The Retail ROAR Talks You Can’t Miss

Catherine Erdly: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 241 of the Resilient Retail Game Plan podcast. Hi, I’m your host, Catherine Erdly. I’m also the founder of the Resilient Retail Club, which is my membership group mastermind and done for you services for product businesses. You can head over and find out more at resilientretailclub.com. I’m also the founder of the Retail ROAR Summit and that is what I’m going to be talking to you about today. I wanted to run through with you the Summit Sessions and give you an idea of what we’re gonna be covering so that you can tune in and find the ones that are right for your business. 

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdly. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry [00:01:00] and showing you how you can use them in your business.

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good. Confidently plan, launch, and manage your products, and feel in control of your sales numbers and cash flow to help you build a resilient retail business.

So this summit is happening, Retail ROAR is happening on the 20th and the 21st of March. So we’re about a week out. If you haven’t signed up yet, then I do encourage you to head over to retailroar.co.uk or head to the show notes where we’ll have the link and then you’ll be able to sign up completely for free. 

And the reason I wanted to [00:02:00] run through the sessions today is that I not only need to highlight some of the amazing stories and amazing experts that we have got set up for the summit. But also to give you an idea of what you might want to tune into yourself. We have just published the running order so you can see what time all of the sessions are happening.

How it works is this: you sign up to the summit, you’ll receive a link to a Facebook group. You’ll be able to join that and that is where you will be able to see all of the sessions.

The sessions are going on throughout the day on Thursday and throughout the day on Friday. If you miss anything there will be replays available inside the Facebook group that you’ll be able to access throughout the weekend that follows until the group closes on the Monday. So if you can’t come along live, that’s absolutely fine.

You can join us later on and watch the replays in your own time over that weekend of the Thursday, the Friday and the weekend. And if you can come to certain sessions, then as I said, we have a timetable so you can see what time certain sessions are. [00:03:00] So even if you can’t come for the whole day, you can hop in and out and see the sessions that you want to see.

Why ROAR is the must-attend event of the year

Catherine Erdly: So why should you join us? Well, this is the biggest online summit for ecommerce retailers and independent retailers, and every single speaker is handpicked by me. Not just handpicked, but I spend a huge amount of time over the year really working out who the people who you guys want to hear from. Who’s got the most interesting stories? What can you learn from them? And what’s going to help you? And really, the two criteria that I’m looking for when it comes to speakers is number one, can they give you useful information that will help you as a product business grow your business? Or do they have an inspiring story or sometimes a combination of both?

So we’re looking for the people who’ve built businesses from their kitchen table, from their bedroom, from a market stall and they’ve grown it to a six, seven or eight figure business. we’re [00:04:00] also looking for the experts who are going to give you some amazing information about what’s going on in the world of retail in 2025, and you can use that to really help push your business forward.

What I wanted to do in today’s episode is run through some of these talks, so that you get a sense of what we’re going to be sharing. I don’t know if you remember this or not, but back in the day when I was growing up, we always used to get the radio times out, and then we would actually circle the things that we wanted to watch on TV.

So, this is the equivalent of getting you to start thinking about what you want to put that circle around. If you see the lineup for the summit, start thinking about what sounds really interesting to you and where do you want to focus. As I said, if you sign up you get access to absolutely everything. You get every single talk, you get access to every single one of these sessions, and you will get access throughout the weekend with the replays as well.

So it’s definitely worth it, even if you just want to listen to one talk, it’s a completely free event, so why not sign up? 

Meet the experts speaking at ROAR (and what you’ll learn!)

Catherine Erdly: So let’s start by running through our experts and what they’re going to be [00:05:00] covering. So we are really excited to be joined by Daniel Priestley from Score App, and he’s going to be talking to us about how you transform website visitors into loyal customers.

If you don’t know Daniel Priestly, just know that I’m a huge fan of his. I’m really excited to have him on the lineup for Retail ROAR this year. And he’s written several best selling books on the subject of starting a business. He’s also a very successful serial entrepreneur. So he’s going to be talking about strategies for generating warm leads, how you can use AI tools to boost your conversion rates, and basically how do you attract the right audience and then turn that interest into action.

So everything he’s doing, everything he’s talking about is completely tailored to product businesses. All the examples that he’s going to be using, all of the tactics that he’s going to be talking about are all going to be with product businesses in mind. So I just know this is going to be a really super valuable session.

I’ve seen him talk on a number of occasions actually, and he always has this incredible [00:06:00] insight into growing a successful business. You definitely don’t want to miss Daniel’s session. ScoreApp are also one of our sponsors for the summit, and I’m super grateful to them for everything that they do to support Retail ROAR.

