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.

Hello, Boutique Hub community.

It's Melody, co-founder and CEO at Max Retail, and we love being a partner of the Boutique Hub.

I wanted to share with you today some tips from my personal experience as a retailer with hiring and training staff.

Back in my store, I had around five, six employees at a time. Now at Max Retail, we have 50. So the tips that I'm sharing with

you now will work for you if you have one employee and as you scale up. The most important thing

you need to figure out is what is your secret sauce? Why do customers come to you? Before you had one

employee, you had you. You opened the store,

you curated the merchandise, and you delivered a specific experience. And that is how

you built up the incredible following you have today and why you need employees. But how do you

teach them your secret sauce? Well, it's going to take you a little bit of work, but I promise there's a huge reward.

I strongly suggest you start today compiling your handbook.

What is a handbook? A handbook is documentation of the rules.

It is the blueprint for how you run your business.

See, what I've learned, the bigger as my business has grown is rules are good. Rules are needed.

And they provide the structure to allow people to feel safe. So when I'm discussing a handbook with you, I'm saying what are the guidelines

that your team needs to know and how can you document them in such a way that anyone can open

that book and deliver your experience? A couple pages in my handbook included opening procedures, closing procedures,

...