Hey there and welcome back to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. I'm Salena Knight and on this show we talk all about different ways to make money in your retail or ecommerce business. And thank you so much for joining me today.

Now, I didn't think in my baby product store that Christmas was my busy season because my products weren't seasonal. I mean, yes, we would have winter clothing and yes, we would have summer clothing. But for the most part, a baby carrier, you use it all year round.

And so I want to tell you about one of the most expensive assumptions that I made in my retail business. And you know they say about you should never assume because you make an ass out of you and me. So this assumption, I'm going to hazard a guess, probably cost me $200,000 in lost revenue.

I'm sharing this with you now because I see so many retailers making the exact same costly mistake that I made simply because no one taught us any better.

Here's the assumption. When customers are already buying, I don't need to run promotions.

I mean, it sounds logical, right? Why would you need to actively market your business when people are already coming through your doors? They're already looking for stuff to buy. I mean, why would you run expensive ad campaigns when November or December is naturally busier than February? Why would you need a strategy when the season pretty much sells itself?

Well, the reason we're having this discussion is because I found out differently. Because I thought the same thing. During busy periods for me - Mother's Day, holidays - I would sit back and I would just let natural demand do the work.

I figured that promotions were for slow periods when you needed to drum up business and drive more customers.

But I was wrong.

Today, I'm going to tell you exactly how this thinking kept me trapped in really mediocre sales when I could have been having, let's be honest, breakthrough months. And this was in a recession, so I really needed that money.

How I was leaving massive amounts of money on the table during times when customers were most ready to spend.

And how you can avoid making the same expensive mistake.

It's December 2009. Remember, I had just opened my store in September. My store has lots of people in it. They're coming in looking for holiday gifts. The phone is ringing with people asking about our products. Even my website traffic is up.

Remember, in 2009 we weren't doing an awful lot of ecommerce back then, but everything felt pretty good for my first year in.

And customers were coming in. I didn't feel like I needed to chase them.

So what did I do?

Well, basically I did nothing strategic.

I figured the holiday season would just carry me through. I would put up some holiday gift signs in the window. I know we pre-wrapped some of our most popular wooden toys and I would send out the occasional email saying, "Don't forget about us when you're out for your holiday shopping."

I'd post on social media - back then it was just Facebook - about perfect gifts with the same energy that I used all year round.

And if you listened to last week's podcast, you'll know that my biggest problem was that I didn't have holiday-positioned gifts.

But in this case, I was acting like a passive participant in my own business's success.

Meanwhile, my customers were walking in. They were looking around. They might buy a thing or two and then they were leaving.

I mean, I was grateful for every sale. I was thinking, "Good, great, another happy customer."

But I had no idea what I was actually missing because here's what I didn't understand.

Just because customers are already buying doesn't mean they're buying as much as they could be.

Just because people are in your store or they're browsing through your website, it doesn't mean that they're seeing everything that you have to offer.

And just because it's busy doesn't mean that you are maximizing the holiday opportunity.

I was leaving so much money on the table and I didn't even know it.

Think about it this way. If someone comes into your store in December looking for a gift, they're already buying. They've already decided to spend money. They're motivated. They're ready. They've literally got their wallet out sometimes.

This is the perfect time to be showing them extra products that they might love, to suggest complementary items, to introduce them to your premium range.

I wasn't doing any of that.

I was just grateful that people bought anything at all.

In fact, it took me several years to realize I didn't even have the right type of stock to maximize those holiday sales.

I didn't have the little add-ons. I wasn't able to break out of my comfort zone and bring in those really high-end toys like the $200 wooden toys.

I chose my product based on what I felt comfortable spending, not on what my customers were wanting to spend.

I was treating my busiest season like it was business as usual instead of recognizing it for being the gold mine that it actually was.

And here's the kicker.

I thought I was being smart.

I thought I was being low pressure and customer friendly by not pushing them to buy products during the holidays.

I thought I was taking the high road by not running promotions when people were already willing to buy.

But what I was actually doing was underserving my customers and underselling my business.

And at the end of the day, I had nowhere near as much money as I should have had.

So let me tell you about the most painful realization I had when I finally started tracking my numbers properly.

Because you know, when I first started out, I relied on an Excel spreadsheet and all I had was money coming in and money going out.

But I realized after some smarter people than I started asking me questions that I didn't have enough data.

I didn't know what my average transaction was during December.

And when I realized that and I looked at the data, I discovered that my average order value in December was the same as it was in July.

Now think about that for a second.

December customers are coming in specifically to buy gifts. They have higher budgets. They are less price sensitive. They're buying, quite often in my case, for multiple grandchildren.

They're in the mood to treat themselves and all of their family.

