing. I go into the comments, not because I don't already know what I'm going to find, but because I'm hoping that I'm wrong. The thing is, I never am.

Because in those comments, without fail, you will find dozens of other store owners all saying the same thing back to each other. Yeah, it's so slow. Same here. It must be the economy. The algorithm has completely killed my reach. I've tried everything and nothing's working. I don't even know what to do anymore. I don't think marketing works. What you won't find, or almost never find, is anyone actually answering the question. The question was, what are you doing to get sales right now?

Hey there and welcome back to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast, where we dig into the nitty gritty of understanding exactly what it takes to run and grow a profitable retail or e-commerce business.

So back to my Facebook groups. Sometimes I will go in and ask directly - if I'm in a Salena ranty-pants mood, I will just jump in and say, hey, what have you been doing for marketing? What campaigns have you been running? What have you put out there in the last month to give your customers a reason to buy from you right now? And here's what I get back almost every single time. Not a lot, just posting on social media. I've been meaning to do some emails, but I haven't gotten around to it. I ran a sale a couple of months ago, but I didn't really do much.

And every time I read those answers, I think the same thing. Well, it's no wonder that your sales are down. Because the revenue roller coaster - that feeling of a good month followed by a not-so-great month, followed by a so-so month, followed by another not-so-great month - it's not the economy. It's not the algorithm. It's not bad luck, even though it might feel like it when you're in the middle of it. It's a mirror.

Your sales are almost always a reflection of what you were doing three, four, five, six weeks earlier. When you've been showing up and giving people a reason to buy, making it really easy for them to say yes, then the sales follow. But when you go quiet - when life takes over, or when you tried something and you didn't get the results that you wanted so you just stopped - the sales will go quiet too.

There is just enough of a delay between those two that sometimes it is hard to see the connection. So that month that felt inexplicably slow? If you go back and look at what you were doing in the lead-up to it, you'll almost always find your answers right there.

And here's the thing. When I ask store owners what they've been doing for marketing and they say not a lot, I get it. I really do. Because when we look at the list of things that we're apparently supposed to be doing - Instagram, TikTok, email, SMS, ads, content calendar, SEO - there are so many things. It is a lot. And when you are already flat out running a business, making all of these decisions, all of those extra places start to feel impossible. So you probably end up doing what most people do - a little bit here and there.

You might try some marketing, you cross your fingers, you hope that something works, and you keep your head down and you keep going. The problem is that doing a little bit of everything with no clear direction behind it gives you the exact results that you'd expect. Some months you do okay, some months not so great, and no real way of understanding why it went either way.

And living with that kind of unpredictability is genuinely hard. It is not just a revenue problem. When you don't know what money you've got coming in, you can't make decisions with confidence. Do you reorder the product that's been moving well? Well, you're not sure, because last month was fine but this month has been a little slow and you don't know if it's a blip or a sign of something bigger. Do you take on a casual for an upcoming busy period? You'd like to, but you're just not sure if the money is quite there. Do you commit to a new range? You want to, but the timing feels a little risky. Every single decision becomes harder than it needs to be. And when every decision becomes harder, it gets very exhausting very quickly.

And then there's the stock side of things, because in retail, cash flow and inventory literally go hand in hand. When you're not sure what's coming in, you don't know what you can order. So you either order too little and you run out of the stuff that people actually want, or you order too much and your cash is sitting on a shelf going absolutely nowhere. Neither feels good. And both happen all of the time when your revenue is unpredictable.

I have talked to store owners who are awake at three o'clock in the morning, not knowing if they can cover their next stock order or if they can pay payroll. Store owners who are avoiding their bank balance - literally throwing credit card bills in the bin without opening them. They can't tell me how much is in their bank account. And when I ask them why, they say, because not knowing is better than finding out there's not enough. Store owners who are working six days a week, more hours than they ever worked in a corporate job, and still not taking home what they should be.

And these are good people. Hardworking people. How much effort they put in is never in question. They're just caught in a cycle that keeps repeating. And that cycle almost always comes back to the same thing: not showing up consistently enough with a clear reason for your customers to buy. Your marketing has no purpose. Now, I don't think people market without a purpose because they want to confuse everybody. I think nobody shows them a better way to think about it.

When you get off that roller coaster - the revenue roller coaster that comes from unpredictable marketing - I've worked with thousands of retailers, and the people who step off that revenue roller coaster tend to find they're not doing more. They're not suddenly on every platform or posting ten times a day. What changes is they stop throwing everything out randomly.

They start actually building their marketing around a purpose. And that purpose is usually a campaign - something with a clear start, a clear end, a clear reason for customers to buy now rather than maybe when they feel like it. And when that is in place, everything becomes so much easier. You know what your emails are for. You know what to write. You know what to say. You know what kind of social media content you should be posting, because you know what you're selling and your customers have a reason to buy from you right now - not just maybe next week.

And instead of just crossing your fingers and hoping that somebody buys, you start to build momentum. Momentum that gives you more predictable and repeatable sales and revenue. You step off the roller coaster. Now, the roller coaster doesn't disappear overnight, but it does start to flatten out. You go from the big monster roller coaster to the little baby roller coaster. And when you stop dreading what next month's numbers are going to look like, honestly, the whole experience of running your business changes. I've literally had people say it's like a giant weight has been lifted off their shoulders.

So let's bring this back to you. Think about the last time sales and revenue felt really good. What were you doing then? How often were you showing up? What kind of marketing messaging were you putting out there? And then think about the slow times. What had you been doing in the weeks before? What did your marketing look like then? The answer right there tells you more about your revenue than the economy ever will. Because the difference between those two is nearly always the clarity, the focus, and the consistency of your marketing.

The businesses that are going to come out the other side of this period in retail - and there will be significant shakeout, we are already seeing it right now - the ones who come through the other side will be the ones who understand that consistent sales require consistent, intentional marketing. Not more effort across every single channel, but deliberate, campaign-driven activity that gives customers a clear reason to buy from you right now.

So here's what I want to share with you, because if you have heard yourself in any of this episode, I've built something for exactly this - something that will help you create predictable, repeatable sales and revenue. I call it the Marketing That Works Bootcamp. I built it because I keep seeing the same thing: store owners doing a little bit of everything, spread so thin when it comes to their marketing, and nothing tying their marketing together. They're posting, they're emailing, they're running the occasional sale, but they don't get results that they can actually count on.

The whole bootcamp is built around one idea: that when you have a campaign driving your marketing - something with a real purpose - everything starts to work better. Your emails will have a reason to exist. Your content has somewhere to send your customers. It has a reason. It has a purpose. Your customers have a clear reason to buy from you right now, not just a vague hope that they'll come back someday. And when all of that happens, your revenue starts to feel like something you have control over.

It's a live bootcamp, running over four sessions. It is $47 and it is for store owners who are done with hit-and-miss marketing and want to understand what needs to change to create marketing that works.

If that's you, make sure you head over to themarketingthatworksbootcamp.com and register your spot. If you're ready to stop crossing your fingers and hoping that your marketing might land - that somehow people will discover you and buy your stuff - then head over to themarketingthatworksbootcamp.com. I can't wait to see you there.