Haley Boehning (00:05)
Welcome back to Lead Like Her. I’m Haley Boehning, and today my guest is Rachel Williamson, the founder of Running Great Stores. Rachel spent more than 30 years leading retail operations for really well-known brands and businesses like Justice, Bath Body Works, and L Brands. Before launching her own consulting practice, Rachel was most recently the VP of store operations and transformation for Assena. Through her current practice, Rachel helps CEOs, heads of stores.

And private equity-backed brands close that gap between strategy and store-level execution. She’s worked with everyone from Klarna to Purple Innovation to founder-led boutiques. um And she’s the author of the Amazon number one bestseller, 30 Days to Running Great Stores. We talk a little bit about running great stores and what it takes to lead self, lead others, and lead change in retail. We talk about how to have the courage to speak truth to power and to do it.

So it’s heard.

We talk about what it takes to lead self, lead others, and lead change, including having the courage to speak truth to power and having the courage to seek and listen to criticism, because it’s necessary to transform yourself from an individual contributor to a leader. So join me now in welcoming Rachel to the show.

Haley Boehning (01:26)
Thank you so much, Rachel, for joining us today for Lead Like Her. I’m so excited to see you again after having you on stage for our first Lead Like Her event this spring.

Rachel Williamson (01:36)
Thank you so much, Hailey. And I feel like that was yesterday. Wasn’t that just such a great event?

Haley Boehning (01:41)
It was absolutely electric. I mean, the the event and thank you for staying for the book signing. Um, I’m I’m hoping that you’ll join us next spring uh for our next lead like her live and we’ll see you see you in the room then as well. Great. Great. Well, and I also want to say thank you for joining us today. I know that you’re recovering from a cold. Um, and I think uh I can certainly relate to that as our audience can, trying to push through your work and get everything done. And I know you’ve got a really busy schedule. So thank you for that as well.

Rachel Williamson (02:11)
Thank you so much. And I will try and manage those kooky coughs that like to come out of nowhere. So

Haley Boehning (02:16)
No worries, manage as you will.

So, Rachel, we have known each other a long time and uh worked for some of the same retailers. Um, I know that uh when I speak with students uh about retail and about uh their careers in retail, one of the first questions they ask is, How did you get your first job in retail? Can you tell us that story?

Rachel Williamson (02:42)
So I decided at fourteen years old I needed to have a job and so I went to my favorite establishment, which was Baskin Robbins, and I went and applied for a job and they hired me. It wasn’t too hard to get work. at

restaurants, I think it’s probably still that way. I do consider it retail because it you do have customers and so um that’s what I call my first gig in retail and uh I made two dollars and fifteen cents an hour and I loved it so much. I loved the customer piece and I loved the creative piece too. But but quickly, you know, I figured out that it was a really poorly run Baskin Robbins and I had ideas.

And I know that sounds ridiculous to every person listening, like at 14, what kind of ideas did she have besides I can eat all the free ice cream I want? It definitely was an idea. I ate it every single day that I worked. But we were always out of ice cream. And I was hopping on the counter and sliding the flavors off. You know, back then it was 30 wonderful flavors, 31, and they were strips on the wall. And so if you were out of a flavor, you had to get up on the counter and you had to slide that flavor out.

And every time I worked, honestly, I mean, so many flavors were missing. And the owner came in, his name was Mike, and the owner came in one day and I was like, We’re always out of ice cream. The cake case is empty. The freezers need to be thawed, like all this stuff. I’m like complaining to him. And he says, if you can do better, go for it. And so I started ordering the ice cream and I made

Ice cream pies and cakes and clown cones. The case was full and business exploded. And I didn’t realize it at 14, but I realized it a couple years later that I actually had a knack for figuring

Haley Boehning (04:30)
Hm.

Rachel Williamson (04:31)
out where there were opportunities that impacted the customer. Because not only did I hate jumping on the counter and sliding those flavors off, but I hated the customer being disappointed. Lots of times moms and dads would bring their kiddos after school or good report card or what have you.

Get whatever you want. Oh, sorry, we’re out of that. And it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel good. So that was

Haley Boehning (04:53)
This

Rachel Williamson (04:54)
my first foray into retail.

Haley Boehning (04:55)
so the what there’s two there are two things that I think are really remarkable about what you just said. I want to go back to them. You had the gumption to speak to the owner of the business at the age of 14 about what was wrong with his business. What how did you do that? What what mindset already existed in you, little Rachel?

that that gave you the courage to to have that conversation.

Rachel Williamson (05:25)
I don’t think I would have said this answer then, but as I look back, I think what I saw was a middle child who had to be loud to get heard. And I utilized some of those things I used at home to get my message across. Now, when I think about it today, I think, did I say it the right way? Was I respectful? Like

All those things would I have done it a little differently? Maybe. But I always kind of had the courage to um say what I thought. I think I learned there was a a moment there in time where I looked back and said, Gosh, I gotta say that better. Gosh, I gotta, I gotta do that better. Uh I don’t know, maybe people listening have had that where it’s like you have the right idea, but maybe you said it the wrong way. And and

Haley Boehning (06:19)
Right.

Rachel Williamson (06:19)
so I, you know, I did have that. I had this good thing.

