Most product-based business owners think they need something new to grow: a new strategy, a shiny tool, a game-changing idea. But the truth, you don't need more exciting. You need what actually works. Because the businesses that win on profit and cash flow, yeah, they've mastered the fundamentals. And this is exactly what we do inside the Inventory Genius program. We clean up your financials so that you have a clear, accurate picture of your inventory and your real margins. We fix your product mix, making sure every single SKU is actually making you money, not just creating revenue. And we build a profit plan so that you can pay off debt, generate cash, and run your business with confidence. No fluff, no guesswork, no chasing trends, just a proven system that helps product-based businesses win again when it comes to profit and it comes to cash. Because long-term success isn't flashy, it's consistent. Join us in the Inventory Genius program. Let's make your business work for you. Hey friend, welcome to the Inventory Genius podcast, where we work together here to make you an inventory genius. We talk about profit, we talk about cash flow, and we definitely talk about your paycheck. Because at the end of the day, it's all related to your inventory. Let's go. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Inventory Genius Podcast. I'm your host, Sierra, and today I am here with Cassidy from Simply Lynn's Creative. I'm actually really excited about this conversation because she is a Shopify expert, you guys, um, and Clavio email expert. And I just have to say, Cassidy, we have been looking for someone like you literally for years. I don't know how many times I get asked, who can you recommend for Shopify help? And I've just never had someone I felt comfortable recommending. So I came across you on Instagram actually and reached out and said, Hey, would you like to have a conversation? Um, and I think you're excited about working with the Inventory Genius Group as well. So welcome to the show.

Yes, thanks for having me. I was excited to kind of connect with you two and draw all the lines together of, you know, what you do and what I do and how we can support each other.

Yes, absolutely. So I think what first intrigued me about your business is that you and your family have an operational retail store. So not only are you an expert in Shopify and Clavio, you actually use it for your own business and you understand the heartbeat of a retailer. So someone that actually has inventory, has to sell their products, has to drive traffic, like you're living this every day. So you haven't just, you know, learned a little bit about Shopify and thought this would be a good business to get into. Um so, so tell us your background. Like tell us your retail background and then how that put you in a position to open up Simply Lints.

Yeah, so my family owns a kitchen store in my hometown of McPherson, Kansas. You know, we're a town of, you know, 13,000 people. We have a pretty, we're a pretty small town, but we have a pretty big regional draw for our kitchen store. Um, my grandma started the kitchen store back in 1988, and my mom runs it today, and I help her um, you know, on the back end with everything from Shopify for point of sale for our e-commerce store, um, you know, some inventory management and things like that. Um and really just being in the retail world every day and kind of growing up and seeing the evolution of technology and marketing and how you have to change so much as a retailer just to always be adapting to the current market and the current environment. Um, I always thought that part was like really fun to kind of try to figure out like, okay, here's this new system or this new strategy. Like, how could we test this here and make it work? And so um, you know, probably been five or six years ago now, we went from, you know, really a very old-fashioned point of sale system. We were very manual in everything that we did. Um, and I helped them to fully implement Shopify for point of sale for their e-commerce, um, email marketing, really to build that out and take everything that lived in my mom's brain for the longest time and put a system to it. So, you know, there's there's a lot that went into, you know, putting a 4,500 square foot retail shop with thousands of SKUs into a point of sale system. Um, but that part of it was like very fun, very um insightful for me to learn. Um, you know, my mom kind of as like, she's my mom, but she's my client in the same way. Like she she works in the point of sale every day. She sees the complexities of their inventory with things like um bulk coffee and on tap oil and vinegar, like where things are not just a singular number quantity, and really figuring out how the things that they had done in store for years, really in that manual, you know, manual mode, how to translate that into Shopify. So it's fun for me for her to come and say, okay, here's what's happening, or like here's what's changed, like how do we make this work? And so finding a solution to all of that to help her have a better top-down overview of her inventory, of her numbers, you know, of things coming in and out, um, all within the Shopify ecosystem. Um, that was that was really fun for me. We also they offer um cooking classes, private events, bridal registry, gift wrapping, you know. So there's a lot that goes on in store that we really needed to also translate to the online experience. So building out those workflows so that somebody who maybe they're local but they don't have time to come in and shop a bridal registry, they can do it from their computer and they're gonna get the same experience that they would in store in terms of shopping a list, getting the gift wrap, adding the gift note, all that good stuff. Um, so really like that my family's business has been like my my most fun or my most like experiential client just to really dive in and have kind of that inside ability to test and try things, but also being on a larger scale retail, you know, they're just in such a big space. They have so many product categories. Seeing all that come together and work together has been really fun for how I serve, you know, the other clients that I work with too. So yeah. Yeah.

