Hello and welcome to the Retail podcast and today we're joined
by Sarah Engel from January Digital Live from New York.
So let me bring her to the stream so she's not there
listening in the In the Green room.
Hello Sarah, how you doing? The Green Room.
But anyway. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so glad to see you again Sarah.
I feel rather than witter off your fantastic list of
credentials, and I think a couple of ones.
Just a tap tap on why I thought would be wonderful to have this
conversation with you right now as we go into the golden
quarter. There's a lot of topical things
but it feels like if you are anyone in the conference
industry and you want to keep your finger on the poles they
phone you up and ask you to to to be the person the government
speak. You're.
You're on the board at the shop, talking grocery shop, your
advisor, the NRF and and NXT you you're the women in retail
leadership circle and you also while doing all of this have
grown your career from CRO to to CMO to now President at January
Digital. And it's phenomenal to see.
And what we've tried to do on the podcast over the over the
years is look at great leaders who are sort of empowering not
only their teams and their business but the industry.
And I think you're, you know, your your, your profile speaks
volumes of how you're doing both things which must be really
challenging though. Oh, thank you.
So what a kind introduction by the way.
It's a trip down memory lane. But yeah, I mean it we, it is
such a phenomenal time in the industry.
It certainly has been challenging and there's a lot of
headwinds, but it's also because of those headwinds, there's so
much innovation going on. It's moving so quickly.
So I find that really exciting. There's, you know, that the
people that I'm surrounded with, the women that I'm able to
interact with and and, you know, kind of help in their next
stages of their careers. Like they are the ones making
the changes in this industry and are moving as fast and hopefully
sometimes faster than the consumers moving.
So it's a phenomenal time in the industry and I think change is
always a great fuel for innovation.
But before we get into, if you like the day job and I mean I've
got so much to ask you about community commerce, I've seen
your post about Tick Tock about what retailer should be doing in
engaging the audience earlier. But I just think if we look at
the, you know, Sarah the human take take away the retail
element for a minute. What I'd love to do is and and
luckily fortunately the I've looked at my data from Spotify
on on the listenership and we do have females almost equally
represented not only from a listenership but also from an
engagement perspective. And so the ages between 25 to
roughly 45I, I have parity in listenership.
So I'm 25 and I think this is the, the advice that I'm going
to ask you to give probably can go to either either or.
But I'm just curious if you could go back in time to sort of
whisper in your ear early on in your career to accelerate your
amazing career that you've got and are still building.
What would that advice be? There's a there are a couple
that I think of often. I think the biggest one, first
and foremost is that setting boundaries.
Actually gets too farther ahead and it's good for everyone
involved. I think it took me a long time
to realize saying I'm not able to fly on Sunday, I will be
there on Monday hard stop as opposed to well because my kids
have to go to school and all these details of like, this is
what I'm able to do, this is what I'm willing and able to do.
Once I did that, it unlocked. It made me so much more powerful
and focused within each moment of my life.
And so I think those, the establishment of boundaries, I
certainly wish I had figured out earlier in my 20s.
You know, you wear yourself down, you end up getting sick.
You know, you do all of these things to tie yourself in knots
and really doesn't need to be that way.
And it's not. And it's not just a power
differential element. It is like literally the ability
to say here the boundaries of each element of my life.
Here's how I'm going about this. I'm very clear.
I know what my priorities are. It actually helps everyone
around you. And I think it's sometimes seen
as selfish and it's and it's absolutely not, it is self
protecting but it actually serves everyone around you.
Everybody's very clear on what what is going to get done at
each individual time in your life.
And so that would be one big one.
The other one is is more tactical I suppose, which is to
say if you are coming up in communications or liberal arts
degree, get your finance training.
That is, that was one of those lessons in life, that the moment
I stepped into a boardroom, I realized that most of the people
at the table, the likely I'd be the only woman, and I would also
be the only one who came from a marketing or communications
background. The moment I couldn't speak the
same language in terms of finance, I was dead in the
water. And so I actually personally
spent my money on the side years ago went got financing I needed.
Which helped me of course in every element of the business.