But I didn’t always say it the right way. Don’t know. Mike was thrilled uh with all the changes that I made to his business. And the business exploded, the volume exploded, and from then on he’d come in all the time, but only to take cash out of the register. And he’d be like, Good job on the, you know, whatever it was. And I would say to him, Listen, when the case is full, people will buy it. We just need to keep the case

Haley Boehning (06:43)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (06:45)
full. And he was like, You just keep making those pies, cakes, and concones.

And so he didn’t seem to mind, but certainly when we retrospect ourselves, you know, I I certainly think back to that and gosh, am I so grateful that I had the courage to do it, but then so grateful that I also figured out there’s a better way to say it and do it and so that you can win on both sides. And so such a big learning, so you know, so young, but

Haley Boehning (07:10)
And I imagine that moment could have gone a very different way. You know, what was it about that interaction with Mike and and him giving you all of that responsibility and and taking the ideas of this kid who’s scooping in his store? Um, what what did that, you know, now in hindsight looking back, did that have an impact on you and the way you thought about leadership?

Rachel Williamson (07:34)
It did. I think it did two things. I think the first thing it did is it um helped me realize that I had an innate talent. I don’t think I would have called it that then, but I there was something there that I could see beyond what others were seeing and actually get to what we call today, get to the root cause of the problem. The root cause of the problems that he was having was not he didn’t have the right people on staff or

They were all awesome young people that I went to school with at Northland High School. And it he was always staffed. Everybody always wanted to work there. Like it so it wasn’t a staffing problem. It was so it was getting to the root cause of the customers disappointed all the time. And what’s causing that disappointment. I didn’t know the five whys back then, but that’s really what was going on. And I think he respected my passion. So I think I always had a

An

enthusiasm in the way I would articulate or communicate things going on, especially things I was passionate about. And I was really passionate about not being out of ice cream and that case not being empty and not having

Haley Boehning (08:44)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (08:44)
customers be disappointed. And I think

Haley Boehning (08:46)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (08:47)
the passion was compelling to him.

Haley Boehning (08:50)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (08:51)
And I think he thought to himself, What do I have to lose? I don’t want to be here. I mean, he he was an absentee owner.

He didn’t want to be there running the business. It was different to have a Baskin Robbins franchise then than it is now. And there’s a fun story of a few years ago, how I Baskin Robbins actually asked me to run multiple franchises for them. Isn’t that so funny? They’d heard about my fourteen-year-old story, fourteen-year-old

Haley Boehning (09:13)
That’s amazing.

Rachel Williamson (09:16)
girl story, and turning that business around. And

Haley Boehning (09:20)
No, that

Rachel Williamson (09:21)
so kind of fun story, maybe for another day.

Haley Boehning (09:24)
Absolutely.

Well, you also something in your story strikes me as something I’ve heard from a lot of the other women that we’ve interviewed on Lead Like Her, which is that when you approached Mike, you put your complaints in the context of the business

Rachel Williamson (09:40)
That’s right.

Haley Boehning (09:40)
and the customer and how the things that you were seeing, it wasn’t about how they impacted you uh as a employee. I have to climb up on this ladder all the time. But it was about how it was impacting customer and impacting the bottom line.

Rachel Williamson (09:54)
That’s right.

Haley Boehning (09:54)
I’ve heard

that from from a lot of our uh of our lead like her women that that that

Rachel Williamson (10:01)
Mm.

Haley Boehning (10:02)
insight, which you had at 14, thank you very much, was something that they had to learn over time. Um could you maybe talk a little bit about that?

Rachel Williamson (10:11)
You know, I think I I don’t know if I can even articulate where that came from or why I had it, other than we all have been given gifts. And sometimes we don’t discover them till later in life, and other times we discover them young. I think in this instance I discovered it young.

Which was really beneficial to me. Although the same passion that I think brought a lot of energy and success at 14 was the same passion that wanted that I w had that I wanted to be a an attorney. I wanted to be a prosecutor.

Haley Boehning (10:52)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (10:54)
I thought the mafia getting away with all the things they were getting away with was insane. And there had to be a way to.

corral the s the s the issue, the situation, the problem, get these people behind bars and move on the where they just weren’t a normal part of the life that we that we were living. And as you know, I was from New York and obviously a very strong presence there. And so that’s what I was gonna be. I was gonna be a prosecuting attorney. I was gonna put the mafia in prison and I had a really strong passion for that. At the same time, one of five children, no college fund. So I had to work my way through school.

And

retail was the way that I worked my way through school. The interesting thing was that I realized, you know, while I might have a passion for justice, I had um a talent in retail. And I ended up when I was done with school, I ended up just continuing to pursue

Haley Boehning (11:52)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (11:52)
that passion. And the funniest thing is I was working when I was at Justice, the tween girl brand.

For many years I got to work side by side with some of our corporate attorneys on some projects. And I remember saying to this one uh colleague that I’d always wanted to be a lawyer and I was somewhat jealous of um, you know, like what she did for a living and what have you. And, you know, was so interesting. The things I learned, I had this aha moment, I don’t know, a day or two later, that was like,

I’m so glad I didn’t go down that path because it wasn’t the

Haley Boehning (12:28)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (12:29)
path I was meant to go down. But for years leading up to that point,

Haley Boehning (12:34)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (12:35)
I would say, gosh, should I have been a lawyer? Is all this just this thing that I did because I didn’t have three more years than me of law school? And it was so

Haley Boehning (12:43)
Hmm. Hmm.

