Latest / The Retail Podcast / Mastery Unveiled: Sarah Engel on Elevating Brands, Cultivating Culture, and Shaping Digital Futures

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Mastery Unveiled: Sarah Engel on Elevating Brands, Cultivating Culture, and Shaping Digital Futures · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Retail podcast and today we're joined
• 0:03
  by Sarah Engel from January Digital Live from New York.
• 0:07
  So let me bring her to the stream so she's not there
• 0:09
  listening in the In the Green room.
• 0:11
  Hello Sarah, how you doing? The Green Room.
• 0:13
  But anyway. Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:15
  I'm so glad to see you again Sarah.
• 0:17
  I feel rather than witter off your fantastic list of
• 0:21
  credentials, and I think a couple of ones.
• 0:24
  Just a tap tap on why I thought would be wonderful to have this
• 0:28
  conversation with you right now as we go into the golden
• 0:31
  quarter. There's a lot of topical things
• 0:33
  but it feels like if you are anyone in the conference
• 0:36
  industry and you want to keep your finger on the poles they
• 0:39
  phone you up and ask you to to to be the person the government
• 0:42
  speak. You're.
• 0:43
  You're on the board at the shop, talking grocery shop, your
• 0:46
  advisor, the NRF and and NXT you you're the women in retail
• 0:52
  leadership circle and you also while doing all of this have
• 0:57
  grown your career from CRO to to CMO to now President at January
• 1:03
  Digital. And it's phenomenal to see.
• 1:06
  And what we've tried to do on the podcast over the over the
• 1:08
  years is look at great leaders who are sort of empowering not
• 1:13
  only their teams and their business but the industry.
• 1:16
  And I think you're, you know, your your, your profile speaks
• 1:20
  volumes of how you're doing both things which must be really
• 1:22
  challenging though. Oh, thank you.
• 1:24
  So what a kind introduction by the way.
• 1:27
  It's a trip down memory lane. But yeah, I mean it we, it is
• 1:31
  such a phenomenal time in the industry.
• 1:33
  It certainly has been challenging and there's a lot of
• 1:36
  headwinds, but it's also because of those headwinds, there's so
• 1:40
  much innovation going on. It's moving so quickly.
• 1:43
  So I find that really exciting. There's, you know, that the
• 1:46
  people that I'm surrounded with, the women that I'm able to
• 1:49
  interact with and and, you know, kind of help in their next
• 1:52
  stages of their careers. Like they are the ones making
• 1:55
  the changes in this industry and are moving as fast and hopefully
• 1:58
  sometimes faster than the consumers moving.
• 2:00
  So it's a phenomenal time in the industry and I think change is
• 2:04
  always a great fuel for innovation.
• 2:07
  But before we get into, if you like the day job and I mean I've
• 2:11
  got so much to ask you about community commerce, I've seen
• 2:14
  your post about Tick Tock about what retailer should be doing in
• 2:17
  engaging the audience earlier. But I just think if we look at
• 2:21
  the, you know, Sarah the human take take away the retail
• 2:24
  element for a minute. What I'd love to do is and and
• 2:28
  luckily fortunately the I've looked at my data from Spotify
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  on on the listenership and we do have females almost equally
• 2:36
  represented not only from a listenership but also from an
• 2:41
  engagement perspective. And so the ages between 25 to
• 2:45
  roughly 45I, I have parity in listenership.
• 2:49
  So I'm 25 and I think this is the, the advice that I'm going
• 2:53
  to ask you to give probably can go to either either or.
• 2:57
  But I'm just curious if you could go back in time to sort of
• 3:00
  whisper in your ear early on in your career to accelerate your
• 3:05
  amazing career that you've got and are still building.
• 3:08
  What would that advice be? There's a there are a couple
• 3:13
  that I think of often. I think the biggest one, first
• 3:17
  and foremost is that setting boundaries.
• 3:21
  Actually gets too farther ahead and it's good for everyone
• 3:24
  involved. I think it took me a long time
• 3:27
  to realize saying I'm not able to fly on Sunday, I will be
• 3:33
  there on Monday hard stop as opposed to well because my kids
• 3:37
  have to go to school and all these details of like, this is
• 3:39
  what I'm able to do, this is what I'm willing and able to do.
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  Once I did that, it unlocked. It made me so much more powerful
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  and focused within each moment of my life.
• 3:51
  And so I think those, the establishment of boundaries, I
• 3:55
  certainly wish I had figured out earlier in my 20s.
• 3:59
  You know, you wear yourself down, you end up getting sick.
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  You know, you do all of these things to tie yourself in knots
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  and really doesn't need to be that way.
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  And it's not. And it's not just a power
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  differential element. It is like literally the ability
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  to say here the boundaries of each element of my life.
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  Here's how I'm going about this. I'm very clear.
