American Quilt Retailer Archives - Page 12 of 27

Posted on January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by AQR Piece by Piece

Ringing in the New Year

Everybody is ready to wish 2020 goodbye, but unfortunately some of last year’s problems are still with us. Check out these ideas for your business as we kick off the New Year.

Safety Matters

Continue to let shoppers know what you’re doing to ensure safety. Consider addressing the topic under your “FAQ” section on your website, and make sure to keep (or create) signage in and around your store. Include a snippet on each of your email blasts, and post reminders on social media as well.

Go back to the basics with good phone etiquette. Thankfully our phones do much more these days and some retailers have offered personal shopping via video. Not all of your customers are going to be tech savvy though so make sure you know product specifics (such as dimensions) and remain helpful throughout the conversation.

Another way to ensure safety is to take the product outside. Don’t bring out random merchandise, but plan your outdoor goods like you would an indoor display.

Other Ideas for the New Year

Fallen out of habit of offering a bag stuffer? Make one and train your floor clerks to say a 15 second pitch as they place one in a customer’s bag. If you don’t know what to put on the bag stuffer, brag about your store. Put every brand, item, service, or offering your business provides. Customers want to know what’s available so don’t take this as the time to be humble.

Hopefully by now you’ve gotten rid of most of your 2020 inventory and are ready to bring in new stock for the New Year. Show off this new merchandise by going Live with an unboxing video that you can later post on your social media platforms.

Inspiration for this post came from “Ring in the Season” by Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to American Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you.

Posted on December 30, 2020December 30, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Happy New Year from AQR

Happy New Year from your friends at American Quilt Retailer! Even though we’re all ready to say good riddance to 2020, now is a perfect time to reflect on some of the lessons we should take with us into 2021.

Lessons to take into the New Year

On a business level, 2020 showed the importance of digital media. Every aspect of your brick-and-mortar should have an online equivalent. Hopefully this year saw you try new mediums (anybody new to video? social media campaigns?) and expanded your horizons into trying more.

This year also highlighted how quilt retailers provide a source for community. Even though online content is important, it by no means replaces the real thing. Online options provide convenience, but brick-and-mortar stores are here to stay.

2020 has taken a lot, but it’s given as well. It’s given us time, even time to slow down. It highlighted priorities we have long been neglecting, and showed us our resilience with every punch we took. These may not be things we wanted, but they were given to us none the less.

And finally, as we say good bye to 2021, we would like thank you for sticking with American Quilt Retailer. Happy New Year and we wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2021.

Posted on December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Start a Business Advisory Board

Networking during a pandemic is difficult. Now is the time to reach out to local business leaders to hear what great ideas they’ve had this year.

Local Advisory Committee

Pool your community for local retailers. The range can be everything from your local pharmacist to the local floor-covering business. The one thing you all have in common is that you pool from the same client base.

A breakfast meeting on alternating months is a great start to handle the logistics aspect of creating an advisory board. As for meeting quality, take turns hosting the meeting. If content ideas are running low, brainstorm hot topics during one of your sessions.

Leave time at the close of meetings for members to share how the ideas helped them (or didn’t help). And if ideas do start to run low, consider making a book list consisting of leadership and self help titles.

Quilt Market Buddy

Similar to a community advisory board, do you have an advisor for quilt markets? If you don’t, make a friend at the next in-person market. This could be someone you see frequently, and start with a simple introduction. The best advisor you could find is someone in a similar, but not necessarily the same, business as yourself.

Go out for coffee, and determine what vendors are on each other’s lists. Agree to meet up at agreed-upon times throughout market, and share the promotional information you gather. As this relationship develops, you could even attend meetings you, or your advisor sets up.

Inspiration for this post came from “You Dont’ Know What You Don’t Know,” by Tom Shay published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

Posted on December 9, 2020December 9, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Q&A with Gudrun Erla of GE Quilt Designs

Want to know how other industry professionals responded to the chaos of a global pandemic? American Quilt Retailer picked the brain of Gudrun Erla of GE Quilt Designs to learn how she was able to transition from a hectic travel schedule to creating a community online.

Quarantine Quilt Along

Thanks to a well established email newsletter list, and already hosting two Facebook live shows a week, Erla had the foundations laid pre-quarantine to share information fast.

In late March of this year, Erla hosted her first Quarantine Quilt Along (QQAL). The event included a new quilt pattern she designed titled “Elvira.” The event was free, and included a quarantine playlist on Spotify for participants to listen to while they quilted.

The response was incredible, with over 16,000 quilters from 37 countries participating. From that initial QQAL, Erla has seen her mailing list, Facebook group, and online sales explode. GE Quilt Designs is still hosting QQAL’s, with proceeds from the pattern going to charity.