Rachel Williamson (12:45)
interesting. It was so wonderful to release that.

And to say, No, I’m right where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. And it’s okay to have that passion. And there’s someone else out there, some other lawyers out there that are gonna that are gonna make sure justice happens where it needs to happen. But that was

Haley Boehning (13:01)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (13:02)
the most freeing moment. It was so

Haley Boehning (13:04)
Um

Rachel Williamson (13:04)
good. Like I literally remember it like it was yesterday.

Haley Boehning (13:09)
That’s a that’s an insight that some people don’t have in their in their lives

Rachel Williamson (13:14)
Mm.

Haley Boehning (13:14)
and their careers, letting those things go. I

Rachel Williamson (13:17)
Mm.

Haley Boehning (13:17)
wonder, you know, clearly your passion for justice and your interest in the law as a young kid uh speaks to me of your values and right and

Rachel Williamson (13:28)
Mm.

Haley Boehning (13:28)
wrong and justice. And I wonder those haven’t left you. Like how

How do those values about justice and what’s right and what’s wrong and this this young girl who was gonna go fight the Gambino family, you know, how how does that show up in your work?

Rachel Williamson (13:45)
You know what’s interesting is as I think back to

The last corporate role I had, which was um leading transformation for um a very big company, had eight retail banners uh under them. And there were things that we had to do, right? Transformation has got a very clear roadmap, a very clear expectation. This is what has to happen. And it has to happen in this time frame. And I had about 18 months to accomplish the things that our board was holding us to.

And

um that the CEO of the company was was holding us to, us as in the transformation team. And but gosh, there were things they they weren’t the right way to do it, they weren’t the right things to do. Nothing illegal, nothing bad. Please, we won’t read into anything crazy. But things that just they weren’t the right thing to be doing. And I saw those passions flare up um many times in conversations where

While I wasn’t the decision maker, I couldn’t say CEO or board of directors, even though I, you know, prepared all the board of director materials for the quarterly meetings and spoke with them, it wasn’t, it wasn’t about right and wrong, but it was about i are we thinking about this the right way? And could these options get us the same outcome without leaving as many bodies in our path?

You know, it’s when you do transformation, you it’s unfortunate, but oftentimes there are reductions in force that have to happen and just all kinds of things that just needed to happen. Sometimes businesses bloat up when they’ve been successful, they get bigger, bigger, bigger, they hire more, more, more. And sometimes it’s just right sizing the business. Sometimes it’s not

It’s not about, we why are we getting rid of all these people? It’s about we had too many people and we’ve got to get the organization back, get rid of the bloat, get the organization back in line with where it should be. Those I’m fine with. But then when we couldn’t push other brands to do what they needed to do, they would go back to, let’s just get rid of more people. And that’s

Haley Boehning (16:00)
Uh

Rachel Williamson (16:00)
what I was like, but are we cutting off our nose despite our face? Let’s just play this out for a quick second. And so I would be the ones, you know, leading these meetings.

with different partners across the brands and and having to ask the hard questions. And I think I don’t know that I thought about it that way until you asked the question, Haley, but I think it’s where that need for justice and that internal right and wrong

Haley Boehning (16:26)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (16:26)
played itself back out again. But I but I’m really proud of the work that I did there, primarily because I remember the COO saying to me,

You have the courage to say to us the things that no one else has the courage to say. The truth of the matter is I really didn’t like that job and I really would be happy if they would have just said bye bye. But that didn’t

Haley Boehning (16:47)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (16:47)
happen. You see, sometimes we think we need to tell people what we think they need that they want to hear and not what they need to hear. But I didn’t do that because I wasn’t worried about the outcome. I was more worried that we did the right thing. We were talking about a lot of people, a lot of businesses, a lot of customers, like

so much at stake.

Haley Boehning (17:07)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (17:08)
And so the I think that’s where the I think it popped up lots of places in my career, but I I not recency syndrome because I have been away from that role for

for seven years now. Um,

Haley Boehning (17:19)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (17:21)
but certainly it it stands out as as

Haley Boehning (17:24)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (17:24)
that moment.

Haley Boehning (17:26)
Well, you’ve been in some pretty remarkable rooms. And as you just mentioned, you know, working with with boards, working with the CEOs, working with investors during times of transformation, pretty heated rooms

Rachel Williamson (17:39)
Very

Haley Boehning (17:39)
and and those questions of justice and what is right and wrong and how are we going to navigate these times that have a significant impact on the lives of real real humans?

Rachel Williamson (17:49)
Yeah.

Haley Boehning (17:50)
how do you lead yourself?

in those situations? Like I know you’ve led large teams, but when you think about leading Rachel, what

Rachel Williamson (18:00)
Yeah.

Haley Boehning (18:00)
what could you share with our with our listeners about uh what you’ve learned about how to lead yourself in those high stress moments?