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  I know what my priorities are. It actually helps everyone
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  around you. And I think it's sometimes seen
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  as selfish and it's and it's absolutely not, it is self
• 4:26
  protecting but it actually serves everyone around you.
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  Everybody's very clear on what what is going to get done at
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  each individual time in your life.
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  And so that would be one big one.
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  The other one is is more tactical I suppose, which is to
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  say if you are coming up in communications or liberal arts
• 4:44
  degree, get your finance training.
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  That is, that was one of those lessons in life, that the moment
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  I stepped into a boardroom, I realized that most of the people
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  at the table, the likely I'd be the only woman, and I would also
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  be the only one who came from a marketing or communications
• 5:01
  background. The moment I couldn't speak the
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  same language in terms of finance, I was dead in the
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  water. And so I actually personally
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  spent my money on the side years ago went got financing I needed.
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  Which helped me of course in every element of the business.
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  It helped me to become a president of a company to be
• 5:17
  able to run things from a more operational standpoint.
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  But that's always my advice to our more communications focused
• 5:24
  team members and and you know, young, young people that I'm
• 5:27
  involved with is make sure that you're covering every area of
• 5:30
  business. For me, that was finance because
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  at some point you need to be able to speak that language,
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  need to understand it deeply to be able to run a PNL Yeah, no, I
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  love it. And and just to let you know,
• 5:41
  they're actually 2 new points. That one of the main things that
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  a lot of listeners have heard from, from several CEO female
• 5:49
  leaders is the fact that the the voice that they had in their in
• 5:54
  their heads was one that they wish they hadn't had.
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  Basically having permission to talk is is one of the things as
• 6:02
  a as a female leader later in life that was never an issue
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  early in life. It's like do I have permission
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  and and that's why I was saying that probably is as relevant to
• 6:13
  to myself or to anyone. But it was really interesting
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  and I and I guess when people look at their careers, making
• 6:22
  sure you have that wellrounded perspective is what, which is
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  what you're saying if you're going to go into leadership, you
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  need that wellrounded. Absolutely.
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  That brings a slightly different point out.
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  But the idea of advocacy and building that good ideas are
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  good ideas, right? The the, the willingness and
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  ability to speak up. I think about reverse mentorship
• 6:43
  that I have here in our organization.
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  Like there are so many younger people in our organization with
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  phenomenal ideas who grew up digitally native.
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  If I'm if I'm not able to put my own background and ego to the
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  side to learn from these team members, like there's no way
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  you're going to innovate fast enough.
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  And so I think that's true for anybody.
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  There are very distinctive moments careerwise where it was
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  more literal, like I remember being on an executive team, not
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  here in the past where there were two women in the executive
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  team and then there were a number of men on the executive
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  team. And what we realized was that
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  sometimes those ideas weren't quite heard.
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  Somebody would say something and then somebody would say it
• 7:22
  later. And then John, that was a good
• 7:24
  idea, that type of thing. We actually had a code.
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  We literally kind of worked without the background.
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  And of course, now I do it very naturally and probably have for
• 7:30
  the last 10 years, but it was like that was a really good idea
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  when you brought that up earlier.
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  Could you elaborate on that? Hey, but you mentioned that
• 7:38
  earlier. So there was actually kind of a
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  very intentional advocacy. And and certainly that was in
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  this case where we, you know, only had two women on an
• 7:47
  executive team over time. I think that's for anybody.
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  And I think it's even more important when you have hybrid
• 7:52
  and remote work situations, might be an introvert, extrovert
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  situation. It might be one person on the
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  screen and everybody else in the room.
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  So being very emotionally aware of people trying to speak of,
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  you know, an idea, something somebody wants to bring up that
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  somebody hasn't said something in a while.
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  And making sure that you're actually bringing people into
• 8:11
  the conversation, like very intentional advocacy helps your
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  own team operate in a stronger way and innovate faster.
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  And I just want to pick up on that.
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  You mentioned earlier about allyship and and you know and
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  truly sort of being empowering your team.
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  What words of advice would you have for executives who
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  potentially don't know how to be an ally, right.
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  I think that's this word that everyone It's it.
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  Is it just mean I'm a nice person, right?
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  Am I? Do I have to proactively do
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  something? And what is that thing that I
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  need to do So as an executive, as a as the president who runs a
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  visit, what, what words of wisdom would you out?
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  It's true for anybody. But I actually want to speak to
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  your male listenership right now because I will tell you, and I
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  would say most women, I just did a panel recently with two
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  phenomenally high-powered women in retail and all three of us,
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  as we talked about our own mentors, our own champions,
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  almost all of them were men. So we certainly had a woman or
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  two, but almost all in moments. So, so the the power of male
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  allies and the power of just champions for good ideas.
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  Again, male, female, good ideas, somebody being really having a
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  real a lot of promise in your organization.
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  I think the biggest thing is being very conscientious of
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  speaking people's name when they're not in the room.
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  The reality is you are often in a room where decisions are being
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  made. If you're in a legal role,
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  you're in a room where decisions are being made.