It helped me to become a president of a company to be
able to run things from a more operational standpoint.
But that's always my advice to our more communications focused
team members and and you know, young, young people that I'm
involved with is make sure that you're covering every area of
business. For me, that was finance because
at some point you need to be able to speak that language,
need to understand it deeply to be able to run a PNL Yeah, no, I
love it. And and just to let you know,
they're actually 2 new points. That one of the main things that
a lot of listeners have heard from, from several CEO female
leaders is the fact that the the voice that they had in their in
their heads was one that they wish they hadn't had.
Basically having permission to talk is is one of the things as
a as a female leader later in life that was never an issue
early in life. It's like do I have permission
and and that's why I was saying that probably is as relevant to
to myself or to anyone. But it was really interesting
and I and I guess when people look at their careers, making
sure you have that wellrounded perspective is what, which is
what you're saying if you're going to go into leadership, you
need that wellrounded. Absolutely.
That brings a slightly different point out.
But the idea of advocacy and building that good ideas are
good ideas, right? The the, the willingness and
ability to speak up. I think about reverse mentorship
that I have here in our organization.
Like there are so many younger people in our organization with
phenomenal ideas who grew up digitally native.
If I'm if I'm not able to put my own background and ego to the
side to learn from these team members, like there's no way
you're going to innovate fast enough.
And so I think that's true for anybody.
There are very distinctive moments careerwise where it was
more literal, like I remember being on an executive team, not
here in the past where there were two women in the executive
team and then there were a number of men on the executive
team. And what we realized was that
sometimes those ideas weren't quite heard.
Somebody would say something and then somebody would say it
later. And then John, that was a good
idea, that type of thing. We actually had a code.
We literally kind of worked without the background.
And of course, now I do it very naturally and probably have for
the last 10 years, but it was like that was a really good idea
when you brought that up earlier.
Could you elaborate on that? Hey, but you mentioned that
earlier. So there was actually kind of a
very intentional advocacy. And and certainly that was in
this case where we, you know, only had two women on an
executive team over time. I think that's for anybody.
And I think it's even more important when you have hybrid
and remote work situations, might be an introvert, extrovert
situation. It might be one person on the
screen and everybody else in the room.
So being very emotionally aware of people trying to speak of,
you know, an idea, something somebody wants to bring up that
somebody hasn't said something in a while.
And making sure that you're actually bringing people into
the conversation, like very intentional advocacy helps your
own team operate in a stronger way and innovate faster.
And I just want to pick up on that.
You mentioned earlier about allyship and and you know and
truly sort of being empowering your team.
What words of advice would you have for executives who
potentially don't know how to be an ally, right.
I think that's this word that everyone It's it.
Is it just mean I'm a nice person, right?
Am I? Do I have to proactively do
something? And what is that thing that I
need to do So as an executive, as a as the president who runs a
visit, what, what words of wisdom would you out?
It's true for anybody. But I actually want to speak to
your male listenership right now because I will tell you, and I
would say most women, I just did a panel recently with two
phenomenally high-powered women in retail and all three of us,
as we talked about our own mentors, our own champions,
almost all of them were men. So we certainly had a woman or
two, but almost all in moments. So, so the the power of male
allies and the power of just champions for good ideas.
Again, male, female, good ideas, somebody being really having a
real a lot of promise in your organization.
I think the biggest thing is being very conscientious of
speaking people's name when they're not in the room.
The reality is you are often in a room where decisions are being
made. If you're in a legal role,
you're in a room where decisions are being made.
It is your responsibility to say when somebody says you did such
a great job on that, to go, oh, Danielle actually built that.
That was actually her idea. She's not in the room, right.
And so it's my responsibility to say that on her path.
And so I think of situations like that where like that is one
of the strongest thing leaders can do is not just giving credit
where credit is due, but like, hey, we're thinking about this
new thing. We're working through this.
Why don't we go ask these three people?
Like, they have really unique perspectives, right?
Let, let and you talk about inclusion.
That is an element of inclusion, like making sure that your brain
voices into the room and to have the conversation.
So I think there's more formal ways to go about it too.
