Jeanel Alvarado, founder of RETAILBOSS, has built her career helping entrepreneurs navigate the fast-changing world of retail. In this episode, she shares how she went from starting a blog to building a global consulting firm, and the lessons you can apply to your own business. You’ll hear how consumer habits are shifting, what AI means for the future of online shopping, and why blogging and content creation are still powerful tools for building authority. By the end, you’ll walk away with practical steps to help you future-proof your retail business and stay competitive in a market that never stops evolving.
About Jeanel Alvarado
Jeanel Alvarado is a visionary leader in media and retail and the founder and CEO of RETAILBOSS, a platform she launched in 2011. With over 15 years in the retail industry, Jeanel has grown Retail Boss from a blog into an internationally recognized retail publication and consulting firm trusted by professionals around the world. She's also the founder and head of marketing at Stylebuy a B2B wholesale platform and fashion label offering women's, men's, kids' wear, and lifestyle products.
Through her partnership with Glow, Jeanel hosts, manages, and produces fashion events and influencer gifting experiences. Her career includes serving as senior managing director at the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta School of Business, where she led consulting projects for major brands like Victoria's Secret, Tiffany & Co., and various real estate firms that own shopping centers and malls.
Leverage AI search early to capture new customer discovery.
Learn core e-commerce metrics to guide smarter decisions.
Blog consistently to build trust and credibility.
Optimize product pages for long-tail, detailed searches.
Create content that proves your expertise versus making claims.
Understand and embrace AI tools to stay ahead of competitors.
Use physical retail to deliver memorable brand experiences.
Pivot quickly when trends, tech, or consumer behavior shifts.
Interview themes
How did blogging spark a career in retail strategy?
Jeanel’s journey began with a simple blog where she shared case studies, brand opinions, and retail observations while still in school. What started as commentary on campaigns and retail experiences soon caught the attention of boutique owners, who began reaching out for her advice. This opened the door to consulting work and planted the seed for Retail Boss. Jeanel shows how putting your ideas into the world—through blogging or content—can establish credibility and lead to unexpected opportunities.
What were the biggest challenges of early e-commerce?
Launching her first e-commerce business in the mid-2010s came with steep learning curves. Platforms like Shopify were still in their infancy, offering limited themes and straightforward functionality at a low subscription cost (which was beneficial to new entrepreneurs) but, analytics, and bounce rates were foreign concepts. Jeanel explains that the hardest part wasn’t getting a site online, but learning to optimize and maintain it—figuring out why visitors weren’t converting, testing photos and pricing, and using data to improve performance.
How has retail marketing shifted over the past decade?
Ten years ago, physical retail was the main priority, and e-commerce often existed as a side channel. Today, the order is reversed—new brands typically launch online first, with physical stores establishing later on or not at all. Jeanel highlights this dramatic shift, noting that foot traffic in malls is no longer a reliable driver, and direct-to-consumer websites have become the first point of contact for most shoppers. The retail playbook has been flipped, and businesses must adapt their strategies to meet customers where they are.
Why is adapting early to new technology a “must” for e-commerce success?
From e-commerce to AI, Jeanel sees a clear pattern: many brands resist change at first, only to realize later that the new technology has become essential. Just as e-commerce went from optional to unavoidable, she believes AI will soon be a core sales funnel. Platforms like Google and Perplexity are positioning themselves as the next discovery engines, reclaiming ground once dominated by social media. Her advice: don’t wait until it’s mainstream—adapt early so your brand stays competitive.
How is Google AI changing search and shopping?
According to Jeanel, search behavior has permanently shifted. Consumers no longer search only by brand names—they’re using detailed long-tail queries like “100% cotton eco-friendly shirt.” Google’s AI shopping features now surface products that match these specifics, often allowing customers to purchase directly through Google without visiting a brand’s website. For retailers, this means product pages must be more descriptive, optimized with clear details, and ready for discovery outside their own storefronts.
Why is blogging still a powerful tool?
Despite the perception that blogging is outdated, Jeanel argues it’s more relevant than ever—just reimagined in new formats like video blogs, influencer roundups, and Substack newsletters. Blogs remain a top source of data for AI search engines, helping establish expertise, credibility, and trust. For brands, blogging isn’t about random updates—it’s about documenting your story, showcasing authority, and giving AI and consumers alike the proof points they need to trust your brand.
What role does credibility play in standing out online?
Jeanel believes that in today’s retail market, success isn’t about what you claim—it’s about what your work proves. Whether through case studies, blog content, or consistent publishing, letting your work “do the work for you” is the fastest way to build authority. She emphasizes that consumers and AI alike look for evidence: brand backstories, sustainability practices, certifications, and partnerships. Sharing this information consistently builds the trust that drives visibility and conversions.
What advice does Jeanel give to new entrepreneurs?
Her first piece of advice: learn the basics yourself before outsourcing. You don’t need to be an SEO or e-commerce expert, but understanding the fundamentals gives you control and prevents costly mistakes. Second, be willing to pivot. The market moves quickly, and clinging to an idea that no longer works can sink a business. By staying adaptable and building a foundation of knowledge, entrepreneurs can scale more sustainably and seize new opportunities as they emerge.
Chapters
00:00 The Evolution of AI in Retail
02:47 Jeanel Alvarado's Journey in Retail
05:46 Challenges in E-commerce Development
08:45 The Shift to Online Retail
11:45 Navigating E-commerce Platforms
14:31 Adapting to Changing Marketing Landscapes
17:33 The Importance of Physical Retail Experience
20:27 The Role of Blogging in Modern Marketing
23:23 Strategies for Scaling Retail Businesses
26:15 The Impact of AI on Consumer Behavior
29:16 Future-Proofing Retail with AI
32:06 Building Credibility Through Content
35:27 Advice for Aspiring Retail Entrepreneurs
Transcript
Jeanel Alvarado
I know there are a lot of people resisting AI and it was almost the same thing with people resisting e-commerce back when e-commerce was becoming something where it's like, sure, we'll just launch a site, just to have it. AI, same thing. Some people are maybe, okay, we'll maybe tweak some things. But over time, it may become the number one funnel, right? We got to think about that. So right now we talked earlier that people discover through social media. I really think Google, as well as Perplexity, really are trying to be that they want to be it.
Social media had its run for discovering products. Google and these AI want it back. They want to be, hey, you want to discover new things? We are the place. So that is where I'm seeing things going and just how they're doing things. Because of the same thing, social media doesn't really encourage people to leave the social media app. They like people to stay there.
Google is trying to figure that out. How can we make people stay here, right? And we can feed them ads and we can feed them products that they like, and we can provide them news that they might be interested in. How can we keep them here? That is what I believe in the real behind the scenes of what really is going on here. So that's why people really need to see this as, okay, if social media is so saturated, they're just so many people dancing around, and there's just too much noise.
Where are people going to go next to discover? And I think Google AI, AI Search is really trying to capture and be that new top funnel.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Today's guest is Jeanel Alvarado, a visionary leader in media and retail and the founder and CEO of Retail Boss, a platform she launched in 2011. With over 15 years in the retail industry, Jeanel has grown Retail Boss from a blog into an internationally recognized retail publication and consulting firm trusted by professionals around the world. She's also the founder and head of marketing at Stylebuy a B2B wholesale platform and fashion label offering women's, men's, kids' wear, and lifestyle products.
Through her partnership with Glow, Jeanel hosts, manages, and produces fashion events and influencer gifting experiences. Her career includes serving as senior managing director at the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta School of Business, where she led consulting projects for major brands like Victoria's Secret, Tiffany & Co., and various real estate firms that own shopping centers and malls. I'm thrilled to have her here today to talk about her entrepreneurial journey, scaling a global retail brand and navigating the future of e-commerce and AI in retail.
Welcome Jeanel, it's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Jeanel Alvarado
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for reaching out. I am ecstatic about this.
Glynis Tao
Great. So we had met through a mutual friend of ours, lovely Adila Cokar from Source My Garment.
Jeanel Alvarado
Adila connected us from Source My Garment, who has just an incredible wealth of knowledge on how brands can be more sustainable, or if you're not already a brand, that you can become more sustainable. So yeah, she connected us both, and I'm super glad that she did.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And I interviewed Adila on this podcast as well a few years ago during COVID. So she offered some really great advice, but I'm actually surprised that our paths didn't cross sooner. And we share a common thread having worked in the Canadian fashion industry for so long. I'm based in Vancouver. I lived in Toronto for 15 years and you are currently based in Edmonton, right?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. Edmonton, Alberta, yeah.
Glynis Tao
Yay! I've been to Edmonton several times for trade shows and conventions. It's a great city. A lot of good food there actually.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, we have a pretty good foodie scene, especially in the summertime. We have a lot of events like Taste of Edmonton, as well as Heritage Days. But yeah, Toronto's known for having some really good restaurants though, top of the chain.
Glynis Tao
So I feel like I've been meeting people who I swear are living parallel lives. My last interview was with Laura-Jean Bernhardson, who owned three fashion retail stores in Toronto. And she spoke about building a fashion retail business with heart and strategy. And I think your journey has a lot of parallels, especially when it comes to adapting, scaling in a changing retail market.
Jeanel Alvarado
I know. Changing almost too much. I mean, I can't think of any other industry other than retail that has been just flipped over, slam dunked so many times over this last decade here. It has been a crazy whirlwind of events.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so much. You know, she started her business in the 90s and went up to the, I think she closed her store in Kensington Market and Queen Street around 2022 due to pandemic. But she was saying how, you know, in those early days, before the internet, she had to call her customers and tell them about new products and sales and stuff like that. So she's been through like two, two decades in retail.
So it's just amazing all the changes that have happened, but you've built a successful career as a marketer, retail strategist. Can you tell us about your background and what inspired you to start your first business?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, so my background was blogging to start. So I always had an interest in fashion. I went right after high school to university and the goal was to become a fashion designer right at the time I was 17 years old. I got into school and then within the first year I realized no, sewing is not made for me. And what was also interesting is although I wasn't taking any sort of business specific courses, we were having to take economic courses because I was at the University of Alberta. So we did have to in our first year also along with fashion design classes, have to take some economic 101, 102. And that's when I learned a lot more about supply and demand, how the economy works and how much we rely on so many external factors such as the retail industry or how consumers behave in shops. And that got me really interested in the business side. And then from there, I pretty much pivoted into business and yeah, I ended up finishing. Well, I have a BCOM in marketing. And then I also have a certificate in real estate, both from the U of A. And when I was there doing real estate, it was focused mainly on commercial, so shopping centers, strip malls, all that good stuff when it comes to securing a store in physical retail.
And so how did your background and early career experiences shape the vision for Retail Boss and your other ventures?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So I had, while I was actually just finishing up that degree, I launched Style Buy. So I was already trying to do a lot more with e-commerce because we had actually gone to Toronto and we were at the Shopify head offices back when the stock price was in the forties, right? A good time to buy. And we were there. We were there in Shopify. Yeah. And you know what's funny when I was there, yeah, our tour person was like, hey, buy some Shopify stock. I'm like, okay, I'm still here in school. And yeah, that's kind of what opened my eyes to, okay, e-commerce, learned a bit what Shopify was. This was in the early days. So this is in 2015, 2016. yeah, so Style Buy was launched using Shopify back when I was in university. And so, yeah, that's just kind of how my journey started.
Prior to that, I was already blogging. I was already working also at the U of A as I started out as a senior consultant, moved up to a managing director, then a senior managing director. When I graduated, they kept me on for the school of retailing, which is just a center that was in the school of business at the time, that where we would work with retail partners to do any kind of consulting, as well as like you had mentioned, some of the real estate firms that own some of the malls like West Edmonton Mall and different malls and we're always looking for, how can they bring in more traffic and how can they diversify their retail mix of stores for it can entice people to continue shopping?
Glynis Tao
Okay, and in those early days, what problem were you most determined to solve in the retail industry?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say during that time, things were just becoming digital. It's so funny. And we talked about this before on an earlier call that now it is the norm for someone to have an idea and just jump into a website builder. It could be Shopify, it could be Wix and get their brand off the ground. When back in 2015, 2016, almost 10 years ago, this was not the norm. If you had an idea, you would look for a consultant or someone, right, like myself, to help you along that journey. And so during that time, we were actually just in the infancy of figuring out how these physical retailers also have an online presence. So we were mainly focused on that omni-channel.
Seeing e-commerce is just an extension of the store, similar to how the stores were just seeing social media as an extension, right? Not the main drivers. But now fast forward 10 years later, e-commerce is the main driver. Social media is the main driver. And, you know, it's the store that almost takes the backseat.
Glynis Tao
So what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in getting your business off the ground in the beginning?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say in the very beginning, especially like I'm saying, Shopify only had a few tools at the time. The pro was that the pricing of the plans were a lot cheaper than they are today. The challenge was learning how this works. I mean, it's one thing to have a website builder and it's another thing similar to what Shopify and WooCommerce, which have that whole backend, right? Which is for inventory management, analytics. So I would say it was understanding and learning this new e-commerce world.
So yeah, great, we have traffic, but only half are buying. Why? Right, so figuring out and then what tools or apps can we add to fix this? Is it communication? Is it that we don't have good photos? Is it the pricing? Is it that at checkout there's something happening there or we're not, you know, we don't have an abandoned email, right, going out to kind of get that customer back.
So I think the main challenge wasn't just launching, because I think back then, for me, that was still easy. It was easy for me to get up there and do it, but it was that maintenance on, how do I utilize all this data back here? What's the bounce rate? It's just learning the whole new jargon of e-commerce that took the longest.
Yeah, and so it was really that time period I would say in the mid 2000s to 2010s right? I guess when e-comm started to take off.
Jeanel Alvarado
It was already taking off and Shopify made it where you could do it yourself, a one-man team that you could do it. So e-commerce definitely was already becoming a thing. But also like so many stores had it like big we're talking about big name stores still didn't have a robust e-commerce sites where you could order or buy. That still wasn't the norm.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. And so is there one e-comm platform that you prefer over another?
Yeah, I think it really depends. There's so many in the market right now. I mean, with all this AI technology, there's places where you can just have AI make your whole site, even select what product you should sell to what market. So there's so much out there. I think Shopify was definitely the pioneer of DIY do it yourself. You don't need to hire someone. You can figure this out and do it yourself. And it was very simplified. Like I'm telling you, I was in university. I was still taking full-time classes and I was able to easily get it all started and launch on my own on a plan that was, think, you know, between the $10 a month range that handled everything. So definitely at the time Shopify was the number one, if not the only pick to do something like that without having to really learn too much of the complex things, right? What was really interesting was Shopify at the time when I got on there, they only had maybe three themes. Three or four themes that you could pick from. And you couldn't really customize them, which actually was great because you couldn't really spend time tweaking something. It was just, this is what it is, put your products on. They've already figured out that this layout works the best for mobile and desktop to convert. So they really took all that pressure off designing. So that was number one.
But now, like I said, I can't say that they're the number one. There's so many other platforms that would provide more customization. So WooCommerce would probably be one of them, which is like part of WordPress or one of the backend for WordPress. And you can completely customize and the same thing, they got apps, but that takes a bigger learning curve there, I think. But yeah, I think there's just so many things out there, but yeah, Shopify is definitely way more expensive now than it was back when I was there.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm they’re now maybe a couple hundred dollars a month?
Jeanel Alvarado
They are actually more expensive. Like I still have my invoices from back then and even apps were way cheaper. I think some apps that I had were maybe $2 a month. Now an app usually is $29 a month. Back then also it was in Canadian dollars. I think Shopify now has everything in US dollars. I'm not sure how they do it or they tell you in USD and now you can pay in Canadian. But again, it's substantially more expensive. And I couldn't tell you that really it's any better than what it was 10 years ago. You know, it was so simplified, get on there, get out. Now I think it's a little bit more complex. You got so many options, so many apps. I'm not sure, but again, maybe that's just their strategy to have you have 20 apps plus the plan. And then that's what, 300, 400 a month.
Glynis Tao
Shopify definitely changed the game for e-com. I had my online e-commerce store before Shopify even existed. I think I had a CS cart or something. Wasn't that great. I know Shopify would have made my life a lot easier if it was available at that time.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, yeah, it was definitely a game changer. I, like I said, they pioneered it and then I'll definitely give them that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And so how have you seen the retail marketing landscape change since you started and how have you adapted or even have seen your clients adapt?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say huge, huge. It's just not something that is even negotiable to have you, if you're launching a brand. Now it's like a website first. I mean, store location is like last, if even on their radar for starting a brand or selling products at all. So that's a huge change. Back then the only, you know, clients that particularly we had were people who already had physical stores or boutiques, right? So they already had a physical presence or they were selling in retailers, right? And their main website was primarily just for those wholesale customers. So it was more like you can log in once you're a customer. Yeah, right. So the brands didn't really have even their own sites. So yeah, now looking into today, it's like a no brainer. I mean, D2C is the first thing, having your own online storefront is the first thought. So when I do have clients that reach out, it's always they have an e-commerce store or it's like, that's usually the priority here. And then everything else is kind of secondary, which is just so different from how it was just 10 years ago. It is a totally different industry.
The biggest thing has just been a lot of the retailers, I think, scaling down or making smaller, making their larger retail footprints, not in terms of having multiple stores, but having smaller stores, right? Because it's not that many people are walking the stores as much as they used to, right? And malls aren't as big a draw factor as they used to for customers. So you can't just, hey, I'm the new Forever 21, you know in this era and we're going to open up a bunch of stores and malls and people are just going to buy because people are always there. Those days are over. That was the playbook, right? 10 years ago, you can attest.
Glynis Tao
I can, yeah. I know, I guess different generations too. And who is shopping online compared to, you know, in the malls, if you walk into a mall these days, you kind of look around and scan the demographic, right? And it gives you an idea as to who's still shopping at shopping malls. And I guess everyone else is online. So I feel like I'm sort of that in-between. Still enjoy the mall experience. And seeing, especially when it comes to clothing, I still like the experience of feeling, feeling and trying it on as opposed to ordering something online. I mean, I've ordered online, but usually after I've gone into the store and have seen it or tried it on and I know for sure and I'm like, maybe I can find a better price online. And then, yeah, but I don't know, I guess I'm still sort of that old fashioned person who still likes the physical experience.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. And I would say, you know, I also like the physical experience too, because here's the thing. I ordered online multiple times and it never looks like how it looks on the model. Right? The sizing also, you never really know what the size is. You're a medium here, you're a small here. There's no consistency across all those e-commerce brands. But what I'm saying is the main differentiation here is that brands used to let, like I said look for high traffic areas. They would launch into these stores, in these malls, in these strip centers that already have the traffic. And they would just rely on that to build up the brand. And those customers, it would be their first touch point, right? You would learn about a brand because it was there in the mall. Okay, the gap. And then that's your first experience. You can touch, you can feel like you said then you can go online, kind of have, you know what the sizing is, you have better ideas, and then now you can kind of go there.
But now, it's almost reversed. A lot of these Gen Z or these younger people, they're finding out about these brands first through social media, right? Social media is number one for that kind of first touch point for a lot of this next generation. then, also myself now, right? So you learn about so many new brands through social media, and then your next touch point is their website, right? You get their website, and then probably your first purchase is through the website, because they don't have physical stores. And then so it's almost like the store, the touching and being in that brand's physical presence would be the last thing, or if they ever do choose to do that. So that's almost like what I'm saying, the new launch strategy is flipped completely.
Glynis Tao
Just going back to what you're saying about when stores used to be like, if they're in a mall, then they just rely on foot traffic, right? It's like instant visibility, though even having to do much marketing, they can just completely rely on that. But now being an online world, I think it's a whole different ball game because you're up against so much competition. And so I think that's sort of where these retailers struggle. You know, say if they were formerly just brick and mortar stores, physical locations. I have a client actually who owns a physical store in Toronto selling sporting apparel and she moved online to e-commerce and she was like, I don't know what to do here. Like you're going to have to help me with this because you know, I'm used to selling physical, selling in-person selling, you know, this whole e-comm thing is like new to me. So is that kind of what you're seeing out there as well?
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, absolutely. And the friend you just messaged is probably my ideal client, right? For me, because there's a lot of now the new generations are doing a lot of that DIY. So they're actually learning a lot more about that e-commerce side of things and how to manage it themselves, opposed to, like you said, those existing brands who have storefronts or boutiques anywhere. Launching e-commerce is a full-time job in itself.
And that's a whole other arm of the business. It's not just, you know, okay, once in a while, this is an ongoing, everyday, customer is emailing all the things. So it's really something that a lot of those physical stores struggled with. And yes, they did need outside assistance to carry that on. They cannot shut their doors down to be working on a website all day. So that was the perfect moment. And that's a lot of what we were doing, even when I worked at the center, helping with figuring out their e-commerce strategy, digital strategy, and understanding how to connect, you know, store inventory and e-commerce inventory, or should you have separate inventory? Or if you have multiple stores, how do you manage all the inventory?