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  It is your responsibility to say when somebody says you did such
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  a great job on that, to go, oh, Danielle actually built that.
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  That was actually her idea. She's not in the room, right.
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  And so it's my responsibility to say that on her path.
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  And so I think of situations like that where like that is one
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  of the strongest thing leaders can do is not just giving credit
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  where credit is due, but like, hey, we're thinking about this
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  new thing. We're working through this.
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  Why don't we go ask these three people?
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  Like, they have really unique perspectives, right?
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  Let, let and you talk about inclusion.
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  That is an element of inclusion, like making sure that your brain
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  voices into the room and to have the conversation.
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  So I think there's more formal ways to go about it too.
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  Mentorship is certainly powerful and important and and they're
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  both informal structures of mentorship, which I've
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  experienced as well as more formal.
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  I remember going to somebody who had a very different skill set,
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  a senior person in our organization.
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  And I said to him, would you be willing to mentor me?
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  This is what I mean by that. Well, could we meet one time per
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  month? I only need one hour of your
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  time. This is the type of feedback I
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  need. I would love to give you this
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  feedback in return. This is a mutually beneficial
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  relationship. Like there is I've had very
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  structured mentorships like that and then I've had more informal
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  ones. I also, you know, sometimes it
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  takes you years to realize that person that was really the
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  champion for you, the ally for you, the person speaking up for
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  you when you're not in the room. Sometimes it's very clear it's
• 11:07
  I'm negotiating this contract and.
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  I can think of a, you know, phenomenal male ally who I was
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  negotiating a contract years ago and I'm like, am I allowed to
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  ask for this? You know, I wasn't sure the
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  answer. And I'm like, I know who knows
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  the answer, this guy. And just the ability and the
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  willingness to share that information is incredibly
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  powerful. So I think there's if I think of
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  it as a continuum, yes, there's mentorship.
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  Informally informal, there's then.
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  Allyship like I'm going to be in a, in a outspoken way in my
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  organization, in my social network, on stage say this is
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  what I stand for in this championship.
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  And a lot of times that championship happens behind the
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  scenes. It happens in a leadership
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  meeting, an executive meeting and a board meeting.
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  It happens when somebody says, hey, I'd like to interview you
• 11:56
  on this subject and you go. It's not actually my story to
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  tell. Let me introduce you to these
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  three people whose story does to tell like that.
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  That's the continuum to championship.
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  Yeah. You have to have so much.
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  I don't know if it's high EQ like emotional intelligence to
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  be able to to do that or you know, be secure in yourself,
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  which sometimes in some organizations because of the
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  toxicity or the way that it's run is, is really difficult.
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  And I just want to pick up this. You're probably this is your
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  unconscious competence is is the fact that the the you said early
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  on boundaries is really important to set.
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  And especially when you go into mentorship setting up listening
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  to when you talk setting those boundaries of hey this is this
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  is what I I'm looking for and this is what I can provide.
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  I think is probably not talked about a lot because sometimes
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  people feel that that's more to do with the psychology of of
• 12:51
  work rather than work itself right in terms of setting those
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  boundaries. I love that point.
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  I was going to say really fast, too.
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  There's another element of I assume this person will see that
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  I'm doing a good job and they'll just help me.
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  You must have to be explicit. You just have to.
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  And being explicit means setting boundaries around what you're
• 13:10
  asking. Because if you're asking
• 13:12
  somebody who's a board member or CEO like, they only have so much
• 13:15
  time too, and they likely are willing to help.
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  Maybe not, and you'd rather know that up front, but if they are
• 13:21
  like setting boundaries around that, and this is exactly what
• 13:23
  I'm asking, and I would love to offer this in return, there's so
• 13:26
  much strength to that. So I love that point, yeah.
• 13:29
  And and also having a mentor. I think a lot of people leave it
• 13:33
  way too late in their careers to have actually 2 mentors rather
• 13:36
  than one and in different parts of the business.
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  Because sometimes you go where it's really easy and and you
• 13:41
  pick up someone who's who's your champion but actually can't help
• 13:44
  you in your career and and those champions sometimes sits
• 13:47
  elsewhere. What is the one thing that
• 13:48
  retailers should be thinking about that they're not right?
• 13:52
  More than ever it is the elongated season.
• 13:55
  So prime day back to school, straight into holiday early
• 13:59
  promos. We're talking a lot right now
• 14:01
  about the Cyber 12 when we're talking to our clients.
• 14:04
  It is not, you know, it's not Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it's
• 14:07
  actually this is 12 day period where very specific things
• 14:10
  happen on very specific days. When promos P what customers
• 14:15
  were expecting those those expectations have shifted a lot
• 14:19
  in the last few years and this year is really interesting.
• 14:22
  It is behaving slightly differently.
