Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be.

Welcome to Boutique Chat, where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek.

We'll hear from product-based businesses of all types, retailers, e-commerce, and wholesale brands,

along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry.

I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the boutique hub, and I can't wait to chat.

Hey, guys, welcome back to the podcast.

I'm so glad you're here.

It's you and me this week. And I don't know about you, but I thought it would be fun to take a little walk down memory lane together and show you guys a point of view of the boutique hub that I don't think you've probably seen before, at least not here on the podcast. And that is, I want to take you behind the scenes of what it's been like to build the boutique summit.

So many of you are familiar with the boutique summit.

This is our industry's largest and oldest business conference.

It is the biggest time of the year for our industry, no matter what you sell apparel,

home and gift, kids stores, toys stores, kite stores.

We've had so many different types of retailers join us at the boutique summit.

And it's the one time of year that our industry gets together.

We learn from the best in the business industry experts, both inside and outside our industry,

some of the top retailers in our industry.

And we kind of get the lay of the land of what's working and what's not and where do we go

from here. And over the years, I tell you what, this was a big dream for me many years ago.

I've always wanted to create a business conference for the boutique industry ever since the

beginning of the hub all the way back to 2013. This was an idea that had always kind of been there.

And I've got to take you through the highs and the lows of the boutique summit, what worked and

what didn't. And from a financial and business standpoint, what worked and what didn't, what you

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