And again, I'll give Shopify that because one of my clients that I work with, and she has a boutique in Edmonton, she uses Shopify and it does a really good job with the POS because they also have POS systems that can connect to your e-commerce store. So you can see, right, you can see sales across all the stores. So she knows this location in the north side made X amount today. This one in the south side made this amount today. And this is how much we made on e-commerce, which helps them prioritize their marketing budget because they got to kind of now split that up between an extra source there. And that's the thing that you just mentioned. Yeah, how do I sell online? And again, now you need a new budget just for that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so for this particular client, they are using Shopify as their POS. So I can see on the back end analytics, their POS sales from the store and their e-comm sales. And when she reached out to me, she was like, my goal is to increase e-comm sales, increase my online sales. I got the retail business down, right? Like, how do I increase my e-comm side of the business. And I'm like, you know what, this is a huge opportunity here for you because like with your physical store, you're serving the local GTA Toronto market, right? And she both built the name for herself and people know about her as the go to for this sportswear apparel. But I'm like, with the e-comm store, you have this opportunity to serve so many other people across the country, in the States, like, you know, she gets customers buying from the US. This is huge. I think now more retailers are beginning to understand that and realize just how important the e-comm, DTC side of their business is. But I think they still need help with it.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, they need help. It's new, either they've got to outsource it or they need to hire an in-house team for it. Like we just chatted about, it's no longer just something to pass time to just put up a little flyer now and then. That's not what the website is anymore.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, exactly. Or the thought of like, if we build it, they will come. If you just launch the site that magically the customers will just appear.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, no, unfortunately not. Yeah, so no, it's definitely something that is a whole, and I think we're still at the beginning of even like jobs because it's funny because I'll be out here and I think right now it's been a good time for people like us to get a lot of new clients because it's still not something that's really taught in school. So it's not like every year there's an influx of people who are master e-commerce or SEO experts like yourself.
There's, it's not taught, right? So those roles are still being outsourced. They're looking for experts, looking for an external agency or team or like you said, consultant or strategist to take on either giving them a game plan or managing that day to day and helping them get to those goals. Because there's just not anything right now. And that's being, I think, taught across the board to feed into this new department that's needed for probably every single store, every single store across the world.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And if you're a small boutique owner, you definitely will not have a marketing department that's going to be able to handle this.
Jeanel Alvarado
But they don't know marketing is different from e-commerce. When I finished school, I knew lots about marketing, lots about real estate. Like I said, with my business, my style buy, that one was me learning hands-on e-commerce. That's what I'm telling you. That was a huge learning curve because the most we learned in business school is like, e-commerce is a website, end of story. Right? There's nothing really else here for you. It's when you actually have to start using these platforms where you're like, what is bounce rate? What's organic traffic? What's this traffic paid? How do I get paid? Right? They're just so many things that you find out and what's abandonment rate? So many things. Bounce rate. They're just too many things.
And again, unless you have the time to DIY and learn it all yourself. But if you're someone who's already managing something successful, it's better to just bring in an expert or a team to externally to manage that because they can easily take what you've done if you're successful physically. It's so much easier to be successful online because one of the biggest drawbacks online is poor customer service, right? Having tested out the product.
So maybe what they're selling isn't the best, but you've already tested all these products. So even online, they can go in with just their best sellers and start tapping into different markets.
Glynis Tao
I just want to go back to your business for a second. You had said that you set up Style Buy when you were just finishing your degree and then, so that was your first e-comm business.
Jeanel Alvarado
I was already working on it while I was in school. Yes.
Glynis Tao
And then Retail Boss came after that.
Jeanel Alvarado
So I was already blogging. So I already had Retail Boss before that. So Retail Boss was the first, but that was just for blogging. And then also I was getting booked to do consulting and local boutiques, which prior I was just blogging specifically related to what I was learning in school. So many interesting things. And I felt like this is so interesting. I might as well blog about it. So I would just have random case analysis that I would do about random brands or opinions on brand campaigns. And I would post it and I was on, I think it was blogger.com at the time. And so I was just always there. And from there, I had a local boutique reach out to me and they're like, I really like what you said about how stores should have more experience in store. Cause I was, I wrote up something related to Build-A-Bear and how they've done something so interesting that brings kids in all the time and they focus on, know, if you look at the stats, how many babies or kids have birthdays every month? And that's just, they really tapped into that. And she was trying to figure out, that's so interesting that you wrote about that. Do you help, you know, people do that or figure out ways to do that? And at the time I didn’t, I just had the blog, but I said, sure, I don't mind coming down and seeing what you're doing and see if I have any ideas. And that's kind of how it pushed me into this could maybe be a career for myself to provide advice or solutions based on what I've learned.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. So Retail Boss has become a leading platform for retail professionals. Would you be able to share some of the key strategies that helped you scale that business?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So Retail Boss specifically. And it's funny because I also, now that I've successfully built up, guess what you would call a media platform. I also help people who are looking to do the same. I actually just had a contract that I was almost done with her media website and they actually also sell services in a whole different industry. What I would say is I just kind of, I just was just bombarded with just so many requests just from a few blogs. And that's when I realized, this is a great way to gain credibility. And one of the strategies or one of my takeaways for people today, I would definitely tell them is something that was told to me and it was let your work do the work for you. Right? So like let your work network for you.
Maybe one day you're thinking, I wish I could get more sales or I wish I could get more of this. Always think about, okay, how can I make my work work for me? So if I want to gain attention, I need to put in some work. So that's what I always say. And with that, yeah, we just kind of upped the content. We upped what we were doing. We upped the insights, right? In the beginning, when you give insights, it does seem interesting to everybody, but then it comes to the point where it's just like, we've heard this before. You always got to up it to something else, correlate benchmarks. So I always have to try to be ahead of the industry. So right now, a lot of our content is related to AI tools or what kind of AI solutions can help you grow your brand. That's what keeps us interesting. It's not just about a strategy that's the oldest test of time. People want this strategy today and who's using it and who's doing it well.
And because if it's timely, relevant and successful right now, let me pivot and do it right now because any kind of strategy, it might just be a blimp. It might just be a moment in time where that's working because what I learned in economics, there's so many external factors and timing is huge with any kind of trend you're going to jump in. And I'm sure you know this with social media, think about TikTok.
The brands that got on TikTok when TikTok was hot, when TikTok, people buying on TikTok and those live feeds, they really gained momentum there.
Glynis Tao
I guess that's all what you're saying in terms of the brands who adapt quickly are the ones that will see success. I love what you said. Let your work do the work for you.
Jeanel Alvarado
Don't be out there trying to convince anyone. Do the work. If you say, hey, it could be anything. I do SEO really well. Okay. Well, show me something that you do on a constant basis that's working. Okay. For me, I could be like, yeah, well, I have scaled a publication that gets between 40 to a hundred thousand visitors a month. It's like it's done. The work speaks for itself. And then you yourself, like with the case studies and, I've taken this company to this.
People need to see the work. It's no longer, I don't think it's ever been about saying that you're good at something. People see you're good at it. That's when they contact you.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I think it's about building credibility and trust for your brand. And this really leads into this next hot topic discussion. So you have written a blog about Google's new AI-powered shopping tools. What do you see as the biggest implications for our e-commerce brands?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes, so many things. And we talked about this on an earlier call as well. My main takeaway, because I just love giving just main takeaways, right before I just write it down, is that the search, Google search, and just the behavior of how customers search is changing. And it's changing forever. It's not going to go back ever to how people used to search. The way people are searching is changing.
And especially in particular here, what we're talking about is searching for products. All right. So before people would search online again, a lot of the times when people would search, it was very brand heavy. Those days are over because people are open to discovering new brands online. So that's a pro that that's a good, a good thing. So before people would have really searched like, you know, pink shirts, like things like that.
But people now are searching for very specific long tail keywords, things like cotton, sustainable brand, eco-friendly, or 100% cotton, eco-friendly. People are writing, getting very long with what they're searching instead of just a GAP sweatshirt, which was probably back in our days, right? Was just a GAP this, Victoria's Secret, you know, top, Juicy Couture tracksuit. It was very brand what it is, brand what it is. This new generation is looking. They're discoverers. They don't really put brand this. If they did, they would just search the brand or go to their social media and click the link. So I think that's something that's really interesting. So even with putting out what your product is, you want to be as descriptive as possible. I think that's a huge thing. And we were chatting about even eco brands being very specific.
If it is a hundred percent cotton, you have to have you know, maybe even logos or photos or like have something more that encompasses that, whether somebody searches and then clicks images and then an image of that and then says a hundred percent cotton is part of the image. So you're going to want to get more descriptive with even photos. You're going to want to have more things next to that photo. And that needs to be something that would rank higher because people are looking and discovering and they want something specific. And if they land on you, they're most likely to buy because they already put in exactly what they want and you were recommended. So I think that's one good takeaway.
And the other thing I talked about was that, you know what, your e-commerce store may not be as important as it was before, right? Because Google is now encouraging when they will give that recommendation, they want you to appear in the shopping section. So they want to pull that product, right? So that same example, searching for a cotton, 100% cotton eco-friendly sustainable brand, UK based, who knows what long thing they sent. Want them to click shopping and have those products there to select from. And right through there, they call it a agentic, I believe, checkout where they want you to just do your whole checkout process right there through Google. So that means the customer never goes to your site.
And I truly believe that's based on what I mentioned earlier. It's just the way that customers are searching today. People are searching to discover something new and Google wants to provide them that because they're not really too focused on the brand name as much as they were in the past. And that's why we've seen a lot of luxury brands struggling a bit here because people are interested in no label brands or what they call quiet luxury, right? Because it's like brand-less, but it checks what I'm looking for. I just want 100% alpaca blazer. Give it to me. And Google wants to do that. So the other takeaway is you might want to invest less on your e-commerce, making it look pretty, at least on the aesthetic, because people may never actually reach there in the future.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, it's so true. So you're a hundred percent right in terms of how search behavior is changing and how Google's offering these new features like virtual try on, agentic checkout. People may not even need to go to the site anymore to make a purchase. They can do comparison shop, look at prices right there in Google.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes, you know what you just brought up a third thing is exactly that. Google also wants to be the person to do all those price comparisons. You can do your pricing alerts. And again, it's actually encouraging you as a brand or a retailer to have regular sales, right? And not fake sales, because a lot of brands have gotten trouble over this past couple years here, right? With the class action lawsuits regarding them having fake sales where they just always are 50% off. Have you heard of those?
So a lot of online brands have gotten in trouble from always having 50% off, right? But the product is never regular. So it's always $20. When you launch it today, it's 50% off, which is a false advertising. So some have gotten in trouble. And you know what? Actually by Google allowing price alerts, it almost makes it where you actually would have to have a regular price and then go to a sale price to benefit from that feature where customers online can get pricing alerts from your brand when you decrease the price by 10%, 20%, et cetera.
Glynis Tao
So let me ask you this with Google encouraging price drops. How can brands protect their value and avoid getting stuck in a race to the bottom?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I think they need to embrace where things are going. So a lot to do with AI is going to be determining who is going to be ranking and outranking who, right? So to be competitive, it's to understand how they are going to be ranking. So I know Google did put out some information for retailers on how they can show up and be the ones most recommended. Again, it was making sure having the best photography you possibly can, right? So make sure you have great photography, number one. Number two was well thought out product descriptions. Do not just rely on your brand name. So many brands rely on their name, but they will begin to be outranked by those who are more specific in matching with what people are searching for in these long tail keywords.
Number three would be pricing. Make sure to have a pricing where you do have a plan for maybe in two weeks, you're going to decrease the price by maybe 10%. If that inventory is still there, you're going to decrease it by another 40%, you know, a couple of weeks or months after that. Google likes those things because they want to encourage people to again, sign up for the price alerts to see when your product does go on sale.
So those are the top three things. And then the other four, like I mentioned, is people may never make it to your site. So try to make it as clear as possible on those individual product pages, everything that customer needs to know. If you are a sustainable brand, that needs to be in every product description, not just about the product, but that you are a sustainable brand. You might even want to put where you're based. You might even want to put that this is woman founded.
Whatever keywords that you think people may be searching for you need to put that on the product page because the new AI isn't looking to pull all the information from your website. They are just trying to match people with a specific product.
Glynis Tao
Yeah and I just want to highlight this article that you wrote on your Retail Boss website, Strategies for Online Retailers and E-commerce. You list these four points and what retailers can do to future-proof their business.
Jeanel Alvarado
For AI. AI search, AI shopping.
Glynis Tao
And one thing I'm actually looking into incorporating within my SEO strategy is optimizing for Google Merchant Center and organic shopping. So I'm just wondering, like, are you starting to consult, like, work with your clients through this transition and sort of what's happening right now to sort of help them to evolve, adapt to the changing search landscape right now?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. There are tons of just like it's so interesting because e-commerce is almost becoming like the app store or it's like once you're a part of it you got to keep updating. This is how Google shopping is just like you just mentioned a key point Google's Merch Center, you can sign up your brand and your site on there and then that's how it'll feed into being in that Google shopping area so again, you have to keep up with that information or enlist a team, right?
Yourself or myself or any other expert to help you navigate that because just like any update, you need to then adjust to fit their terms and conditions. We're still early in this AI search. So what works today to get your products and say that yes, they're okay to be on here may change tomorrow. And then you're so busy in your business that weeks and weeks go by.
And maybe you have been taken off the Merch Center or you're way low in the rankings because you haven't kept up with the updates on what you need to have on there and what needs to be taken off those individual pages or needs to be on your site. I do know one client I work with and it was something as easy as not having a privacy policy, why their site wasn't showing up, right? Because there are certain things that you need to have on your site to be pulled up in these listings.
Glynis Tao
Exactly. I think it's the eligibility factors and what Google looks for to the requirements to make sure that you're eligible to firstly have your products listed in the Google shopping, but also making sure that your product titles and descriptions are also up to date. Like you said, also mentioning, you know, if you're a sustainable brand, talk about it, right? Mention the certifications that you have because right now it's really about building that trust and credibility aspect, not only with your customers, but also with AI search. Because I've just been watching so many of these, you know, video webinars and stuff on the latest AI playbook, how it's working, how it works, how AI search engines pick up your content and how they display it and show it to people.
It really matters, like the type of content that you put out there. And so, yeah, it's just such a, it's a hot topic and it's something that is just changing so quickly, almost every day now, something new is coming up. So having to keep up with that, even as professionals like ourselves, it's even hard to stay on top of it, but I feel that it's important just as my job to do that. But yeah, to me, I think emphasizing on building the trust factor with AI search and your customers gone are the days of, you know, trying to just rank for keywords and get a lot of traffic.
It's nowadays that people are having these conversations within the search engines, like within chat, GPT, Perplexity, they're asking complex questions. So I think the better that you're able to answer their questions and solve people's problems and pain points, the better you're able to build that trust with them. And hence, you know, with AI search picking up your content as well and showing it.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, are spot on. Everything you said was just genius. Really on point. I couldn't agree more with what you're saying, yeah. I know there are a lot of people resisting AI and it was almost the same thing with people resisting e-commerce back when, you know, e-commerce was becoming something where it's like, sure, we'll just launch a site, just to have it. AI, same thing. Some people are maybe, okay, we'll maybe tweak some things.
But over time, it may become the number one funnel, right? We gotta think about that. So right now, we talked earlier that people discover through social media. I really think Google, as well as, like you just mentioned, Perplexity, which is backed by Nvidia, who recently keep trying to put in their bid to buy Google. Really, they are trying to be that they wanna be it. Social media had its run for discovering products. Google and these AI want it back.
They want to be, hey, you want to discover new things? We are the place. So that is where I'm seeing things going and just how they're doing things. Because same thing, social media doesn't really encourage people to leave the social media app, right? It doesn't really encourage them. They like people to stay there. Google is trying to figure that out. How can we make people stay here, right? And we can feed them ads and we can feed them products that they like and we can provide them news that they might be interested in. How can we keep them here? That is what I believe in the real behind the scenes of what really is going on here.
So that's why people really need to see this as, okay, if social media is so saturated and there's just so many people dancing around and there's just too much noise, where are people gonna go next to discover? And I think Google AI, AI search is really trying to capture and be that new top funnel.
Glynis Tao
When we had our first chat, we had both talked about blogging and how content marketing would help for brands to stand out against fast fashion competitors and that sort of thing. I think we're both sort of in that same, like we agree that blogging is still important, would you say?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. And it's funny because everyone that I talk to you think that blogging is dead. No, it is not dead. Maybe blogging about your cat, what your cat ate today is dead. Okay. Maybe that's substack. You can maybe get a, right, get a small niche of people interested in that day to day. That sort of blogging is what people think about when they think blogging
No, the same thing as how the retail industry changed. Blogging has changed from what it was. So the new blogging is really that influencer marketing hub, right? So even when you see nowadays, when you see a content creator, an Instagram girl, girly, let's say, and she is talking about her 10 best picks, that's what used to be a blog. You would blog your top 10 picks, right? But now people showcase their top 10 picks. I think it's about how you think of blogging and the essence of blogging is not dead. It's just, there's new forms of how we are sending out these blogs. Either it's a video, you can still have the blog post, right? And because people want to be able to click and easily find the source, it could also be you just linking to your Amazon store, but in the essence of blogging.
People are blogging all the time. They're blogging where they traveled. You can call it vlogging, right? It's all of these new words, but really blogging is not dead. It is what people are most interested in right now. And if you check out Substack, that's growing and that's still written blogging. So we got video blogging. We got these influencers who are posting all the time, which are a form of blogging. So that is not dead.
Blogging is just really just when you take experiences or things that you like, you kind of package it up and then you send it out there. And if people want to know, well, where was that hotel stay at? Where was that product purchased? So blogging is still here.
And I think you had mentioned a great point in where Google does like to prioritize brands and retailers who are being talked about, who are part of these conversations. So remember what I said, let your work work for you. Blogging is the number one way you can do this. If you want to be known as a hundred percent sustainable brand, you can start by having blog posts that clearly make you the expert in sustainability, right? You can have multiple blog posts and then you can reform those blog written posts into vlogs. You can then take that and make it into social media posts. You can even hire an influencer who then can go down those tips and maybe make a more influencer type video with your clothing, right?
Now it's more tied to the clothing, but also making sure they talk about how you are a sustainable brand based in XYZ that they love to shop. So it all feeds into the same thing. All that chatter is what helps Google say, Hey, yeah, these people don't just say they're sustainable. Other people say they're sustainable, right? Their blogs also create them more as an expert. And that's the number one thing with more written blogs, right? Create that more expertise.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I was just listening to a recent webinar about this and they were mentioning like where AI gets their data from and like number one was blogs. So that still definitely justifies the importance of it. And not just like, you're not just writing content for the sake of content, but you're creating helpful, original content that establishes your expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness, right? So you're building all this credibility and establishing yourself as the expert in your industry or niche.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. And I also have another saying that someone told me a while ago and a couple of years ago, and it resonates with this completely. It says, tell your story before somebody else does something along those lines. And the point is if you don't tell your story, right. And that could be the story of yourself, the story of your brand, the story of whatever it is, like your campaign. Yeah, you put out a campaign, but why? That could be a blog post. That's blogging.
Blogging is telling, giving all the insights, right? So people need to document, it's documentation, proof, authority. So just like you're saying, and that saying is really good because it's almost like if you don't tell your story or what's behind your campaign, you leave it open to too much interpretation as to what you are trying to get at, which just doesn't work. And you're going to just end up getting canceled. Cancelled culture is huge.
But how about instead of just putting out new visuals, you have more in-depth blog, more information of what, okay, what was the whole backdrop of this? The behind the scenes, the why did you pick this location, this, this, this. All of that feeds into all that information that you're talking about, that credibility. And then you're telling the real story about your brand because nowadays if people never get to your website, how are they learning about you?
And you were just spot on once again. What if somebody never goes to your site, sees something on social media, and the first thing that they search, and the AI search is, and this is usually something that's very high search, is like, who owns X brand? And let's say you don't even have anything about yourself. It'll just be unknown. They already don't trust you. Already lost. What about, what is this brand legit?
Yeah, you already lost. So what will AI pull? They have an online site, unknown. So yes, just like you say, you're gonna have to feed it constantly for then when somebody searches, is this legit? go, right? They're polling from the blog. yes, this brand was launched and this is this. They recently had two campaigns featuring this, blah, blah, blah. Their philosophy is based on XYZ. They recently did a collaboration with some not-for-profit, da da da da da da da event is actually happening next week. All that information it will not have if you're not blogging.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, actually everything that you just said is 100%. I totally agree with it and this is such great advice. I think it's a great takeaway for people who are listening right now, just in terms of how the content that you create will also help you with your visibility and being found, right? So definitely blogging, we both agree that blogging is not dead.