Mentorship is certainly powerful and important and and they're
both informal structures of mentorship, which I've
experienced as well as more formal.
I remember going to somebody who had a very different skill set,
a senior person in our organization.
And I said to him, would you be willing to mentor me?
This is what I mean by that. Well, could we meet one time per
month? I only need one hour of your
time. This is the type of feedback I
need. I would love to give you this
feedback in return. This is a mutually beneficial
relationship. Like there is I've had very
structured mentorships like that and then I've had more informal
ones. I also, you know, sometimes it
takes you years to realize that person that was really the
champion for you, the ally for you, the person speaking up for
you when you're not in the room. Sometimes it's very clear it's
I'm negotiating this contract and.
I can think of a, you know, phenomenal male ally who I was
negotiating a contract years ago and I'm like, am I allowed to
ask for this? You know, I wasn't sure the
answer. And I'm like, I know who knows
the answer, this guy. And just the ability and the
willingness to share that information is incredibly
powerful. So I think there's if I think of
it as a continuum, yes, there's mentorship.
Informally informal, there's then.
Allyship like I'm going to be in a, in a outspoken way in my
organization, in my social network, on stage say this is
what I stand for in this championship.
And a lot of times that championship happens behind the
scenes. It happens in a leadership
meeting, an executive meeting and a board meeting.
It happens when somebody says, hey, I'd like to interview you
on this subject and you go. It's not actually my story to
tell. Let me introduce you to these
three people whose story does to tell like that.
That's the continuum to championship.
Yeah. You have to have so much.
I don't know if it's high EQ like emotional intelligence to
be able to to do that or you know, be secure in yourself,
which sometimes in some organizations because of the
toxicity or the way that it's run is, is really difficult.
And I just want to pick up this. You're probably this is your
unconscious competence is is the fact that the the you said early
on boundaries is really important to set.
And especially when you go into mentorship setting up listening
to when you talk setting those boundaries of hey this is this
is what I I'm looking for and this is what I can provide.
I think is probably not talked about a lot because sometimes
people feel that that's more to do with the psychology of of
work rather than work itself right in terms of setting those
boundaries. I love that point.
I was going to say really fast, too.
There's another element of I assume this person will see that
I'm doing a good job and they'll just help me.
You must have to be explicit. You just have to.
And being explicit means setting boundaries around what you're
asking. Because if you're asking
somebody who's a board member or CEO like, they only have so much
time too, and they likely are willing to help.
Maybe not, and you'd rather know that up front, but if they are
like setting boundaries around that, and this is exactly what
I'm asking, and I would love to offer this in return, there's so
much strength to that. So I love that point, yeah.
And and also having a mentor. I think a lot of people leave it
way too late in their careers to have actually 2 mentors rather
than one and in different parts of the business.
Because sometimes you go where it's really easy and and you
pick up someone who's who's your champion but actually can't help
you in your career and and those champions sometimes sits
elsewhere. What is the one thing that
retailers should be thinking about that they're not right?
More than ever it is the elongated season.
So prime day back to school, straight into holiday early
promos. We're talking a lot right now
about the Cyber 12 when we're talking to our clients.
It is not, you know, it's not Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it's
actually this is 12 day period where very specific things
happen on very specific days. When promos P what customers
were expecting those those expectations have shifted a lot
in the last few years and this year is really interesting.
It is behaving slightly differently.
Some of the patterns we're seeing the same holiday pulled
up and up and up. So you know we've already we're
starting holiday in October last year, right.
So it pulled up. There's also an element, though
of very conscious. Delay of purchase and so to and
by that I mean I'm I'm planning, I'm a consumer, male consumers
are are see we're seeing this even higher than female
consumers. But I'm very intentionally
planning to wait until the last bit.
I'm very intentionally planning to wait for the next deal to
come. And so I think that brands have
trained their customer base on their promo cycle and so they're
knew there are a lot, there's a lot of that happening.
We're holding weight. Another way, and you can see
that coming out right now, is in conversion.
So no matter who you talk to and if you're in the retail industry
and listening, you're not the only one.
I promise your conversion path is longer.