Another one of our fabulous sponsors is Faire.com and I’m going to be joined by their UK General Manager, as well as their International Marketing and Partnerships Director, Charlotte Broadbent. She is going to be joining me, and also Laura Harris, who is an analytics and data expert who runs a fabulous, fabulous initiative called the High Street Positives.

You’re going to want to join our session because we’re going to be talking about consumer trends. Faire have got data from thousands of retailers and they’ve used that data to come up with the four biggest buying opportunities for 2025. So this talk is all about what you need to be buying for your store. Whether you’re an [00:07:00] online store or an independent retailer, then you are going to want to come along and find out what the customers are buying.

And how to use that information more importantly to drive your sales. We’re also going to be discussing the what’s happening on the high street and the role of indie retail moving forward. And Laura has conducted a huge survey of 54,000 people looking at their attitudes and their beliefs to do with the high street, and what they’re looking for, and guess what you guys? Independent retailers are really high up on that list. So come along and join us and she’s going to be telling us more about that in a bit.

In the session with Charlotte Broadbent and Laura Harris, which is all about The Faire Forecast, The Faire Trend Report, which will tell you what you need to be buying for your shop. 

Another expert that we’ve got joining us is Kate Hiscox. She is a fashion influencer. She turned her fashion blog into a thriving career and she has over 124,000 Instagram followers.

You may know her by her handle, which is Where’s [00:08:00] My Money. She’s going to be sharing her journey from being a blogger to a content creator. And she’s also going to be talking about her passion for supporting small businesses, and more specifically, what it takes to build successful collaborations with creators and influencers.

If you’ve ever wondered about working with creators, working with influencers, whether or not you’re in the fashion sector or completely different product area, then you definitely want to come along and hear what Kate has to say. Because she shares some really great tips on how to open up a conversation, how to move it forward.

And it’s so useful, I think, to hear from the perspective of the influencer or the blogger what it is that they’re looking for, and what makes the difference between them saying yes or no to a collaboration. So definitely come along as, I said, if this is an area that you’d like to investigate more.

Or maybe you’ve started doing it and you’re not seeing the results you want, or maybe you’re doing it and you just want to do more of it. Then come along and listen to Kate talk [00:09:00] about what it takes to build a successful relationship with an influencer.

When it comes to websites, we have got Amy Cox from Studio Cotton. Now, she is a repeat speaker for Retail ROAR. She’s back by popular demand. Her session last year was one of the most positively received. She always talks about websites in a way that is really, really relatable and really, really practical.

This year she’s sharing her top tips for attracting the right traffic and turning visitors into buyers. She’s going to be sharing what it takes to have a successful website in 2025 and some of the things that might surprise you that the customer is actually looking for on your website and what you need to be including.

We have another trend session which is with Matt Hopkins. Matt Hopkins is the founder of Popup Indie. They have since 2014 helped small businesses generate over 50 million pounds in sales. They have shipped 3 million [00:10:00] packages and launched 10,000 pop up events. So they have also got a huge amount of data in terms of consumer trends. 

What Matt is going to be focusing on, as compared to the Faire session, is he’s going to be talking more about buying trends, about retail trends on a more global scale, and he’s also going to be talking about the game changing opportunities for indie brands, what they need to be thinking about, and also he’s got some great advice for working with big retailers.

Catherine Erdly: So if you are a brand, and you’ve thought more about experimenting with physical retail, or maybe you want to expand the amount of work that you do with big retailers, then don’t miss Matt’s session. Because he’s going to be sharing some insight into what it takes for small businesses to have successful working relationships with the big guys. 

And they have facilitated thousands of retailer and brand partnerships between their pop ups. They’ve got [00:11:00] relationships with the likes of Ocado, with Boots, with Dobby’s Garden Center, with John Lewis, with Fenix and so many more. And again, he’s just got a really great insight to what these bigger retailers are looking for when it comes to working with small brands.

Rachel Harris is another one of our experts. I wanted to have Rachel on the summit since the get go. And she runs a business called Accountant She. And she’s redefining what it means to be an accountant while building her own seven figure business. She’s an absolutely phenomenal entrepreneur. 

And as I said, she’s built her own accountancy practice, scaled it considerably, and she’s also really super passionate about helping small businesses and being the kind of accountant that really supports a small business and helps them grow as opposed to just simply doing your tax return.

She’s going to be talking about how you can turn your numbers into real insights. Of course, this is a huge topic after my own heart.

She’s going to talk about strengthening your relationship with your [00:12:00] accountant and what you can expect from them, and also an unexpected metric that you should be tracking, which is probably not what you would imagine that an accountant would suggest that you track in your business. But you’ll have to come along and listen to the session to find out more.