Jeanel Alvarado
Not dead at all. It is reimagined in tons of different formats to get the same message across.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And so before we wrap up here, I just wanted to end with some advice from you. So for entrepreneurs who are listening today and want to break into retail or scale their business, what would be one or two pieces of advice you'd give them?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So one of my biggest pieces of advice would be to make sure that it's something that you can consistently do something that you are able to do yourself. I think you have to have that DIY mentality at least to start. And then of course you can outsource, but your own, your business will be only as good as what you know.
So I do see a lot of brands or retailers kind of just jump in without really knowing much and maybe they pay people who know what they're doing and then yeah, they're up and then they're just sinking. It's like you got the boat in the water and then now the first tide and now you're under the water. So take the time to learn what you're getting yourself into and every little piece of, you don't need to know, be the SEO expert, but you need to know the basics. You need to understand the basics. So know what you're getting yourself into because e-commerce has so many different layers and then same with content marketing, because there's ways you could do it wrong. And you can get penalized by Google if you're just, you know, getting on these automated.
There's so many things and we'll leave that for another day, but don't try to shortcut to start, learn the basics. And then if anything, you can then, once you have those frameworks, you can then outsource people to do it the way that you've determined would be best for your business. Because just like we talked about blogs, you yourself should figure out exactly the tone, the audience, the type of blogging you want, you should have that kind of a guideline first before you hire someone to start putting out a lot of content.
So I would definitely challenge anybody to kind of just get maybe a template of each, then they can go ahead and outsource. And then the other piece of advice is be okay with pivoting. Like I said, the market is always changing, so be okay to pivot. My most recent client, just like we were just talking about, I've been helping them also with a little bit of SEO, but SEO is not the core of what I do, right? What I know, but it's a new skill in my toolbox, right? So that is something that I'm like, okay, yeah, I could definitely do some minor adjustments here and get you on the right track with your SEO a bit. But I think people in whatever they're in, whether they want to also maybe do an e-commerce store or they want to do physical retail because we all also help people who just want to do physical retail.
And I also help brands who just want to get into stores and sell wholesale who don't really aren't, aren't interested in doing all this marketing and branding for G2C. They rather do that or even try to like private label. Yeah. My, like I said, the second piece of advice there would just be, be able to be adaptable. You might have an idea that you go in and then it just isn't a fit and don't keep trying to make the peg fit. Right. Get a new peg, get a new idea. It's the quickest way to success.
Glynis Tao
Those are wonderful, amazing advice. I love it. Is there anything that you would like to share with the audience? Any events that you would like to share?
Jeanel Alvarado
We love to partner with different events. I guess if there's any people interested in beauty, we are partnering again with the Beauty Connect LA, which is happening in November for anybody who may be interested. It's an event that happens all the time. So if you miss this one, get on it for next year. And that's a great event. If you are a beauty brand looking to get into beauty retailers, they have a lot of the like, you know, top merchandise and buyers there.
And yeah, it's just like you get a lot of great information and then also trends. And then even if you're starting out, it can be good because they have these breakout rooms and sessions that are really great to help you figure out how to take your product or launch your products successfully, either on e-commerce and then also in store. So that's something that we're doing. And then, yeah, so just keep up with us. Follow Retail Boss across any social media platform. Find us at retailboss.co and if you have an interesting story about your brand, feel free to reach out.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. And where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So the best way to reach out is to send us an email. If you're interested in being featured on our publication, you can reach out at media@retailboss.co. If you're interested in working with me professionally, you can just go to hello at JeanelAlberto.com or just find me at JeanelAlverado.com. Do keep in mind for clients right now, we do look for clients who are making over 1 million in revenue. Okay. But like I said, we also have tons of events on Retail Boss. So if you're making less than that, jump over to retailboss.co, keep up with the news. We've got so many tidbits and yeah, that's how best to reach out and work with me. I'm always looking for people. Right now we're actually looking for somebody on social media.
Glynis Tao
Thank you so much Jeanel for sharing your journey and expertise with us today.
In this conversation, Laura-Jean Bernhardson shares her experience as an entrepreneur in the fashion industry, from starting a knitwear business to opening multiple retail stores. You will learn about the benefits of building systems, mindset shifts that will help you grow with creativity and confidence, and ways to make your brand memorable. You will also hear about Laura-Jean’s pivot from retail brick and mortar to business coaching. Get ready to learn how to run your fashion retail business the right way—through Laura’s lessons from decades in the industry.
About Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Laura-Jean Bernhardson has been an entrepreneur since 1994, starting with a handmade knitwear business that she grew into a seven-figure fashion design and retail company. Her boutiques, Fresh Collective, were known for carrying small batch artisanal clothing and accessories by local designers, including her own lines, Fresh Baked Goods, and Palette. But Laura-Jean didn't stop at fashion. She also co-founded a licensed daycare business that she ran successfully for over a decade. Over the years, her passion for mentoring other women entrepreneurs evolved into a full-time coaching business. Now, she helps founders grow businesses with heart, passion, and profit without burning out. And she's also on a mission to build a life that feels fun, flowy, and creatively fulfilling.
Use creative, low-cost branding to stand out with unique details and memorable experiences.
Scale with systems by documenting processes, delegating decisions, and removing bottlenecks.
Turn setbacks into wins by staying flexible and pivoting quickly.
Collaborate strategically to share resources, cut costs, and create complementary products.
Know your ideal customer through market research and tailor everything to their needs.
Treat business like design by bringing creativity into sales, marketing, and operations.
Hire expert help early to avoid mistakes and speed up growth.
Push past fears to sell with confidence and connect authentically.
Interview themes
How can creative, low-cost branding make you stand out?
Laura-Jean believes you don’t need a massive marketing budget to get noticed—you need a memorable brand experience. From playful “knitting queen” branding to custom Shrinky Dink buttons, she shares how small, unique details made her products unforgettable. These touches not only set her apart from competitors but created talking points that customers shared, driving organic word-of-mouth growth.
Why are systems the key to scaling without burnout?
For years, Laura-Jean ran her fashion retail business with everything in her head—approving every purchase, making every decision. It wasn’t until she embraced systems that she was able to scale to seven figures. By documenting processes, delegating authority, and creating clear roles, she freed herself from being the bottleneck. She credits this shift with not only growing revenue, but also giving her more freedom to focus on strategy instead of constant firefighting.
How do you turn setbacks into growth opportunities?
Retail brought plenty of challenges—slow seasons, unexpected weather events, even losing leases. Laura-Jean learned to see each obstacle as a chance to adapt. Whether it was shifting her business model, phasing out what wasn’t working, or bringing in new product lines, her willingness to pivot quickly kept the business resilient. She explains how staying flexible allowed her to navigate decades of industry change.
What are the benefits of strategic collaboration?
Early in her career, Laura-Jean joined forces with fellow designer Kingi Carpenter to open a shared retail space. This partnership evolved into a collective model where designers contributed rent and staffing in exchange for selling space. The approach lowered overhead, created a built-in community, and offered customers a diverse mix of products. Laura-Jean shares how the right collaborations can spark creativity, reduce costs, and strengthen your market position.
Why is knowing your ideal customer non-negotiable?
Laura-Jean admits she didn’t always get this right—her early designs reflected her personal style, not the needs of her paying customers. Over time, she learned to research her audience, understand their lifestyle, and design pieces they’d actually wear. She explains how market research helped her adjust sizing, color palettes, and price points to match what her customers valued most.
How can you bring creativity into every part of business?
While she started as a designer, Laura-Jean discovered that applying her creativity to marketing, merchandising, and sales made her business stronger. She reframed entrepreneurship as an art form—where every customer interaction, product display, and email campaign was a design project in its own right. This mindset not only made the work more enjoyable but also led to more original and impactful business strategies.
When should you invest in expert help?
Laura-Jean’s turning point came when she hired her first coach after reading The E-Myth. She quickly saw how outside expertise could shortcut trial-and-error and help her build a more sustainable business. Today, she encourages founders to bring in expert help earlier—whether it’s for marketing, operations, or financial planning—so they can avoid costly mistakes and accelerate growth.
How do you push past fear to grow your business?
Selling didn’t come naturally to Laura-Jean. Over time, she learned that selling was simply about building relationships and showing genuine enthusiasm for her work. She explains how confronting personal hangups—whether it’s fear of rejection or perfectionism—opens the door to authentic connection and stronger sales.
Chapters
00:00 The Journey of Entrepreneurship Begins
04:57 Building a Fashion Brand and Store
09:49 Marketing Strategies in a Pre-Digital Era
14:51 Navigating Retail Challenges
19:58 The Importance of Systems in Business
23:07 Transitioning to Coaching
30:26 Key Strategies for Growth
50:18 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Transcript
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Like anyone can start a business, it's so fantastic. And yeah, it is great and anybody can start a business, but don't expect it to be easy, I guess. Don't expect it to challenge your sense of yourself. I think that would be the most important thing. If you can deal with yourself and your blocks and hangups, then you can learn all the rest of the stuff. You just have to be able to be ready to embark on the journey.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson has been an entrepreneur since 1994, starting with a handmade knitwear business that she grew into a seven-figure fashion design and retail company. Her boutiques, Fresh Collective, were known for carrying small batch artisanal clothing and accessories by local designers, including her own lines, Fresh Baked Goods, and Palette. But Laura-Jean didn't stop at fashion. She also co-founded a licensed daycare business that she ran successfully for over a decade.
Over the years, her passion for mentoring other women entrepreneurs evolved into a full-time coaching business. Now, she helps founders grow businesses with heart, passion, and profit without burning out. And she's also on a mission to build a life that feels fun, flowy, and creatively fulfilling.
Welcome, Laura Jean. It's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Thank you so much, it's great to be here.
Glynis Tao
So I have to start with a little personal connection. Before I ever became an SEO and business strategist, I lived in Toronto for over 15 years. I went to fashion school at Ryerson University, which is now known as TMU. And I actually remember shopping at one of your stores, your store in Kensington Market. It's so fun to have this full circle moment with you. And for those who aren't familiar, can you take us back to those early days and what inspired you to open your first store?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
My history is so long that it's hard to know where to start. But I opened my first store in Kensington in 1998. And that was about three and a half years into my knitwear business. So my knitwear business was called Fresh Bake Goods. And I started on $600 that I borrowed from my roommate at the time and $200 worth of yarn that I put on my credit card. And I just started knitting and putting sweaters on consignment at different stores and really building the business one sweater at a time.
So for the first, before I opened the store, I was working on getting in other stores, starting out with consignment, putting them on consignment and then getting wholesale orders. But I'd have my, I'd take my samples and people could choose the yarns they wanted, which was actually really good because they could be like, we've got these dresses coming in, so we'll order sweaters.
Like it opened up a huge range of colors for them and stuff so they could coordinate their boutiques and everything else. But I ended up opening my store in Kensington. I would say there were sort of two reasons that really spurred me into it. One is I was really getting sick of wholesale. So wholesale included a lot of, you know, like just production and then packing boxes and then trying to collect on the, so calling up stores and being like, hi, you owe me $873.
And I didn't like that part. So I decided that if I had a store, then I'd have a home base and I could meet customers one-on-one and sort of get more enjoyment, I guess, out of the creative process and use my materials more wisely and so on. I often had to order more of something to fill an order, even though I had, you know, tons of other things available that I could have been selling off or whatever. So for me, it was a good shift in terms of, I guess, energy, like just my own personal way I wanted to spend my time and yeah, having a home base.
And the second thing that I think sort of pushed me over, although it's like such ancient history, it was 1998, but I had been in a relationship for about three years with a guy and he broke up with me and I just decided like, that's it, I'm gonna open the store. Like it was one of those things I had been wishing for someday, et cetera. And I went out looking for spaces on a Monday and by Thursday I had signed the lease at Kensington.
So I remember peeking in the window and thinking, oh yeah, I can make this work. And it was like a tiny space. The rent was only $650 too, back then, which was incredibly cheap, even for Toronto standards. When I went out looking, I had a budget in mind of $1500, but I found this place $650 inclusive and that became my little Kensington shop for probably about 20 years. I closed it in or 22, I can't do the math, but I closed it at the end of 2019.
Glynis Tao
That's the history. And you didn't just stop at one location. You grew to three retail stores in Toronto. Was that part of a grand plan or did the opportunity just present itself over time?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I guess over time, I actually, there was a fourth store in there. For a stint, I had a store in, I think about four years. So I opened the Kensington store and then I did a second store in Yorkville within a year, like a year later, along with Peach Berserk. So that was Kingi Carpenter is another Toronto designer. And I had worked for her when I started and she does silkscreen designs on clothing and stuff. We, first I started out working for her and we became friends and it was a great
What do you call it? Like a peek into what it takes to have a business, to run a store, et cetera. And a lot of it scared me actually. I was like, this is expensive and there's a lot to worry about. And, you know, there's hydro bills and all those things, but thinking, you know, seeing her model and seeing that she was able to do it, I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it. So we were friends and she had her store on Queen street. And I had my store on Kensington and we decided to open a second store together in Yorkville. And we called it Peachy Fresh.
So was half and half, half her stuff and half mine. But no surprise, we were spread very thin with having the second store that we were running. So we sort of thought like, how can we make this work where it's not so much work and expense for us? And we thought, we considered things like approaching, we knew a lot of designers. So we thought, what if we got like a third business partner or whatever?
But somewhere along the line, we kind of came up with this idea of, I don't know, we kind of, we're calling it junior business partners or roommates at the time, but what it evolved into was like a collectively run store where designers could join us and work one day a week in the store and pay a portion of the rent. So we kind of developed, I remember the first designer who moved in, she had a glass case from Ikea and we were like, okay, great, let's put it at the end of the cash desk. And I think we charged her a hundred dollars a month rent.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
And she worked on Tuesdays and it was just like, my God, like one day we don't have to worry about. And I remember handing her over the key and going, good luck, call me if you have any problems. And over time, as more and more of these people joined and so on, it became more of an official thing where it was like, this is now, you know, we started calling it a collective and it became this, you know, there were seven designers and seven days of the week were covered and it was like, this works. So that was kind of the model that I took to Queen Street when I opened Fresh Collective.
Glynis Tao
Okay, so what was the retail landscape like in Toronto when you first started and how did you stand out in such a competitive market?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, it's so funny I would say it was a hundred times less competitive than now. It was just such a different time. Like this was pre internet pre you know digital photography social media all that stuff. So how did I stand out? I guess what was great is that I had built up a clientele. So because I had done those three and a half years of doing street markets and the one of a kind show. And I did those still when I had the store too, because those were great outreach. But I do remember like the first couple of days after I opened the store, I started to feel panicked because it was not just people who didn't just flow into your store and spend money. It's like nerve wracking when you open a store.
So I literally went out and did posters. I remember going to Kinko's and photocopying posters and put them all over Kensington market. And I'm like, Fresh Baked Goods has a new store in Kensington. And I, you know, it was like that. It was like old fashioned, you know, getting the word out. But I also had collected up phone numbers because that's how we did things. That's how Gen X did things in those days. So I had had phone numbers of people who had ordered sweaters or different things or just wanted to be alerted when there were sales or whatever. When I opened the store, I spent days calling people going, hi, I just wanted to let you know that I've opened a store and you know, blah, blah, blah, and gave them the address and everything. And then we'd also use that phone list for sales and things too.
Glynis Tao
That was all the old school techniques.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, without the internet at that time, you have to be creative in other ways. It's kind of mind boggling. And I wish, you know, I had some of my early brochures. I wish I had them like right available because they just look hilarious now. But I would literally take pictures with a film camera, develop them at their drugstore like we did in those days, cut them out with scissors and glue them to a piece of paper to make your brochure. And we did have Kinkos. There was color photocopying. So I would take them to Kinkos and photocopy them and then give those out. You know, it's like wild.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think I must have picked up one of your brochures or postcards because I saw that post that you made recently. This really brings back memories now.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I guess also now that you're mentioning that catalog, I might have it here. Am I going to be lucky enough? Let's see. I think another thing that worked out really well by accident, like you asked, was this all part of a master plan? No, not at all. I knew nothing about business. I didn't even know how to get a job. So I was a fine arts major. I'd studied photography and I moved to Toronto because I went to school in Montreal. I moved to Toronto and I'm like, I had no real intention of like, I'm going to start a job and, you know, start a business in fashion because it was so insane. Like how would I do that? But I had been making things and selling them as a teenager. I had a bikini business in high school and I made jewelry and stuff like that. So it was, I kind of had this like, you can make things and sell them kind of mentality. But another thing that really stood out was the knitting queen.
So that's the cover of the catalog. This is a catalog that fell apart, sadly. So there you can see some of the styles and stuff. But I did this kind of shtick of like, I'm Laura Jean the knitting queen. So you can see I've got a yarn wig and I'm wearing a crown. And then I called the assistants who worked in my shop, and who helped with the production, I called them knitting princesses. And that knitting queen thing became so sticky, like years after I stopped knitting, people would be like, wait, aren't you Laura Jean the knitting queen?
So I think that's you know, I was unexpectedly getting these lessons in business in terms of branding and in terms of making yourself stand out and in terms, yeah, another thing. Now you're making me realize how much that made me stand out. Another thing I did was this at the back of the catalog and I made handmade buttons. So my buttons were shaped like a cat face or a flower or like all of these different things that made it really unique. And in my shop, you could even pick out, I had those little drawers where you store nails and things. I had buttons where people could pick out their buttons. And so that became a sales lesson of mine where I would see someone trying on a sweater and if I told them about the buttons at the right moment, their decision would switch from, should I get this sweater to, which buttons should I pick? So I realized that was another thing that ended up being like, this makes it really unique. And suddenly they're fishing through, trying to find all the blue cats that are gonna make their sweater look perfect.
Or we had letter buttons so they could get their name. So yeah, even though it was a totally different time, the basics still apply. It's the exact same thing of like making your business unique, your unique value proposition, your branding that stands out, that's catchy, that makes people excited. All of that stuff, it's all the same.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, yeah. I think that really is what made you different, unique, and made you stand out at the time because I still remember that show up and those colorful sweaters and it just felt, it was different at the time. It was like, you know, all kind of like the sort of more darker, subdued type of looking things that were out there, but yours just really had color, you know.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
And you you've hit on something when you said what's the state of the fashion industry in general, is that I did notice it creeping in over the years that there was a, when I started, I feel like it was a real, what do call it, like antidote, I guess, to sort of the normal boring mainstream stuff that was out there. But bit by bit, fast fashion came in. So we're talking about the mid-90s when I started, which some people watching this will be like, not even born yet or in kindergarten or something.
But so it's like a really long span of time. And in that time, something happened with like retail laws where more and more, you know, American stores or international stores could come in. So H&M, Old Navy, Zara, like those were all things that didn't exist back in the nineties when I started. I don't know exactly what year they came in, but over the 2000s, it just became more and more and more availability of fast fashion, guess like riskier moves like fast fashion allowed the fashion that was out there to be more different and to be more, you know, I remember when I would start seeing when I first started hearing about H&M and I'd see someone in dress, I'd be like, that's a cute dress thinking that it had to be a vintage find because it was so unique looking. And they'd be like, oh, I got it for like $39 at H&M. And I'd be like, what, what is this H&M place? So I feel like that was one major shift that happened where it was like, then you could get cute things or bright colored things or different looking things more easily. And then that just became more more and more and more.
Glynis Tao
And that just kind of eventually flooded the market with just so much stuff and how we ended up where we are right now. Over consumption, over production. But that's another conversation for another day. But let me just go back to you were running multiple stores, not a small feat. What were some of the biggest operational or financial challenges that you faced during that time?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, it's hard to even be able to fit them all into this podcast, but no surprise, the biggest one was cash flow. So Q1 is brutal in retail. So January, February, March should be the time of just hoping that we can get through till whatever comes after March, April and May.
May was typically a good month. Like May and December were the good months for, you know, spring shopping and Christmas. But then weather always became a problem. So I remember one year I was sitting there, like looking at the sales, looking at the numbers and thinking, we have to have a really good Christmas this year. And I'm thinking, okay, well, as long as there isn't like, you know, some crazy ice storm or whatever, it should be fine. We've got two weekends to go. And of course, before Christmas. So there was always that feeling of like, and of course that was the year that there was a gigantic ice storm and power went out and everybody was stranded everywhere. You know, so it was just a total wash. Like both of the weekends were horrible before Christmas and you know, the whole nine yards. So that, I guess like the biggest challenge of retail is the high rent and high expenses. So when I had the collective model, which was what I started on, the advantage was, you know, that it kind of had this steady cushion of keeping the staffing managed and the rent managed.