It just is and it has been for the last 6 to 9 months and I
think everybody's going. It used to only take three touch
points, now it's taking six, now it's taking 8.
And you know there's a lot of panic around that, certainly.
If you're talking about a site conversion versus an Instore
conversion, certainly there are things you can do to control
your site experience, your checkout process if they are.
If they want to shop on social, let them check out on social.
So you know those elements that I think people are looking at.
But there's also a lot of behavior right now that is
saying I'm considering my purchases for longer.
My economic. Confidence is a little shaken
right now. I need to plan my purchases in a
different way. We saw a prime day, people
buying back to school prime day. We also saw people buying
holiday toys purchased a purchased that were going to be
held for holiday. And so that very conscientious
process means that conversions are taking longer to happen.
Also you mentioned TikTok, I think it is important to point
out and like have the audience. So I want to say it.
I believe strongly in TikTok, it was strongly in socials.
It clearly hit in socials ability to build a broader
customer base to reach new consumers and to convert and it
doesn't just search to interrupt you.
Would you, would you put that underneath the umbrella of
community commerce or would you say that's something else?
I would put it under the umbrella of Community Commerce.
I think it's interesting. You look at community and I
think there are. Social platforms that pull more
towards community and there's less towards community and I
think about them, gosh, I I actually love Pinterest if
they're listening I do and and when I I was on the brand side
for quite a while about half my career has been inside brands
and I believe strongly in Pinterest back then it kind of
quite convert. They've put so much in place now
where it does convert and that's a very, a very specific like
again talk about continuums, you have the continuum of.
Your Facebook's clearly a community.
Clearly you're having you doing meet up groups and you have
mom's groups and there's so much going on there.
You know Instagram, TikTok is is a faster pace to talk,
significantly faster pace. And then the other kind of
opposite into that spectrum is Pinterest where it's like a yes
there is some community happening but it's a very
personal board. It's something I'm excited
about. I'm building my wedding board.
I'm building recipes for my family whatever those elements
are and I think brands are figuring out how to monetize
that differently. So yes, I would say all of those
have elements of community. The spectrum of your Facebook to
your Pinterest with TikTok specifically though I guess it's
true with Pinterest as well. But I would just say if they're
coming from, you just have to think about people's mindset in
that moment in TikTok, they're in the mindset of entertainment,
they're in the mindset of discovery, right.
They might not be in the mindset of purchasing right this moment
and so the fact that that conversion is taking longer.
Is fine. You are building a bigger base.
You have to measure it differently.
I think I'm seeing a lot of like I'm getting so much more social
traffic. And then the question is always,
is the traffic qualified? It is qualified in a different
way. You're trying to build your
base. You have to be able to have a
recurring message and know that those conversions are going to
take a bit longer because you're interrupting an entertainment
path, interrupting a discovery path or you're leading them from
a discovery path into a conversion path.
It's just a very different I think.
Many brands and and retailers that advertisers are trying to
fit everything with the same model, same model measurement,
same model of assets aid and sub creative and and you really have
to be able to slice and dice it in a much more granular way,
understand who your customer bases and your potential
customers are on each one of these platforms.
When that's happening though, it's incredibly powerful, like
we are seeing massive lift in that area.
If it is done with very specific audiences, very specific
strategy and measurement. But the toughest part, I think,
sometimes is the measurement, because organizations expect to
report things in a very specific way.
Well, I'm just. Gonna have some talk converting
so and I'm just curious from what your cuz I think the
age-old problem has been the e-commerce director has always
competed with the stores director and if you're lucky
enough in some organizations it's the same person so it
doesn't matter where the sale happens it's a sale for the
company But I'm just curious in your because you talked about
digital touch points and conversion I guess when you look
at the path to purchase are you seeing are people worried that
the IT won't convert online but it will convert offline is I
mean or are people trying to tackle that in any I.
Feel like we've had this conversation for like 8 years
and also many organizations have moved forward.
What you just said is exactly right.
Like the concept of like Omni channel is such a that's our
language. You know customers don't think
that way. They expect you to have what
they want when they want it. They expect a good brand
experience no matter how they interact with you.
And if you sell, if you sell online and you sell in store and
you sell it Sephora, they expect their experience to be perfect.