Well, okay, as you're walking through all the things you did as you transitioned your mom's store, you know, let so many clients, past experience for me with clients, is like flying through my mind. I'm just like all the conversations I've had with them from you know, what you mentioned, bulk product. Like I've had this conversation with multiple clients. How do I sell oil and vinegar? How do I put that into Shopify? How do I make that happen? I've worked with clients who've decided to add in, you know, add services like your gift wrapping. How do we put that into Shopify? And let me tell you, because I didn't know you, now I do. I'm gonna I'm gonna go actually go back to that list after today's episode um and connect you with some of those clients and say, I found you a solution. Because, you know, when I was visiting the shop owner, just like your mom and your grandma, they want to be on the floor. They want to buy beautiful products and they want to be on the floor selling. And so for them to try to spend the time to figure out the back-end technology, it's exhausting and a lot of times not something in their wheelhouse. And I didn't really know how to help them, you know. And so I just love that because you've transitioned this very complex 4,500 square foot store, like you said, everything was in your mom's head and you had to put that all into inventory. Like you've literally done such difficult projects and you've tested it out and now you're ready and have been helping other owners. So I just I really love that you can do the complexity within Shopify and you can do that really well.

Yes, yes. And I do always like to come back that, like, yes, it's very complex. Yes, there's a lot of like a lot of different offerings from like services and the products and things like that. But my, you know, my overarching philosophy is like less is more, let's keep it simple. How can we, you know, achieve the outcome that we want without having to, you know, band-aid nine different solutions that are going to cost X amount of dollars when what we need could maybe even be built out or executed directly in Shopify. So yeah, I always like to keep things as like streamlined, simple, and like less, like the least amount of overwhelming as possible. Um, but there is a time and a place when, you know, something more complex, you definitely do need to, you know, dive deeper in to really make it work for your business.

Yeah, and make it work long-term. I like what you just mentioned, not just put band-aids on a bunch of places.

Like, yeah.

So if we need to lean in and actually create a long-term solution, you can do that. But you're also good at going in and saying, hey, let's not, we don't need to add an app here. We don't need to add complexity, let's just actually simplify what you have. Um okay, so I have a couple more questions on Shopify. And then I also want to talk about email marketing because you're an expert in that as well. So while we're still on the Shopify, um, talk to me about the different clients because I think some people listening today might say, well, I'm already using Shopify. I don't need to switch point of sale systems. So can Cassidy really help me? So that's one client I want you to speak to. And then a second client would say, like, I'm on another point of sale. Maybe I'm on light speed. This happens a lot, right? They're on light speed, they're on Square. They've been thinking about moving over to Shopify because it's just going to be such an easier platform, but that feels extremely overwhelming. So can you speak to those two clients and how you would help them differently?

Yes, yeah. So, you know, speaking to the client who's on a different platform and maybe feeling overwhelmed by the transition, I would just, you know, you have to do what's best for you and your business at the end of the day. You, I always tell my clients, you know, look at your current systems or your current setup and tell me like what about them, like, do you hate or what drives you nuts? And like, what do you wish was different? And a lot of times, like what will come out there, it's just that, you know, they're using Square and Lightspeed, and they've got third-party like bridges to make everything talk to each other. And this process in Shopify is different from like their point of sale system. Um, so you know, they'll find that the point of sale system they're on, yes, it does what it needs them to do. Shopify can also do that same thing. Then you have your point of sale and your e-comm all in one spot. And having, you know, back to my whole lessons more like having everything in one spot, very simple. Your inventory is managed from one singular source instead of trying to talk to each other between multiple. Um, you know, that piece of it can be a really big selling point to make that jump to Shopify. On the flip side, you know, I do have some clients who come and there are features of light speed that they're really well versed in, their staff, their managers, things like that are very well trained in and they're not quite ready to pull the plug on that. So in that case, you know, we do we do keep, you know, we do keep that piece of it. If it is working well and you don't feel overwhelmed by the thought of like having, you know, a point of sale management system versus like your online management system and making them talk to each other. Um, that works too. You know, I nobody fits in like a cookie cutter solution or like it's not a one size fits all solution to anything. It's just figuring out, you know, what pieces of it are working. And if the pieces of it that are not working can happen in Shopify. I I always advocate for the transition just because having everything in one spot can be very um, you know, it can be a very good opportunity to just simplify your business operations as a whole. Yes. So yeah.

