Brands have modernised their stores, websites and marketing, but most haven't looked hard at what happens when a customer walks through the door.

Ryan (Founder - Remarkable Digital) talks with Bethany, founder of Known Studios, who helps fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands like Aje Athletica, Accent Group, Assembly Label, Shona Joy, Nude Lucy and Viktoria & Woods improve their customer experience and store teams.

Bethany explains the "stalemate" in retail right now: staff are so scared of being pushy that they say nothing, and customers are so wary of being sold to that they shut everyone down.

She shares why "How are you today?" needs to go, why she treats customers like dinner guests, and why ATV and UPT matter more to store teams than budget.

Plus, why one great training day isn't enough, and the app she's building to help training stick.

In this episode

• Pre-chat: getting clearer on her niche after five years, and a new app for embedding training
• What Known Studios does, and the brands Bethany works with
• Why Bethany started Known: sitting through outdated training and knowing it wouldn't work in her own store
• The omnichannel gap: beautiful brand copy online, then no greeting in store. You often learn more from a website in 30 seconds than from a store visit
• Why in-store conversion is so much higher than online, and why staff need to back up the marketing
• Bethany's first retail job in the BI-LO deli at 14 and nine months, and choosing fashion over psychology (she now combines both)
• Ryan's first retail experience at 30, learning from Craig Gaspar at Sports Fever in Perth
• What brings brands to Known: usually a drop in the numbers, a blanket spending ban, or keeping up with competitors
• Why e-commerce brands opening physical stores are often getting training right
• Head office vs the shop floor: why Bethany always spends a day or two in stores before writing training, and takes head office's view "with a grain of salt"
• Regional managers stuck in meetings for 70% of the day, and why reports aren't gospel
• Ryan's shout-outs to Ed at Ralph Lauren Chadstone and Mel at Orlebar Brown
• The retail stalemate: staff too scared of being pushy to approach, customers too guarded to engage
• Why "How are you today?" and "Are you happy just browsing?" should go
• The dinner guest approach: welcome them, give them a moment, then come back
• Why the second approach is where most retail falls down
• The "why to try or buy": giving customers a reason to bother with the change room in a Melbourne winter
• Curious conversation starters: around 50 ways to start a conversation that have nothing to do with product
• ATV and UPT: the most controllable metrics for store teams, and what they reveal that revenue hides
• Hitting budget by not talking about budget for six weeks, and celebrating a $2 lift in average spend
• Inside Jobs: sending Bethany into underperforming or overlooked stores to model behaviour on the floor
• Showing beats telling: why people retain only around 15% of what they're told
• Looking beyond sales: visual merchandising, wage percentage, rostering, store standards and product knowledge
• No bad conference sandwiches, Times New Roman or stapled booklets: why training materials should look like the brand
• The Viktoria & Woods process: a bespoke customer framework, printed learning journals, a national leaders' day in Melbourne, then embedding
• Why embedding is the hardest part (it's like toilet training a puppy)
• The Known app: bespoke frameworks, live observation tools, training videos and incentives, linked to store results
• The Breakfast Club at Pacific Fair (GPT Group): open-brand training sessions every three months
• What store teams say: lots of "what", never any "how", and all the attention going to the top store
• Why consistent weekly recognition beats a pizza night or a good Christmas party
• A shout-out to mutual clients Erin and Chris at Clean Beauty Market
• How to get in touch with Bethany

Most brands think they know who their best customers are. Then they put their online and in-store data together and get a surprise.

Ryan Martin talks with Aaron Luxmoore, Head of Sales and Partnerships at Lexer, about how the platform has grown from a customer data platform (CDP) into an AI customer intelligence layer. Aaron explains why putting ChatGPT or Claude on top of fragmented data just gives you wrong answers faster, and why the same customer can show up as three different people.

He also covers why you shouldn't send every customer the same Black Friday discount, the quickest way to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers, and why Lexer doesn't charge per seat. Plus, how a LinkedIn post turned into Friends in Tech, a networking event with an 850-person list.