But there were other problems with that, of course, where it was like dealing with designers like dropping out or dealing with just the whole thing or even planning product was another thing that became sticky is that we could end up with a whole store full of, let's say, just brown skirts or whatever, or whatever the trend was that year and nothing to go with them necessarily, or just kind of nothing, like no variety. So the limitations of the sort of collective model, what do you say? It's like at a certain point, I don't even remember how many years I operated with that model, probably 10-ish in terms of fresh collective, like the fresh collective brand. But then I started sort of phasing that out and introducing more where we bought clothes. So we started carrying lines like yoga jeans or different Canadian lines, Matt & Nat bags, and then another bag line which I forgot the name, Pixie Mood.
So we started bringing in different products so we could control more the inventory and the selection and really make better customer service, like a better and consistent customer service experience for the customers. So I guess it was kind of like that collective model, I would say was really necessary to get started. And it was great and it was fun and it had all kinds of great things, but we hit limitations and it drove me crazy to have customers come in wanting things that we just didn't have or couldn't make available due to that model. So then that became a shift of like hiring more professional retail managers and putting in systems and buying stock and continuing some consignment, some different models with different people, but just kind of mixing it up more.
Glynis Tao
So maybe to go with that question, what worked for you, would you say, what really helped you to grow, scale that business and be able to have this longevity for over 20 years in retail? It's not easy, right?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
It's not.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Maybe what you could tell us is sort of.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah I say like one particular thing worked because I feel like there are so many things worked at the time. You know, like the collective model worked to get it started and got me connected with all these designers and brought a whole bunch of energy and you know, all that stuff. So that worked amazingly. I guess nothing works perfectly, right? And then, but what really allowed it to grow was putting systems in and really for me, it was a big shift between sort of my small business and a company. And so when the systems, and that took like a long time, you know, building those systems and documenting them and training people on them and having them really just flow throughout the whole business. But it allowed me to not be the bottleneck anymore.
So people didn't have to come to me and be like, prior to that, my small business, everything lived in my head. So it was like, can we buy this fabric for the, you know, for the clothing line? Sure. Can we do, you know, we need a new stapler for Kensington. Okay, I'll add it to my list or go buy one. I've approved it or whatever. It just was way, it was all me. And I, of course at the time, didn't really know how to do and how to make it anything else.
But then I read the book, the E-Myth, the E-Myth Revisited, subtitled Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. And that book talks about really building your small business into a company. Like it described me perfectly as the sort of frantic business owner who was running around doing everything. If I got hit by a bus, the business was gone. The step of adding the systems and creating all of that stuff, including an org chart, different positions, we really created a company flow to it where people had their jobs and it was understood what they could make decisions on or not. We had meetings to review the things, you know, all that stuff. So that made it run a lot smoother. If there was one thing that made a difference, that made a difference. I couldn't have got to a seven figure business without that.
Glynis Tao
Okay. And so did you have help with, you know, putting the system together or was it just sort of this moment after you read the book, the E-Myth, and then you got the idea to like, my gosh, you know, I can't be doing everything myself. I'm going to have to put a system in place. Like, did you hire anybody, like a consultant or anybody to help you with that?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yep, I did, actually, well, after I read the E-Myth book, then I did hire a coach from E-Myth worldwide, like they have a program. So I did that for about six months and I cried most of the time through it because I was like, I think I was 17 years into my business at that point. And I just felt like, God, I've been doing things so chaotically and I could have, I could have like, there was a better way and I just didn't know about it.
And so it really just felt like, my God, this sort of, yeah, just, guess regret that I didn't do it sooner. So then I really understood the value of coaching and expertise and so on. And so over time I've hired different coaches for different reasons or different, or I take a course on like, you know, marketing or, know, whatever. I'm always looking to build something that's like, whether it's self-improvement for myself to be a better entrepreneur, or it's something to build into the business or whatever. There's just kind of always room for expert help, basically. I just saw the difference of like, can struggle through things on my own, or I can hire someone who knows how to do this. And then I know how to do it. It's just night and day.
Glynis Tao
Saves you a whole lot of time and headaches in the end, right? So looking back, is there one lesson from retail ownership that you think that every entrepreneur should hear or know about?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, I don't know if there's one exactly. Since we're talking about systems, I would definitely say systems. And I would definitely say remaining flexible, like always being able to, you know, deal with the shifting circumstances, whatever that is, if the industry is changing or weather or any of those things. I think a big misconception about retail is that you just sit in the store and wait for customers to come. And it's just not that at all.
The key to succeeding is being constantly busy and working on making sure those customers come in. So whether it's while you're there, you're sending out emails to your customer base and letting them know their favorite brand just came in or whatever, right? You just have to figure out how to make the most of your time and drive the business forward. You just cannot be passive.
Glynis Tao
Okay. So from that, I got the importance of these three things, having systems in place, being flexible, having flexibility to pivot or evolve depending on what is happening in the economic or political landscape. And then also being able to stay top of mind to your customers and communicating with them through various channels, emails, I guess.
So let's just talk about your pivot to coaching now. What inspired you to transition from having a retail store to being a fashion or a business coach now?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I feel like it's funny because I resisted the business part in the early days and I felt like I'm not a business person. I just want to do my creative stuff. And I would dream. I'm sure every, every creative person dreams about somebody like a business minded person who's just going to take control of the business side. And then you can just do your creative fun stuff or whatever. So that was sort of my dream for a long time that some businessy person would rescue me. And all that time I was learning about business because I had to to survive.
Also very early on, I got into a women's entrepreneurship program, which was really helpful too. So like, yeah, for sure over time, it was like always learning, always trying to find some new, you know, new stuff to, you know, roll into the business and make it stronger. Okay, so pre pandemic 2019, I actually had five brick and mortar business locations. So I had three locations of my fashion boutiques. And then I had the daycare, which was a co-ownership with the woman who founded it. And I got into that because my son was, just very briefly, I got into that because my son was one of the first clients there, one of the first kids. The woman who started it started it for her own kids. And then she was running it as a side project because she had a full-time job. She was finding it hard to get it up and going. And I was one of the parents. So I was like, she was talking, you know, we got to know each other and stuff. And she was like, yeah, I'm really struggling, blah, blah. And I'm like, I think I could help you.
So we talked about it and I became her partner. So we just did, we did it 50-50 and I took everything I had learned from, you know, retail stores and branding and fashion business, all that stuff, and poured it into the daycare. That was a really good lesson in realizing how transferable the skills are. And I kind of got, at that moment, I kind of got, this is my trade. Like I have a trade where I know how businesses are structured, small businesses, and I know the personalities and I know the pitfalls.
And I started to really kind of look at where I can guide people. And I would get calls from people going like, I love your stores. You know, can you, I want to open something like that somewhere, you know, wherever, San Francisco, Nova Scotia, like these different people would reach out to me. And I remember the first time I said, actually, yes, I can help you. Definitely. I do, I do that, you know, as a thing or whatever. Obviously I worded it better, but I said, you know, and I charge $85 an hour. And she goes, that's fine.
And at that time I just thought, this is insane. I might've said I charge $2 million now, you know? I just couldn't believe what she was like, that's fine. And so I met with her and she just picked my brain. I gave her advice, whatever. Like it wasn't any kind of formal coaching situation, but I was like, I'm getting paid for this. And I really had a love for, know, anytime one of my friends or whatever would be like thinking of opening a business, I'd be all over them like, I'll help you.
I just loved it. I love teaching. I love passing on what I know. I loved just the whole thing. I would get so excited. And I was doing that a lot with the designers who were joining me because I wanted them to stick around and pay their rent and continue in that collective concept. If their stuff wasn't selling, they would just be like, you know, I'm going to drop out and they'd give their one month's notice and leave.
Two things combined, I just loved it. I love giving advice. I love meddling in other people's business. And so it was really fun for me to say, I think if you made some smaller earrings or you had something at a different price point, just all of the different kinds of strategy for them of product development, branding, know, everything. So then I started, so then I kind of made it an official part of the stores where I had monthly meetings and then I had one-on-one business coaching sessions with them. So that started around like early 2000s. And I was doing it as part of the Fresh Collective package. If you join us, you get this sort of, so it kind of became like a little bit of an incubator, like an incubator for fashion designer entrepreneurs, I guess you could say, in a retail environment.
So I don't remember what year it was I started expanding beyond that. But, you know, a good 10, 13 years ago or something, I was like I think I could just help others, I had helped other kinds of businesses through my friends or, you know, just ad hoc, whatever. But to make it official and be like, I'm hanging out a shingle, this is it, I'm a business coach now. And I put it out there and started networking and just building up a clientele and hosting events and talking to people. And I had it in the back of my mind that it was like, this is the next thing for me because retail is like seven days a week, you know?
It was great when I was in my twenties and thirties, but for now going into the future, I want less overhead. I want to not worry about, you know, the window smashing in the middle of the night at the store. Like all of that stuff. It's just, you know, this is such a freer and easier kind of thing. So back to 2019, I had five brick and mortar businesses, three boutiques, the daycare, and another business that was in startup mode, which was going to be like a wellness place like with, you know, different practitioners and whatever. And it all just went kaboom.
In 2020, well, we lost the lease on the daycare and can't just move a daycare. And then with Fresh Collective just kind of honestly in a decline, it was just 2017 was a good year. 2018 was like 2019 was like, and I was like 2020 has to be a turnaround year or I'm out. And we all know what happened to 2020. So I just pulled the plug in like, I'm not saying I just pulled the plug. It was stressful. It was hard emotionally, but you know, had everything, all five places were closed. And I remember picking things out of my Google calendar going like that life is over. Like all of these pre-scheduled events that I had that were all about living that workaholic lifestyle just disappeared from my calendar. And I'm like, wow, now what do I create? So that's kind of what brought me here.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, we all know what happened in 2020 and we just want to forget about it. Put all of that behind us as if it never happened. It had affected so many businesses and some, you know, rose from it and just thrived and came out stronger. And unfortunately, yeah, we also lost some businesses along the way which was really sad and unfortunate. And yeah, being at retail is like just hearing the stories on the news of like this retailer closing down, that retail closing down.
It's really heartbreaking. so, but fortunate for you that with the two decades of experience that you have and you built a name for yourself and you know, you mentioned that people were coming to you asking for advice and we're just like, yeah, they'll pay you $85 an hour, no problem. You could have charged more, but yeah, that must've been so validating and it's been like that, I guess, and helped you to transition to coaching now, which is great. And I think it's, it kind of almost like our two stories just kind of have very similar stories and our paths. You know, how I went from a clothing brand having a product-based business to now doing digital marketing, being a service provider now, and, you know, using my knowledge and expertise that I have to help people with that. And so it sounds like, you know, how you have that passion to help others.
Many fashion entrepreneurs dream of scaling. What key decisions or strategies allowed you to grow your fashion retail business to seven figures.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I mean, I feel like it's the same. It's the same that we talked about with the systems. You know, really, it's, it's something systems are something I resisted to, like when I first heard about them, because of course, I went into having my own business, because I'm like, I need to be a free butterfly, you know, I need to do my fun, cute things. And so I wanted my life to be fun and cute.
But there was this, you know, the hard side of running a business that was so, like, I don't want to say it was bad or anything, but it was just so chaotic. It was just not a business that, you know, was set up by a person in their twenties who knew nothing about business. And so my perception of what business was, like business, was, you know, that it was a, I'm thinking of like American Psycho, like Christian Bale in American Psycho, like that stereotype or Wall Street or these movies that like these eighties movies, like late eighties when it was really the culture was like, yuppies and get ahead and make money and like greed is good or whatever, like all that stuff. So I feel like that was kind of there on me because it was only a few years later. And that was sort of my impression of what business was. It was cutthroat. It was unethical. It was, you mean like all that stuff. Well, there I am thinking like, I don't want anything to do with that stuff. I just want to make my own cute stuff and sell it.
But I realized that, and I also thought it was very male, like a male thing. When I pictured a business, a smart business person, I pictured a man in a suit or with a briefcase or whatever, like just stuff that didn't even enter my world. There was a shift where when, guess, no, bit by bit I started to have successes, of course, as we do. And I started to feel like I'm getting good at this business thing. Like I think I'm getting good at this.
And so of course that gave me confidence to continue and learn more and try new things and whatever. There was, shoot, I lost my train of thought. I know what it was. This was the decision shift that really changed for me. Cause I had this image, you I went to school for fine arts and whatever, and I'm a, it was a sensitive, I'm still a sensitive person, but I've got a lot of a tougher skin now, but I was, I thought I was sort of like a wimpy sensitive person, you know, like just not cut out for this business stuff and whatever.
And there was a moment where I thought, what if I shifted my creativity to the business? Like, what if I treated the business as an art and something that could, you know, move people and connect with people and make a difference for people and really kind of put that same creative energy into driving sales and making the experience amazing for customers and doing all those things. And that really helped me shift and see that it was something I was capable of, that it was valuable, that it could be done in a way that wasn't ruthless and cutthroat and all those things. And so that really helped me to make it my own. And different things happened along the way, like for whatever reason I would, I mean, got, another thing was media in those days getting, you'd send out press releases because that would be a way to amplify your business. So I was in the Toronto Star and I was getting known for what I was doing and stuff, I would often get asked to do things about being an entrepreneur, know, different things like that.
I just remembered this, you probably don't even know this. I just, I've got my little box of pictures because I've been going through. So I co-hosted a TV show, I found this little framed picture in all my stuff. In the mid 90s, I think it was maybe 96, it was on TVO, TV Ontario, like, I guess it's kind of like PBS or something, but it was an educational show on how to have a business and run it. And it was co-hosted with Kingi Carpenter from Peach Berserk. So that was one of our wacky girl boss things we did together. And yeah, so we hosted the show and we went and interviewed people about different business models and what's working for them and blah, blah, blah.
So yeah, mean, all of that stuff kind of added up where it was like, I think I'm kind of getting good at this business thing.
Glynis Tao
I feel like you guys are just sort of ahead of this curve. I feel people are opening up a little bit more and looking to collaborate. They're more open to the idea of collaboration, sharing, but I really felt that back then in the 90s, early 2000s, everything was kind of quite really close, and people didn't want to share their trade secrets.
It seems just so serious or something. And then I felt like the two of you, I could see how you guys totally hit it off when you met because Kingi's brand is just so colorful, you know, yours as well. And these two sort of young entrepreneurs coming out with all this colorful hair and kind of like, hey, we're talking business and everything. It's just really, it's probably stood out. Yeah. Amongst like, and then you guys are, yeah, really, I think, sort of ahead of what was actually going on, you know, in that.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, think also we were just, none of this was strategic decisions of like, oh, we should do a collaboration. was like, we were broke and it was just way more fun to do things together. So collaborations were just kind of natural and her store was the first store I started selling my sweaters at. You know, I remember I liked that I brought in five and then I'd phone her every day on the landline, cause that's how we communicated in those days. I'm like, did you sell yet?
And finally, one day she called me like three days into it or whatever, and she was like, the green and purple one, so. So I mean, for me, it was definitely just the feeling of, you know, girl, girl bossing together. And so it was just more fun to do things together and stuff. And I guess maybe you don't know about this either, but when I, so when I first arrived in Toronto, I took her silkscreen workshop. That was how I got like infiltrated her world. And I just loved it. I was like, this is amazing. I was, I still screened my own stuff and whatever. But then, her place is still like this. If anybody wants to go hang out at Kingi’s place, she just had it. We called it the cult because everybody just floated there. So everybody in our little gang would show up and we'd go out for beers that night or whatever. And you know, was just this casual thing where what, whatever we'd either work for free in our spare time or work on our own projects or just hang out or whatever and it was just fun.
But so it was yes, the collaboration part. So it was just natural. It was like a natural collaboration to be, you know, figuring out things to do together or whatever, because we were right there and we had no money. So we just had to come up with creative ideas and do them. So we would send out press releases together and we were on City Line and our clothes went together really well. So that was another win where it went like a silkscreen dress of hers and then a cute little cardigan of mine over and it was amazing. But yeah, it really, that ended up being such a strong part of how I like to do business because it's just way more fun to do it with people you like and have fun doing it and stuff. So my first Toronto business, even before I started the sweaters, I did Shrinky Dink earrings based on Kingi's silkscreen designs. Did you know about that?
Glynis Tao
I love those. Yes, I think I had a little package of Smurfs ones. Yeah, color them and then you cut them out and you put them in the oven and then they shrink into this kind of hard plastic. You got it. Yeah, turn into earrings or whatever.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
So that's what my buttons were made out of. That was sort of my secret sauce with the sweaters to have the custom made buttons all made out of Shrinky Dink. And then I did like a resin coating. I did so much product testing to get them durable and machine washable and everything. But prior to that, the Shrinky Dink, when I was working at Kingi's and I was really new there, I'd been there like a month or whatever. And I'm thinking it'd be so cool if we could do earrings or other accessories with her designs on them. And it just was like this flashback of doing Shrinky Dink, probably with Smurfs on it back in the 80s with my friend and her little sisters. And I was like, I wonder if that stuff still exists.
And I went to Lewiscraft on my bike and got some and did prototypes and brought them to her and said, I got really nervous when I showed them. So I'm like 22. And I'm like, oh, I was thinking we could make some jewelry with your prints. And then I pulled out my little prototypes. And she was like, oh my God. And I thought for a second that she was gonna go, these are my designs, how dare you? But she was like, these are amazing. I can't believe I'm seeing my drawing, she had little cocktail glasses and little like glamour gals and all these cute things. And she was like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. So that was my first thing and I made jewelry for her business for I don't know how like 10 years or something. So it's great. You just don't ever know, right? You get some ideas and then yeah, do it.
Glynis Tao
Absolutely. I think you were just kind of following your passion and you just had that in you and you're just doing what you loved, right? And having fun along the way and it so happened to be a business.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I often will follow a curiosity. Like it becomes sort of an obsession where it's like, hmm, I wonder if I could make this out of that. And yeah, some of them go in the garbage. Some of them are bad prototypes and they never go anywhere. And some of them evolve into a business that lasts for decades.
Glynis Tao
So for someone who's listening today and is running a fashion brand or retail store, boutique, it wants to grow, where should they start?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, that's a tough question to answer because it's like, I don't know where they're at. You know what I mean? If they're starting from scratch, I can answer that. But if they're already running a business, then that's a little bit of a tricky one because you've got to see what's kind of where the gap is.
If you're starting out, in fact, I started, I do have a story for you. Earlier I said, I don't think I have a story like that. I have a really great success story. This is a client who was not in fashion at all, but like a service provider. So let's, don't want to give more identifying details because it might identify her or whatever. And I'm always protective of my client's privacy, of course. But so she signed up for a six month package with me. And the first thing I said was market research. I said, you have to figure out who you're serving and what their needs are, what keeps them up at night, what words they're using, everything.
And she went for it and she came back with all this information and we started building from there. So we were like, okay, so looking at these different types of people, which ones do you think are the best to, you know, go like treat as a target market, et cetera. And then from there we built and we used the words that they said in there in the market research to start creating the marketing that was going to talk directly to them. So it was things like overwhelmed and don't know where to start. Perfect. That's what we heard on those calls.
So it's just what I love about it. What I love about hindsight, like for me hindsight is 2020. I never did any market research. Are you kidding? In fact, I thought I knew better. I wanted to make the cute things that I thought were great. And then my first market research was realizing that I'm in my 20s. I'm not now in my 20s, but at the time I was in my 20s, the sweaters that I wanted to make were really bright, really cropped, really wild, know, bright. The first one that sold was lime green and purple stripes and it was cropped.
But I did start to realize that the women who are gonna spend money on this are not me. They're not, I'm broke. They're the version of me that went into a corporate job and makes money and they've been at it for 10 years and they want funky stuff to express their creativity and they've got the money to spend on it. So I had to shift my mindset and start learning what these women in there are probably in their mid thirties. What size are they? What do they like?
Do they want really short crop things? No, most of them don't. They want a sweater they can wear to work and it still looks cute. So that was my market research only dealing with why my stuff wasn't selling as well as I wanted it to.
But to love, nothing I love more than a client who comes to me from the beginning because we don't have to dismantle mistakes. We get to start fresh and start with market research, start figuring out what all of the good stuff. What are your competitors doing? What's going to make you stand out? Why are you different? Who are your clients? What's going on with them? How can you even start building a community of clients before, maybe before you even make one thing? Or if you've made a few prototypes, how can you get them out to the people to test them? So it's all about minimum viable product and doing things just smart and smooth, man. Smart and smooth. That's it's all about.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, okay, so I guess you would say your ideal client would be someone who's starting out and you are helping them from the very beginning to get the foundations in place and doing the things that you didn't even know about when you started your business.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Exactly, exactly. That I only learned about afterwards. Everything I learned after, like I was like, I guess that was, I remember we shifted the entire business model and everyone was freaking out and whatever. Then we learned after that, I was reading some article and I learned the term change management. And I'm like, change management would have been good here because we did it with no change. We didn't manage the change at all. We just made changes and freaked everyone out.