Rachel Williamson (18:09)
Yeah, I think I for me I had to I have to stay grounded in the facts of the situation so that emotion can’t start spiraling, can’t take it down a path that it’s not supposed to go down. and so I think for me doing my due diligence, having or having the team or whomever, I had a great team around me.

when I was in this transformation role and so I would say to them, Look, these are this is all the stuff I need. I’m not even gonna mention anything until I have this data in front of me. So

I’m very data driven person, but because I have so much passion in my personality and my communication style, et cetera, it can be misinterpreted as emotion. And and so for me it’s give me all the facts so that I can have that be my groundwork and I can lay it out that way. and and I think the other piece is it’s understanding that

You know, early in my career, leadership was all about being capable and getting results that I could drive. But obviously, as we looked at the latter parts of my career, it was really more about creating conditions for other people to succeed. And so it was it was a journey of not individual contributor, because I had teams under me.

But I still was able to get the outcome I needed. In my early years of my twenties, like at the gap and at Ann Taylor, I would say I I could muscle the outcome. Do you know what I mean by that?

Haley Boehning (19:46)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (19:48)
Like I could make it happen because I knew who to tell to do what. But then I hit this moment in my career where

muscling the outcome was never going to work. That was an that was a a maturation that needed to happen for me. And as that happened, I realized how am I going to get all these other people around me

to

experience success and to get us where we needed to go and to get me where I I wanted to be successful and I didn’t want to fail on the backs of people who didn’t know what they were doing or what have you. And that was that transition between making it happen and then getting into roles where you no longer could and you had to go

Haley Boehning (20:31)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (20:32)
a different route. And I and and so those just became

how I operated even to

Haley Boehning (20:38)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (20:39)
this day, even with my consulting practice. I have sub consultants that work with me and on projects and I I’m not gonna look over their shoulder. It’s like here’s what the client needs.

Here is what we have committed to doing. Here is everything I’ve learned about what’s happening there. Now I need your input. Here’s how I’m thinking about it. Am I thinking about it the right way? Help me. And it’s understanding that I don’t have to be the smartest one in the room. And I think it the the middle child syndrome wanting to prove like, yeah, listen, I’m over here. Someone pay attention. uh and for any middle children listening, you know what I’m talking about. Certainly not a crutch and it’s all good. I joke about it, but

I think it was real at some point. And

Haley Boehning (21:24)
Hm.

Rachel Williamson (21:24)
I think the reality is that look, if I can’t personally solve everything anymore.

How is it? What is it gonna look like? How is it gonna play out to still get the results that I want? To have whether people work for me or they sub for me or what have you, how am I gonna get those results? And it doesn’t change, it doesn’t matter how old I am, it doesn’t matter what role I’m in, it doesn’t matter um what client I’m working with, it’s the same. It’s how do I help?

Other people get where they need to be, but how do I still guide the thinking? Right? And

Haley Boehning (22:04)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (22:04)
I and I often say, am I thinking about this the right way? Or am I not? Like happy to be wrong here. Don’t really want to be wrong, but I’m happy

Haley Boehning (22:11)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (22:13)
to be wrong. And that’s a big leap from feeling like you have to

Haley Boehning (22:16)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (22:16)
control everything going on to prove that you know what you’re doing, to

Haley Boehning (22:21)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (22:22)
hey, I’m happy to be wrong here.

Uh we just need someone in this room to have the answer and maybe it’s a compilation of all of our thoughts that are gonna get us to the right answer. But those are

Haley Boehning (22:31)
Yeah. I wonder.

Rachel Williamson (22:32)
milestone leaps, right, to managing it all yourself and getting to

Haley Boehning (22:35)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (22:36)
the outcome you want and having to allow others to have the answer that isn’t yours.

Haley Boehning (22:42)
Yeah. I wonder, you know, this transition that you’re talking about from, you know, being being an individual contributor that can that just can muscle through, um, get get people to do things that you need them to do so that you can get the results for yourself to becoming a leader and getting results through other people. Um, you know, what you’ve just articulated is a fairly sophisticated understanding of how you do that. I wonder if you can share with our audience.

Was there a time when you didn’t have that insight? Like as you were making that transformation, was there a moment where you didn’t do it right? Um, where you didn’t do it right and you got poor results as a as a result, and maybe an insight that um that changed the way you thought about leading and and created this um this view that you have now on how to lead people.

Rachel Williamson (23:37)
I think

early on um in my twenties, working for big brands, like I took the leap from working for small family-owned retailers, three, five, ten stores, and overseeing all of them for them, to taking the leap of going to the gap. There’s a story in my book about this man came into the store I was working at, wanted a gift for his wife. Fast forward the next day he calls and says, You need to come work for me.

He was a district manager for the gap. And um and so that was my first foray into he’s like, if you’re as good as I think you are, you’re gonna go really far in your career, but you never will working for these small retailers. And I’m like, all right, I’ll take a chance, what have you. It would be I’m on vacation for a week and I come back and the standards have slipped, or you know, sales were bad or conversion dropped or whatever.

even on a day off, right? Like it it just disconnected. Now I had customer complaints and it would be like, what is going on, you guys? I mean, I’m gone for a week or I’m gone for a day. Like, what’s happening? And that happened enough times, I think, as a young store manager, that I had this realization that I cannot keep doing it this way. It is not working. But I thought I was really good at it.