And so then let's say someone has Shopify in working fine enough for them, but they have some of these pieces where they've been really doing the workarounds, right? Like they're offering services or they have bulk products that they want to sell, or maybe they're opening a second location. I have a client right now who wants to open a second location, but run it under the same LLC. So she needs another Shopify store, but how does she do that? What would be your process for looking at a current Shopify system, kind of auditing it, right? And giving some feedback on some direction you could go to expand or scale.

Yeah, good question. So again, it just comes back to a lot of like a lot of the strategizing that we do in the beginning of a project is me just like digging deeper into like what's working, what's not working. If you had a wish list of like this is how it would flow and function, what does that look like? Um, and a lot of the times like the things that clients will come to us and they're like, I wish I could figure out how to do this. And a lot of it is point of sale um related. So, you know, yes, there's an app or a workflow that we can build out in the back end of Shopify that works great for the e-commerce or the online store part of it, but it doesn't always have the point of sale capabilities. So then you have that like disconnect between your in-store experience and your online experience. So that's the biggest piece of it is just you know, figuring out what solutions we need and the ones that we do come up with, that they do, you know, work together in both of those different, you know, point of sale versus online business avenues. Um that makes sense.

You almost do an audit first, figure out what the client's looking for, where the gaps are, and then create um a potential solution that they could work with you on.

Right. Yeah, yeah. And again, it all you know comes back to like what's working, what's not, you know, how can we build this out to make it better? Um, but then always keeping in mind too, you know, when you're talking a brick and mortar shop, you've got employees, you've got staff, you've got people in there that also need to understand how everything works and functions so that you're not, you know, constantly on the phone, hey, this is how you do that. Hey, how do I do that? Um, so kind of building out those like SOPs or those workflows, then that, you know, we've come up with the solution and how we're gonna make this work. But here's how you're gonna train your staff on how this works. Here's the process for doing it, here's where you go to find this information. So there's always a big like training or educational piece that comes at the end of a project to just really make sure that you're set up for success on how everything's set up, you know, for your own knowledge, but then also so that you can translate that to the people who are helping you in store. Um, so there's never like a, oh, I'll have to check with, you know, my boss when they get back or anything like that. You want to like empower, empower your people and empower your team to be able to make those decisions and kind of run those different areas of your business without you too.

So and I think this is another area that really sets you apart, um, Cassidy, to be a great vendor partner for boutique businesses or ecom businesses. You had to do that. And I just, you know, you know, right? Because this was real. Like you had to transition your mom's inventory, 4,500 square feet of kitchen product. That's a lot of SKUs. I just know it is. And and because the business had been around since the 80s, you had a lot of team members that were used to doing things a certain way. Um, and so you had to figure out how to not only create the new POS system, but then, like you said, create some training and education so people were using it effectively. And I think this is where other Shopify vendors, if you will, fall short because they haven't had to actually practically implement this and make it work in their own business. Um different layer when this is unreal for you. Um you want in the business to continue to be prepared. So I just wanted to plug in for you. Yes, yes. Yeah, just to your expertise. Yeah. Um, okay, so let's talk about the mail marketing because Clavio is such a great um email tool. I know a lot of times, you know, when I ask a potential client or a new client, what does your email marketing look like? You know, I would say 99% of the time I get the same answer. Well, we have emails, but we don't really do anything with them. We're afraid people won't like our emails. You know, you heard it all. Um so talk to me about how, yes, how this email system works seamlessly and what you would do on that front, let's say with an existing business, they have some emails, they haven't really used the email system effectively. What would be your process to get that set up and going for them?

