Form Follows Function

Hey hey, retail besties. This week I’m talking about making changes, and I’m sharing one of Feel Good Retail’s guiding principles — Form Follows Function.

Join me in releasing customer expectations and centering yourself in your businesses (for once). So we can reevaluate what’s working and make changes with confidence.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Retail for the Rest of Us, a podcast for indie retailers, makers, and shop owners who want to do business differently. I'm your host, Janine Malone, retail expert, small business cheerleader, and the founder of Feel Good Retail. On this show, you'll hear insights, strategies, and ideas on how to sustain and scale your shop without sacrificing your sanity. Each week you'll hear from me and the occasional guest expert in what I hope feels more like voice note from your retail BFF than a business podcast. Additional goodies and support can be found in our show notes and at feelgoodretail.com. Now let's get into the show. Music. Hey everyone, welcome back to Retail For The Rest Of Us. I'm your host Janine Malone, and today I want to talk about making changes inside your business. We talked a little bit bit about this before a couple episodes ago, the beginning of this return of the pod. But I don't really want to focus on my business, which is a relief to me and is probably a relief to you. Although I am thinking about changes, thanks to all of your amazing support and responses to our community survey that we had been running for the month of April. I got so many amazing responses, such thoughtful feedback, such caring insight. And I'm really inspired and excited to kind of metabolize all of that and make some really cool stuff for you. So thank you if you took the time to participate. It really means the world to me and I am sending you so much love and energy and hopefully new exciting things coming in the future. But as I was reading through, I was thinking, about some of the themes that were coming out. And a few of them we're gonna, you know, zoom into. Much more in depth, things like making more sales, using social media, understanding how to use analytics without feeling totally beholden to them, talking about inventory and inventory management and cash flow, management, delegation, all that stuff. All the things we already talked about, but it's nice to hear what is really would feel supportive to you right now. But today, maybe because change is on my mind and evolution is on my mind, I am really excited to think about just the concept of making changes. I talked to a lot of retailers in moments of transition, in moments of growth, in moments of either adding things on, taking things off, pivoting in some way. Those are usually the moments that we all look for a little support, right? If you're moving, or if you're changing jobs, or if you just had a baby, or, you know, if you're going through a period of time that is just different than the period before it, odds are those are the times you reach out to your community, you reach out to your friends, your family, you find some kind of support because change is hard. It's constant, and it's And it's constantly hard, frankly. And I always come back to a similar idea when I'm contemplating change and want to move forward with confidence that I thought would be helpful to dive into a little bit today. I've been noticing some retailers in the conversations I've been having in the community survey responses that I've gotten that there is a hesitation to rock the boat, right? We worry that any changes we'll make will upset our customers, will lose us business, will be the end of our shop as we know it. But odds are that's not the case. And I think that while I'm a huge fan of getting customer feedback, of getting your community's feedback, I don't think you need to get it and get approval for everything because you know your business best, right? And of course, retail is all about relationships. And that means that the changes that you make will affect your customers. Sure. But people are risk averse, people are change averse. And I think when you ask folks who've been shopping with you, would you still like this product? If would you still visit us? If we were located here? Would you pay X amount for shipping? Would you would you would you? Odds are, the majority is going to fall on the side of like, don't make change, or there's going to be enough pushback that you're going to feel insecure, you're going to feel scared to make the changes that maybe you know are essential for your business. And so, you know, one big example that. I don't know if that's made it into one of these episodes yet, but if you just heard that, that's my alarm that I have that goes off every two hours between 7am and 9pm to remind me to to take a breath. So let's do that. I feel like if it's coming up while I'm recording, it must be for all of us. We're talking about change that can be scary. So let's just put our feet on the floor, take a big breath, relax our shoulders, unclench our jaws and be here. One of the changes I see retailers contemplating quite a bit is their relationship with marketing, how they market their shops. And so this is a simple example to kind of go through the concept I want to talk about, which is that you always have to prioritize the function over the form. That is what will keep you light on your feet. It will make transitions in your business much simpler, much easier, much clearer. And it will allow you to see what comes next, because you're understanding the purpose of that change in your business. I also think that this is a good way to weigh if a project is worth taking on if an initiative is a priority, and really coming back to helping you focus on what really matters and what's really going to move the needle in the direction that you want it to inside of your shop. Because again, here at feel good retail, we're all about helping you manage your resources so that you can sustain your business for a long time. And when we take on too much, as we've talked about quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, it can be really challenging to get everything done well to understand what's really working in your business, and to have the energy to figure out what comes next, right? As we know. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. Just when you have one project or launch or season behind you. There's another one. There's another thing that needs your attention. There's another priority. There's another project. And that can be really exciting and expansive. And it can also feel really exhausting. So function over form is something that I come back to a lot, I would say it is in the top of our manifesto, which maybe I should write for feel good retail. But function over form means that you're identifying what function does this change serve in my business, and what form can that take. So as an example, like I mentioned with Instagram. Instagram is a form that your marketing could take. It is a platform that is available to you. It is a tool in your toolbox that you are free to use and you are free to walk away from. But what. Happens when we get too attached to the form that something takes is that any changes we see in the results that that form is showing us. So for example, decreased engagement, decreased visibility, lack of sales, lack of return on investment, any of those things, it becomes really hard and we become really resistant to making any changes. It can feel very scary and you kind of get that sense of being like trapped in a corner, right? Like you're just like, I have weighed, I have relied far too heavily on this thing and now it is changing. And if it changes, I don't