• 14:24
  Some of the patterns we're seeing the same holiday pulled
• 14:27
  up and up and up. So you know we've already we're
• 14:30
  starting holiday in October last year, right.
• 14:32
  So it pulled up. There's also an element, though
• 14:34
  of very conscious. Delay of purchase and so to and
• 14:42
  by that I mean I'm I'm planning, I'm a consumer, male consumers
• 14:46
  are are see we're seeing this even higher than female
• 14:48
  consumers. But I'm very intentionally
• 14:50
  planning to wait until the last bit.
• 14:52
  I'm very intentionally planning to wait for the next deal to
• 14:55
  come. And so I think that brands have
• 14:58
  trained their customer base on their promo cycle and so they're
• 15:03
  knew there are a lot, there's a lot of that happening.
• 15:05
  We're holding weight. Another way, and you can see
• 15:07
  that coming out right now, is in conversion.
• 15:10
  So no matter who you talk to and if you're in the retail industry
• 15:13
  and listening, you're not the only one.
• 15:14
  I promise your conversion path is longer.
• 15:17
  It just is and it has been for the last 6 to 9 months and I
• 15:21
  think everybody's going. It used to only take three touch
• 15:23
  points, now it's taking six, now it's taking 8.
• 15:25
  And you know there's a lot of panic around that, certainly.
• 15:28
  If you're talking about a site conversion versus an Instore
• 15:30
  conversion, certainly there are things you can do to control
• 15:33
  your site experience, your checkout process if they are.
• 15:37
  If they want to shop on social, let them check out on social.
• 15:41
  So you know those elements that I think people are looking at.
• 15:45
  But there's also a lot of behavior right now that is
• 15:47
  saying I'm considering my purchases for longer.
• 15:51
  My economic. Confidence is a little shaken
• 15:54
  right now. I need to plan my purchases in a
• 15:56
  different way. We saw a prime day, people
• 15:58
  buying back to school prime day. We also saw people buying
• 16:02
  holiday toys purchased a purchased that were going to be
• 16:06
  held for holiday. And so that very conscientious
• 16:09
  process means that conversions are taking longer to happen.
• 16:14
  Also you mentioned TikTok, I think it is important to point
• 16:17
  out and like have the audience. So I want to say it.
• 16:21
  I believe strongly in TikTok, it was strongly in socials.
• 16:24
  It clearly hit in socials ability to build a broader
• 16:27
  customer base to reach new consumers and to convert and it
• 16:31
  doesn't just search to interrupt you.
• 16:33
  Would you, would you put that underneath the umbrella of
• 16:35
  community commerce or would you say that's something else?
• 16:39
  I would put it under the umbrella of Community Commerce.
• 16:42
  I think it's interesting. You look at community and I
• 16:46
  think there are. Social platforms that pull more
• 16:51
  towards community and there's less towards community and I
• 16:54
  think about them, gosh, I I actually love Pinterest if
• 16:57
  they're listening I do and and when I I was on the brand side
• 17:00
  for quite a while about half my career has been inside brands
• 17:03
  and I believe strongly in Pinterest back then it kind of
• 17:06
  quite convert. They've put so much in place now
• 17:09
  where it does convert and that's a very, a very specific like
• 17:14
  again talk about continuums, you have the continuum of.
• 17:17
  Your Facebook's clearly a community.
• 17:19
  Clearly you're having you doing meet up groups and you have
• 17:21
  mom's groups and there's so much going on there.
• 17:23
  You know Instagram, TikTok is is a faster pace to talk,
• 17:27
  significantly faster pace. And then the other kind of
• 17:29
  opposite into that spectrum is Pinterest where it's like a yes
• 17:32
  there is some community happening but it's a very
• 17:33
  personal board. It's something I'm excited
• 17:35
  about. I'm building my wedding board.
• 17:37
  I'm building recipes for my family whatever those elements
• 17:40
  are and I think brands are figuring out how to monetize
• 17:42
  that differently. So yes, I would say all of those
• 17:45
  have elements of community. The spectrum of your Facebook to
• 17:49
  your Pinterest with TikTok specifically though I guess it's
• 17:56
  true with Pinterest as well. But I would just say if they're
• 17:59
  coming from, you just have to think about people's mindset in
• 18:02
  that moment in TikTok, they're in the mindset of entertainment,
• 18:05
  they're in the mindset of discovery, right.
• 18:07
  They might not be in the mindset of purchasing right this moment
• 18:11
  and so the fact that that conversion is taking longer.
• 18:15
  Is fine. You are building a bigger base.
• 18:17
  You have to measure it differently.
• 18:18
  I think I'm seeing a lot of like I'm getting so much more social
• 18:21
  traffic. And then the question is always,
• 18:23
  is the traffic qualified? It is qualified in a different
• 18:26
  way. You're trying to build your
• 18:27
  base. You have to be able to have a
• 18:29
  recurring message and know that those conversions are going to
• 18:32
  take a bit longer because you're interrupting an entertainment
• 18:34
  path, interrupting a discovery path or you're leading them from
• 18:37
  a discovery path into a conversion path.