Because I was the number one store manager in my district and I had the top volume and I they kept promoting me to the next big store and I finally had one of the first 50 12,000 square foot gap superstores, they were called back then.

Um, I would do better and then I’d fall back into my old ways of

getting results myself. And I think the

biggest transition for me was when I wanted to apply for a district manager role with the gap and didn’t get it. And I was like, How could I not get it? Like my self-awareness was pathetic, right? Like, how could I not get it? And they’re like,

Because you haven’t

figured out how to really all the time get work done through other people. You still are the primary star that gets it done. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, still just not getting it. And they’re like, Do you remember when this happened? And I was like, I’m never telling you stuff again because you’re using it against me. And um, but it was, you know, that moment was a turning point for me. I left the gap shortly after that.

And

’cause I got recruited to another business and um another big brand. And that leader.

I don’t know. She there was something about wanting to be like her. She was a role

Haley Boehning (26:26)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (26:27)
model. And I talk about her in my book. I have never worked for anyone that was quite like her. And and so when you can see it in action, you can

Haley Boehning (26:37)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (26:37)
start to emulate it. And I think that’s what I needed that I didn’t have until I got to this role. And the regional office was in my back room. And so

I I saw her all the time and she would give me f immediate feedback and she would um talk to me about visits she had been on and and I would just learn. I just would learn from all these different little stories she would share. And and s you know, slowly but surely like I got better at it and then more opportunities and she made me a district manager and um and and my careers kept growing. But it was when I had those bosses that were willing to say the hard stuff that was the difference. And

There’s a lot of that that that doesn’t happen. People aren’t comfortable like, I don’t I don’t want to say it. You’ll figure it out. It’s like, no, just tell them. Tell them what they need

Haley Boehning (27:28)
Hmm.

Rachel Williamson (27:29)
to hear because it it I think it helps you move to that next level in your career so much, so much quicker and with so much more confidence because you get what someone’s telling you. But these people, I mean, they had built trust with me, right? We had a relationship. And you can’t always just give feedback when there’s no relationship.

And that was another

Haley Boehning (27:46)
Right.

Rachel Williamson (27:47)
piece that I that again, just pieces of the puzzle that were being fit together and primarily by this this wonderful leader that I had. And I and all of those things build, you build on them and you become the

Haley Boehning (28:00)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (28:00)
leader that you are, but but those are probably the most meaningful components.

Haley Boehning (28:05)
Yeah, tell me about the

as I listened to these two stories, you you at the gap not getting that district manager role. There were two things about that that I’m curious about. You asked why.

Rachel Williamson (28:16)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Boehning (28:17)
And then they gave you feedback and they told you why. How

Rachel Williamson (28:19)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Haley Boehning (28:22)
how did that perhaps inform how you uh sought a mentor and sought feedback when you got to the next.

uh retailer um and you and you found your your mentor

Rachel Williamson (28:37)
I think the biggest thing in one sentence, I thought it was super unfair that had I not asked, nobody would have offered that feedback. And since I clearly lacked self-awareness at that moment in time in my life, young,

Haley Boehning (28:49)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (28:50)
you know, young person, um I decided that I just needed to have people around me who saw things I didn’t see and helped me continue to transition into a more mature leader.

Who others wanted to follow. You know, I mean I think that was that

Haley Boehning (29:07)
Yeah. So for for our

Rachel Williamson (29:09)
big piece.

Haley Boehning (29:10)
yeah, and I wonder for for our listeners, you know, we’ve we have so many listeners who are just starting out in their careers, you know, they are in that position that you were in in the gap. maybe they haven’t found that mentor yet, like you did. What what advice would you give them for how to make them self available for that kind of of mentorship? any any

suggestions or mindsets that you think people need to have?

Rachel Williamson (29:38)
Yeah, I think in

a in a in its simplest form, it’s communicating your openness and willingness. It’s being able to be humble. Like I I love Laccioni’s uh hungry, humble and smart. and I’ve used it, you know, most of my career, I think, on how to hire good people. And that’s I think still the biggest thing that I would encourage.

Any young person moving in, it’s like, listen, we’re young, right? We’re not gonna know everything and that’s okay. Don’t don’t saddle yourself with that responsibility. Why don’t I know? But can you be humble and can you be open and can you surround yourself with people who demonstrate the things that you maybe demonstrate already or want to demonstrate? You know, that I I always said to my daughter, show me your friends and I’ll show me show you your future.

And it was like when we surround ourselves with people that want to help us be better, that are working to make themselves better, I think it’s so much easier to have that honest conversation where you’re like, you know what? That last role, I I’m not sure exactly what didn’t go right, but there were things that didn’t go right. I didn’t get the feedback I needed. I really want it. What’s the best way to go about it? How did you go about it? It for me it wasn’t always asking, will you be my mentor?

Sometimes it’s just asking people, how did you do it?

asking and being super humble about it takes you down a path where, you know, someone’s willing to provide that feedback. And now, uh, as an all grown up person,

Haley Boehning (31:16)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (31:16)
I offer mentorship often when people ask, I’m like, I’m happy to come alongside you.