How Erla Creates Community

With the cancellation of quilt markets, Erla has been inviting guests onto her QQAL’s. Consumers love being able to still hear from representatives and designers.

Above all, Erla also remains true to herself, sharing what’s important to her and letting her personality shine. Erla’s significant other is African American and grew up in South Minneapolis, blocks away from where George Floyd was killed. On her first Facebook live after the murder, Erla urged viewers to stand up for what is right. The response from the quilt community was amazing, confirming what we already know—being candid always pays off.

To read the full interview, check out “Connecting Through Quarantine,” by Millie Kehrli published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

Posted on November 25, 2020November 25, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Tackle Your Business Stress

Has stress been a big part of your year? If it has, you’re definitely not alone. Don’t let stress run your life. Practice some of these tips to reduce what’s on your plate.

Maximize your time

If interruptions get in the way of completing tasks, plan around that. The most obvious move is put your phone on do not disturb, set an alarm, and get to work.

If not being available for your business seems out of the question, work during the best time that you can avoid interruptions. If you’re a morning person, wake up an hour earlier to get work done. If you’re a night owl, plan an hour before bed to knock those to-do tasks out.

Ever consider NOT attending that webinar you registered for to give yourself breathing room? Give it a try sometime, and see if the world ends.

Lastly, do you have a constant stream of marketing efforts to attract new customers? Word of mouth is still the best from of referral, but social media is the next best. Develop your online persona so your customers can feel the personal touch your business provides.

Automate, Delegate, Eliminate

Do you still do the bookkeeping manually? What other tasks do you do by hand? Set some time aside to research how you can automate through apps, sites, and services.

Further, do you personally answer every email, return every voicemail, go through the inventory, etc.? Delegate those tasks to free yourself to more pressing matters that will take your business the extra mile.

Finally, eliminate the negativity in your life, including the unneeded stressers that your business may cause. Try some of these tips to get you closer to managing the stress in your life.

Inspiration for this post came from “Is Business Stress Ruining Your Life?” by Beth Montpas published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

Posted on November 18, 2020November 18, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

The Art of the Pivot

This year has been full of pivots. As business owners, we are constantly pivoting to changes large and small. What’s different about this year is that some of the changes we’ve made ended up being permanent.

Re-evaluate your goals

With some of these more-permanent changes, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate your business goals. Has new customer retention fallen or remained the same as last year? Don’t look at this like a con, rather take the opportunity to invest more time and energy in the customer base you already have.

Do you feel like you’ve spent all year focusing on short term goals instead of mid-to-long range goals? If you feel this way, you’re not alone. It’s ok to continue responding to you ever-changing short term goals until things feel stable again.

Change marketing

Part of the business shift this year is redirecting your marketing to mainly online efforts. Since we’ve had to remain at home people have been spending much more time online. This is a great way to reach your audience—find out where they are (Facebook? Twitter? Tik Tok?) and spend your marketing budget there.

Pivot from the sale

Selling to someone who recently lost their job or continuing your sales operations as if everything were normal is insensitive. Instead, practice empathy and let your customer base know what you’ve been doing to respond to the health crisis, as well as share that you know what they’re going through. This can mean changing your inventory to include more of what they need (supplies to make face masks) and less of what used to be a trend the same time last year (ribbon wreaths).

As we mentioned earlier, business owners are constantly pivoting to respond to market needs. Why should this pivot be any different?

Inspiration for this post came from “The Art of Pivoting” by Sommer Leigh published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

Posted on November 12, 2020November 12, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Inbound Marketing and Your Business

Inbound Marketing is a relatively new marketing technique that draws customers to your business through content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and branding.

Read on to find out if inbound principles are something your business should adopt.

The Five Inbound Marketing Principles

The five principles of Inbound Marketing are designed to make your business top of your customers’ mind.

Know your audience. Before writing copy and blasting off messages through your social media channels, know your buyer persona. Identify your buyer’s problem, and cater your messaging to respond to that.
Understand your buyers journey. One of the biggest turnoffs is when a business is desperate for a sale. What stage of the buying journey is your customer at? Are they looking for more information? How can you assist in that way?
Provide value. If your sales clerks are trained to give a pitch, ask yourself if that pitch is always necessary. Be sure you train your employees to be able to respond to the customers needs, not just your business’s needs. In addition to in person changes, what about your website? Do you have a blog? Providing opportunities for education is the best way to add value to your customer.
Promote it, and they will come. Search engine optimization is important during this step, but so is delivering the right messages at the right stage of the buying process.
Trust is the most important value. According to Inbound Marketing, trust is built throughout the process. This means, in summary, you understand your audience and their needs, deliver the messages they want at the correct stage in their buying process, and remain helpful for current and future purchases.