Rachel is an absolute powerhouse. She’s worked with so many different small businesses and lots of product businesses as well and she shares some really great insight into having that financial control over your business and how that can absolutely 100 percent help you grow. Eman Ismail from Eman CopyCo is another repeat visitor to Retail ROAR.

She is the person that you call when you want to make more money from your emails. She’s an email strategist, and she’s going to be revealing your must send emails that you can use to drive results and show you how to stop leaving money on your table with your email list in 2025. 

If you’ve seen Eman talk before about email marketing, you know that she’s so passionate about this subject. Another reason why her talk was one of the most popular from last year’s summit and why we had to get her back again, because what she talks [00:13:00] about is just absolutely fabulous and real gold. So don’t miss this session, don’t miss your opportunity to come along and hear from Eman. 

Rethinking what resilience means for your business in 2025

Catherine Erdly: And of course you’ll be hearing from me, I’m going to be talking about the concept of retail resilience, and I’m going to be sharing an interesting way of looking at your business and specifically your stock. You know I love to talk about stock management. So I’m going to be sharing a perspective shift, if you like, getting you to think a different way about resilience in your business in 2025.

So that is our experts. And as you can see, we’ve got quite a phenomenal roster of experts. Again, just to really highlight the fact that every single one of these people that we’ve selected to talk at Retail ROAR, they have got a huge wealth of knowledge of working with small businesses. Working with small product businesses.

So everything that they’re going to be talking about is really, really tailored for you and for your business. It’s not generic advice. I’m so passionate with [00:14:00] Retail ROAR to get the speakers be people who are just going to be talking some really, really useful information. And what I absolutely loved to see last year was people just filling their notebooks with pages of notes after all of the sessions because they found them so useful.

So those are our experts. So let’s talk about the amazing founders that we have in Retail ROAR as well. 

Hear from the founders who turned ideas into industry-leading brands

Catherine Erdly: So we have Saira Khan. I’m absolutely delighted to have Saira joining us. She’s a renowned businesswoman and broadcaster. You might know her from things like the very first ever series of The Apprentice and she’s also been on Loose Women as well as a number of other TV shows.

She has also built a thriving seven figure skincare brand from the ground up entirely organically in under two years. And she is so passionate about her skincare brand, SairaSkin, I really suggest coming along just to hear how she’s grown it, how she’s just backed herself, backed the [00:15:00] business. Done it, as I said, organically. Without outside investment and how she really embodies those brand values.

We have Paige Williams. She is the 32 year old entrepreneur behind P.Louise. P.Louise Cosmetics is TikTok’s top selling shop. And she has built it from the ground up without a single penny of outside investment and she’s on track this year to hit 100 million pounds of turnover. 

She is just a hugely inspiring entrepreneur and she’s going to be sharing how she’s defied expectations, stayed independent, and how she’s on a mission to empower the next generation of female entrepreneurs herself.

I’m absolutely delighted to say we’re joined by Mike Turner, who’s the co-founder and CEO of Bird & Blend. Bird & Blend are a tea company. I’m going to be totally honest here, there’s two reasons that I picked Bird & Blend. 

First off is they have grown [00:16:00] very rapidly and specifically they’ve grown using stores, which is something that I find very interesting and really great to hear from Mike. What their thoughts are behind the role of physical retail, which is really fascinating to hear.

The second is that I’m a big fan of Bird & Blend tea myself. In fact, my family were laughing at me when I said that. I excitedly said that Mike was going to be coming and joining the summit because they basically knew that this was down to personal preference. 

I do love tea. I do love Bird & Blend tea. I absolutely love heading to their borough store and poodling around, but I also think it’s a phenomenal business.

And if you have a store. If you’ve ever thought about opening a store. If you have ever thought about opening multiple stores, then you definitely don’t wanna miss this session with Mike. He talks a lot about the business, about how they use physical retail, about how they create the community, how they create raving fans like myself.

 You don’t wanna miss the story of how they began. selling tea on market stalls and now they’re at the point [00:17:00] where they have this nationwide chain of stores. And doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. So come along and join us for Mike’s session.

Claire Burrows from Air and Grace is also joining us now. Air and Grace is an independent shoe brand they’ve been running for over 10 years. She also started at her kitchen table packing orders and has grown the business over the 10 year period to scale it up, to expand the range. And they are a very popular shoe brand there and they’ve gone from strength to strength over 10 years. 

And it’s a really amazing story from Claire. She also shares some real moments of resilience. Proof that it can look perfect from the outside, but everybody experiences bumps along the way. And she’s going to be sharing her thoughts about how to stay focused and resilient in retail as well. 