And talk to you. And it’s just one of those things. It’s like, I kinda wish I had had it even younger. It’s kind of the one of the reasons I wrote my book. Like, if you can figure the stuff out and how to run a great store now in your twenties, just do it. Don’t wait until you know you’re

Haley Boehning (31:36)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (31:37)
my age to get figure all those things out. Because that book is kind of everything that I did uh to be successful, all wrapped up and tied in a bow. Have fun reading it, right?

Haley Boehning (31:46)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Williamson (31:47)
Um, and so I think I think it just

just be willing to ask and be willing to hear that you don’t have to be perfect. But my fear is I’ve got a millennial daughter. She turns thirty tomorrow and um she takes feedback really, really defensively. And I would just enc and I her friends too, I mean they’re all kind of cup for the same cough a little bit. And I’m like, it’s don’t be defensive. It’s not criticism. But how do we get better if we don’t hear what others are observing?

when we say that, when we do that, when we act that way, when we dress that way, when we fill in the blank. And so it’s like, yeah, just just be open. You don’t have to do what someone else says. But what

Haley Boehning (32:32)
Right.

Rachel Williamson (32:32)
if they’re what if they have something there? What if there’s a nugget that could help you? Is it worth it? Probably. You have to decide, right? But yeah.

Haley Boehning (32:41)
I wonder, you know, you you’ve had a couple of uh different chapters in your career and you’re now in the entrepreneurial chapter. And

Rachel Williamson (32:48)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Haley Boehning (32:51)
a lot of our um our listeners and the students that that I get a chance to talk to uh are really interested in this idea of entrepreneurship. Um I wonder if you can talk about that journey. Like why, what was it in you that that said, uh, you know, I need to go out and do my own thing and I want to write a book.

Rachel Williamson (33:12)
Yeah.

So uh two about seven years apart, those things happened. And

Haley Boehning (33:16)
Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (33:17)
they didn’t happen and so they tried to happen at the same time, but the and publisher back in two thousand nineteen did not like where I was going with the book. Now that book went in the trash can and my new book has nothing at all like the first book that I started. You know, we all have ideas in our heads. I think why entrepreneurship? Some days I ask myself that. I really loved being on a big team. I loved working for a corporate.

organization. I loved being a cog in the wheel. Um I loved the I love that the higher up I went in the organization, the more influence I could have over people. And as someone who grew up trying to control what everybody did as a store manager, that’s what you’re doing. It’s really cool to say, I actually love the idea of influencing lots of people around me, not controlling the outcome of lots of people around me. And so

When I said, gosh, what what would happen if I was a retail consultant? What if I could influence retail organizations to identify what’s really going on, to get to the root cause, not to solve for every symptom that pops up like a whack-a-mole, but to really get to the root cause of the issue. What if I could help them? And what if in turn that saved retailers from disappearing off the map? I mean, we different call, a different day.

You think back twenty years, thirty years, forty years, like you you could go as many ten years, all the retailers that we knew and loved perhaps and have disappeared off the the map. What if, right? That was the question that I asked. What if? And not from an arrogance standpoint, not a savior mentality, I can save all these retailers, not at all, but what if I could have more influence working with retailers than just being in one corporate environment?

And so I decided to give it a shot and and that’s what I did, which was great. Uh certainly there are times when I miss not being surrounded by an enormous team and you know, I embed myself into these retailers that I support and I get really I get really attached and I don’t want it to end because I feel part of something bigger. And so I think part of me still misses that. but then why the book? You know, clients just oh do you have a book? Why do you not have a book?

How can you not have a book? So I finally had a transition time between two clients. And a friend of mine, John Gordon, said when you write a book, you have to sit down and just write the book. And take a he takes a month to write his book. So I’m not a a skilled author. Uh it was my first book. So I sat down for two straight months in between these two clients, one winding down and one ramping up. And I wrote the book. And uh yeah, just uh it’s

The most rewarding thing I think for me has been the retailers that are buying it, using it with their teams, and just being able to connect with those organizations and those district managers on how they’re developing their store managers. And it’s so rewarding that if my career ended today, I’m like, but I have this really cool thing that I did to just help help retail leaders who are trying to figure it out and can do it a lot younger than I did. So

Haley Boehning (36:34)
That’s

great. Well, you’re you’re touching on a another question I have for you. You know, this impact that you’re having. You’re you’re having an impact on the district managers that are reading your book and the retailers that you’re working with and and you’re making them more efficient. What are the other changes that you think our industry needs to make? What are the what are the things we need to be honest with ourselves about? And what what kind of changes would you like to see?

Rachel Williamson (36:59)
I think the biggest challenge that I see retailers having, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a small independent retailer, if you’re a direct-to-consumer retailer opening in brick and mortar and you don’t know how to run stores, or if you’re an experienced retail brand that’s been running stores for decades, there is a lack of true

awareness on where the opportunities lie and what the root causes are of the problem. We are trying to solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s solutions and it just doesn’t work. Um I I number two I see retailers saying well how do I use AI to do whatever?