So yes, for me, my ideal client is someone, I go a lot on vibes. Obviously there are some businesses, if someone wants to start an airline, I'm not your coach, you know? But if you're like a service provider or a fashion maker, a jewelry designer, a photographer, and you want to set up the business structure and strategy and really pinpoint your ideal clients, it just gets me so excited because it's like, we just get the waste out of the way right away. We start from you know, start from square one and just build it all nice.
Yeah, a very ideal client for me is someone leaving corporate. Like someone, a woman in her mid thirties, let's say, who's leaving corporate, she's got a lot of skills and experience, she's ready to go for it. She's an action taker and she digs my vibe. That's pretty much my ideal client.
Glynis Tao
I just think that, you know, knowing who your ideal client is, is very important. No matter what stage of business you're in, I have some clients who have been in business for a number of years and still are not clear. Both their ideal customer, avatar, or buyer personas yet, they're still a little unclear. So I'm like, yeah, you got to go back and really think about this because it's important and it really affects everything that you do in your messaging and your marketing.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And also, like, that's what I'll work on with people as well is I feel like that kind of work is hard to do in your own head. And it's hard to, it's, well, a lot. Let's just be honest. A lot of the work we do that has to do with sort of the visioning and creation of the business and whatever is very hard to do in your own head because you have no perspective on it. So for one thing, you're like dealing with all your failures. And so you're carrying that with you where we all have failures.
So when you work with an outside person, they can pull out the strengths and help you put aside the weaknesses that you're worried about, et cetera. And I can, like, when I work with a client, I'll help them define their ideal client. So, and it does take a while. Even in coaching, it took me ages and it'll change again because that's what happens as things change. Right. But I think an important part of understanding who your ideal client is, is also like who makes you the happiest and who has you perform at your best.
So for me, part of my focus on my ideal client being an action taker, being a, liking my vibe, as kind of vague as a description as that is, when I'm working with someone, it's like you and me chatting. It's like, you know, there's like a quickness to the way we talk and we're excited and there's like a high energy and stuff like that. And when I'm working with someone who's like that, it allows me to be like that. And then we get to get into this creative magic zone where we are creating magic together for their business, which is just wild and fun and where I want to be.
And I've worked with clients who aren't such a great fit and I can definitely help them and, you know, go through the steps that it takes to make a business. It's not like I dislike that or whatever. It's great, fine work and it's fun to help different kinds of people succeed. No problem. But I like the magic zone. I like it when I get to work with someone for a long period, like six months and we really get each other and I really get their personality and I'll start to go, I hear that imposter syndrome sneaking in or whatever, you know, like I know where they go to hide. I know where they think that they're, you know, gonna fail or whatever. And I get to just be with that and help them get through it. And it's just so fun and exciting for me.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, there's just so many benefits to working with somebody because, know, oftentimes if you're an entrepreneur or a solo entrepreneur, you're just kind of like left with your own thoughts and what you're saying to yourself, what's going on in your mind, but having that sort of outside perspective to help guide you and sort of like get you through some of the hurdles that you have. And oftentimes, lot of the times actually it's yourself that's holding yourself back and you're like you don't want to do certain things because it makes you feel uncomfortable like that's what I find with myself I'm like I'm gonna avoid doing you know I gotta go do some PR here but let me go find do something else and I never end up doing it.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
It's 100%. It's funny, somebody once was talking to me about my business or whatever. She was like, three stores and whatever. And she goes, wow, you must have had to really fight to get where you are. Which, like, honestly, just struck me kind of odd to begin with was like, fight. But my first thought was only myself, only myself did I have to fight because I had so many thoughts like selling like in the early days, you know, 95 or whatever I would still work at Kingi's part-time. I think I worked two days a week or whatever. And so I'd be silk screening fabric and she'd be like, those people are looking at your sweaters. And I'd be like, well, I don't want to talk to them. Of course she wants the artist, the designer, the maker to go talk to the customers and tell them why it's special. And they're going to be like, we got to meet the designer. And I'm just thinking like, I can't even deal with this. What am I going to say to those people? And so I would just make her do it. But she started forcing me to go talk to people because it was like, you got to learn to sell or you're not going to succeed in business.
And now, my God, am I good at selling? It's just so natural. You know, it was all my hangups. It was, I had hangups about selling that weren't true. All selling is, is, you know, relationships and conversation and pointing out the, you know, it's, it's just not what I thought it was. It's not pushing crap on people they don't want. It's not that at all. It's just being friendly and great and going, yes, the purple is awesome. Why don't you try the pink one too? Look at this. And then when the time is right.
You can also change the buttons. Hmm. You want me to change the buttons for you? It just takes a few minutes to sew them on. And they're like, buttons.
Glynis Tao
There you go. See you're natural, but I guess you took you a while. Amazing. Okay, so before we go, I guess I just want to ask you one last question. If you had to boil it down to one or two pieces of advice that you would want to give to an aspiring fashion entrepreneur in 2025, what would it be?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I guess I would say it's fresh in my mind, but it is a huge piece of it is to get out of your own way. You know, get over your fears, get over your hangups, get help if you need it. It's also, it's a thing like running a business is a separate thing as is being a dentist and knowing how to fill a cavity or being a veterinarian or an accountant or whatever. There's something about being in business that's sort of presented or being an entrepreneur that's sort of presented as easy.
Like anyone can start a business. It's so fantastic. And yeah, it is great and anybody can start a business, but don't expect it to be easy, I guess. Expect it to challenge your sense of yourself. I think that would be the most important thing. If you can deal with yourself and your blocks and hangups, then you can learn all the rest of the stuff. You just have to be able to be ready to embark on the journey.
Glynis Tao
Do you have anything you'd like to share with the audience or perhaps anything that you are working on currently?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I have lots of things I'm working on. I know it would be smarter from a business perspective to focus on one thing, but I'm of course brewing up tons of things. But I think most relevant to this audience would be I host two events a month for free that help entrepreneurs. So the first one is the Ladies Creative Collaboration Society virtual meetup. And that's the second Thursday of each month at noon Toronto time. And then the other one is Business Power Hour.
And so that's really incredible. They're both really incredible. The virtual meetup, you need to meet people. So that's a great one for entrepreneurs starting out, growing, whatever. The second one is business power hour, which is all about strategy. So it's a live Q and A free where people can show up and say, like, I'm trying to figure out this problem in my business that's got me stuck. My marketing just doesn't seem to be working. We talk it through and they get live coaching in the moment.
A recent one, I think it was the June one, I really liked this quote there, right at the end I was like, well, we were finishing up. And one of the guests was like, what'd she say? She's like, that's great, I gotta get going, because I've got so much to do this afternoon now, because she had had so many breakthroughs of things she was not able to figure out in her business. So she was like, I gotta get to work. I always promise people will leave business power hour unstuck, inspired, and ready for action in your business.
So I really invite people to come out to Business Power Hour. It's a taste of coaching too. So it's a great chance to see what coaching could offer you in a mini sort of free sample kind of way.
Glynis Tao
That's great. That sounds amazing. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, they can always go to my website, which is laura-jean.ca and that's my coaching website. And if you have any questions or what, people can just contact me. There's a form there and yeah, that would be fantastic.
Glynis Tao
Thank you, Laura-Jean, for sharing your story with us. It's been so inspiring to hear how you've built multiple purpose-driven businesses with heart, creativity, and a deep commitment to helping others succeed.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, thanks for having me. It's been so great. Really fun chatting.
In this special “Best of Founder Stories” episode, we revisit highlights from four powerful interviews with fashion entrepreneurs Stella Carakasi, Linda Lundström, Kristi Soomer, and RozeMerie Cuevas.
If you've ever wondered what it really takes to build a fashion brand from the ground up and stay true to your values while doing it, this episode is for you. Over the past few seasons, I've had the privilege of speaking with some incredible women in fashion, designers and founders who've carved their own paths, built purpose-driven businesses, and stayed resilient through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. In this roundup, you'll hear highlights from four powerhouse conversations.
Stella Carakasi on pivoting her business model and staying authentic as a designer. Linda Lundstrom, a Canadian fashion icon known for her ethical approach to design and manufacturing. Kristi Soomer, who built a profitable slow fashion brand from scratch. And RozeMerie Cuevas, who took her Vancouver-born brand Global while protecting her brand's DNA.
Each story is different, but the common thread is clear. These founders lead with purpose, adapt with grit, and never lose sight of why they started.
Whether you're launching a brand or navigating your next chapter, you'll walk away with timeless advice, hard-won lessons, and the reminder that success in fashion doesn't come from following trends, it comes from following your truth.
Start with strong brand values. Each founder emphasized the importance of leading with purpose, clarity, and authenticity from day one.
Resilience is everything. The journey is filled with highs and lows. Your ability to adapt and keep going is what sets you apart.
Let your customer guide you. Staying in tune with your audience helps shape products that resonate—and drive sustainable growth.
Your brand DNA matters. A clear creative vision and consistent identity are essential, especially when scaling globally.
Purpose drives innovation. From capsule collections to new retail models, each founder found creative ways to align business with mission.
Believe in the signs—and yourself. Linda Lundström’s story reminds us that trusting your intuition can lead to magical outcomes.
Growth takes grit. International success doesn’t happen overnight. RozeMerie Cuevas shares how she scaled with a handshake, a vision, and relentless execution.
In this episode, Glynis Tao discusses how AI is changing the way SEO works, especially for fashion brands. She breaks down the differences between traditional SEO and AI-driven search, focusing on why authority and content structure matter more than ever. Glynis shares a case study featuring Nomi Designs to show how consistent, strategic blogging led to a feature in an AI Overview. She wraps up with straightforward tips to help you keep your SEO strategy effective as search continues to evolve.
AI is changing how people discover your brand and products.
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing for blue links.
AI SEO is about optimizing for visibility and AI-generated answers.
Content must be original, structured, and helpful to be cited.
Blogs are essential for training AI to see your brand as an authority.
Topic clusters help build topical authority for search engines and AI.
Use schema to make content easier for machines to understand.
Helpful content is prioritized by Google's helpful content system.
Brands need to create content that aligns with natural language queries.
Helpfulness beats fluff in content creation.
What is AI SEO and how is it different from traditional SEO?
AI SEO isn’t about ranking in the top 10 search results anymore. Tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT are now summarizing answers and linking to trusted sources. If your brand isn’t seen as authoritative or helpful, it might get skipped—regardless of where you rank. SEO today is about being cited, not just clicked.
Why is your traffic dropping even if your rankings look fine?
If you’re still ranking well but seeing fewer clicks, AI could be the reason. Google’s SGE now shows AI-generated summaries at the top of results pages, pushing traditional listings further down. In March 2025, 13% of all queries triggered an AI Overview, double what it was two months earlier. You haven’t done anything wrong—search behavior is shifting.
What kind of content shows up in AI search results?
AI tools prioritize content that’s clear, structured, and helpful. Blog posts with specific answers, strong headings, schema markup, and a clear brand voice have a better chance of being cited. TLDR summaries, FAQs, and expert insights all help AI recognize your content as trustworthy and worth referencing.
Real example: How Nomi Designs got featured in AI Overviews
Nomi Designs, a sustainable linen clothing brand, saw major results from a focused blog strategy. Posts like “Can You Wear Linen in Winter?” and “How to Pack Linen Clothes for Travel” earned top placements in Google’s AI Overviews and brought in tens of thousands of impressions and clicks. The key? Clear structure, useful content, and strong internal linking.
What SEO fundamentals still matter (and matter more)?
Schema markup (FAQs, How-tos) helps AI understand your content
Helpful, expert-led writing builds trust with both users and machines
EEAT—Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust—has become essential if you want AI tools to recognize your brand as a credible source.
How can you future-proof your SEO strategy?
Start by auditing your content for quality and authority. Remove fluff, add schema, and repurpose your strongest content across platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube. Most importantly, stay consistent and update older posts. AI search rewards helpfulness, not size—so even small brands can compete if their content genuinely serves their audience.
Chapters
00:00 The Impact of AI on SEO Strategies
01:15 Understanding AI SEO vs Traditional SEO
04:27 Building Authority in AI Search Engines
07:42 Creating Effective Content for AI Visibility
11:42 Future-Proofing Your SEO Strategy for AI
Transcript
Glynis Tao
AI is changing how people discover your brand and products and where you can make yourself visible. By learning how to adapt your SEO strategy while your competitors are away at their summer cottage, you are taking the important steps to future-proof your website's search strategy. In this episode, you'll learn how to adapt your SEO strategy and stay visible in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google's AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Bing Copilot. Let's do this.
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Hi and welcome back to the Chase Your Dreams podcast, the show for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant, SEO specialist, and founder of Chase Your Dreams Consulting. I help fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands grow their online presence through SEO and AI search optimization.
In today's episode, AI SEO is here, how to future-proof your fashion brand online, we're talking about the rise of AI in search engines and what that means for your brand's visibility. If you've noticed that your website traffic is down, even though your rankings seem stable, it might not be you, it might be Google. We'll explore how AI is changing how people search, how content is surfaced, and what you can do to adapt your strategy to stay competitive.
So let's just start with the basics. What is AI SEO and how does it differ from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing for Google's 10 blue links, ranking on page one by using keywords, backlinks, and on-page content. But AI SEO is about optimizing for visibility and AI-generated answers like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews. These tools don't just list your page, they summarize answers and cite authoritative sources. So if your brand isn't seen as an expert, it may be left out of those answers entirely. It's not about rankings anymore. It's about authority and being referenced. In other words, it's no longer just about getting clicks. It's about being cited as the source.
So Google's Search Generative Experience or SGE and Microsoft's Bing Copilot are two of the biggest disruptors. In fact, according to SEMrush, over 13% of Google queries triggered an AI overview in March 2025. That's double what it was just two months prior. SGE generates summaries at the top of the search engines results, reducing clicks to traditional organic listings.
So if you just think about the traditional Google search engine results page prior, previously we used to type in a keyword into the question box and then it would come up with an answer, the list of websites that you can click on. SGE generates summaries at the top of the search results, reducing clicks to traditional listings and Bing Copilot is integrating chat GPT directly into search experiences. So even if you're still ranking number one, you may be seeing fewer clicks.
Something that I talk about in detail in episode 45, Why Your Website Traffic is Dropping and What to Do About It, if you haven't listened to that yet I break down how to diagnose traffic drops using Google Search Console and how to spot issues that are caused by AI search. So have a listen to episode number 45. So the overall impact would be that there is less real estate for organic results, but more emphasis on authority and structured data so what kind of content gets cited in AI answers.
Blogs are still a powerful tool, especially when they're original, well structured, and helpful. So the way that LLMs work, their large language models, they look for original, structured, and helpful content. And so that's why it's really important now more than ever that your blogs and your content have FAQs, schema, and are written in an expert voice. These are things that will help your blogs become more likely to be cited. So AI tools are trained on written content and they favor blog posts that include several things such as specific answers to user questions, clear headings and subheadings, FAQs and schema markup.
And you can also have a TLDR summary or key takeaways, key takeaways at the top of your blog. And this is also something that I emphasized in a previous episode. That was episode 43 on How Blogging Builds Brand Trust and Boosts Sales. In that episode, I basically emphasized the point that blogging isn't dead. In fact, it's essential to train AI to see your brand as an authority. So make sure you have a listen to that episode.
In essence, that episode emphasizes the point that your blog posts can be your ticket to being mentioned in AI summaries, but only if they're structured well and actually solve a real problem for your audience.
Other tools you could try using are Reddit, LinkedIn, and YouTube as offsite content that influences AI visibility as well. Those are other areas and places that AI engines pull other information and data from.
Let's talk about the SEO building blocks that still matter and now matter even more. First of all, I talk about this a lot and also I have several blog articles written about it. It's about topic clusters and that's our practice of creating multiple related pieces of content around a central theme that helps build topical authority. That's a key signal for both search engines and AI. So I use this strategy for myself, my own blogs, and also for my client blogs.
Also, another thing you want to keep in mind is to use schema markup. So this is structured data like FAQs, how-to, and product schema that make it easier for machines to understand and site your content.
And also, the other thing you want to keep in mind is helpfulness. How helpful is your content? Because Google's helpful content system and AI Overviews prioritizes content that is people-first, expert-led, and designed to actually help. So AI doesn't just want keywords now, it wants clear, credible content from brands that it can trust. So that's where EEAT comes from, otherwise known as EAT, and that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Your site needs to show real authorship, updated posts, and a clear brand voice to earn that trust. I have several articles I talk about this, I will link to in the show notes.
AI power search engines like AI overviews and search GPT are changing how consumers are discovering your products. So these platforms are prioritizing more conversational intent-based search results. In order to stay visible, brands need to create content that aligns with natural language queries and prioritizes user intent. This means adapting your product descriptions, blogs, and FAQs to answer customer questions directly.
So let me give you a real example here. One of my clients, Nomi Designs, creates minimalist eco-friendly linen clothing that is sourced ethically and produced locally in Victoria, BC. We helped them develop a blog strategy focused on thoughtful, well-structured content that reflected their values and voice. As a result, several of their blog posts were recently featured in Google's AI Overviews, which is a major win in today's search landscape. So two blogs in particular are ranking right at the top in Google AI Overviews. So there are, Can You Wear Linen Clothing in Winter? is one. And this blog comes up as the number one result and AI overviews with a link directly to their website. And at the time after this blog was posted three months later, the blog had had 22,800 impressions and over 525 clicks. And it's also their second best performing page on their website. Currently, that blog ranks for over 1,000 keywords.
Another blog on their site, called How to Pack Linen Clothes for Travel. In the last six months, just before I hopped on to record this episode, I just went and checked in Google Search Console. In the last six months, this blog had over 47,200 impressions, 1120 clicks, ranks for over 1,000 keywords. Its average position is number seven. It's cited in the AI Overviews with a reference link, and it shows up as a number two position on the Google search engine results page. So this just shows you how powerful blogging can be if you follow a strategy.
So let me just break it down to you exactly what we did. So first of all, we created an SEO blog strategy for them that involves creating contextual content that aligns with their particular brand products categories. Okay, in this case, just linen clothing. We researched relevant blog topic ideas and then created a topic cluster that focused around a main topic with a proposed internal linking system. This helps to strengthen your web page's ability to rank. Another thing that internal linking does is that it helps to build and position you as a trustworthy subject matter expert in your audience. And this is important because Google wants to rank sites that demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
The next thing we did is that we developed a blog brief and outline with clear section headings like the H1s and H2s, sections that were all listed. All the client had to do was fill out the brief with their firsthand experience and expertise. The blog then got optimized for SEO, such as title tags, meta descriptions, proper headings, image alt text, and then we also check for spelling and grammar. Then the blog is posted onto the website and submitted for indexing on Google Search Console. So all in all, even with fewer total clicks, we saw higher quality traffic and increased conversions. And that's the proof that with the right SEO strategy, even small fashion brands can compete in the age of AI.
Another point I want to mention is that their organic traffic contributes to half of their revenue and sales from their site. So if you are interested in learning more, you can read the full case study that's posted in my case studies area on my website.
So how can you future-proof your SEO strategy for AI? Well, I've covered a lot in this episode, but there's a few things that you can do to get started. The first thing you can do is to audit your content for authority. This is content that demonstrates your expertise and credibility across all your pages. So take a look through your content and remove anything that may not be as high quality as just maybe more fluff. Just get rid of them altogether because it could be doing more harm than good.
And then another thing you want to do is to use schema, especially in FAQ, how to's for blogs and product pages. You want to post helpful original content, right? Going back to the fluff, you want to avoid fluff. Fluff can be good in some places, but not when it comes to your content. You want to repurpose content on multiple platforms. You want to post full original content. You want to be the go-to source in your niche because you want to be known as the go-to expert in your industry or niche.
Then you want to repurpose content on multiple platforms. So once you've gone through and done all this work, right, you might as well use it and publish it, post it across all the other platforms like on LinkedIn, YouTube, on your social media. You know, you also want to share it, maybe in an e-letter, right? So you want to get it out there as much as you can. And most importantly is to stay consistent, build topic clusters and update older posts regularly to be able to maintain its freshness.
The brands that win an AI search aren't the biggest, but they are the most trustworthy and helpful. So in other words, this sort of levels the playing field because the big brands don't necessarily mean they have the most authority, right? Any business now of any size has the opportunity to stand out and show up in search now just by building your expertise, your trustworthiness and just think of everything that you create as being really helpful.
Helpfulness beats fluff. That's my last thing I would say is the takeaway you want to get out of this is helpfulness beats fluff any day.