For more information on Inbound Marketing, consider reading blogs by Hubspot.com, or purchase Inbound Content.

Posted on November 11, 2020November 11, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

AQR Academy Continued: Social Selling

Miss your chance to attend AQR Academy? We have good news—we’re continuing the series!

Join American Quilt Retailer on November 12 at noon for a Zoom workshop on Social Selling. We’ll cover the ins and outs of selling through social media during a 90 minute class.

Social Selling Workshop

Editor Heidi Kaisand will join a panel of experts for an interactive workshop full of learning and conversation. We’ll help you elevate your online skills to increase sales.

In addition this session will equip you with the resources, solutions, and strategies to optimize social media sales in preparation for the year ahead.

Topics include: What is Social Selling, Benefits of Social Selling, Social Selling Strategy, Social Selling Best Practices and Techniques, and Tricks and Tools.

Help us spread the word; don’t attend alone, and tell your friends! Registration is already open and the event is $25 for subscribers and $45 for non-subscribers.

We also forgot to mention the event will be sponsored by QT Fabrics. Also acting as a contributing sponsor is C&T Publishing. Don’t miss your chance to network with industry experts; invest in your business by attending this workshop today.

AQR Academy

Speaking of AQR Academy, if you missed the original event on October 27 have no fear. You can still get all of the information presented by purchasing the recordings and digital recap of the event.

The fast pace classes include topics covering: Employee Relations, Propelling Your Business Forward in the Digital World, Increasing Profits and Revenue, Inspiration for the Stuff We Sell, and Strategies for Public Relations.

Posted on November 5, 2020November 6, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece — 1 Comment

Store Preparation for the New Year

It’s never too early for preparation (especially after the year we’ve had). Consider adding these tasks to your to-do list so you can begin 2021 ahead of schedule.

Event Preparation

If you aren’t already hosting one large event and two smaller events per month, you should. Start 2021 with all three events hosted the first week, then you can alternate weeks the remainder of the year. Some ideas include make-it and take-its, demonstrations, seminars, and vendor days. And remember, an event doesn’t always have to correspond with a sale.

Team Training

Speaking of year long events, if you don’t already have a weekly team training scheduled, put one on the calendar. It may seem difficult to think of topics at first, but eventually your team will have requests of their own.

Some places to start include making a list of “never out” items. These are items that should always be in stock as they can make or break sales. And they should be in extra stock during the busy season.

Another idea includes coming up with bag stuffer ideas. Train your employees to give a 30 second pitch of the bag stuffer as they hand the flyer to the customer. This will prove much more effective than not mentioning the bag stuffer at all.

Finally, review your return policy. Try to be flexible on returns (as other competitors in the market are) but train your staff to ask about an in-store credit or gift card option first.

Gift Cards

If your store uses paper gift certificates instead of plastic gift cards, you’re going to want to switch stat. Retailers that switch from paper to plastic see an increase of sales from 35% to 50%. On top of that, 55% of customers have to go to a store twice to spend the full gift card amount, which is great news for your business.

Inspiration for this post came from 2020 Prep by Georgeanne Bender and Rich Kizer of Kizer and Bender. For more preparation ideas, visit their business expert page.

Posted on October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 by AQR Piece by Piece

Tips for Going Live on Facebook

If you’re like most of the world, you’ve received notifications from Facebook alerting you that one of your friends or the pages you follow are going live. Jump in on the action with these tips.

Promoting your Facebook live

Video is becoming more popular, and live videos get 3 times more interaction than other videos on social media. Promote your Facebook live event before it takes place, and post about it across all social media channels.

When you chose a date and time for your event keep in mind what works best for your followers. Looking at previous engagement data should help you make this decision.

Try a test run

Test run your Facebook live event before the scheduled date and time so you can avoid formatting problems. Try to get this right as watchers will stay on the video three times as long as they would other videos (nobody wants watchers to leave for silly reasons, such as shaky video).

Some things to consider include: lighting, production quality (will you be shooting in your store? Or in front of a blank wall to minimize distractions?), and whether or not you should shoot vertically or horizontally (vertical shooting can sometimes make you look too close to the camera).

Interact with your followers

Remember, Facebook live is to engage with your audience. This means you should be adding context constantly throughout your video so any new followers who jump on know what you’re speaking about.

Interact with followers by addressing their comments as they appear. This will make your stream feel like a two-way conversation, which may explain why live videos drive ten times the amount of comments compared to other videos.

Wrapping up the event

After the event is over, check your data. How are the results compared to other posts? Take the time to respond to any comments you may have missed, and encourage people to continue to comment if they’re catching the video after the event is over.

Interested in learning more? Use this checklist to help you get started with your first Facebook live.