AI is an enhancement tool. It doesn’t solve the root cause fundamental problems of what it takes to run a successful retail business. And um and then when they do implement these tools, they stand back like, okay, where’s the magic? It just doesn’t work like that. Retailers need to nail the fundamentals first.

Once they’ve done that, then they can say, How do I use AI? Like I’ll give you a great example. I think AI should be at the fingertips of every store manager where they can input their results, their schedule, their feedback on their people, all the right prompts, and the AI tool can help them be quicker, smarter, faster.

This is how you need to be thinking about what you’re focused on for this next week. This is how you’re going to move the needle on conversion. You need to focus on these uh particular behaviors, et cetera. Um, the schedule. You know, you could download a schedule and the AI tool should be able to tell you, you know, you’re using too much labor here, not enough labor here, and it could all tie back to the wrong availability or what have you. But

We’re implementing tools and then we’re not teaching our people to use them. So you spend all this money, you’re super excited, you’re bam, ready to go, but they don’t know how to use the tools. And so um that that’s just another issue. It’s like just first we gotta nail the fundamentals and we’ve really gotta have fresh eyes looking at the business on what is really going on. I’ll use Abercrombie and Fitch. I think they’ve done such a beautiful job. You know, their rebranding wasn’t about new marketing.

Haley Boehning (39:15)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (39:16)
Their rebranding was saying, who is tomorrow’s generation? What do they want? What do they need? How do we deliver it? They’re not solving for that using whatever successes they’ve had in their past. They’re reinventing themselves to align with that clo customer.

Haley Boehning (39:36)
Hmm.

Rachel Williamson (39:38)
And

I think it’s remarkable. I think it’s why you’re seeing quarter on quarter on quarter on quarter, you know, results.

Haley Boehning (39:44)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (39:45)
Uh i it and

They’re not a client of mine and and I I am not a sponsor of theirs where I’m paid to say something nice about them. But as someone that assesses retailers for a living and and I’m often asked who are the retailers that you’re looking at, that you’re watching, certainly Abercrombie is one of them. And they I think they came from the depths of a really challenging place and said, I I don’t even know how you recreate all of that. How do you erase the challenges, et cetera? And yet their CEO and the team, it’s never just one person.

And

it’s not I’m sure if she was sitting here, she’d say, Well, it’s not me, but it’s a lot of really smart people. And we, you know, we did our due diligence, we figured it out. But there’s a lot of retailers that are just trying to run tomorrow like they did yesterday, and it just doesn’t work like that. And so I would, you know, I would encourage

retailers out there to say how do we pause and how do we think differently and how do we get to the true root cause and stop whack a molling every problem that pops up with just a symptomatic solution when you just it doesn’t solve anything, right? And so it everyone asks me, w what’s changed now from when you were first in retail? And the interesting thing is so much and so little. So little in that the fundamentals still matter.

mean if you’re so we’re in Ohio, uh I’m in Ohio and I’m a Buckeye, so Ohio State football is about to start up, I think it’s a week or two until their first game. And whether you’re talking about the Buckeyes in the sixties or you’re talking about the Buckeyes today, have the fundamentals changed? You still have to be good at running and tackling and you know, you you have to nail the fundamentals. All the trick plays, all the fun stuff.

You don’t win games that way. Those are just fun. They happen. They happen. But the coaches the these guys are working out. They’re running. They’re practicing. They’re calling plays. Fundamentals. Not sexy. Boring. But that’s why they’re, you know, a winning football team. Retailers are the same way. We’re looking for the coolest, hippest components, right? We’re looking at, we’re looking to NRF, right? Love the love.

National Retail Federation, but we’re looking to them for the really cool stuff. And it’s like, yes, and nail the fundamentals first. And

Haley Boehning (42:10)
Mm. Right.

Rachel Williamson (42:13)
many retailers have not. And and that’s that is why r retailers will not all be here ten years from now, right? The future of brick and mortar belongs to every retailer, but not every retailer has what it takes to make that happen. And they won’t. And and we will still have retailers disappear. And it’s

Haley Boehning (42:32)
Yeah.

The na the natural course of yeah.

Rachel Williamson (42:34)
But you know, fundamentals aren’t that fun, are they? They’re boring sometimes.

Haley Boehning (42:38)
Yeah. The circle of life and the circle of retail. Yeah.

Rachel Williamson (42:41)
That’s right. That’s right. Very

similar.

Haley Boehning (42:43)
So, Rachel, I’m curious, you know, for our listeners, many of whom are emerging leaders in retail, they’re just starting out in their careers and they’re in all the different functions you can imagine, from finance to design to stores. But not all of them are stores leaders as you are. Is there something that uh a rule that you think we need to reframe for ourselves um as young leaders in retail?

Rachel Williamson (43:07)
You know, I think the thing that I would encourage all of us to just think about is that it is not just our corporate offices.

Setting a strategy and our stores executing it, but rather where the customer resides and they reside in our stores. And so no matter what role you are in, I want to encourage you to get out if you’re in the office, get out of the office and spend time in stores. If you’re in stores,

Call your corporate partners and invite them to come and spend a day with you, a busy Saturday or a busy Friday in the store, and encourage them to hear what the customers are saying, what they love or what they would like. And I guess if if I could pick one thing, it would be: don’t lose track of the customer. They are why we’re here. They are what drives our success or our failure as a retail organization.