• 18:39
  It's just a very different I think.
• 18:42
  Many brands and and retailers that advertisers are trying to
• 18:46
  fit everything with the same model, same model measurement,
• 18:49
  same model of assets aid and sub creative and and you really have
• 18:55
  to be able to slice and dice it in a much more granular way,
• 18:59
  understand who your customer bases and your potential
• 19:02
  customers are on each one of these platforms.
• 19:05
  When that's happening though, it's incredibly powerful, like
• 19:07
  we are seeing massive lift in that area.
• 19:11
  If it is done with very specific audiences, very specific
• 19:14
  strategy and measurement. But the toughest part, I think,
• 19:17
  sometimes is the measurement, because organizations expect to
• 19:21
  report things in a very specific way.
• 19:23
  Well, I'm just. Gonna have some talk converting
• 19:26
  so and I'm just curious from what your cuz I think the
• 19:30
  age-old problem has been the e-commerce director has always
• 19:33
  competed with the stores director and if you're lucky
• 19:36
  enough in some organizations it's the same person so it
• 19:39
  doesn't matter where the sale happens it's a sale for the
• 19:42
  company But I'm just curious in your because you talked about
• 19:45
  digital touch points and conversion I guess when you look
• 19:49
  at the path to purchase are you seeing are people worried that
• 19:53
  the IT won't convert online but it will convert offline is I
• 19:57
  mean or are people trying to tackle that in any I.
• 20:00
  Feel like we've had this conversation for like 8 years
• 20:02
  and also many organizations have moved forward.
• 20:06
  What you just said is exactly right.
• 20:08
  Like the concept of like Omni channel is such a that's our
• 20:13
  language. You know customers don't think
• 20:15
  that way. They expect you to have what
• 20:17
  they want when they want it. They expect a good brand
• 20:19
  experience no matter how they interact with you.
• 20:21
  And if you sell, if you sell online and you sell in store and
• 20:24
  you sell it Sephora, they expect their experience to be perfect.
• 20:28
  So, so that's one piece of it. And I would say yes, most
• 20:33
  organizations have realized that they have to shift forward that
• 20:37
  a sale is a sale is a sale that a customer connecting their
• 20:40
  customer base and data across retail and digital and wholesale
• 20:46
  if possible, making sure that they actually understand who
• 20:48
  that customer is like. I think everybody knows that
• 20:51
  whether they've actually moved down the path to make the right
• 20:54
  structure decisions and budget decisions, it's very different
• 20:57
  question because you almost always have still in that Monday
• 21:01
  morning meeting what happened in retail this weekend, what
• 21:04
  happened online, right. And and as long as we keep doing
• 21:07
  that, as long as we measure things separately and don't have
• 21:12
  a more holistic view, you'll continue down this path that
• 21:15
  creates likely fractured customer experiences.
• 21:19
  But so, so that is happening. The other thing I see happening
• 21:22
  is so interesting where stores are doing really well right now,
• 21:26
  which makes it really happy. As a as a retail gal, I love
• 21:31
  seeing stores succeed. I believe that store associates
• 21:33
  and store managers know so much more about your customer than
• 21:36
  they ever get credit for. And so I'm a big advocate of our
• 21:40
  store associates, but because your data can only tell you so
• 21:43
  much, by the way, call your store manager, they'll tell you,
• 21:45
  they'll tell you what the data really means.
• 21:48
  But anyway, I think there's an element now where stores are
• 21:51
  doing really, really well over the past six months or so.
• 21:55
  People are very excited about that.
• 21:57
  And yet at the most senior levels, it's why is it digital
• 22:01
  performing as well or better than in the past.
• 22:04
  Digital grew and grew and grew. So they're not seeing any
• 22:07
  element of trade off. They want everything to rise,
• 22:10
  everything to rise at the same pace and think about.
• 22:13
  And the biggest piece of that is they plan their years that way.
• 22:17
  They planned their budget last September for this year.
• 22:21
  Everything rising at the same pace.
• 22:23
  Stores are rising, rising, rising.
• 22:25
  Sometimes those people are converting in store rather than
• 22:27
  digitally. And all of a sudden you've
• 22:30
  failed. You know, all of a sudden you're
• 22:31
  poor econ person, you've failed because it's going down or
• 22:34
  staying steady and not growing at this rapid pace.
• 22:37
  They're coming into the store. And if you look at almost any
• 22:40
  organization who has their data connected will tell you if you
• 22:43
  have somebody shop in more than one channel, you have usually a
• 22:47
  three time higher lifetime value.