Yes, yeah. This is I I love to talk about this because there's so many different ways that you can take it. Um, and again, I always come back to the foundational piece of it. So, you know, if you're uh a retailer who you have an email list, you know, maybe you're inconsistent with how often you're sending out campaigns, or maybe you have some automations or things set up in the background, but you're not exactly sure, you know, how they're doing, how they're converting, what purpose they're really serving. Um I like to bring everything back to the basics of a clean, healthy list is better than a massive list. So email marketing, I believe, is one of the most powerful marketing tools just because you're not relying on an algorithm to, you know, get visibility to your customers. You own that list of people, you can speak directly to them. You can get so like fancy and automated and you know, build out segments and speak to very targeted groups of people. And I think that is where email marketing has changed so much, even in the last like three years, um, is just how yeah, just how targeted and tailored you really want that communication to be versus like sending one email to the masses. So a lot of our clients that we work with, you know, they do have physical brick and mortar locations, but they've also got an online side to their business. And so in some ways, we are we are marketing to two very separate groups of people. So when we think about like their brick and mortar and events and things that they're doing to drive traffic in store, if I'm working with a client in like, you know, Oklahoma or Texas, realistically, me in Kansas, I'm not gonna make it to an event in three days in one of those towns. So like I don't need that marketing communication, but we do want to make sure that the message is getting to the right person. So there's a lot of things we can do with like segmentation, making sure that your flows or the automated emails that are sending in the background really complement your brand and drive traffic, you know, depending on your goal, to your to your store, to your website, um, and just really hone in on that process. I I like to market in Clavio. Um, I think it's one of the most powerful tools for a retailer for many different reasons, but I love the integration with Shopify, the data that we can pull from Shopify, especially when your, you know, your point of sale is in there too. You know, everything becomes just like this singular source of um information and really building out, you know, flows and automations, different segments of audiences within there. Um, and it gives you that foundation to grow. So, you know, you might start out very small with maybe a list that needs cleaned up and we can really reactivate that list and kind of rewarm your audience for this marketing channel. But then as you continue to grow and get even you know deeper in the segments and send out more campaigns and things like that, you have the infrastructure there to really support that growth.

Yes. Yeah, this I I love how you keep going back to this idea of simplifying the business, right? Making it as simple and clean and usable as possible. And so that's why, although there, of course, there's a cost to using Clavio, the ROI on it is massive, and we can measure and track that with the Shopify reporting. So instead of having multiple systems trying to save money by being over in MailChimp or doing something like that, but yet you know, nothing sinks, the data's not clean. It's better to have that one truth source with the data and then use it in sync with the point of sale system. So I really like that. Um tell me a couple, um, I just love anecdotes, and I think our listeners do as well, right? So, how does this apply to me? Can you give me a couple examples of clients that you worked with, either on the Shopify or the email side of things, projects, and how they were able to see a return on that investment? Because of course there's a cost to having you come in, clean up, set up, you know, depending on the scope of the project. But if the return on that investment is there and tangible, it's easier for us to put that into our budget and make it happen. So give us a couple examples of clients that you've worked with and how you've helped them with that return.