know what do next. And that is a feeling I don't want for anyone. So that's the form, right? The form is the actual shape that something takes inside of your business. Like I said, for marketing, a channel could be Instagram, a form that your marketing takes, a form that your shop takes could be brick and mortar, a form that your shop takes could be your exact address, a form that your shop staff takes is a certain size, right? So what is the actual physical shape and feeling and size and color of exactly what you're doing in your business? That's the form itself. So when I say function first, anytime someone comes to me and says, what do I do about Instagram? My engagement's down. It's really feeling so bad. Or what do I, what am I going to do? My lease is up and my landlord doesn't want to re-sign us. Like, am I going to move? Am I going to just go to e-commerce? Am I just going to shut the whole thing down? Like, you know, those questions that really feel. Scary. It's like I can feel my heart starting to beat faster just thinking about when we run up against something that isn't working anymore that we want to make a change for. I'm sure my. Retailers who make their own products run into this all the time. The cost of things are going up, right? Am I going to sacrifice some margin? Am I going to change my supplier? Am I going to change my formulation or the supplies that I use to make the product that my customers know and in love. Like, those are the things that keep us up at night, you know. But when we think about function, it allows us to step away from that trapped feeling and get back into our creative bodies. And so what that looks like, let's go back again to Instagram, is my first question will be, well, what function does it serve in your business? Is it about connecting with your current customers? Is it about getting discovered? Is it about actually driving sales? And I don't mean what do you wish it did? I mean, what is it actually doing? And yes, that may require some self reflection, it may require diving into analytics. But let's say for example, you posting on Instagram consistently for the past few years of your business has always been a place where you can connect with your customers, right? You can create a little bit more story around the product that you're selling. So what are some other forms that that can take that could show. Up on email that could be something that you're sharing at pop-ups? You could publish a catalog and send it to people. You could do a zine. You could record a podcast. You could move to tick you could focus on Pinterest, you could do all of these different ideas. This is totally just spitballing, but like when you have a problem to solve... Versus a roadblock that you're hitting, it just activates a different way of thinking that I think is really so much more expansive and will allow you to like step up and step into and be excited about the solutions that you can create rather than feeling squished and squashed and scarce around like what is no longer working. I know pivot is like the worst and most annoying word, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Like I don't know a small business owner who doesn't like shudder at the idea of yet another pivot, but they're inevitable as you're running your business. If you don't react to what your audience and your community and your numbers are telling you, then you're not going to survive very long. Frankly, this is a delicate dance of refining and tweaking and changing and being loose. And like my friend, Erica from house, which says being like water, just be like water, you have to flow, you have to move with it. I like to say lean with it, rock with it like this is business. And I understand not being comfortable with it. I'm not comfortable with it. I love I'm a cancer. You guys, I'm just like, I want to stay in my little comfy shell. And I never want to leave and this is working and I am just like, relying on it to work forever. And unfortunately, that's just not the way. But I think there is a way for us to confidently make decisions, feel really strategic, feel really illuminated and excited and energized by some of the changes we may have to make inside of our business, and be business people, right? Solve those problems. And the way we solve those problems is never going to be by prioritizing or focusing on or like hyper fixating in some cases on what isn't working anymore. It's about understanding what's not working and what form that thing is taking and experimenting with the next one. You know the outcome you want, you know what it looks like and what it feels like for your business to grow and feel really good to you and feel an integrity with how you want to run your business. And there's more than one way to do that. There's more than one shape that that can take. And I want to challenge you to stretch that creative muscle, even in instances where you you don't need to make those changes. Just as a thought exercise, what would it be like to think, okay. If Instagram went away tomorrow, or if I had to move locations, or if I was to start a new, revenue channel for my business, what could that be? And I'm not saying you have to implement those changes. But getting in the habit of expanding your horizons, and envisioning all the different tones and forms and shapes and textures that your business could take, is going to allow you to move more easily into those changes. That's how I'm thinking about changes around here. What could it be? What would it look like? If I wrote a book, what would it be called? If I started a different podcast, what would it look like? If I wrote a manifesto, what would it look like? If I had a space, what would it look like? What would it feel like? What would it function? How would it function? What would it do? And by envisioning all those different forms, you kind of highlight the function of your business high level, right? If you're not someone who wants to do our soul statement meditation, which you can go back and listen to here on this podcast feed, then start experimenting with those shapes. Start thinking about the functions of each of the things that you're doing every single day inside your business. The way that you're working, the way that you're buying, the way that you're making products, the way that you're marketing and ask yourself, what is the function of this channel? What is the function of this system? And are there any changes we can make to the shape of it to make it feel better for us to make it more effective, to make it more sustainable. And I think that that's how change can excite us as opposed to terrify us might still be scary. And you know, it's vulnerable to change because in some way that makes us think that we were wrong, right? But I don't think that's the case. I think it makes us smart. I think it makes us strategic, and I think it helps us stay really, really creative. So those are my thoughts for today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being in business. Thank you for constantly re-evaluating and making the small, tiny tweaks that make your business so magical and doing so with confidence and cheers to feeling good. Thanks for listening to Retail for the Rest of Us. Find additional information and resources related to this episode in the show notes or on our website feelgoodretail.com. This show was lovingly produced and edited by Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to text it to your business bestie, share it on social media and leave us a rating or review. It really helps the show grow organically and we love making new friends. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being in business and cheers to feeling good. Music.