So, so that's one piece of it. And I would say yes, most
organizations have realized that they have to shift forward that
a sale is a sale is a sale that a customer connecting their
customer base and data across retail and digital and wholesale
if possible, making sure that they actually understand who
that customer is like. I think everybody knows that
whether they've actually moved down the path to make the right
structure decisions and budget decisions, it's very different
question because you almost always have still in that Monday
morning meeting what happened in retail this weekend, what
happened online, right. And and as long as we keep doing
that, as long as we measure things separately and don't have
a more holistic view, you'll continue down this path that
creates likely fractured customer experiences.
But so, so that is happening. The other thing I see happening
is so interesting where stores are doing really well right now,
which makes it really happy. As a as a retail gal, I love
seeing stores succeed. I believe that store associates
and store managers know so much more about your customer than
they ever get credit for. And so I'm a big advocate of our
store associates, but because your data can only tell you so
much, by the way, call your store manager, they'll tell you,
they'll tell you what the data really means.
But anyway, I think there's an element now where stores are
doing really, really well over the past six months or so.
People are very excited about that.
And yet at the most senior levels, it's why is it digital
performing as well or better than in the past.
Digital grew and grew and grew. So they're not seeing any
element of trade off. They want everything to rise,
everything to rise at the same pace and think about.
And the biggest piece of that is they plan their years that way.
They planned their budget last September for this year.
Everything rising at the same pace.
Stores are rising, rising, rising.
Sometimes those people are converting in store rather than
digitally. And all of a sudden you've
failed. You know, all of a sudden you're
poor econ person, you've failed because it's going down or
staying steady and not growing at this rapid pace.
They're coming into the store. And if you look at almost any
organization who has their data connected will tell you if you
have somebody shop in more than one channel, you have usually a
three time higher lifetime value.
It depends on the type of product of course, but it's
significantly higher lifetime value if they shop in multiple
places with you. So the idea of trying to capture
them only in one place and keeping them only in one place
is only a shortterm win. That's a win for your
organizational silos. That is not a win for your
company. And so I think I've seen healthy
businesses, you know recognize that it's hard work though I I
don't think, I think people aren't shifting their
organizations and their P&L ownership and their teams and
they're hiring because they don't know to.
It's it's takes time and it's complicated.
And when it comes down to it, A/C, EO often now a CMO more and
more has to come in and go. Here's a longterm plan.
Here's how we're getting after it.
What we just discussed almost, Yep, I comped this day last year
like they have to be reaching the short term goals and long
term goals at the same time. And I think a lot of times the
market doesn't have the patience to wait for the right kind of
change to happen. And so they have, they have to
make short term, long term goals at the same time and you see a
lot of turnover at the sea level for that reason.
Yeah. I mean, there's so many.
There's two directions. I mean, one of the things about
store associates, it always perplexed me how companies would
spend. Thousands if not millions trying
to find social engagement out there where the biggest
advocates who probably know and are fantastic customers are
their own workforce. Especially for for some of the
younger brands where you know you have to be up and called to
work there and I'm sure they're tick tock accounts.
But anyway that that's one thing I'm curious the intersection of.
It's like conversational commerce, I don't know what you
want, social commerce, whatever it's called, how is that
growing? Obviously in China it dominates,
that is, and everyone seeing the Tick Tock House.
Where literally every room in that TikTok house is a is a
social seller selling something via that.
How far away are we from that do you think in in the US
specifically? I think it is growing quickly
and with the biggest point I will the biggest thing I will
point to is where there where a consumers entire journey
happens. A couple years ago we had the
data come out that was like oh wait a minute, they they went,
they didn't go to Google, they went into Amazon first on
Amazon, checked on and Amazon got out.
That is now happening in social significantly at higher rates
than it did in the past. So if I literally just look at
it from a transactional standpoint and they're coming
in, they're actually using TikTok for discovery.
They're using it to actually get through the process to find a
brand to go and transact. They're coming in through that
Channel, converting through that Channel or converting from there
to the site. That is when things really start
to change because when you can monetize it, companies will lean
into it, right. And this is an interesting one
where the consumers are leading the way, which I want
technology, I will give the tech folks credit, right.