So thanks for listening to this episode of Chase Your Dream Podcast. And if you found today's episode helpful, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. Don't forget to check out the AI SEO case study with Nomi Designs, which I will include a link to in the show notes. And also the previous episodes on blogging and traffic drops.
If you need help building your SEO strategy for the age of AI, please reach out to me. Call or visit my website, glynistao.com, for SEO strategy and services. I have a new page up now dedicated to AI SEO, and I'll have other free resources and more to help support you along your journeys. Until next time, take care.
In this episode, Glynis Tao discusses the reasons behind declining website traffic for fashion e-commerce sites in 2025. She explores the impact of AI on search behavior, the importance of understanding traffic quality versus volume, and how to diagnose traffic issues using Google Search Console. Glynis also explains the need for a solid technical SEO strategy and the role of high-quality content in maintaining visibility and conversions.
Top rankings don’t guarantee clicks if AI answers show up first.
Lower traffic is not always bad as it could mean better-qualified visitors.
Use Google Search Console to identify what’s causing the drop.
Replatforming without redirects can negatively affect SEO.
Technical issues like slow speed and duplicates hurt rankings.
Find out if the drop is seasonal, sudden, or gradual to fix it right.
Blogs still build authority and feed AI content.
Helpful, specific content keeps you visible in search.
SEO audits catch hidden issues that impact website traffic.
Prioritize conversions over traffic volume.
Themes
Why don’t top positions guarantee higher traffic anymore?
You can still hold top positions in Google and see traffic decline. That’s because the search landscape has changed. AI-powered tools like Google’s AI Overviews now answer user questions directly on the results page, leaving fewer reasons for people to click through to your site. It’s not about dropping off page one—it’s about how people find and consume information. If you’re seeing fewer visits but stable rankings, AI could be the reason.
What do fashion brands need to know about traffic quality vs. traffic volume?
It’s easy to fixate on shrinking traffic numbers, but volume alone doesn’t tell the full story. The real question is: who’s visiting your site and are they ready to buy? A drop in overall sessions could be filtering out low-intent visitors, leaving behind more qualified shoppers. Brands that create content addressing specific pain points often attract fewer—but more targeted—visitors who are closer to making a purchase. Understanding this shift helps you focus on conversions, not just clicks.
How can you diagnose website traffic drops using Google Search Console?
One of the most valuable (and underused) tools for troubleshooting traffic loss is Google Search Console. Start by comparing clicks, impressions, and average position over different time ranges. Then dive into specific pages and search queries that are losing visibility. Look for patterns: is traffic down across the board, or isolated to a few key URLs? Is it linked to mobile usability issues, indexing errors, or slower site speed? These clues can point to whether the issue is content-related, technical, or algorithmic.
Why could replatforming or redesigning your site lower your visibility?
Switching platforms, especially moving from Shopify to a headless build can trigger unexpected traffic losses if not managed carefully. Changes to your URL structure, page hierarchy, or internal links can confuse search engines and wipe out your historical rankings. Without proper redirect mapping and pre-launch planning, even a beautiful new site can lose months (or years) of SEO value. Before migrating, brands need a clear redirect strategy and a site audit checklist to avoid preventable setbacks.
What are common technical SEO issues that hurt fashion e-commerce sites?
Slow load times, missing canonical tags, duplicate content, and crawlability problems are some of the most common issues holding back performance. Left unchecked, these problems quietly chip away at your search visibility and user experience. A technical SEO audit—run through tools like Semrush or Search Console—can help you catch and prioritize fixes based on severity and impact. Even a few improvements can make a measurable difference in how your site performs in both human and AI-driven search.
Why aren’t all traffic drops created equal?
Understanding the type of traffic drop you’re seeing is the first step toward fixing it. A sudden, sharp drop may signal a Google algorithm update. A gradual decline might point to technical issues or a recent redesign. If traffic fluctuates seasonally, it could just be tied to buyer behavior. And sometimes, it’s simply a reporting glitch. Distinguishing the cause helps you respond with the right solution, instead of making blind guesses or panicking unnecessarily.
Why does a blog strategy still matter in the age of AI search?
AI-generated answers are pulling information from the best content available—and your blog could be one of those sources. High-quality blog posts still play a strong role in attracting traffic, building trust, and training AI tools to recognize your site as authoritative. To stay visible, your content needs to be helpful, specific, and written with both humans and search engines in mind. Blog posts that solve real problems, showcase your expertise, and reflect your brand voice can still drive meaningful results in an AI-first world.
Chapters
00:00 Understanding Traffic Declines in E-commerce
06:31 The Impact of AI on Search and Traffic
11:27 Diagnosing Traffic Issues with Google Search Console
16:30 Technical SEO and Content Strategy for Recovery
Transcript
Glynis Tao
Why your website traffic is dropping and what to do about it. Here's a candid breakdown of the most common reasons fashion e-commerce websites are losing traffic in 2025 and how to fix them. In this episode, we are going to cover the impact of AI overviews on organic search, technical SEO red flags to watch out for, how to spot issues using Google Search Console, when to run a full technical SEO audit, and quick wins and long-term strategies for recovery. So let's get started.
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Your organic and direct traffic is down, but your site looks fine. Your rankings seem stable and your team is out of ideas. Sound familiar? In this episode, I will break down the real reasons your traffic might be dropping in 2025 and what you can do to fix it. From the growing impact of AI power search to overlooked technical SEO issues, I will share a practical action-oriented guide to help you recover visibility and conversions.
Whether you're a DTC brand or shifting into wholesale, this episode will give you the tools to diagnose the problem and move forward with clarity.
Hi, I'm Glynis. I'm the founder and CEO of Chase Your Dreams Consulting, which is an apparel business consulting and online marketing agency that specializes in SEO and AI search optimization for e-commerce companies. I help fashion, beauty, and lifestyle e-commerce brands create optimized content and attract potential customers through organic search results.
In this episode, you will learn why website traffic can drop even when your site looks healthy, the hidden impact of Google's AI overviews and declining click-through rates, what to look for in Google Search Console, the five most important technical SEO issues on Shopify and headless builds, why blog content still matters and how to make it work for AI SEO.
So let's just talk about the difference between traffic volume and traffic quality. I recently had a conversation with a potential client that runs an e-commerce website saying that they had seen a consistent decline in the website organic and direct traffic over the course of six to seven months and they weren't sure what was going on with it and came to me for help and try and hoping to find a solution to solve the problem to understand what is causing this decline in their organic and direct traffic to their website.
And so to be able to understand what the difference is between your traffic volume and traffic quality, the difference is that you know, traffic volume could be, you may be getting a lot of volume to your website, but perhaps they're not necessarily all converting or turning into sales, right? Because the quality of the traffic. So in the case where today we are seeing a lot more searches happening on other platforms, CI search platforms such as AI overviews or chat GPT, Claude or Perplexity. People are asking questions, looking for answers and typing in questions into their searches. So it's not just the way that search is changing, the way that people are asking questions on search engines.
So in the past where people were using more keywords, they're typing into search engines and then they would get a result on search engine results pages. And then that will require the user to go and click on the blue link that takes them to the website page to find their answer. And they may be looking, but if they don't find their answer, then they would have to go down the list and maybe go to the next website and go read through that. And they keep doing that until they find their answer.
But now with AI overviews and AI search engines, they are providing the answers directly right in the search area so that the people don't need to click to go to the website anymore. They are getting their answers directly in Google. So in the case of AI Overviews, they're typing in the questions and AI Overviews is giving them the answers and doesn't even require them to click on the link to go to the website anymore to get their answers. So Google and other search engines are now focusing on specific keywords, but it's generating answers where the users can get the answers to the questions directly right there.
This could be one of the reasons for the drop in organic traffic because there's less clicks happening across the board. And so you may be seeing perhaps lower volume of traffic, but perhaps maybe your sales have remained the same or perhaps even increased because it's probably due to the quality of the traffic that is going to your website through these searches. Because now the type of questions that people are asking and looking for a solution to, they happen to know your website is creating this quality content that directly addresses your customers' pain points and challenges, then that's a way for them to discover you. And it could be coming through any of these search platforms. And the better you're able to address your customers' problems, pain points and challenges, the better you're able to help them solve this problem. Then you have a better likelihood of converting this client or customer with your product or service.
So, think about it just in terms of, perhaps, you know, volume of traffic has gone down, but has your quality of traffic, you know, remained or have improved or increased over time, right? This is now a different way of looking at things. In the past, we were looking at traffic volume and how much volume we're getting. Think about how much you think of it now in terms of the quality of traffic that you're getting. If somebody is typing in a question and looking for an answer to a particular problem, they're probably, you know, really further along in their purchasing journey. And if your website, your product or service is able to solve this person's problem, then you have a better likelihood of converting them. Nowadays, it's not just the amount of traffic that you're getting, but also the quality of traffic that you're getting because of the way that search landscape is changing.
And so let's talk about how AI search is causing fewer clicks, even when rankings are stable. So this goes back to what I'm saying previously about, you know, increasing the quality of your content. So I have a previous episode that I talk about blogging and how blogging builds brand trust and boost sales. And you can listen to that episode.
AI search is causing fewer clicks. In some instances, some websites have seen up to 25% drop in clicks and traffic and overall traffic. So you got to be able to measure this and see like how much of your, how much is your search traffic being impacted and think about, you know, what is the content that you are creating on your website now, because now it's really more important than ever, but this could also be a reason why you are seeing a decrease or decline in your organic traffic, okay? Because AI search itself, AI search engines are providing you with the answer without having the user to click on a website directly, okay? So that could be explaining the reason for you're seeing a drop.
But in the case of this potential client who came to me who experienced a decline in their direct and organic traffic, they couldn't figure out why and what was going on. And one of the questions I asked them was, have you re-platformed or redesigned your website? And they had to mention that, yes, they changed from Shopify to a headless website. So in this instance, the decline could be explained by change in website structure and URLs. And I actually have another episode where I talk about how to prepare and plan for website redesign. And so there are steps that you need to do in order to prevent potential loss in organic traffic prior to migrating your site, okay, over to a new platform. And so you want to make sure that you have several things in place beforehand. You want to be able to map out your website. You want to identify which pages have the most organic traffic and you want to be able to preserve that traffic.
Map out your website pages, URLs before you move over to the new website. And once you have the new website and you launch, you want to make sure that you have proper redirects in place as well so that you don't lose traffic over time. That's very important. And so in this case, this had to do with a change in website structure.
So there are ways to check for traffic declines using Google Search Console. And I will walk you through that. So what you can do is you can use the performance report and compare current data with past periods. So you want to look for significant drops in clicks, impressions, and average position. Then investigate specific pages and queries to identify the source of the decline.
So I'm going to give you a more detailed breakdown step by step on how to do this. First, you want to access your performance report in Google Search Console. You select your property and then click on performance in the left-hand menu. By default, the report will show you data for the last three months. So you want to set your date range and compare previous periods. So you can click on a date range filter and select a custom range. For example, you can compare the last three months with the three months before that. So you can compare, you know, the last three months to the previous three months. And just by selecting your date range. Next, you can, you want to analyze the data. So you want to focus on clicks, impressions, and average click through rate and average position.
So look for significant drops in these metrics. Then you want to click on pages to see which pages have experienced decline in traffic. And then you're going to click on queries to see which search queries have seen a drop in clicks.
Then you want to investigate this further. To investigate this further, if you see a drop in clicks for a specific page, then investigate that page's content structure and SEO. If you see a drop in clicks for a specific query, you search why that query might be performing worse. Check the Google Search Console coverage report to see if any pages have indexing issues. And you can review the Google Search Console mobile usability report for any mobile related issues.
Lastly, we'll go through the debugging stage, okay? And so if you're unsure why the traffic dropped, you want to try to narrow down the affected pages or queries. Compare the drop period with a similar period to identify the source. See if the drop affects one page, a few pages, or it's site-wide. Look for direct errors in the coverage report and check for Core Web Vitals issues in the Core Web Vitals report. By following these steps, you can effectively use Google Search Console to identify and diagnose traffic declines on your website. And also, Google has a very helpful debugging Google traffic search traffic drops page on their site. This talks about, you know, a drop in organic search traffic can happen for several reasons. And it may not be straightforward to understand what exactly happened to your site. So you want to just go through the steps and be able to identify, investigate the reasons for the drop in search traffic. And then you can come up with a plan on how to address it. But there are four main causes for drops in organic traffic. And I'm just going to explain and walk you through what these are right now.
Okay. So if you see a sudden drop in website traffic, that could be due, that's a sudden large drop that's site-wide, that could be from an algorithm update. So that's usually if you see a sudden drop in your traffic, because Google is always improving and how it's assessing content and updating its search ranking and serving algorithms accordingly. And so they are making so many updates nowadays, you know, like they've made thousands of updates, algorithm updates over the past year. And so that's why you want to take a look and see how drastic is the drop. Another thing that could be causing a drop would be say seasonality. And so if you're seeing kind of more, you know, up and down, activity that could just be due to seasonality. If your products are seasonal, you're selling seasonal products, then you kind of see a lot more of that up and down kind of activity.
And another issue that you could be seeing is the, in the case of this potential client who I was talking to, saying that they were seeing a gradual decline. This to me, would be more of an indication of technical issue, which in my case, I was saying probably due to site structure change in which they, know, previous pages that were ranking had changed in the URLs and they may not have done the proper redirects. So they're sort of starting to see that gradual decline in traffic. Okay, so then you want to take a look at and do a technical SEO audit in this case.
And the last issue could be due to a glitch or recording glitch and that could just be something like your traffic could take a dip, but then it returns back to normal levels. So you have your website traffic and then you sort of see this slight dip, but it eventually returns back to normal. So hopefully it stays that way. And so in that case, you know, maybe you had some broken links in your site. So these are some technical things that you really want to take a look at and assess the situation.
Okay. And just to talk a little bit about technical SEO, I'm going to actually create another episode that talks about the five most common technical SEO issues that I've seen in Shopify and what they are, what the issue is, why it is important, and how to fix it. Technical issues can take form in, page speed, load times in canonical tags, duplication errors, and that sort of thing. And so in the case of this potential client person who I was talking about, I really recommended that they do a technical SEO audit and you can do that in Semrush. And what that does is it checks your site and makes sure that there aren't any crawlability issues that may affect your site's ability to be indexed, probability and indexing issues.
And also if there's any duplicate content or duplicate title tags, meta description, it'll tell you, you know, what are the major issues and errors that will need to be addressed immediately, what priorities, what things would need to be fixed first in order to get your site health in a way that it performs properly. And so that's what I think an SEO audit is important to do so that you're able to diagnose the problem, right? And know exactly what needs to be done to start fixing that and start to regain and repair and, you know, restore that website traffic that they were previously getting. So that was pretty much my recommendation to them.
The last thing I want to talk about, and this was another recommendation that I had mentioned, was how I always encourage all my clients to have a blog strategy. And why this is important is because in today's world of AI search engines, the search landscape is changing, right? So, I mean, traditional SEO still works and is still around and still important, but it's building on that layer that's for AI search. So AI search engines like AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, all those, which I had mentioned earlier, could be causing clicks to go down and overall traffic to decline. I actually recorded a previous episode that talks about how blogging builds brand trust and boosts sales, which I encourage you to have a listen to because I think it's important.
And I still encourage all my clients to use the strategy of blog creation, but you're not just creating content for the sake of content. You’ve got to make sure that you're creating content that, you know, it's high quality, that's written by people, for people, that also helps address the common problems and pain points. But not only does the blog do that, but it also helps you establish your expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness as well, which is a huge factor for search engines and AI search in deciding whether or not they will rank your content or not. And so these are the things that you need to start thinking about in terms of how you're going to adapt and the type of content that you are going to be creating.
And I will be talking more and creating more content in the future about AI search, generative AI, AI optimization, GEO, LLMO, all sorts of things like that because I've been having so many conversations lately and people reaching out to me asking me questions about how to optimize for AI search and is SEO still relevant?
So please stay tuned. I will be creating more content and more future podcast episodes around these topics. And I'd love it if you can let me know if there's anything you'd like to learn more about.
Please send me your questions or any ideas, topics that you would like to hear more about. And I'd love to create those for you. So thank you so much for tuning in today. And I hope you found this episode to be helpful. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day.
In this conversation, Christine Daal, CEO and founder of Fashion Angel Warrior, shares her journey from fashion designer to coach, emphasizing the importance of confidence, community, and a holistic approach in fashion entrepreneurship. She discusses her unique coaching methods, common mistakes made by fashion entrepreneurs, and the significance of adapting to industry changes. Christine highlights success stories from her clients, showcasing the impact of her coaching on their businesses. She also addresses the future of fashion, including the need to develop more workers for local apparel manufacturing and improving sustainability to keep up with global standards and consumer demands.
About Christine Daal
Christine Daal is the CEO and founder of the fashion consulting and marketing agency, Fashion Angel Warrior. Her experience spans over 20 years in the industry, reaching the position of VP of design and merchandising by the age of 30, and then starting her own successful fashion line. For the past 10 years, she has coached fashionpreneurs on how to leave their nine to five and have a profitable business. Through one-on-one coaching, group coaching masterminds, fractional CMO services, online courses, retreats, manufacturing tours, and digital marketing services, Fashion Angel Warrior has become a one-stop shop for e-commerce brands.
Confidence plays a direct role in building a successful brand.
A holistic approach blends mindset, lifestyle, and business strategy.
Build your audience and email list before launching any product.
Don’t invest in inventory without first validating demand.
Track key metrics like traffic, email list, and average order value.
Choose coaches and service providers based on results, not hype.
Know your budget and revisit it before making major decisions.
Successful founders outsource strategically and focus on what they do best.
Community support is essential for long-term growth and resilience.
Sustainability and adaptability are no longer optional, but are expected.
Moms can build legacy brands that create freedom, income, and impact.
Interview themes
What are common mistakes that fashion startups make, and how can they be avoided?
Christine Daal has seen too many early-stage brands go under—not for lack of passion, but because they spent their budgets in the wrong places or worked with the wrong people. Common mistakes include hiring the wrong agency, underestimating the power of community, and trying to do everything solo. Her biggest red flag? Founders investing tens of thousands in inventory before building demand. Christine’s first step with every client is to review their budget honestly and plan strategically. “Compliments don’t make you money,” she says. “Results do.”
How can you launch a fashion brand with no product?
Through her “no product fashion line method,” Christine teaches clients to flip the traditional launch model. Instead of designing and producing inventory first, brands build community—an audience and grow their email list before they release their first item. Some clients have ranked in the top 20% of Shopify stores for traffic the week they launched with no product on hand. The approach reduces financial risk and creates demand before production, setting up founders for stronger sales and sustainable growth.
What do successful founders have in common?
Christine’s most successful clients are committed, coachable, and clear on their strengths. Many are moms working late nights or early mornings, multitasking between life and business—but always willing to do what it takes. They don’t try to master every skill themselves. Instead, they focus on what they do best—like designing—and outsource the rest, whether it's accounting, analytics, or ads. They also tend to prioritize health, organization, and mindset—understanding that how you care for yourself affects how you lead.
How does confidence affect business outcomes?
Christine takes a holistic approach to coaching—blending business strategy with mental wellness and confidence-building. She’s helped clients unlock major growth just by helping them feel empowered to make decisions: hiring a seamstress, collaborating with a designer, or pitching to a store. When founders feel confident, they take bolder actions—and those decisions directly impact their bottom line. For Christine, mindset isn’t a side note. It’s a growth driver.
A client case study: from unprofitable to multi-7 figures
One of Christine’s long-time clients was generating $500K in sales—but spending $600K to get there. Together, they cut $100K in operating expenses and doubled the brand’s online revenue. The result? Profitability for the first time, and a six-figure month shortly after. Over the next few years, Christine helped him scale to 7 figures, overhaul his email strategy (growing email revenue from $2.5K to $10K per campaign), and increase site conversion rates to nearly 4%. He even let go of two other coaches and chose to keep Christine. “That was the ultimate compliment,” she says.
Where does Christine start when a founder says, “I need more sales”?
Christine starts by getting straight to the numbers: website traffic, email list size, social media following, and average order value. With just those four data points, she can calculate revenue potential and uncover what’s holding a brand back. She also helps founders shift from gut-based decisions to data-informed ones. Whether it’s pricing, product design, or inventory planning—every decision should be tied to a measurable stat. “Show me the numbers,” she says. “That’s how you grow.”
What should brands focus on as the industry changes?
Christine believes fashion entrepreneurs must evolve alongside the industry. That means shifting to community-first marketing, adapting manufacturing models (especially as tariffs and labor shortages rise), and taking sustainability seriously. Whether it’s building private feedback groups or learning to sew as a backup skill, Christine urges founders to stay flexible, use tech tools wisely, and listen to their customers early and often. The future belongs to brands that can pivot—and care.
