Author: Cathy Wagner
How Packaging Completes Your Brand with Julie Rotuno
I had never thought about packaging this way until Julie Rotuno said it. I’ve been in retail for years. I’ve built a store, trained teams, managed inventory, nailed my buying. I thought I understood everything about what makes a customer loyal. I could tell you the exact moment a customer walks in whether they’re going...
Categories: Marketing
How to Greet a Customer (Without Killing the Sale)
I was on the floor of my kids’ store. A woman walked in. My employee froze. She walked past, polite smile, and said: “No thanks, I’m just looking.” My team did what we’re trained to do: “Okay, great. My name’s Kathy. I’ll be right over here.” Customer wandered ten minutes. Left. Never said another word....
Categories: Customer Service
What a Customer Is Actually Worth to Your Store (It’s Not What the Receipt Says) with Tim Shea
Yesterday a customer walked into my store, picked out a few things, spent $45. I rang her up. She left. I moved on. If you asked me what she was worth to me, I would have said $45. That answer cost me money. Here’s why: That receipt only tells you what happened today. It doesn’t...
Categories: Retail Profits
What You Didn’t Know That You Needed in Order to be Truly Richer – Part 2
Last week I was lying awake at 3 AM again running through email conversations in my head, replaying a customer interaction, mentally reorganizing the inventory plan. My body was running on cortisol. My brain had no off switch. And then Melinda said something that stopped me cold: “Your outer world follows your inner world every...
Categories: Mindset
What You Didn’t Know That You Needed in Order to be Truly Richer – Part 1
Picture the night you finally hit the number you’d been chasing. Now picture yourself lying in bed that same night, too tired to feel any of it. That was me the year I crossed the million dollar mark. “Yep. This is amazing. Yep.” Running on nothing but fumes. “My business is finally working. So why...
Categories: Mindset
Why a $300 Billion Company Just Bought a Fitness Race And What It Means For Your Store
Picture the person who runs Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Moët Champagne. Now picture her signing off on a deal for a fitness race that involves sled pushes and burpees. That actually happened. The private equity firm behind LVMH, worth about $300 billion, just moved to buy a stake in HyROX, a fitness race with sled...
Categories: Marketing
Sales Are Up. So Why Does It Feel So Hard?: State of Retail Q3
I want to start with something I hear from almost every store owner I talk to right now. “Sales are coming in. I just feel like I’m working twice as hard for the same result.” If that’s you, I need you to hear this clearly. It is not a you problem. I was at a...
Categories: Mindset
AI, Mindset, and Why Busy Is Not the Same as Smart
I want to start with something Chelsea said that stopped me cold. “If you repeated this day every single day, would you be closer to your goals?” That is a mindset question. And it is the kind that does not let you off easy. Chelsea Jones has been building websites for retail brands for over...
Categories: Mindset
White Space Is Not a Luxury. It’s a Strategy with Joey Gourdji – Part 2
Open space on your calendar does not automatically make you a different leader. I want to say that again, because I learned it the hard way. You can cut meetings. You can protect a morning. You can do everything we talked about in Part One. And you can still find yourself right back where you...
Categories: Mindset
White Space Is Not a Luxury. It’s a Strategy with Joey Gourdji – Part 1
I am going to start with the numbers, because you know I love numbers. And then we’re going to introduce White Space. 38 meetings a week. Then 22. Then 11. Zero open space on my calendar. Then eight full hours of protected thinking time. Six direct reports. Then two. A salesperson on my team with...
Categories: Mindset
Celebrating Anti-Prime Day with Jessie McNaughton
July is one of those months where you can feel it in your bones before you even look at the numbers. Slow foot traffic. Quiet inbox. That creeping feeling that everyone has just disappeared for the summer. Most store owners sit with it. They wait. They hope August picks up. Jesse McNaughton decided to do...
Categories: Marketing
Procrastination Isn’t the Problem, It’s Your Operating System with Karen Luniw
I remember the exact moment I realized I wasn’t lazy. I was stuck. It was a conversation with my friend and mentor, Karen Luniw. I was in one of those spirals, you know the one. I’d wake up with good intentions, make a to-do list, and then… nothing. The important stuff didn’t get done. So...
Categories: Mindset
