Episode 1: Let me introduce myself.

Hello friends, I am Nicole Keleher and I am thrilled that you have found this podcast. Now I know your time is really precious, so my aim for each of these podcasts is to have actionable tips for your retail store and offer thought-provoking topics that you might consider when planning for your business. The exception is this first brief podcast as I'd like to share my experiences and my views on retail business ownership to help you understand if I'm someone you want to listen to and learn with.

So a little of my story. I did a business degree majoring in marketing many many moons ago at Deakin University which was at the time Victoria College. I fell into this because people I knew were doing business and so I thought why not? But I soon realised I really love marketing.

I worked for the first seven or eight years of my career in the not-for-profit sector and then I decided I had a business idea that I'd like to pursue. So my first business was called Paper Concepts. It was print yourself wedding stationery.

It was actually one of the first companies to provide this service back in the 90s. At the time the only options you had was either to pay for expensive printed stationery or buy those notepads where you hand wrote the invitations. I sold this business in 2000 when we had an opportunity to move overseas for my husband's business and so we lived overseas for a number of years.

During this time I had two gorgeous children who are now in their 20s and I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do next. I was actually at Melbourne gift fair with a girlfriend and we were looking for inspiration and we came across a business that was selling Christmas decor. She just said to me you should be selling that you're so good at it.

It was an interest and a passion that I had and I really felt that there was a gap in the market. There was a niche there from the beautiful decor I'd seen overseas that wasn't available in Australia. So I decided that I would fill that niche and create an online business.

So in 2006 my Christmas was born. I originally thought I would just have a website but it became pretty obvious to myself that I wanted a retail store. So from the first year of operation we had pop-up stores and we actually ran a pop-up store for three years where we had ad hoc leases before it was a term really and then after three years we found a permanent location but we operated only seasonally.

During the years we moved twice into larger locations and at one stage I also had a warehouse that we were managing. For about four years I'd been struggling with a really sore knee and needs a knee replacement and in 2021 I decided it was time to close the retail store as it just wasn't viable for me to be on the retail floor floor anymore. So I decided at that stage to move to online only and then we ran online only for a number of years and then in about October 2023 I decided it was time for a change.

So I actually promoted to my database the sale of the business and was thrilled to have a number of people interested in the business and sold it to one of those clients Tamara who took over in April this year. So this year's been a real year of transition for me and one where I have become very clear that what I love more than anything is business and marketing and talking to small business owners. Every time I sat down to work out what I wanted to do in this space a podcast just kept popping up into my mind and so why not let's just give it a whirl and hopefully it's something that you find interesting.

I'm going to tell you a bit about what my sort of passions are in a sec but just so you know I do um and ah, I occasionally swear, I will try and keep it real and I'll always will make it honest. So what am I passionate about? First of all we can all learn from each other. No one person has all the answers.

I have learned so much from other business owners that I have met along the way and friends and I think it's really important to keep your eyes open all the time to see where those nuggets of gold are. I also think that losses are just as important to share as wins so sometimes there will be cases where people will share things that haven't worked but hopefully that will help you to not make the same mistakes. The second point is that the simple ideas are often the best.

As entrepreneurs we can get distracted by very shiny objects and we're always looking for fun new things to do and yet we can get bored pretty easily. I think that's one of the reasons that some of us become entrepreneurs. So it's important to step back and think about those practical basic things that might be right in front of you but maybe seem a bit boring or are so in your face you're not even seeing them and take a moment to see if you can engage them and implement them in your business.

They are often the things that can bring you the best return for your investment whether it be time or money and they are the areas that we so often forget. The third thing I'm really passionate about is we are too often comparing ourselves to others and not looking at what we want and need from our business. We need to be clear on these first and then we can measure our results against our expectations, against our budgets, against our level of success and that's going to be the first podcast because I just think it's so crucial that we talk about this and we always have it front of mind when we're thinking about what we want from our business.

And my fourth point is we deserve to be paid. Too many entrepreneurs are not paying themselves and not paying themselves for their time invested and so we need to be looking at the businesses and how we can run the business and make it economically viable and make sure that there's a return for your time and monetary investment in the business. I know times are tough and so often people are putting themselves last but we need to rethink the way we do this and consider what we can do to give ourselves a reasonable return for our time and investment.

So the format for the podcast, I'm going to aim for them each podcast to be around 20 to 30 minutes. I will be interviewing some people, business owners, suppliers, suppliers of tools for businesses and then there will be other podcasts where I share tips and tricks that you can use in your retail store. For those who prefer video, I will be recording a number of these on video and they'll be on our YouTube channel so I'll keep details of this for you as well and let you know if one of the podcasts will be on video.

And I'm always looking out for new stories so if you're listening to this and you have an experience in your retail store, whether it's a great experience or one that you think others can learn from, please message me. I would love to hear from you and if you'd like to come on the podcast with me then we can make that happen. So I think that's enough from me for now.

I will be recording my next podcast soon. We'll be going weekly with the podcast so keep an eye out for it. I know your time is very precious.

I value that you have joined me. Have a sensational day and thanks. Need help with your retail marketing? Check out our website theretailmarketers.com for information on our marketing audit, consulting services and course information.

You'll also find information on business tools I use and have used in my retail store and free downloadable content. That's theretailmarketers.com