Technology had to lead the way first.
It just wasn't there. Now that it is there, almost
there to be able to genuinely be able to convert and buy the
product that you want, that you just thought this content
creator promote and you want to buy it right now and you're
super interested and you want it to deliver tomorrow.
The more that experience becomes frictionless, the more the
consumer wins because they're telling that they want the.
Discovery shopping as entertainment.
That's for me. Why I like yourself.
Massive TikTok advocate, because you have to talk to Deborah
Weinswig and she's the founder. Of course I research.
She has. I feel like she's such a
soothsayer. She told me three years ago.
Here's what's happening, China, here's what's gonna happen in
the US You can almost to the month count on her prediction.
So there's my advocacy mention of the day, and I go talk to
Deb. One of the things that you
mentioned, I just want to go back in terms of the conversion.
And what you were telling retailers, like I said, what's
the one thing that retailers should know that they don't know
and what should they be focusing on?
What is the guidance that you're giving them?
What? So what's the outcome of that?
You should be, your social strategy should be better than
it is. What is it?
The biggest piece I would say and I would have said it in the
second quarter, but it's still true now and it's doubly true
for 24 planning. You have to be testing like 20%
of your budget, constantly testing new things and having
you know much love for Google and meta having all your eggs in
that basket is not going to create monumentally different
outcomes. So that I think that element, it
it is not you know just your social strategies, better
structured testing you need you need testing infrastructure in
place the big enough budget to actually be able to measure it
with the understanding internally these are the exact
things we're testing at any given time.
We're going to test in. We're going to budget into
winners and be comfortable with failure.
You know, you think about it and think about I worked with data
folks for a long time and it's either right or wrong and they
were perfectly comfortable with that.
With marketers, we're like it was all good.
There's always a good outcome. But what you learn from that,
you know, structured testing within your marketing program,
structured testing within your community building, when you do
that, you can iterate so much faster.
You get into the fourth quarter when prices are going to go up
and up and up and your budget's not going to go as far.
And if all your eggs are in 2 baskets, it's very, very hard to
meet your goals. And so the the folks that I have
seen, they were the most successful last holiday season.
I see so much progression. You know, so many of the the
brands that we work with have spent all the first half of the
year testing into new means, determining what's going to work
for them, determining how they can get to new customers so that
when they get into fourth quarter, they actually have
levers to pull because so many brands, the only levers they
have to pull, so deeper discount which is not a winning
proposition long term, just pour more and more money into the
same two channels and that is just there's a diminishing
returns there. So I think the answer is
actually structure testing, which is not a super exciting
answer, but it is what people need to do in order to get
themselves ready for those moments when they have to be
able to pull levers. Yeah, and it feels like.
I know you mentioned the meta thing, but I actually read this.
I think it was in one of your. Pieces of literature about how
thread and I didn't know I saw know this, but I didn't put two
and two together. Threads tagged to Instagram.
So should you ever have a fallout with Threads, you
actually have to delete your Instagram account, which is
petrifying for any brand that you So five years building it
and something may go haywire and you can't actually disconnect
one from the other. It's been interesting to watch
how quickly of how excited everyone was and how quickly
that excitement kind of calmed down.
We do that a lot in the industry, which you know, we we
all love something new and we love, we love, you know the the
aspect of competition. But yes, within probably 24 to
48 hours of that announcement, when you're really dug through
all the details, you're like, wait a minute, when I set up
threads, it's attached to my actual Instagram account,
including for companies accounts and deleting 1 deletes the
other. So they've said that they're
working on a solution that would avoid that, but I have not seen
it come yet. What is the sentiment in the
retail industry? How are you finding people's
perspective for for next year? It's interesting.
I am. I think the first part of this
year there was more doom and gloom than there is right now.
I think this industry has become so resilient over the last few
years like early COVID shutting all our stores and I was on the
brand side at the time, right, like people going on furlough
and you're trying to make sure that you're, you know at one
point FedEx stop picking up and people couldn't get packages out
of their warehouses. Like if you made it through that
and you're in this industry like you are made of iron at this
point. And so I think that that we as
an industry are weathering those storms a lot better.