Yeah, no, great question. Um, so I'll kind of speak to the Clavio um example here first. I worked with a client recently. She came to me. She has a um brick and mortar boutique in South Carolina. Um, she came to me with an email list of 25,000 people. Okay. The amount that she was paying monthly for Clavio, um, her subscription was, you know, kind of outrageous for the results that she wasn't seeing in Clavio, that she had actually pulled the plug on Clavio for a while, had abandoned all email efforts, and was really at this point of like, I know I need to do something with my email list, but like here's where I'm at, and I'm not really sure how to like dig myself out of this mess, if you will. So what we really did was sit down and strategize, like, okay, the customers in the the list that we're looking at here, like what do we know about them? What are they interested in buying? How active and engaged are they with your brand based on, you know, the data that we do have from whenever you last contacted them. Um so from there, we really helped her to build out her flows and her automations. Um, she had had some that were that were set up and she had kind of tried to do herself, but you know, certain flows wouldn't trigger at the right time and people were getting the wrong message. And, you know, there was just a lot of like almost a lack of trust between the communication that was coming in emails and what like her brand really um, you know, portrayed. her her website, her brick and mortar, like all of that was beautiful and working really well. But it's this email piece that just like could not figure out the strategy. So aside from cleaning up her list, really diving further into segments and making sure that, you know, again, a smaller, healthier, engaged list is better than a large list every time. So really getting that that part under control and then making sure that we were speaking to the different audiences, you know, that we needed to speak to in each campaign were nailed down. We built out for her then, you know, templates within within Clavio using, you know, native email blocks and things that are built in there, but then also some more um you know prettier design heavy looking banners and graphics and things that she could you know rinse and repeat and use over and over again in Canva really helped her to feel like she could approach email marketing in a way that wasn't overwhelming, that was very clear and like, okay, this is the email we're gonna send each week to this audience and this is generally what the look of it feels like. And so then from there it's easy for her to have herself or her manager go in, build out that content, grab the images needed, make sure things are set up in Clabio and really run with it like in-house without totally relying on us. But you know we're always here for those questions of like hey here's what we're doing and like this is my segment and we did a lot of that with figuring out her segments and figuring out what that like cadence was of sending them the emails and things like that. So for her I know that was huge just because she came into it and really was like I I don't even know where to start. And now to see her with those emails going out consistently to see those flows in the background like working and actually driving traffic and sales to her website as well as like the um more like the local aspect of her brick and mortar um that was like a huge thing for her and I know that she just like felt like this weight off of her shoulders. She's like oh my gosh I didn't know it could be this like simple like once you really break it down. Yeah that was really fun on the claviose side.

Yeah that's really um really interesting how you mentioned even cleaning up and purging her email list. So the cost was astronomical in Clavio because she had 2500 emails but they were not necessarily relevant emails or it was a mix of relevant and irrelevant. So that it sounds like that was the start of the project let's figure out who is actually our customer and then from that segment them so that they're getting the appropriate communication so you can start to see that quick ROI. And then you can track and measure all those click throughs and sales correct because it's linked to her Shopify account.

Correct yeah and where they're using it for point of sale um it gets even even better in my opinion just because you you capture that customer in store and you can really segment that that the data within the audience down further. Okay. Yeah. But yeah and very similar like on the Shopify front of things I worked with a client um she's located in Oklahoma and she um she has two brick and mortar locations for her boutique one in Oklahoma one in Georgia and she came to us earlier this year just she'd had her website she's they got proof of concept with their brick and mortars um but their online presence had kind of always taken a back seat and if you were to go in and look at their their brick and mortar locations and then like jump over to their social media or get on their website there's this huge disconnect between the look and the feel of the store and like the look and the feel of their so we really dove deep into the brand visuals to start but like the messaging her ideal client and how we speak to them through social media through her online store all that good stuff. So we really um focused on the cohesive brand identity piece of it first but then took her her Shopify website which um she told me she'd had like for probably 10 plus years and the amount of updates and changes that Shopify's gone through in the last 10 years, I was like oh my gosh this is going to be the most transformational piece for you because so much has changed. There's so much she you know didn't really even know on the back end in terms of tagging and collections and how to organize things better for her and her staff that we dove into really the back end of the Shopify and her processes as a whole before we ever jumped into the actual build out of the website. And I think the website really speaks for itself now. You know you go to the website it's very representative of what's current and what's going on in store it's clear you know where she's got locations, how to shop different curated collections and for her she's just seen you know a much larger success rate with her weekly like she does weekly curated drops. And so each week she sees a bigger momentum in the online sales piece of it whereas before she really missed out on that online piece because there wasn't you know a very strong website to drive traffic to so she saw the people come in store and shop those drops and things like that. But having that online piece of it really nailed down she's seen you know a growth in overall orders from the online store. And I will say like coming back to my parents business as an example you'd be surprised at the number of shoppers who come into the store and they you know they have a a page on our website pulled up and they say I'm looking for this thing. So you know they use our website as like a window shopping tool to come in store and buy that item so you know sometimes common misconception is people like well I my brick and mortar does fine like I don't think I need to focus on the online piece of it that much. But the reality is there's just so much online that you can't afford to miss out on and having that sort of window shopping opportunity for someone to research a product online see if it's in stock and then go out of their way to come in you're you're more likely to kind of close the sale that way versus if they're just gonna guess like oh I know they carry this brand I'll check and see if they have it and then you know say they come in and we don't have it whatever you kind of get that that disappointment piece of it to where the website being very accurate and representative of what's in store has kind of you know translated to an overall growth in sales too.