And yet they were spending almost the same amount of money per visit as someone who was just casually browsing in the middle of the year.

Why?

Because I had no strategy for increasing my basket size.

So here is a perfect example that still makes me cringe.

A customer would come in looking for a baby gift. They would pick up one of our organic cotton onesies for $35. It was a perfect gift. They would pay and then they would leave. They'd be happy with their purchase.

But what I should have been showing them, especially at Christmas but really all year round, was the matching hat for $18, the coordinating blanket for $45, the natural teething toy that parents always need which was $22, and the beautiful gift box that would make a perfect presentation pack for $8.

I mean, I did that to a degree. I would naturally kind of cross-sell or upsell maybe one thing, but after the hat I would feel very uncomfortable showing them the blanket and the teething toy.

So instead of a $35 sale, that could easily have been a $128 sale.

The customer would have walked out with a stunning complete gift set. The recipient hopefully would have been absolutely thrilled and I would have made nearly four times as much revenue from the same customer interaction.

But because I wasn't thinking strategically about upsells and cross-sells, and more importantly about my customers, they were taking whatever was offered instead of me guiding them towards their best outcome.

And it wasn't just about suggesting more products.

I had no systems in place to make it easy.

I didn't have frequently bought together displays.

I didn't train my staff to mention more than one complementary item.

I didn't even have gift bundles pre-made for busy customers right at the beginning.

I didn't understand that people were prepared to pay more to just pick up a box and walk out the door.

Heck, I didn't even plan my inventory to make sure I had all of those obvious bits and bobs - the upsells, the $5, the $10, the $15, the $20 items.

I was making every sale harder than it needed to be, both for my customers and for my bank account.

Here's another example.

We sold these beautiful organic skincare sets and the main product was $65. That was a pretty premium price point, but it was absolutely worth it because it was organic, cruelty free, vegan - it was all the things.

And customers would buy it as a special gift for new mums.

But what I didn't realize until much later was that customers buying this product were also very good candidates for the product I despised the most in the world - organic cotton hooded towels.

Now they were about $35, maybe $40.

We also had this beautiful natural bubble bath which was $25.

And then we had a baby brush. Again, babies don't need brushes, but hey, people like to buy them. That was $18.

These weren't random add-ons if I'd thought about it.

They were products that genuinely complemented the skincare set and created a complete baby spa experience.

But because I never positioned them together, I never suggested them as a package, and I never even displayed them near each other, customers would just buy the skincare set by itself.

They would leave my store spending $65 when they probably could have spent $140 or $150 for a thoughtfully curated gift.

The math on this, when I think about it... honestly, I just can't think about it because it is tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Because if I was doing this with just 10 customers a week during my busy season - and I know it was more than 10 customers - that was like $780 I would be leaving on the table over a 10-week holiday season.

That's like $7,000 or $8,000 in missed revenue just from 10 customers a week not being upsold the products.

But you and I both know it's not just 10 customers. It's dozens of customers, maybe hundreds over the course of the season.

And I did this for more than one year thinking I was being customer friendly by not suggesting additional products.

What I didn't understand was that I was actually doing my customers a disservice.

They wanted to give amazing gifts.

They wanted complete solutions.

They wanted to walk in, pick up a box, and walk out spending a good deal of money feeling good about themselves.

And they would have been thrilled to have all of those products that made their gifts even more special.

But I never gave them that opportunity because no one ever taught me this.

That fancy business degree that took four years and tens of thousands of dollars? This is what they didn't teach me.

Let me paint you a picture of what else was missing by not being strategic during my busy season.

First, I wasn't capturing my customer information effectively.

People would come in, they'd make a purchase, and I'd never see them again.

I wasn't building my email list.

I wasn't finding out what brought them in.

I wasn't asking them what else they wanted, what else they needed, or what their interests were.

This was my perfect time to create a relationship with these warm, engaged customers.

But I didn't realize that. I was just treating them like one-time transactions and being really excited that someone gave me money.

I wasn't leveraging the urgency and emotions of the holiday season.

Holiday customers aren't just buying products. They're buying feelings.

They want to give the perfect gift.

They want to create magical moments.

They want to solve problems for the people they love.

And they want to look like really good gift givers.

They're emotional buyers with higher budgets and less price sensitivity.

And this is when you can introduce your premium products, your special editions, your limited-time offerings - the things you may not sell any other time of year.

This is when customers will pay full price, even premium prices, for things that they love.

I was presenting my products in the same way in December as I did in March.

Same messaging.

Same pricing.

Same lack of urgency.

I was completely missing the emotional and psychological drivers that make holiday shopping different from everyday shopping.

And I wasn't thinking about customer lifetime value.