I know you’re going to absolutely love hearing from Natalie Duvall and Alison Burton. They are the creative director and the project director for March Muses. They [00:18:00] founded the business together and March Muses is a business that creates UK Christmas decorations of colour.

Not only did they found this business, but they actually went on to Dragon’s Den and got investment from not one, but two dragons. So you’re going to want to hear what that was like, the behind the scenes experience of being on Dragon’s Den. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like then come along and hear.

And also there’s an incredible story how they went from an idea to launching to growing and now nationwide distribution with major retailer. So come along and listen to the session with Natalie Duvall and Alison Burton. You don’t want to miss out. 

We’ve also got Steph Douglas. Steph Douglas has a phenomenal business called Don’t Buy Her Flowers, which is a thoughtful, gifting brand.

She shares how empathy set her business apart, how she got started, what her strategies are that have helped her navigate the retailers ups and downs. And then she [00:19:00] also talks about her top tips for small businesses looking to make an impact with their own personal PR. 

Steph has done a phenomenal job over the years of really leveraging personal PR to grow and scale the business and she’s going to be sharing some of her thoughts on that in our session together.

We’ve got more founders. As I said, this lineup we have just got so many amazing businesses and I just know you’re going to be taking things away from all of these sessions but hopefully as I’m going through them you might hear of some themes or some thoughts that mean you definitely want to tune into a particular session. 

So I’m just going to keep going, keep going through the lineup and give you the opportunity to really think about, as I said, just about circling the programs in the Radio Times moment. 

Okay, so Rani & Co. Rani & Co is a feminist jewellery brand that celebrates female empowerment and it is, has been founded by Ramona Gohil.

And Ramona is joining us to talk about her journey. She has built into a multi six figure business, again from her parents loft. [00:20:00] And she’s not only grown it but she has done it very specifically through TikTok, using social media to grow the brand and leverage the power of storytelling. She’s a phenomenal storyteller and has really used that and such a great example of using storytelling to grow.

She also shares her story of resilience where she had to overcome a manufacturing scam that occurred probably have sent most of us sobbing into our pillow for weeks, but how she pulled herself together to overcome that and what it means to her to build a meaningful brand and have those connections with her customers.

So really great tips on growing on social media and having that real strong story behind your brand. 

Martha Keith. Martha Keith is the founder of Martha Brook Stationery. She’s also the founder of Business Secrets Club and she has also grown from a bedroom to a seven figure stationery business.

You may have heard of Martha, or you may have heard the name [00:21:00] before, or it may seem familiar if I tell you that just before Christmas last year, she was targeted by a sophisticated criminal gang who set up hundreds and thousands of listings worldwide for a counterfeit version of her best selling product, the advent calendar.

Martha shares not only the behind the scenes of this story, but some really, really valuable tips. So if you’ve ever heard that story and thought, what the heck would I do if that happened to me? Or you’ve ever worried about protecting your brand online, then you definitely don’t want to miss this session.

She’s going to be sharing her thoughts, what she discovered in the process, as well as her ideas about how you keep going, keep growing and what it takes to be resilient as a business owner. And finally, by last but by absolutely no means least, we have our latest addition to the lineup, which is Dr. Tara Lalvani.

She runs a business called Beautifact, and Beautifact has scaled to 8 figures in under 3 [00:22:00] years. It’s all based on beauty tools that Dr. Tara created and developed herself, and she’s even seen people like Beyonce using her products on a private jet. It’s a completely bootstrapped business and Dr. Tara shares some incredible insight into what it’s like to grow that rapidly.

What are some of the things that she learned along the way and then also what it’s taken for her to expand internationally, as well as what it’s like to feel what it feels like to have those kind of celebrities sharing your business. So we have an absolutely stacked lineup for you. As you can see, it’s taken me a while, just even just to talk through the top level of all of these sessions.

So it’s so much value, so much information and inspiration for you for Retail ROAR, if I haven’t convinced you yet. Then I’m not sure what will, but head over to retailroar.co.uk to get your ticket. As I said, you can sign up, you can listen to one session. You can listen to a [00:23:00] couple where you can fit them in while you’re having your lunch, whatever it takes, just sign up.

You’ll get the link to the Facebook group where you’ll see the replays once the sessions have taken place, you’ll be able to catch them as they’re being streamed as well as have the replays there afterwards. And why not come along? It’s going to be phenomenal. We had thousands of people in the Facebook group last year, lots of opportunities to connect with other retail owners, and we would love to have you there.

So do tune in, sign up. Why not tell a friend? If you have got any, if you know people who have their own product business, get them to sign up. As I said it’s completely free and we have got so many inspirational stories, I can’t wait to share them all with you. Thanks so much and I’ll see you next week at Retail ROAR.