One of the biggest things I would say though is that there
is a big sentiment right now. Doing more with less you get by
had to like summarize people's. That was the one catch phrase do
more with yes. Yeah it's not pessimism while
fear I think like I said, if you've been in this industry for
a while, like nothing can scare you now, right?
Fearless. But there is this element and
almost anybody I talk to again, whether CEO, CMO, ECOM Manager,
whoever it is, it's need to do more with less staff, need to do
more with less resources. We need to, we're going to keep
the budget exactly the same, but we need it to grow 40%.
There's a lot of that going. On inflation, right?
Somehow, yeah, I think some of it is that.
I think some of it is that because we believed that
consumers were demanding it because of fear at the time.
Organizations invested so much during COVID on everything.
They thought their customer might possibly want next day
delivery, same day delivery, curbside pickup, curated
dressing rooms before you walk in the door or you know service
after service after service, every one of those chips away at
margin. Some of them are vital for your
organization, some are not. And so it I think a lot of times
brands chase their competitors down the path or they believed
you know the read something in the media and they believe we
have to go down this path or somebody on their board said why
aren't we doing this yet, have to run down this path.
And so now we got to the first part of this year and I still
see a lot of that happening where it's like which of these
things are the most important to our customers.
Does my customer actually want this to arrive two days?
Is that the most important thing and should I be spending $40,
you know, a margin on that or is it more important that they have
these other services that they have exclusive access to product
for store, other things that are important to them.
So I I think there's a lot of tradeoff conversations
happening. There's a lot of upskilling
staff, reskilling staff from a digital and data perspective, a
lot of that happening. But all of it can kind of fall
under this umbrella of like, it's not pessimism, it's almost
realism. And here's the reality, the
finite resources, finite staffing.
How can we reach more people, get more people into our
customer base, grow our business with finite resources?
I'm just curious in terms of your final thought, you know,
maybe reflecting on the earlier part of our conversation and and
the words of wisdom that you had, what would be your final
thoughts or words of wisdom for anyone listening to the show?
I love that. I think there are two things I
have in mind. One is there are elements in any
organization, any role, any industry that where there is a
need that can be served Lean in, say yes, step up whether you
know how to do it or not, like just say yes.
I think leading into a new elements in your career, like
there is no linear path. So if you're sitting there
thinking I have to do these three things and then I'll get
to this next level and it just doesn't exist.
If you ask anybody who's been doing this for a couple of
decades, as I have, and they will say is not a linear path.
And so the more you can take in new experiences, ask people for
advice, like really volunteer and put yourself out there.
Sharonda Williamson, who is from Ralph Lauren, who is absolutely
brilliant and you should definitely go follow her on
LinkedIn, said that to me at one point that some of the biggest
career shifts that she had was somebody saying nobody wants to
do this job, will you do it? And her saying absolutely.
So that is one element. The only other element is I
would say there's so many ways in which you can connect with
other people who can help in your career and who you can
offer help to. So whether you do that
informally through social networks, through LinkedIn,
through you know the people in your organization or do you do
that more formally, we're about to have shop talk meet up for
women. It's a virtual event and we did
that very intentionally to get that many more women who are
able to speak and lead these table talks, these intimate
sessions to answer questions. I'm going to be talking about
navigating really tough challenges inside your
organization and we're going to tell some truth.
So those types of opportunities like lean into those sign up, go
have this conversations like it's not just about like
advocating for yourself in your career, which is also vital,
it's also volunteer. Jump in if you see a need.
Fill the void and I guarantee you you will learn something
from that, and it often will help you determine what that
next step should be for you. Yeah, I don't have to say this,
but I genuinely feel, Sarah, some of those words of wisdom
will change people's lives. In a really positive way.
So thank you. Thank you for reach out to
anybody who listens and just needs advice or or would like to
connect. I'm I'm so glad to talk to you
Alex. You do phenomenal things for
this industry and I really appreciate you.
Thank you. I look forward to seeing you at
Shop Talk next year. Thanks.