Yeah and I think that's a great point as we wrap up today to think about the journey of a customer these days. Like the customer journey is so different, right? So we all know yeah I mean I travel a lot and I'm always looking for new boutiques and new you know brick and mortar stores to to shop and typically I'll Google first right I find is there anything local and then what do I do? I'll go to either their website or I'll go to their socials. And if I have a limited amount of time and I have you know a few options it really does make a difference what I visually see. Because if I if I look at social media and I'm like well they haven't posted for the last six months and everything's kind of wonky and it doesn't fit. It doesn't look that great I might not make that effort to go. And the same with the website right if I look and I've been to so many websites where number one, I can't find someone's address, which is crazy to me because I think people go to think well this is the website it's for web no the website is also a search tool. So I have just looked and looked on websites for someone's address and I can't find it or their store hours. And then if the pictures are small and they're all inconsistent like that's a representation of what I feel like I'm gonna find in their store where their store could actually be very beautifully merchandised. But if I don't see that I'm not going to make the effort to go. And so I think you brought up a really good point. We invest so much money into these businesses and then we go 90% of the way with things. So we don't finish the website we don't keep up with the socials we don't send the emails after we've collected 25000 we never email the people you know and so I just think every person listening today honestly pretty much every person listening today could hire you in some respect whether it would be to clean up an email list whether it would be to build out or transition from a different point of Shopify and make the Shopify accurate like you said accurate and relevant you're an available partner for the inventory based businesses that are looking for help yeah so in closing I know that you have something that you wanted to offer I'll let you walk through that and then all the links for this will be in our show notes for people yes so you know you can go to my website you can see different ways that we can work one-on-one I also have a resource shop that's full of more of like a DIY approach to things so Canva email templates social media templates email templates um website banners just to really help that brand look and feel to be consistent and repeatable as you dive further into just your overall marketing strategy.

And then I've also got a workshop in there that takes you step by step, you know, kind of the process and the flow that we work through in Clavio to build out your segments, your workflows, you know, make those connections into Shopify if that's something you truly do want to bring in-house and train someone on your team to understand the the foundational aspects of Clavio versus you know having that expense out to an agency every month. So yeah lots of different options but I I think you're totally right there's there's different you know solutions and use cases for everything that we've talked about. It's just figuring out what the best fit is for you and your business at the end of the day.

Yeah so good.

Okay I'm gonna put links um in the show notes but can you also tell people where they can find you yeah so I am on Instagram at simply.lens dotcreative or you can go to my website at simply lenscreative.com.

That is great. Well thank you so much for jumping on. I'm excited um in a quarter, three months or so I'm gonna have you back onto the podcast. We're gonna dig into a a couple case studies and just talk more about um some of the projects that you've done and I'm just really excited to put you in front of this audience multiple times this year because I think you offer a solution that many people have been looking for. So thanks for your help in your conversation today. Yes thanks for having me. All right thank you so much for tuning in today now I know that all of you listening know one other product based business owner or shop owner that could also benefit from this conversation. So would you pass this episode along? Just think of one person you can share it with that would really help us spread the word and thank you so much for hanging out with us today. We will see you all next week bye for now that was a fun podcast episode I want to remind you to sign up for the next free workshop debt, financials, cash flow, inventory you name it, I talk about it there is a free workshop coming up very, very soon and I want to invite you to join me. So head on over to Sierrastockland.com sign up for the next free workshop and I'll see you there. Hey do your brand your website and your email marketing feel like three different things you're working on none of which go together or create strategic growth then I would like to introduce you to my friend Cassidy at SimplyLens Creative. Cassidy helps product based businesses bring all three of these things together their brand their website and their email marketing into one strategic growth tool for their product based business. And here's what I appreciate about Cassidy she comes from a retail family. In fact her family still owns a brick and mortar retail store. So she genuinely gets the product based world visit SimplyLinscreative com and book a free strategy call with Cassidy. Chat with her about your brand, your website and your email marketing and see how she could maybe pull these things together for you so that you have one strategic growth tool for your business. SimplyLinscreative comm give Cassidy a call.