• 22:50
  It depends on the type of product of course, but it's
• 22:53
  significantly higher lifetime value if they shop in multiple
• 22:56
  places with you. So the idea of trying to capture
• 23:01
  them only in one place and keeping them only in one place
• 23:04
  is only a shortterm win. That's a win for your
• 23:07
  organizational silos. That is not a win for your
• 23:10
  company. And so I think I've seen healthy
• 23:12
  businesses, you know recognize that it's hard work though I I
• 23:15
  don't think, I think people aren't shifting their
• 23:18
  organizations and their P&L ownership and their teams and
• 23:22
  they're hiring because they don't know to.
• 23:24
  It's it's takes time and it's complicated.
• 23:27
  And when it comes down to it, A/C, EO often now a CMO more and
• 23:31
  more has to come in and go. Here's a longterm plan.
• 23:34
  Here's how we're getting after it.
• 23:36
  What we just discussed almost, Yep, I comped this day last year
• 23:40
  like they have to be reaching the short term goals and long
• 23:43
  term goals at the same time. And I think a lot of times the
• 23:45
  market doesn't have the patience to wait for the right kind of
• 23:51
  change to happen. And so they have, they have to
• 23:53
  make short term, long term goals at the same time and you see a
• 23:56
  lot of turnover at the sea level for that reason.
• 23:58
  Yeah. I mean, there's so many.
• 24:00
  There's two directions. I mean, one of the things about
• 24:02
  store associates, it always perplexed me how companies would
• 24:06
  spend. Thousands if not millions trying
• 24:08
  to find social engagement out there where the biggest
• 24:12
  advocates who probably know and are fantastic customers are
• 24:17
  their own workforce. Especially for for some of the
• 24:19
  younger brands where you know you have to be up and called to
• 24:21
  work there and I'm sure they're tick tock accounts.
• 24:23
  But anyway that that's one thing I'm curious the intersection of.
• 24:27
  It's like conversational commerce, I don't know what you
• 24:29
  want, social commerce, whatever it's called, how is that
• 24:32
  growing? Obviously in China it dominates,
• 24:34
  that is, and everyone seeing the Tick Tock House.
• 24:37
  Where literally every room in that TikTok house is a is a
• 24:41
  social seller selling something via that.
• 24:45
  How far away are we from that do you think in in the US
• 24:48
  specifically? I think it is growing quickly
• 24:52
  and with the biggest point I will the biggest thing I will
• 24:55
  point to is where there where a consumers entire journey
• 25:00
  happens. A couple years ago we had the
• 25:03
  data come out that was like oh wait a minute, they they went,
• 25:05
  they didn't go to Google, they went into Amazon first on
• 25:09
  Amazon, checked on and Amazon got out.
• 25:11
  That is now happening in social significantly at higher rates
• 25:15
  than it did in the past. So if I literally just look at
• 25:17
  it from a transactional standpoint and they're coming
• 25:19
  in, they're actually using TikTok for discovery.
• 25:22
  They're using it to actually get through the process to find a
• 25:25
  brand to go and transact. They're coming in through that
• 25:29
  Channel, converting through that Channel or converting from there
• 25:32
  to the site. That is when things really start
• 25:35
  to change because when you can monetize it, companies will lean
• 25:38
  into it, right. And this is an interesting one
• 25:41
  where the consumers are leading the way, which I want
• 25:44
  technology, I will give the tech folks credit, right.
• 25:47
  Technology had to lead the way first.
• 25:48
  It just wasn't there. Now that it is there, almost
• 25:53
  there to be able to genuinely be able to convert and buy the
• 25:57
  product that you want, that you just thought this content
• 26:00
  creator promote and you want to buy it right now and you're
• 26:03
  super interested and you want it to deliver tomorrow.
• 26:05
  The more that experience becomes frictionless, the more the
• 26:08
  consumer wins because they're telling that they want the.
• 26:11
  Discovery shopping as entertainment.
• 26:15
  That's for me. Why I like yourself.
• 26:17
  Massive TikTok advocate, because you have to talk to Deborah
• 26:22
  Weinswig and she's the founder. Of course I research.
• 26:24
  She has. I feel like she's such a
• 26:26
  soothsayer. She told me three years ago.
• 26:28
  Here's what's happening, China, here's what's gonna happen in
• 26:30
  the US You can almost to the month count on her prediction.
• 26:34
  So there's my advocacy mention of the day, and I go talk to
• 26:37
  Deb. One of the things that you
• 26:39
  mentioned, I just want to go back in terms of the conversion.
• 26:42
  And what you were telling retailers, like I said, what's
• 26:45
  the one thing that retailers should know that they don't know
• 26:48
  and what should they be focusing on?
• 26:49
  What is the guidance that you're giving them?
• 26:51
  What? So what's the outcome of that?
• 26:53
  You should be, your social strategy should be better than
• 26:56
  it is. What is it?
