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, are you ready to lose it all? Well, I'm going to tell you what you can do to speed it up and help you get there.

This might be a little bit dramatic. Okay, I got it. But I actually am speaking the truth. If you're ready to lose it all, just work on carrying trademark and copyright and licensing infringing goods. That's a great way to get

started. I hate that I even have to share this five minute Friday, but the truth is I continue

to see this happening across our industry. Whether you consciously know about this or subconsciously

just have something and you thought it was okay all along. I see both sides every single day.

I just want to help stop you for a sec and have you evaluate the inventory that you're carrying

in your business and make sure that it is legal for you to be selling whatever it is that you're

selling. So let's really quickly get into these kind of three areas of importance. And before we do, let me, let me start with

kind of an overarching, you know, here's my obvious message. If somebody took a picture of your face,

right, your beautiful face and put it on a t-shirt and maybe it had a clever saying on it or whatever,

it was just your face with something on a t-shirt. And this person started to sell these t-shirts

and the t-shirts went completely viral. They sold millions of dollars in t-shirts with your

face on them. And this business kept all the profits. Even though it was your face on the t-shirt,

you didn't get a dime. How would that make you feel? You'd probably be kind of upset, right?

Like if you had a product that went viral with your face on it, you would want a cut of the

change. You'd want a piece of the action. But every single day in business, I see businesses

living this exact reality where a business owner is selling a knockoff Louis Vuitton, a knock off Chanel.

Maybe it's a t-shirt with Dolly Parton's face on it. Maybe it's the lyrics to Morgan Wallen's

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