Why does Christine love working with moms founders?
Christine lights up when working with women who are building something meaningful for themselves and their families. As a mom of two, she understands the juggle—and the deep motivation behind legacy-building. She sees business as more than income. It’s about empowerment, freedom, and impact. Helping a mom go from idea to income, or showing her child what’s possible through entrepreneurship, is what Christine finds most rewarding. “You’re not just growing a brand,” she says. “You’re changing your family’s future.”
Chapters
00:00 Building Confidence in Fashion Entrepreneurship
02:41 The Journey of Fashion Angel Warrior
05:51 Holistic Coaching Approach
08:43 Signature Coaching and Marketing Framework
11:38 Common Mistakes of Fashion Entrepreneurs
14:46 The Importance of Community
17:23 Full Spectrum Solutions for Fashion Brands
20:25 Client Success Stories
23:20 Growth Metrics and Revenue Increases
26:30 Mindset and Habits of Successful Clients
29:19 Navigating Online Sales Growth
32:12 Adapting to Industry Changes
35:16 The Future of Fashion: Trends and Sustainability
38:16 Empowering Female Founders
41:07 Advice for Fashion Entrepreneurs
44:06 Upcoming Programs and Promotions
47:02 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
Transcript
Christine Daal
We've had a lot of different success stories. Even just aside from e-commerce, going back to the confidence side, again, because I'm so holistic and I like to look at your mental health and your mindset and confidence and all this different stuff, even on the confidence side, we had a brand that she finally felt the confidence to start hiring more seamstresses and expanding her team. And then that allowed her to now take on more orders because she was turning away business because she wasn't able to fulfill orders, but she didn't have the confidence to think that she could actually hire a good seamstress. So even just having a confidence increase, right, can affect the remainder of your business.
We had another client who was literally part of our Soar Mastermind program, she connected with another designer. She didn't feel confident in her own design capabilities, believe it or not. So she wasn't really a designer by heart, but just wanted to start this business for other reasons. And so she connected with another designer, hired that designer to be her designer and now she felt like, now I have actually really good designs, which then gave her the confidence to start reaching out to stores, which then she got her first wholesale order. So even just having that boost in confidence can really help your bottom line, which people don't think about or want to talk about maybe, but it does affect the bottom line of your business. So that's also been amazing to see, just people's confidence go up.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Christine Daal is the CEO and founder of the fashion consulting and marketing agency, Fashion Angel Warrior. Her experience spans over 20 years in the industry, reaching the position of VP of design and merchandising by the age of 30, and then starting her own successful fashion line. For the past 10 years, she has coached fashion printers on how to leave their nine to five and have a profitable business. Through one-on-one coaching, group coaching masterminds, fractional CMO services, online courses, retreats, manufacturing tours, and digital marketing services, Fashion Angel Warrior has become a one-stop shop for e-commerce brands.
Welcome, Christine. It's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Christine Daal
Hi, Glynis, it's so nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Glynis Tao
You've had an incredible journey from fashion designer to coach and agency founder. What inspired you to start Fashion Angel Warrior? Was there a gap you noticed in the market?
Yeah, so I think that first of all, I felt called to do this probably because of two main things. I've always loved fashion and I've always loved helping people. And so I kind of just put them together, right? And that's how I started the coaching side of the business. But at the same time, I really saw a need and a gap in the market and I saw a lot of injustice happening. So when I had my successful fashion line, I experienced with one of my manufacturers, they actually tried to take advantage of me.
And this was, you know, at the time I had already 12 years of experience in the fashion industry. I wasn't a newbie. I kind of knew what I was doing. And so it just became really apparent to me right out of the gate that if these newbie designers don't have someone in their corner kind of fighting for them and helping them, who's going to help them navigate this, right? And avoid having these manufacturers take advantage of them. So I had a personal experience, right? That kind of shaped my desire to start the business.
And then just the industry itself, for those who have been in it, kind of know it's very secretive, it's very competitive. There's a lot of this whole devil wears Prada nonsense going on where people are really just pushing each other down to get ahead, right, to make themselves feel better. And I just don't agree with any of that. And so I wanted to do the opposite. I was like, can I be the angel who wears Prada? Can I be the one lifting people up because there's way too many people, you know, pushing people down.
And so when I started my business almost 10 years ago now, I was like, okay, we need to have the vision that people are serving one another and helping each other and collaborating instead of competing. That's like one of our core visions and values, right? And so I always say for the fashion industry to survive, it can't be survival of the fittest, right? We all need to really work together. That's really what drove me to start Fashion Angel Warrior.
Glynis Tao
Okay, that sounds great. Okay, and like, I was also curious about the name and it sounds like now it makes sense. You are the angel versus the devil who wears Prada.
Christine Daal
Yes, yes, yes, that was part of it, yes.
Glynis Tao
I love it. Your mission is to help fashion printers turn their passion into profit. What does that transformation usually look like for your clients?
Christina Daal
So the transformation can look like a lot of different things. I always tell people my coaching approach is really always two things, holistic and customized. So I believe in looking at the whole person, not just your business model, right? So what are your values? What are your interests? What are your goals? What are your strengths, your weaknesses, your budget? That really takes a huge factor, right? If you come to me and say, have a $5,000 budget versus a $200,000 budget, my advice is gonna be very different, right?
Even your lifestyle, if you're a working mom, if you just got divorced, you know, all of these different things, I like to incorporate into my coaching approach and strategy. So I like to say I go beyond the typical business strategies and I really like to incorporate your soul, body and spirit into everything that we do. Right? So I always say mental health and confidence are just as important as having a marketing plan, for instance.
And so I also like to take a very long-term approach. So yes, I can teach you what's popular right now on Instagram, right? But let's look down the road. Do you want to be doing Instagram in two years, in three years? Is this really sustainable for what you're doing, where you're at with your life, your lifestyle, your preferences, right? Or do you need something else that's more evergreen? That's not going to be, I have to post every single day and show up and that sort of thing. So, that's kind of my approach to coaching and the transformation can be anything. I mean, I've seen people go from a confidence level of two to a confidence level of seven. I've seen people go from zero to a million dollars in sales in their very first year, which is crazy, crazy success. And then everything in between, right? So the transformation really spans the gamut.
Glynis Tao
Okay, so we're going to go deeper into your coaching approach and some client success stories, but just want to ask you, how has your background in both corporate fashion and entrepreneurship shaped your coaching approach and how do your services differ from traditional marketing firms or generic business coaches?
Christine Daal
Yeah. So I think having a background in both corporate and entrepreneurship has really helped to make me a well-rounded coach. I have a very broad understanding of different levels, of different avenues, and things that brands can explore. And so it helps me to understand, for instance, common mistakes that a brand might make. For instance, typically if you've worked in corporate fashion, you are going to start your fashion line thinking, well, I can just do what the company that I just worked for did, which maybe they sold, you know, 10,000 unit dress orders, right, on a daily basis and so their margins were maybe only 11% versus you, you're now a startup business, you can't have an 11% margin. You're not selling 10,000 unit orders. You're maybe selling two or three or five or 10, right? And so you really need to have that minimum, what I always say, 65 to 70% margin, which sounds really high if you're used to coming from a corporate background, right?
That's, I think, kind of what helps to make me a little bit more well-rounded and trying to be able to look out for those typical mistakes, common mistakes that people might make coming maybe from a corporate background or something like that. I also like to make sure that everything that I do is customized, right? I don't want to give you advice that's cookie-cutter. We have an amazing program. It's our Soar Mastermind group coaching program where we have eight different brands and I work with them for six months straight.
During that program, I create a marketing plan for each member. And so it's crazy to me because each marketing plan will look very, very different. One brand, I might tell them, hey, I think you should be doing PR. And the other one, I might tell them, I don't think you should waste any money. Please do not do any PR, right? So it just kind of depends on what the brand is, again, what their goals are, and what they really want to achieve.
Glynis Tao
And what types of fashion brands do you typically work with?
Christina Daal
I work with all different types of products, even non-fashion products. Everyone is like, well, I'm doing a medical product or I had a lady that was creating covers for dentist chairs, right? So things that are not even a typical fashion product, if you're making any kind of sewn product or even a non-sewn product, I mean, we've had people that were just starting like a stationary business or candle business, right? It's not anything to do with fashion or apparel, but it's a product that they're making, right? And now they want to sell it primarily online, but also wholesale.
So the majority of our customers would say 99% of them all want to sell e-commerce. And then I would say at least 50% of them want to do wholesale business as well. And so we work with both startups, meaning you have nothing, maybe just an idea, all the way to brands that are already doing six and seven figures and helping them scale from there.
Glynis Tao
So we're going to move into your coaching approach and services. Can you walk us through your signature coaching or marketing framework and what does that client journey look like?
Christine Daal
Yes. So let's talk about the signature coaching method first. We have a method that we've developed, what I like to call the no product fashion line method. And so basically we'll teach you how to start building your audience before you even have a product. Everyone seems to want to do it the reverse. They focus on building the product and building the website and then they launch and they hear crickets and they wonder why. And I'm like, that's because you didn't focus on the marketing.
And so we'll teach you how to drive traffic to your website, build your email list, grow your social media following all before you even have a product. And literally we have clients that are launching their Shopify stores in the top 17 to 23% of all Shopify stores ranked for traffic the same week that they launch because they're following our system and they literally have no product. So they're launching without any product and they're still beating out the other 90% of stores on Shopify. So it's really amazing to see that it does work and I can see that you're laughing Glynis because you know this is how all these brands are right?
Glynis Tao
I know that's way most typically how most brands do it right? Yeah, and I just yeah, that's what I love about you and how you know you have no product launch process, right? Yeah, I've seen brands make that mistake all the time. They like invest in so much inventory before they've even validated their business idea
Christine Daal
Yeah. I cringe every time I see it happen. So I always tell people like, do it, give yourself at least six to nine months, if not a year, to really build up that traffic before you launch. And trust me, once you have customers dying to get what it is that you want, you're going to be in such a better position than if you didn't do it that way and you did it the reverse. And so if you want to learn more about our no product fashion line method, at the end, I'll tell everyone how to get a free video training that explains it in detail. So that's kind of our signature coaching method.
On the marketing agency side, again, our signature framework, I would say, is just being holistic, right? When it comes to digital marketing, I like to say that it all works together, right? Kind of like trying to lose weight. If you went to the gym, but then you ate pizza and chicken wings and hot dogs and all this horrible junk food all the time, right? You're probably not gonna lose as much weight just by going to the gym. But if you ate right, if you got good sleep, if you weren't so stressed out, right? All these other things, they all kind of work together for the whole, right?
So my approach to digital marketing is that same thing. I want to see everyone, if possible, do as many things as they can. Social media, email, SMS, blog writing, SEO, live shopping, paid ads, PR celebs, influencers, UGC. Let's do it all if we can, if we have the time and budget resources. If not, then we can at least pare down and see what's going to be the best strategies for your brand, at least in the beginning, until we can see what works. Because again, what works for one brand may not work for another brand for various different reasons. And so that's kind of my marketing approach when it comes on the marketing agency side.
Glynis Tao
That really makes sense to take that tailored approach because not all businesses are the same. What are some common mistakes that you see fashion entrepreneurs making when they first come to you?
Christine Daal
Yes. I have seen so many mistakes. I've seen people waste so much money, like tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And unfortunately, sometimes they come to me and it's too late because now they're out of money, right? So hopefully you haven't made a lot of those monetary mistakes and we can really help you. But I would say if I had to narrow down maybe the top three mistakes, I would say the first one is they waste a lot of time and money on the wrong coach or the wrong agency, right?
So I always say try to work with a coach who actually gets you results. Compliments are nice. We get compliments all the time. Christine, your webinar was so informative, or I really liked how you strategically laid it all out. Those are really nice things, but compliments don't make you money. Results make you money right at the end of the day. So make sure you're working with a coach that actually gets results. Make sure you're also working with a coach who has the experience of where you want to go. So did they have their own line?
Did they work in the industry? Different things like that, right? And then just watch out who you're taking advice from to make sure that they're not biased, right? There's a lot of people who maybe they started out as a manufacturer and now they offer coaching on the side. Well, their main business is manufacturing, right? So when you come to them and you say, have $50,000 to start a fashion line, they're going to easily tell you, well, great, spend $40,000 on manufacturing, right?
They know they can suck you into that versus spend $40,000 on coaching or something like that. So because we're a one-stop shop, I think it's really easy for me to not be biased. And that's one of the reasons primarily that we offer so many services because I want to make sure I can give you that unbiased opinion. I can tell people, hey, I don't think you really need one-on-one coaching. Maybe you need to put your money into influencer marketing, or maybe you need to put your money into social media, or whatever it is because we now offer all of these services. So that's, think, the first number one mistake.
Second one is, I think, undervaluing community. So yes, having a coach is great, but a coach is one person. If I have a community of other fashion brands that are all on the same level or even a greater level than I am, right, I now have multiple people's advice that I can now take in versus just one person's advice, right? Because I'm only one person. I only have one experience, one background, one set of perspectives, right? But now I have 10 people's perspectives. So it's so great to be in a community. Can bounce ideas off each other. You can get feedback on designs. You can see what marketing methods are working for one versus the other. You can do co-branded giveaways and shoutouts. It's literally a game changer. So see any way you can be part of a community. Everything that we do, all of our programs all have a community aspect and that's why.
And then the third mistake I would say is trying to do everything yourself. I think people in the beginning, they want to save money, maybe they don't have a huge budget and they're like, I'll just do everything myself. And I found after working with probably close to over a thousand brands at this point that sometimes it's better if we just handle some of the things for you, right? And so that's why we wanted to become a full service marketing agency because sure, I can teach you what to do on Instagram, but if you don't have the mindset for it, if you don't have the time for it, it's sometimes easier and faster for me to just do it for you, right? I have a team, they have our system in place, they know what to do. It's just 10 times easier for us to kind of handle some of that stuff and for you to focus on what you do best, which nine out 10 times is usually the creative side, right?
Definitely try not to do everything yourself.
Glynis Tao
I think that's really great advice. Just to recap the three things that you said, the three comments that you see are like, first one is they're spending way too much money, maybe on the wrong thing. Secondly, not having a community of supporters behind them. And then thirdly is that they're trying to do everything themselves.
Christine Daal
Yeah, definitely.
Glynis Tao
And so you also offer production and design services and marketing. Like, why do you choose to provide such a full spectrum solution? And you sort of had already talked about this, but just maybe if you want to elaborate.
Christina Daal
So again, we like to say that we're a one-stop shop, and it's so that we can remain unbiased. I want to make sure that when you come to me, you are spending your money in the right places, because as we just discussed, not having enough money, or I should say running out of money, is the number one thing that I see all the time that prevents brands from succeeding.
So I want to make sure, and that's why every client I work with, whether you're a one-on-one client or you take one of our online programs, the very first step is budget. Like we need to talk about what is a realistic budget for you. Look at your bank account, right? If you have someone helping you, your parents, your husband, this, that, whatever, right? How much are they really realistically looking to put in, right? You're taking money from your job. What on a monthly basis can you contribute, right? And where do you need to be to walk away from your job? Because nine out 10 times, most of the people do have a full-time job and their goal is to eventually walk away. And so people think, oh, well, you know, I make $100,000 in my job, so I just need to make $100,000 in my business. Well, that's actually not true because you need to make yourself a salary of $100,000. If your business made $100,000, you're not taking a salary of all that money, right? That's the gross, not the net. So we really need to see how much does the business really need to produce, right, in order to pay yourself that salary.
And so, yeah, it's just the number one reason is so that we can remain unbiased. And I've just found so many other marketing agencies and companies that just all they care about is their own bottom line. They don't really care about helping other people. And so they'll steer you in the wrong direction. They'll, you know, show stats that are a little bit tweaked, you know, to make it look like everything's going really great. Meanwhile, that's not really what's happening in the back end.
And I'll be clear that we don't do everything in-house. So we do partner with some other marketing agencies or service providers like yourself, Glynis, right? We partner with you for SEO because I know if I have a resource that's the best in the business, I'm just going to go to that person. Why would I start my own SEO service when I already know Glynis is the person for SEO? I'm going to send everybody to her.
Right? So we don't do everything in house. I would say probably 70% we do in house and then the other 30% we outsource to other agencies and other providers like yourself. But a lot of it we do in house because it's the control factor too. I like to make sure that my clients are well taken care of and they're treated well and everything is going to go smoothly.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, because at the end of the day, it's all your reputation that's on the line. Right? That comes back to your name, your brand, your business, and even it matters to which referral partners that you work with as well. Cause you want to make sure that they will deliver and stand behind, you know, your brand's name and quality. So that's what I really love about you. then
Christine Daal
Exactly.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, the fact that you have an unbiased view and you're really looking out for the best interests of the client and what's best for them.
Christina Daal
Yes, because at the end of the day, if they succeed, I succeed, right? If you do good, you only make me look better. If you don't do good, I'm not going to look so good, right? So it's kind of I'm shooting myself in the foot, if you don't succeed. So it is in my best interest to help you succeed as much as possible.
Glynis Tao
So let's talk about some of these clients' success stories. Let's dive into one of your client case studies. Can you share a case study that you're especially proud of? And can you tell us about a brand you helped, where they were before and what changed after working with you?
Christina Daal
Yes, absolutely. So one of my favorite case studies is a long-time client of mine. I started working with him back in 2019 and at the time he was making $500,000 in sales, so pretty good. But the problem was he had $600,000 in expenses. So he was in the red, right? He was not profitable. And so the first thing I wanted to do was we got to make you profitable like before we even tried to increase your sales. So we reduced a lot of his operating expenses literally by $100,000 working together. And then at the same time, we actually were able to double his online sales. So he was doing wholesale and online at the time. So we doubled his online sales. And then that essentially put him in the black, which was amazing. And he was profitable for the first time he ever was in his business.
Even better was one month after finishing working together, he had a six figure month, which was his highest earning month that he ever had, you know, after implementing all the strategies that we taught him. And so we've been working together off and on over the years back in like 2020, 2022, we did a lot of digital marketing services for him. We helped him really grow his IG. I think his IG is up to like 14,000 now.
And then in 2023, he hit seven figures, excuse me, and we started working together again because he had hired an outside marketing agency and he wasn't happy with them. So he came back to us. We started doing more digital marketing for him and literally his site conversion rate was at a 1.3. It went to 3.96, so almost four, which is incredible because average site conversions are really only one to 3%. His abandoned cart rate dropped. He was at 65%. It went to 47%.
His AOV increased, his repeat customer rate increased, and his sales were up by 127%. So again, more than double. And that literally was all within four months of just doing a little bit of coaching and some of our digital marketing services. So that was really, really amazing to see that transformation, right? Here was a customer, had a horrible experience with another marketing agency. We came in, we took over, right? And the numbers just drastically changed.
But I think the best part, the cherry on top, was that in the beginning of 2024, he had hired three coaches, so myself included plus two other coaches. And we were all kind of a little bit overlapped but a little bit different backgrounds and experiences, right? Don't ask me why he hired all three of us, but that's what he wanted to do. And by the end of 2024, I was the only coach left, meaning he had fired the other two. And I took that as a really big compliment.
Because for someone to say, you know, I had three and now Christine's the only one left, right? I was like, that has got to be the highest, you know, praise and testimony that I've ever received from anyone. So I was super, super proud of that and just awesome. I love working with him. I love seeing the transformation. We're still working together until this day, six years later, right? And it's just been amazing to see his business grow the way that it has.
Glynis Tao
Oh, that sounds amazing. I love that story. Do I know this client?
Christine Daal
Yes. You were part of that success.
Glynis Tao
I feel so good. Yeah, that client was great to work with.
Christine Daal
Yes, yes, he's amazing.
Glynis Tao
And he really takes the recommendations that you give seriously and you know, will do all the things.
Christine Daal
He's coachable. He's coachable and willing to learn.
Glynis Tao
He is coachable. And that's important, right? Yes. a coaching client as well, like they have to be coachable. Do you ever turn people down?
Christine Daal
Yes. If they just happen to be, if they're not the right thing. Absolutely. I will. I will tell people, you're not listening to what I'm telling you. I don't know why you're paying me. You should just let us do it, like either hire us to do the digital marketing stuff ourselves or, you know, we need to cut our ties and that's it because otherwise I'm just wasting your time. Like you're spending money but you're not even listening to what I'm telling you to do. So you're never going to succeed. And then again, you're going to make me look bad which defeats the whole purpose, right? Yeah, I have definitely turned clients down or stopped working with them because of that reason.
Glynis Tao
So you share a little bit of details in terms of growth metrics, sales, revenue, not exactly revenue numbers, but conversions and stuff. Can you, it's up to you if you want to share specific results such as sales growth, wholesale deals or e-commerce metrics that show the impact of your work.