• 26:57
  The biggest piece I would say and I would have said it in the
• 27:00
  second quarter, but it's still true now and it's doubly true
• 27:03
  for 24 planning. You have to be testing like 20%
• 27:07
  of your budget, constantly testing new things and having
• 27:11
  you know much love for Google and meta having all your eggs in
• 27:15
  that basket is not going to create monumentally different
• 27:17
  outcomes. So that I think that element, it
• 27:21
  it is not you know just your social strategies, better
• 27:23
  structured testing you need you need testing infrastructure in
• 27:27
  place the big enough budget to actually be able to measure it
• 27:30
  with the understanding internally these are the exact
• 27:33
  things we're testing at any given time.
• 27:35
  We're going to test in. We're going to budget into
• 27:38
  winners and be comfortable with failure.
• 27:40
  You know, you think about it and think about I worked with data
• 27:42
  folks for a long time and it's either right or wrong and they
• 27:44
  were perfectly comfortable with that.
• 27:45
  With marketers, we're like it was all good.
• 27:47
  There's always a good outcome. But what you learn from that,
• 27:51
  you know, structured testing within your marketing program,
• 27:54
  structured testing within your community building, when you do
• 27:58
  that, you can iterate so much faster.
• 28:00
  You get into the fourth quarter when prices are going to go up
• 28:02
  and up and up and your budget's not going to go as far.
• 28:05
  And if all your eggs are in 2 baskets, it's very, very hard to
• 28:09
  meet your goals. And so the the folks that I have
• 28:11
  seen, they were the most successful last holiday season.
• 28:13
  I see so much progression. You know, so many of the the
• 28:17
  brands that we work with have spent all the first half of the
• 28:20
  year testing into new means, determining what's going to work
• 28:23
  for them, determining how they can get to new customers so that
• 28:27
  when they get into fourth quarter, they actually have
• 28:29
  levers to pull because so many brands, the only levers they
• 28:32
  have to pull, so deeper discount which is not a winning
• 28:36
  proposition long term, just pour more and more money into the
• 28:39
  same two channels and that is just there's a diminishing
• 28:42
  returns there. So I think the answer is
• 28:46
  actually structure testing, which is not a super exciting
• 28:48
  answer, but it is what people need to do in order to get
• 28:51
  themselves ready for those moments when they have to be
• 28:54
  able to pull levers. Yeah, and it feels like.
• 28:56
  I know you mentioned the meta thing, but I actually read this.
• 28:59
  I think it was in one of your. Pieces of literature about how
• 29:04
  thread and I didn't know I saw know this, but I didn't put two
• 29:08
  and two together. Threads tagged to Instagram.
• 29:11
  So should you ever have a fallout with Threads, you
• 29:13
  actually have to delete your Instagram account, which is
• 29:17
  petrifying for any brand that you So five years building it
• 29:21
  and something may go haywire and you can't actually disconnect
• 29:24
  one from the other. It's been interesting to watch
• 29:27
  how quickly of how excited everyone was and how quickly
• 29:31
  that excitement kind of calmed down.
• 29:33
  We do that a lot in the industry, which you know, we we
• 29:35
  all love something new and we love, we love, you know the the
• 29:39
  aspect of competition. But yes, within probably 24 to
• 29:43
  48 hours of that announcement, when you're really dug through
• 29:45
  all the details, you're like, wait a minute, when I set up
• 29:47
  threads, it's attached to my actual Instagram account,
• 29:50
  including for companies accounts and deleting 1 deletes the
• 29:55
  other. So they've said that they're
• 29:57
  working on a solution that would avoid that, but I have not seen
• 30:00
  it come yet. What is the sentiment in the
• 30:02
  retail industry? How are you finding people's
• 30:04
  perspective for for next year? It's interesting.
• 30:08
  I am. I think the first part of this
• 30:11
  year there was more doom and gloom than there is right now.
• 30:14
  I think this industry has become so resilient over the last few
• 30:18
  years like early COVID shutting all our stores and I was on the
• 30:22
  brand side at the time, right, like people going on furlough
• 30:25
  and you're trying to make sure that you're, you know at one
• 30:27
  point FedEx stop picking up and people couldn't get packages out
• 30:29
  of their warehouses. Like if you made it through that
• 30:32
  and you're in this industry like you are made of iron at this
• 30:35
  point. And so I think that that we as
• 30:40
  an industry are weathering those storms a lot better.
• 30:44
  One of the biggest things I would say though is that there
• 30:48
  is a big sentiment right now. Doing more with less you get by
• 30:53
  had to like summarize people's. That was the one catch phrase do
• 30:57
  more with yes. Yeah it's not pessimism while
• 31:02
  fear I think like I said, if you've been in this industry for
• 31:05
  a while, like nothing can scare you now, right?
• 31:07
  Fearless. But there is this element and
• 31:10
  almost anybody I talk to again, whether CEO, CMO, ECOM Manager,
• 31:15
  whoever it is, it's need to do more with less staff, need to do
• 31:19
  more with less resources. We need to, we're going to keep
• 31:23
  the budget exactly the same, but we need it to grow 40%.