And so no matter what role you’re in, find your way back to the customer.

Haley Boehning (44:12)
Really great advice. Like I it it’s interesting. I think listening to you say that, it’s this recognition that that today is differentiating for someone

Rachel Williamson (44:23)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Boehning (44:24)
who’s just coming up in retail. Whether you’re the, you know, you’re you’re a director of finance or you’re a planner, is to get out of the office and get into the real world and go see your customers’ IRL. So it’s a terrific advice. Thank you, Rachel.

Rachel Williamson (44:38)
You know what’s so funny, Haley, is like you could rattle off any corporate title and I could tell you what they’re gonna learn by going to stores. Because I have, gosh, even today as a consultant, you know, where I’m talking to CEOs about how much time are you spending in stores? Well, we’re busy, we’re meetings or whatever. And I’m like, I’m actually not gonna say yes, I’ll work with you.

until you come to stores with me and we talk about the reality of what’s happening and it’s it just changes the whole conversation. But I mean if you’re a store finance person, what do you need to do in stores? Well you’re the one allocating the pocketbook. You’re the one who sees how many payroll hours they get and you see what it really looks like on the floor.

where you’re the one who decides how much people are making when everybody else in the mall might be making more or making less. Like I you know, give me any role and I will tell you what what they’re gonna learn in stores. So it it’s true. I mean it there’s no better place to be. You’ll learn what you need to know just being in stores. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but until you do it, you won’t quite understand what what we’re saying here. But when you do it, you will say, I it.

Haley Boehning (45:45)
That’s great. So I I am

going to invite you into a game, which is when we uh post this interview, uh, I’m gonna tag you on LinkedIn and I’m gonna invite people to add their corporate retail title to a comment and invite you to tell them what they need, what they’ll learn when they get into stores. How about that? We’ll play, we’ll play a little game together. So

Rachel Williamson (46:08)
I love that so much. I can’t wait. That will be terrific.

Haley Boehning (46:15)
Yes. Well, thank you so much for the time that you’ve given us today, Rachel, to talk about your career and everything that you’ve learned along the way for the benefit of our listeners. Um,

so rapid fire questions, Rachel. The first one is is there a book or a podcast, something that you’ve uh listened to or read recently that’s really inspired you and why?

Rachel Williamson (46:35)
Yes, um it’s not a new book, although I read a lot of new books, but this is a classic that I uh just read again called Multiplier by Liz Wiseman. If you are a people leader, if you aspire to be a people leader, if you simply have a pulse

you should read Multiplier because what it does is it takes the burden of having to be the smartest one in the room off of you and it teaches you how to bring out the brilliance in everyone else around you. And it is a superb book and I would highly encourage if you haven’t read it to read it.

Haley Boehning (47:12)
Thank you. So second question, uh is there a a woman in retail today who really inspires you? And why?

Rachel Williamson (47:22)
I’m actually gonna pick someone who I don’t know very well, um, and I

Haley Boehning (47:25)
Mm.

Rachel Williamson (47:25)
watch from afar, and that is the CEO of Abercrombie. She has uh and yes, you should interview her on Lead Like Her. Uh she has quite an interesting background, and um she has an incredible way of leveraging people around her, and her vision is uh is pretty remarkable. And

I’ve never gotten to work for her. Um, but she’s one of those people you know how you meet these people and you’re like, this is a person that I feel like I would benefit from just being able to observe. I could be a fly on the wall. Um, but I think she’s probably the woman today, like right this minute, in the thick of all the things she’s in the thick of, um, that’s that’s very inspiring to me.

Haley Boehning (48:16)
Thank you. Well, fair warning, Fran. We’re we’re calling on you. We’re gonna get you on this podcast. Um

Rachel Williamson (48:19)
That’s right. Fran Horowitz, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

Haley Boehning (48:23)
that’s great. So when uh so final question, fun question. Um when you need to hype yourself up, what music do you put on? What song do you play?

Rachel Williamson (48:35)
Eye of the Tiger.

Haley Boehning (48:37)
Ah, fantastic. All right. Well, that is that’s the first

Rachel Williamson (48:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Boehning (48:40)
time we’ve heard that one that is so going on, the Lead Like Her Hype Music Spotify list. So thank you for that submission.

Rachel Williamson (48:46)
Yes, it’s it’s

so good and I have so many old ones like that on it, but that’s still my favorite. I put that on so loud. It’s crazy and it always does the trick. So give it a try, you guys. That’s right, that’s right.

Haley Boehning (48:57)
Yes, yes. Put turn turn that speaker to 11 and listen to Eye of the Tiger. Well,

Rachel, it has been so much fun to talk to you today. Thank you so much.

Rachel Williamson (49:05)
Excuse me. Thank you.

Haley Boehning (49:07)
You did a remarkable job as a woman recovering from a cold of making it through this entire interview. So thank you for your time. Um, we will link in the show notes to Rachel’s book, to her website, and to all of the advice that she’s given us in terms of tips around books and and and other things and and Eye of the Tiger. So thank you, Rachel.

Rachel Williamson (49:27)
Thank you, Haley. Appreciate it so much. Fun being with you today.