Christine Daal
Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest one, obviously helping a brand go from zero to 1 million in one year was by far the biggest jump, right? That's obviously not normal. Everyone should not expect those types of results,
Glyinis Tao
Is that possible for everybody?
Christine Daal
No, it is not possible for everyone. She did have a huge budget to start out, right? I was also responsible for putting together the entire team of people, right, from the designer to the pattern maker to the sales rep, like everything I put together for her. And a large part of it was wholesale, so it wasn't just online sales. Now, I will say as far as online sales, we've definitely helped double people's revenue. We've helped triple people's revenue. In just like two months, I helped triple one customer's revenue.
We have brands that went from $100,000 to $300,000 in just a year. As far as other stats, I have a client that went from having a repeat customer rate of maybe 40%, which is already a really high repeat customer rate. Like I always tell people, if you can have a repeat customer rate around 20 to 25, you're doing pretty good. She already had 40, which was amazing. She ended up having 80,000 by the time we were done working together. I mean, 80%, excuse me.
So she doubled her repeat customer rate, which is the highest I've ever seen. I've never seen anyone get 80%. I think the highest conversion rate we helped a client get was 6%, which is also super high. What else can I share? We had one client that got a $30,000- $40,000 increase in revenue just from one pricing strategy that I gave her. Like one little tip, one little tip that I gave her and she was like, oh my gosh, we just increased our revenue in one month. $30,000 to $40,000. I was like, that's amazing.
Email sales. People don't talk a lot about email sales, but I always tell people, your email needs to be making you money. When you send an email out, an e-blast out to your list, it should bring in dollars, right? And so we had a brand that was averaging $2,500 per email that she would send out. She went from $2,500 to $10,000 per email. That was a huge, huge increase.
So yeah, we've seen a lot of different things. I talked about abandoned car rates dropping, site conversion rates going up. We've had a lot of different success stories. Even just aside from e-commerce, going back to the confidence side, again, because I'm so holistic and I like to look at your mental health and your mindset and confidence and all this different stuff, even on the confidence side, we had a brand that she finally felt the confidence to start hiring more seamstresses and expanding her team. And then that allowed her to now take on more orders because she was turning away business because she wasn't able to fulfill orders. But she didn't have the confidence to think that she could actually hire a good seamstress, right? So even just having a confidence increase, right, can affect the bottom line of your business.
We had another client who was literally part of our Soar Mastermind program, she connected with another designer. She didn't feel confident in her own design capabilities, believe it or not. So she wasn't really a designer by heart, but just wanted to start this business for other reasons. And so she connected with another designer, and hired that designer to be her designer. And now she felt like, now I have actually really good designs, which then gave her the confidence to start reaching out to stores, which then she got her first wholesale order, right? So even just having that boost in confidence can really help your bottom line, which people don't think about or want to talk about maybe, but it does affect the bottom line of your business. So that's also been amazing to see, just people's confidence go up.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so besides just the numbers, sales, revenues, but also you get the benefit of, like you said, building the confidence as well, which really does affect your bottom line in terms of how much confidence you have with your business and brand.
I want to ask you, what do your most successful clients have in common in terms of mindset or business habits?
Christine Daal
That's a good one. So mindset wise, I always like to say my key phrase is do whatever it takes. And I would say my successful clients definitely have that attitude, right? They're willing to do whatever it takes. If they have a newborn baby, they're staying up till 3am, you know, after they put that baby down, right? And they're working on their business, right? Or they're breastfeeding while they're working on their laptop and watching a YouTube video or something, right? So they have that mindset that they're willing to do whatever it takes.
I think they also have the mindset that again, they know they can't do everything well, right? A good, successful business person knows their strengths and their weaknesses. And so if I know I'm really great at design but I'm not really good at numbers, well, then I better outsource all the number stuff, right? I better hire a bookkeeper and an accountant and somebody to look at my Google Analytics and all the nitty gritty back end of my ads and dashboards and all this stuff because that's not my strategy. That's not my strength, right? It's doing all of that kind of stuff. And so I think that they have the mindset that I do what I do well and the other things I outsource because yeah, sure, you can take the approach that you can strengthen your weaknesses, but the amount of time and effort it would take for you to get good at something that you're not good at, whereas you could just outsource it, you're gonna be far further ahead, right? So much faster if you just simply outsourced it. So I think they kind of have that kind of mindset for sure. And what was the second part of your question? What mindset and what?
Glynis Tao
Habits.
Christine Daal
Habits, yeah, kind of the same thing. Guess habits would be willing to wake up early, willing to go to bed late, taking care of yourself. I think again, having that holistic approach, most of them work out or do some type of exercise because they understand when you're getting the blood flowing, your brain's gonna work better and you're gonna be more effective at your job or your work, right? So I think they have a very holistic approach to how they take care of themselves and they prioritize self-care. right, knowing that, this is going to affect my business, right? They maybe, you know, have a very organized workspace or, you know, a home that's not super cluttered, right, because they understand that that clutter is not going to affect their mind, which now affects their work, etc., etc. So I would say, yeah, those are probably the things that a lot of my successful clients have in common.
Glynis Tao
And when a client says, I have no idea how to grow my online sales, where do you usually start?
Christine Daal
That's a good question. I would say I usually start by telling them and explaining to them that it's a numbers game, right? So everyone's seen the movie, you know, Jerry Maguire where he's like, show me the money, right? I feel like I'm Jerry Maguire, but I'm like, show me the numbers. And so I tell people like how much website traffic, how many people are visiting your website every day, how many people are on your email list, how many people on your social media following, right?
I just need those three stats, basic, right, to then be able to tell you how much revenue you're making. And of course, your average order value, four stats, right, is all I really need. And I can tell you how much revenue you're going to make, right? So it is a numbers game. And I think when people start to understand the more left side brain, analytical side of things, number side of things, versus being so right brain and criteria, then they really start to see like, this is actually kind of like a game.
Like we can have fun with this, right? Like let's see how high we can get our website traffic. Let's see how high we can get our social media. Let's see how high we can get our email, right? Can we increase our average order value? And all you have to do is just play around with the numbers a little bit, right? And you can see how drastic your revenue will change.
We've created this amazing spreadsheet. It's literally called the How to Leave Your 9 to 5 Spreadsheet. That's literally what I call it. All you have to do is plug in those three numbers. It's got all the stats and everything else, those four numbers with your AOV and it will tell you how much you need to make in order to leave your 9 to 5 job. And it's not 100% foolproof, of course, but it's interesting to just play around with it and see, you don't really want to be on social media? Great. Well, then let's focus on email and website rather than social media, right? And just tweaking a couple of things here and there can drastically increase your revenue at the end of the day.
Glynis Tao
It's really unique, I think, with what we do in terms of working with mostly creatives, designers, who I find a lot of them are scared of the numbers. Yeah. Don't really want to look at the numbers. Yes. A lot of the time I find they just go by gut feeling, which is not good, right? Like, how do you feel about that? So I think you and I are similar in that way in terms of what I call it.
I call myself a logical creative in which I have this balance of left brain or right brain. And that's how I'm able to do SEO because I can, you know, still have the creativity. Yeah, technical, but also requires some creativity at the same time. And this is the stuff that I love to do. And so you seem to be very numbers oriented as well, but you're also a designer. So do you find that to be challenging?
Christine Daal
Yes, yeah, it's simply challenging with clients because they are typically designers by heart, right? That's what motivated them to start their line. Yes, they probably want to make money too at the end of the day, right? But you can make money with anything. You could go make money with real estate. You could go invest in the stock market. You could do Bitcoin. You could do it, right? They chose this industry because it's their passion. It's what they love to do because they are creative people. But numbers can be creative. I agree with you on that side of it.
Glynis Tao
So yeah, we were just talking about balancing left brain, right brain, technical, with the creative side of things. Because I know with like my work, SEO, and a lot of times like when I talk to brand owners and designers, they know it's important, but they're afraid. And they're like, when I talk about the technical stuff, they kind of just freeze up and they don't know what to do about it. And they're kind of like, yeah, well, I'll just think about that later, which is necessarily a good idea for them. I'm like, yeah, you know, as a business owner, if you want to just strictly design and create products, you can go work for somebody else. That would be your sole job. But as a business owner, you do need to know both. Yeah, you have to be creative, but you also need to know the numbers.
Christine Daal
Exactly. And the business owners or most successful business owners, I will say, make decisions based on numbers, right? Not based on, I just have a gut feeling that everyone's going to want this bright pink fuchsia dress of mine. It's like, no, did they buy anything else from you in the past that looked like that? Did they buy anything bright pink before? Did they buy any bright colors before? we all, every decision that you make as a business owner should be based on some kind of stat or data. Otherwise, you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks. I mean, how is that going to help you achieve your success, right?
Glynis Tao
Exactly. Yes, I agree with you. So the fashion industry is changing fast with AI, sustainability, DTC shifts. What do you think fashion founders should focus on right now to stay competitive?
Christine Daal
Yes, so there is a lot going on. We have a lot of disruption with the rising tariffs, labor shortage shortages, the sustainability, environmental pressures. And really, we also have a very, for people that aren't familiar with the fashion industry, we have an antiquated manufacturing model that literally hasn't changed in over 80 years. So there's a lot of disruption going on, but I always say disruption equals opportunity, right? If you're willing to adapt and pivot, you can take advantage of so many things during the disruption.
So I would say there's three things to focus on. The first thing a brand should focus on is personalization and not the kind of personalization that you're probably thinking of, but personalization through a community first type marketing. So rather than focusing on, just need to acquire customers, as many customers, keep them coming, more, more, more, more, more, right? Focus on building that community within your customer relationships, right? Focus on keeping that customer as a long-term customer and raising your lifetime value versus just getting a one-time transaction, right?
So I want ongoing relationships, not just that one-off transaction. And so helping them feel, you know, emotionally invested in your brand, whether that's through your identity, your story, your successes, turning those customers into co-creators, right? Can they help you create and design the next line? Of course, they're going to be fully invested. If they feel like, my gosh, I helped design their next t-shirt. I picked that color or I picked that print or I did this or whatever it is.
And so really helping them be part of the process and then using real-time feedback loops, right? So how can I get my customers telling me what they want, what they like, what they don't like before I have to go and invest in all this inventory and all this production and all this stuff, right? So almost having a live focus group, 20. And that can just be through like a private Facebook group. It can be through your SMS. It can be on IG. Like, you can do this very easily. It doesn't take a lot of, you know, time and effort. But it always stood out to me because we've done a lot of case studies. They're all on our YouTube channel where I've studied brands and what made them successful. And a lot of the times, 9 out of 10 times, I would say a lot of them listened to what their customers wanted and then they just gave it to them. So if your customers want blue, just give them blue. I don't care if your favorite color is pink. Your customers want blue. You better give them blue, right?
So that's gonna be your way to success. And I think that personalization, community first type marketing is only gonna increase, right? We've seen like live stream shopping and all this stuff take over in China. It's only a matter of time before it really, really becomes mainstream over here. And even utilizing AI and 3D design and CAD tools and all these different things, right? There's so many tools out there. You can predict trends. You can predict your customer shopping behavior. There's so many new AI things out there. We even have a whole online course on how to use AI. can tell everyone about how to get it at the end. But I think that connection with your customers is gonna be super, super important. So that's number one.
The second thing I would say is changing the way you manufacture. I think the number one thing everyone's coming to me right now, my gosh, is my manufacturer in China or my manufacturer's in this country and the tariffs are going up and I need to move, right? And so even with this whole manufacturing model that we have, it's just very antiquated. Like I said, it's been 80 years, we still do it the same way. Think about how fast your phone changes. And we still make, the way we make clothing hasn't really changed in 80 years, right? It's been a long time.
And so I think there's going to be a rise in new ways of manufacturing, whether that's on-demand manufacturing or some other type of new way. I don't necessarily think it's going to be robots, even though there are some snowbots out there already trying to do some stuff. Pre-orders are still going to continue, of course, but I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea if people started to learn how to sew because there's a shortage of laborers, especially sample makers.
No one right now is teaching their daughter. I'm not going to teach my four-year-old daughter. You know, you need to learn how to sew so you can grow up to be a seamstress, right? That's not like an aspiring job that anybody really wants. And unfortunately, because American manufacturers are not paying their people, you know, high wages, they're paying the minimum wage or slightly above, they're finding that they can go to other industries like the weed industry, right? They can pick weed on a weed farm for $30 an hour versus getting paid $20 an hour to sew. So we're losing all of our laborers.
And so great that you want to bring American manufacturing back to America, so do I. But if we don't have people to sow the stuff, how is it happening, right? So it's a problem. I used to tell people, you know, 10 years ago when I first started my business, you don't need to learn how to sew. You can just hire a sample maker, hire a manufacturer. But now, in 2025, I think it is going to be important that people learn how to sew. And I think it's going to be a much more valuable skill as a business owner in case anything happens with your factory. So I would say that number two is changing the way you manufacture.
And then the third thing I would say is really getting serious about sustainability. I think that it's going to start to move away from a trend. Now, sustainability has been very trendy. Oh, I'm a sustainable brand and who knows what sustainability even means. There's like a gazillion different, you know, ways to look at your brand being sustainable or not. But I think it's going to start to move away from a trendy thing to literally a mandate, especially when it comes to Europe. Europe has already been ahead of us as far as food regulations and things like that. And I think they're going to be ahead of us as far as the sustainability regulations.
And because we're so far behind on reaching all of our goals, the sustainable goals that were set for, I think, 2030 was the year they wanted to hit all these, you know, sustainable goals. We're so far behind reaching all those goals that I think at some point it's going to become like a mandate. Just like you can't I mean, I live in the New York City, you know, New Jersey area and I can't go to the grocery store and get a plastic bag anymore. You have to use a reusable bag. It is now forced. You are being forced to use reusable bags because they've realized plastic is bad for the environment, so on and so forth, right? So it's now become a mandate. And so I think that for fashion, it's going to eventually become a mandate.
So I think US brands, even though you're US-based and not Europe-based, need to start adopting this a little bit early on because then they're going to have an advantage and they're going to have an advantage globally. So I would say those are the three things that brands should really focus on right now.
Glynis Tao
That sounds great. So you've built a business that empowers so many female founders. What's been the most rewarding part of that journey?
Christine Daal
There's so many rewarding things. I always tell people I love what I do and I have to pinch myself sometimes that I get to do what I do because I really do truly love what I do and not many people can say that about what they do for a living. But I would say definitely helping brands feel confident and whether that's through helping them achieve success, helping them make money, helping them overcome negative mindsets, right? Seeing someone's confidence level go up is really, really rewarding because again, it's about their soul, right? It's about like, what really makes them who they are
I also really love working with moms. I think one, because I am a mom, but also two, because it's great to be able to show your children, hey, you can do something that you love too. You can start a business from scratch. You can take a risk. You can do something that's not ordinary, right, and achieve something great. And now, not only are you doing it for yourself, but you're leaving a legacy for your kids, for your grandkids, like if your business takes off, they can now take over eventually when you pass on, right, and continue your legacy for you. And so you're changing your family generation to come. Like, you're literally leaving a legacy, which is, I think, one of the most amazing things.
And then I would say it's also really rewarding just, I think, as a Christian to be able to weave my own faith into my business and to be able to share about Jesus and just what he's been able to do in my life and different things. It's been amazing to be able to work with other Christians. I think a lot of people are drawn to me who are Christian. They want to work with a Christian coach. So I do get a lot of Christians working with me. And so that's kind of a blessing as well, to be able to just weave my faith into what it is that I do.
Glynis Tao
What's next for Fashion Angel Warrior? Do any upcoming programs, events, or new service launches?
Christine Daal
So we have, I don't know, we always have a lot of stuff going on. I feel like I can barely keep track. But we definitely have some amazing promotions that I wanna share. I don't know if you want me to share them now or I can share them at the end. So that's up to you, Glynis.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, you can share them at the end because I know you had mentioned a few different things and maybe some offers, but I guess maybe sort of what if you want to just kind of tell us about what's coming up for you, anything exciting on the horizon.
Christine Daal
So I think our business, Fashion Angel Warrior, has also gone through its own transition and pivot over the last couple of years. I'm now a mom of two small children, which is a lot to juggle. And they're ages four and six, although my son will be seven soon. And it's a really great time period in their life that I don't want to miss. And so I didn't really fully enjoy the baby years. It was a little difficult and challenging for me. And so now that they're not really babies and toddlers anymore, they're actually a lot of fun to hang out with. And so I've kind of been taking a lot of time off, honestly, from Fashion Angel Warrior because I do want to spend it with my family. I do want to really focus on them.
And so the great thing is I do have a small team in place that can handle a lot of stuff. It's not like if you email us, you won't get a response or something, right? We're still here. We're still active. We're still going. But if you've noticed on our Instagram, we are not posting on Instagram anymore these days. I have taken a very slow media approach and I really, I think value the information and just we've had so much client successes that I feel like I've kind of reached the status that I don't need to give away free information.
There's over 150 blogs on our website. There's over 100 different YouTube videos. We've done over 100 Facebook lives that are all recorded and available for people to watch. We have free webinars. We have free cheat sheets. We have so many free things out in the interwebs that I've kind of reached the point that I don't really care about producing more free stuff. I know that that's what content creators are telling you you have to do. And to be a thought leader, you know, you have to constantly pump out more information.
To be honest, it doesn't fit my lifestyle anymore. And so we've kind of taken the approach that what we have to offer is really valuable. If you see the value, you'll see the results, you'll see the value, and you'll want to hire us and pay us. And that's kind of been our approach. And so we've kind of scaled back on a lot of our digital marketing. We've scaled back a ton on social media. I'm not even traveling as much to do trade shows or really that much anymore.
And thankfully, you know, we have a steady stream of clients and income coming in that I don't really need to do all that stuff anymore. So I'm kind of, you know, I'm kind of enjoying my kids and kind of taking a little bit of a break and, you know, just focusing on myself and my family and that sort of thing.
Glynis Tao
And you be. You did a lot of work in those early years building up your business and now it's time to reap those rewards. You deserve it. Yeah. Finally, what's one powerful piece of advice you'd leave with our audience of fashion entrepreneurs today?
Christine Daal
Yes, one piece of advice, this is always tricky, right? Because there's so many areas I would love to tell you about. But I think for right now with everything going on and just the fact that the future of fashion is changing, I would say you've got to change, otherwise you're going to be left behind. The best brands, the most successful brands, always learn how to pivot or adapt or change when there's any kind of disruption, recession, right? Whatever is going on, the pandemic. And so just keep growing, keep changing, and never stop learning.
Learning is so, so important. I am a lover of all things learning. I loved school. I love taking online courses. I love learning from other people. Even you, Glynis, I watch your videos and your podcasts, right? There's so much to learn out there. Never think that you know it all and you're done learning because there is just so much to learn out there and it's exciting. So yeah, that would be.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, never stop learning. I'm a lifelong learner myself. And I learned so much from you today, Christine. I mean, we've known each other for years now. I can't even remember.
Christine Daal
Been a while, yes.
Glynis Tao
It's been a while. And I just feel like I've learned so much about you today by talking to you. Yeah. Yeah, this is. Yeah, it really is. It's just nice to connect with another business owner and fashion professional. So where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Christine Daal
Yes, so the best thing, you can always email us. That's the best method. I don't check DMs very much.
Just for all of you podcast listeners, we have a bunch of different things. I mentioned some of them briefly. You can grab our free six-part video training series that explains in detail our no-product fashion line method.
You can grab our online course, How to Use AI for Fashion Ecom Brands. Literally, it's going to save you like 10 to 20 hours per week learning all of these different AI tricks. It's normally $129, but just for the listeners, I'm going to give you $50 off, so you pay only $79. And then if you are a startup, meaning you have not yet reached $100,000 in sales in your very first year, we have our all course bundle, which you can learn more about. That's an amazing hybrid group coaching program.
Normally $2,495, but I'm giving everyone $1,000 off. And I'm going to throw in four bonuses, including two private one-on-one sessions with me valued at $1,000. So I typically charge $500 an hour for coaching, as you can see, based on the results. So that's why I charge that much. And I'm going to give two private one-on-one sessions included with that and $1,000 off. So you're basically getting $2,000 for free by signing up for the all-course bundle.
And then if you're an established business, you can always sign up for our group coaching program. The Soar Mastermind, it's literally the only intimate group coaching program specific to fashion brands that exists. And so all that information is right there, fashionangelwarrior.com/glynis
Glynis Tao
Okay, awesome. And we'll put that link in the show notes as well as your contact information on your website and email address. So thank you, Christine, for sharing your knowledge, wisdom, and behind the scenes of what it really takes to grow a successful fashion brand with us today.
Christine Daal
Thank you, Glynis, so much for having you. It was so fun chatting.