• 31:26
  There's a lot of that going. On inflation, right?
• 31:29
  Somehow, yeah, I think some of it is that.
• 31:31
  I think some of it is that because we believed that
• 31:36
  consumers were demanding it because of fear at the time.
• 31:40
  Organizations invested so much during COVID on everything.
• 31:45
  They thought their customer might possibly want next day
• 31:48
  delivery, same day delivery, curbside pickup, curated
• 31:52
  dressing rooms before you walk in the door or you know service
• 31:55
  after service after service, every one of those chips away at
• 31:58
  margin. Some of them are vital for your
• 32:01
  organization, some are not. And so it I think a lot of times
• 32:05
  brands chase their competitors down the path or they believed
• 32:08
  you know the read something in the media and they believe we
• 32:10
  have to go down this path or somebody on their board said why
• 32:13
  aren't we doing this yet, have to run down this path.
• 32:15
  And so now we got to the first part of this year and I still
• 32:19
  see a lot of that happening where it's like which of these
• 32:22
  things are the most important to our customers.
• 32:25
  Does my customer actually want this to arrive two days?
• 32:28
  Is that the most important thing and should I be spending $40,
• 32:32
  you know, a margin on that or is it more important that they have
• 32:35
  these other services that they have exclusive access to product
• 32:38
  for store, other things that are important to them.
• 32:41
  So I I think there's a lot of tradeoff conversations
• 32:44
  happening. There's a lot of upskilling
• 32:48
  staff, reskilling staff from a digital and data perspective, a
• 32:52
  lot of that happening. But all of it can kind of fall
• 32:55
  under this umbrella of like, it's not pessimism, it's almost
• 32:58
  realism. And here's the reality, the
• 33:01
  finite resources, finite staffing.
• 33:04
  How can we reach more people, get more people into our
• 33:07
  customer base, grow our business with finite resources?
• 33:11
  I'm just curious in terms of your final thought, you know,
• 33:14
  maybe reflecting on the earlier part of our conversation and and
• 33:18
  the words of wisdom that you had, what would be your final
• 33:21
  thoughts or words of wisdom for anyone listening to the show?
• 33:24
  I love that. I think there are two things I
• 33:27
  have in mind. One is there are elements in any
• 33:32
  organization, any role, any industry that where there is a
• 33:36
  need that can be served Lean in, say yes, step up whether you
• 33:40
  know how to do it or not, like just say yes.
• 33:43
  I think leading into a new elements in your career, like
• 33:47
  there is no linear path. So if you're sitting there
• 33:50
  thinking I have to do these three things and then I'll get
• 33:52
  to this next level and it just doesn't exist.
• 33:54
  If you ask anybody who's been doing this for a couple of
• 33:56
  decades, as I have, and they will say is not a linear path.
• 33:59
  And so the more you can take in new experiences, ask people for
• 34:03
  advice, like really volunteer and put yourself out there.
• 34:09
  Sharonda Williamson, who is from Ralph Lauren, who is absolutely
• 34:12
  brilliant and you should definitely go follow her on
• 34:14
  LinkedIn, said that to me at one point that some of the biggest
• 34:17
  career shifts that she had was somebody saying nobody wants to
• 34:20
  do this job, will you do it? And her saying absolutely.
• 34:24
  So that is one element. The only other element is I
• 34:26
  would say there's so many ways in which you can connect with
• 34:30
  other people who can help in your career and who you can
• 34:33
  offer help to. So whether you do that
• 34:35
  informally through social networks, through LinkedIn,
• 34:38
  through you know the people in your organization or do you do
• 34:41
  that more formally, we're about to have shop talk meet up for
• 34:44
  women. It's a virtual event and we did
• 34:46
  that very intentionally to get that many more women who are
• 34:49
  able to speak and lead these table talks, these intimate
• 34:52
  sessions to answer questions. I'm going to be talking about
• 34:55
  navigating really tough challenges inside your
• 34:58
  organization and we're going to tell some truth.
• 34:59
  So those types of opportunities like lean into those sign up, go
• 35:04
  have this conversations like it's not just about like
• 35:07
  advocating for yourself in your career, which is also vital,
• 35:10
  it's also volunteer. Jump in if you see a need.
• 35:15
  Fill the void and I guarantee you you will learn something
• 35:18
  from that, and it often will help you determine what that
• 35:20
  next step should be for you. Yeah, I don't have to say this,
• 35:23
  but I genuinely feel, Sarah, some of those words of wisdom
• 35:26
  will change people's lives. In a really positive way.
• 35:29
  So thank you. Thank you for reach out to
• 35:31
  anybody who listens and just needs advice or or would like to
• 35:35
  connect. I'm I'm so glad to talk to you
• 35:38
  Alex. You do phenomenal things for
• 35:40
  this industry and I really appreciate you.
• 35:42
  Thank you. I look forward to seeing you at
• 35:44
  Shop Talk next year. Thanks.