The Foundation for Ecommerce Success.

Truth be told, I am still trying to get used to traveling again post-COVID. And based on yesterday, I am a little off my game! Lucky for me, I have traveled quite a lot in my career and my one constant piece of advice is to get to the airport early—like really early!

So, I gave myself a 3-hour head start, parking at my usual offsite structure, which is clean and has wonderful shuttles to take you to your Los Angeles airport gate. Shortly after parking, I sauntered off to the shuttle with my full cup of Starbucks coffee, feeling confident and ready to seize the day! Once seated, I was happy to discover that I was one of the first drop-offs as Delta had finally re-opened their newly refurbished gate!

Yay! Off to a great start, right? The travel gods are in my favor!

Wrong. Within 3 minutes of being dropped off, I realized that the travel gods obviously hate me. As I headed to the nearest kiosk to enter my information so that I could get checked in and receive a printed suitcase tag, I found (to my horror) that my wallet was nowhere to be found in my perfectly organized bag. Ugh! It then dawned on me that I had taken my wallet out of my bag because the parking garage, like the airport, had also upgraded, requiring a credit card to enter the structure.

Distraught but determined, I headed back to the curb (panic level 10) and saw nothing but a sea of LA traffic and chaos, with cars everywhere. Suddenly, to my relief, I spotted one of the shuttles clearly marked with the parking structure name and side street, and I quickly flagged her down. The lovely lady stopped, helped with my bag, and I proceeded to tell her my sob story. To her credit, she confidently told me she would get me back to the car in a jiffy—my own modern-day godmother! She was good on her word, getting me back to the garage where I sprinted to the car, found my wallet safely tucked on the passenger seat, swooped it up, and headed back to the shuttle. She smiled and told me, "Let's get you to the plane!"

Once I got through security and into the newly renovated Delta terminal, I was completely out of my familiarity and comfort zone. For the first time, I saw so many systems working without a person. From bag check-in, where I scanned and placed my luggage on the conveyor belt, to ordering a pizza from a QR code that opened a box, everything was different. I was uncomfortable and counting the minutes to hop on the plane.

Fast forward, I finally landed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and fell in love with the architecture and the combination of old and new businesses that line the streets. My first event on this work trip was a complimentary workshop led by Scott Cunningham, Founder of Merchant Mastery, a company that helps teach entrepreneurs in the retail space how to build and optimize their store, master email marketing and ads, understand offer strategy, and scale their revenue.

The venue was adorable and intimate, held at the Downtown Market Grand Rapids, a collective of artisan food merchants and restaurants open seven days a week, world-class private get-togethers, a commercial kitchen for start-ups, and a side of family-friendly public events! The perfect place to get us all in the spirit of owning our independent business!

A word of advice: if you are going to any summit, make sure you see what events will be held around the same time so you can optimize the trip and further expand your mind.

This particular workshop offered a thought-provoking message, "Don't talk about your product features. Talk about your customers' futures." - Darrell Saunders, Hockey Guy. I love this quote because it perfectly illustrates how business owners should focus on their customers' needs and aspirations. By investing in their consumers and providing a roadmap where the client knows their product will contribute to their future success or solve a problem, they can create repeat customers and stabilize their business for success.

Scott then broke down the 5 stages of business growth:

1. Launch First Products: This is where business owners are excited, fresh to the game, and at the beginning stage of starting their business.

2. Product Validation: The hardest part of the journey where one must seek to understand their consumer and how to position themselves to best communicate and draw clients in.

3. Product Market Fit: The product starts selling and there is one channel that brings in repetitive business, but there is no consistency, leading to highs and low months of revenue.

4. The Evergreen Tree of Life: Mastering the 4 pillars of growth, now having an engine running, comprised of a Shopify store, emails, and ads.

5. The Garden of Ecom: Seasonal campaigns that fuel velocity, leading to profit and success.

My favorite part was the analogy of business growth stages to personal growth: starting as an infant, growing through struggles, and finally becoming an adult who can freely run!

All this to say that a business needs proper care to see consistent progress and overall growth. When specifically talking about ecommerce platforms like Shopify, a business owner needs to prioritize the customer and the right product for that customer, not the channel. Once you understand the pain points and needs of a customer, you can create content and pull in repeat clients by giving them something that eases their pain points.

It was an educational 2 hours and I highly recommend taking a look and seeing what future events they are providing. Re-evaluating your business and gaining insights from industry experts are crucial steps to building a solid foundation for success.

Scott is also a family man, and you can see the joy on his face as he seeks to teach and guide those in the room. I could give you all his slides and bullet points, but there is nothing better than going straight to the source and bouncing ideas with an expert like him!

See Merchant Mastery's Future Events by [clicking here](https://merchantmastery.io/ )!

In the end, the beginning of this trip reminded me of the importance of continuous learning and staying open to new ideas and strategies.

This experience at the airport is similar to what business owners face. You can be an expert, but if the technology changes and you are not familiar, you will stumble or run into bumps. Similarly, new business owners need guides to navigate unknown territory. Just as I needed help figuring out how to get a food order out of a locker and process my bag through the machine that kept beeping at me , businesses need expert guidance to ensure smooth operations and growth.

Up next....@WhizBang! Retail Training 2024 Retail Summit.

#BusinessGrowth #RetailSummit #CustomerExperience