Because many of these holiday customers were new to my store.

They were people who might never have found me otherwise.

This was my chance to make an incredible first impression, to show them the full value of what I offered, and to turn them into long-term customers.

Instead, I was just happy to take their money and then wonder why I didn't have any customers next year.

And the part that really hurts when I think about it is I wasn't thinking about growth.

If my December sales were $25,000 without any real strategy, what would they have been with proper planning?

With strategic bundling and upselling, I could have increased my average order value by 50%, 70%, maybe even 100%.

With email capture and follow-up sequences, I could have turned holiday shoppers into year-round customers - even if they only came back the next holiday season.

With proper inventory planning and promotion of higher-margin items, I could have dramatically improved my profit margins.

Conservative estimate? Instead of $25,000 that December, I could have made $50,000, $60,000, maybe even $100,000 because there would have been strategic sales at full margins, not me giving discounts to people who didn't even ask for them.

That extra revenue was money in my pocket.

Well, in my case, it was money not in my pocket because I thought I didn't need to actively market during the busy season.

Here's what I wish I knew then that I know now.

The busiest seasons aren't when you stop marketing.

They're when you market the most strategically.

When customers are already motivated to buy, that is when smart promotions can multiply your results instead of just maintaining them.

The key word here is smart.

I'm not talking about desperate discounting or pushy sales tactics.

I'm talking about strategic offers that enhance the customer experience while maximizing your revenue.

So for example, during the holidays customers are buying gifts.

They want to give something special.

They want something that shows they put thought into it.

And this is the perfect time for you to do gift bundles or gift sets.

Package your products into irresistible combinations and think about higher price points.

Instead of selling a candle for $30, create a cozy night-in bundle with a candle, bath salts, and a cozy throw for $185.

The customer gets a better gift, you get a higher sale, and your profit margins improve because you're moving more inventory per transaction.

Think about the psychology of holiday shopping.

When people are buying for multiple people on their list, this is when something like buy two, get one 50% off or buy two, get the third free makes perfect sense.

It's not a desperate discount.

It's a helpful solution for people who need multiple gifts.

I should have been creating urgency around limited holiday inventory.

If I could only afford to bring 20 in, I should have said, "We only have 20 of these special edition gift sets available."

Or I should have told people when holiday shipping orders were closing.

It's not fake urgency. It is real scarcity that helps customers make decisions.

And I should have been capturing email addresses with really holiday-specific lead magnets.

It took me about four years to work this one out when I created our holiday gift guides and then the 12 Days of Gift Ideas.

Those drove more people into my email database.

And the great thing was I didn't have to give a discount.

These customers were already interested in what I sold.

And this was the perfect time to build my list with highly qualified buyers.

It took me a couple of years to work that out, so I'm giving this to you now.

Don't let another year pass you by.

I should have been thinking about the customer journey beyond the immediate sale.

What happens after someone buys a gift from me?

Do they know about my other products?

Am I staying in touch with them?

Am I inviting them to come back and shop again?

And most importantly, I should have been planning.

Busy seasons don't just happen.

They can be orchestrated.

You know when they're going to happen.

The retailers who have money in the bank aren't the ones who let the busy season carry them through.

They're the ones who prepare campaigns, plan their inventory mix, create compelling offers, and execute with intention.

They understand that when customers are already motivated to spend money, that is your opportunity to guide them towards the best possible outcome for everyone involved.

Thinking that busy periods can put the most amount of money in your bank account means you should recognize them for the opportunities they are - not just assume they'll bring in sales anyway.

The difference between retailers who have okay busy seasons and those who have breakthrough busy seasons isn't luck, location, or even product selection.

It's having a plan.

Having a framework.

Having a strategy.

The difference isn't that they're working harder.

The difference is that they have a system for maximizing every opportunity.

Look, you have a choice to make about the rest of this year.

You can approach it the way I did in those first few years - passively and hoping the sales will come and the season will carry you through, grateful for whatever sales come your way.

Or you can approach it strategically with campaigns designed to maximize every customer interaction and turn your busiest season into your most profitable one.

So here's what I want to share with you, I've built 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 their email, they're running the occasional sale, but they don't get the 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 crossing your fingers and hoping that they will come back someday. And when all of that happens, your revenue starts to feel like something that you have control over. It is a live bootcamp. We are running it over four sessions. It is $47 and it is for store owners who are done with hit and miss marketing. And they want to understand what needs to change to create marketing that works.

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

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_salenaknight and make sure to leave a comment and let me know.

And if this episode made you think a little differently, gave you inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick 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 ecommerce stores just like yours that we can help scale.

And when that happens, it's a win for you, a win for your community, and a win for your customers.