In this episode

• Friends in Tech: how one LinkedIn post became an 850-person event list across the east coast, with no sponsors, no pitches and no clients invited
• Lexer's evolution from CDP to an AI customer intelligence layer
• The discover, decide, act, observe and learn loop, and why the platform is now used by CEOs, merchandisers and store teams, not just marketing
• Bringing inventory, margins, store rosters and business context (like store closures) into the data
• What usually brings a brand to Lexer: "we don't really know our customers", a loyalty program launch, or too many hours lost to spreadsheets
• Omnichannel reality check: the customer who spent $2K online and $5K in store, and the "one-time buyers" who've actually bought again in store
• Adding third-party data from Experian (likely income, home ownership, parent status)
• Wrong answers, fast: the problem with putting AI over fragmented data, and the risk of tying everything to one LLM
• How one customer with multiple email addresses can look like three different customers
• Black Friday: why full-price buyers shouldn't get the same discount as everyone else
• Lexi as "the brains behind Klaviyo": insight, then strategy, then the segment (around 75% of Lexer clients use Klaviyo)
• Common objections, and why all-in-one platforms tend to be "jack of all trades, master of none"
• Build vs buy: why building your own customer data layer usually takes two years and more people than expected
• Implementation down from about six months to 6–12 weeks
• Why Lexer doesn't charge per seat, and pricing based on the number of customer profiles
• ROI examples: paying for a year's subscription just by turning one-time buyers into repeat buyers, and feeding top-5% audiences into Meta
• Who buys: head of digital, CMO and CRM manager, and the champions who bring Lexer with them when they change jobs
• Multi-brand groups: cross-selling across Cotton On, Cotton On Body and Typo
• Who it's for: medium to large omnichannel retailers, increasingly smaller and e-commerce-only brands, plus hospitality clients
• How to get a free demo using your own Shopify and email data

What happens when a dietitian and a lawyer start a swimwear brand?

Ryan talks with Lyndi and Les Cohen, the husband-and-wife team behind Fearless Swimwear. Lyndi, known as The Nude Nutritionist, spent 15 years helping women with body image before deciding the swimsuit was a body image problem to solve.

They built in public, let their audience pick the brand name, cuts and colours, and launched to a 15,000-strong waitlist.

The pre-order sold out in 24 hours for $200K.

They also share the $100K sizing mistake that followed, the "magic sizing" that came out of their waitlist data, why they're stepping away from deep Black Friday discounts, and what Lyndi calls the "embarrassment tax" of building on social.

About The Host:

Ryan Martin is Founder of Remarkable Digital, a specialist eCommerce SEO marketing agency working with Australian Brands.

In this episode

• Packing orders at Thread Together, and a humbling start to the chat
• Why a dietitian who specialised in body image decided to start a swimwear brand
• Building an audience by "listening to the data": body image content beat healthy breakfast content
• Co-creation: letting the community choose the name, cuts, fabrics and colours, and why 100 poll votes is often enough
• A 15,000-woman waitlist, a $200K pre-order that sold out in 24 hours, and going straight to a 3PL
• Trademarks: buying the "Fearless" name for $3K, and the risk of trademark squatting in China
• Sourcing in China: 36 hours at Intertextile Shanghai, and why you need a swimwear specialist, not a generalist
• The $50K tech pack lesson, and hiring a head of product with nearly 30 years in swimwear (including the 2000 Olympics swimsuits)
• The $100K mistake: gifting all their stock to Thread Together when the sizing came up small
• Magic sizing: 49% of their waitlist wore a different size top and bottom, so they built one-pieces with mixed sizing
• Long torso styles, and designing for a size 12 to 16 instead of scaling up from a size small
• Using Refundid checkout insurance to let customers try at home
• Custom fabrics vs cash flow: simplifying to shorten lead times and the cash conversion cycle
• Stock planning with no historical data, air freight, and a seven-month lead time on a sold-out style
• Black Friday: last year's tiered 10–60% discounts, and why this year they're focusing on newness and gift with purchase instead
• Swimwear's short selling window (September to December), and why March makes more sense for a sale
• Being "ridiculously honest" with customers about strategy changes
• The embarrassment tax: why your fails outperform your highlight reel on social
• Shooting product on real customers with a $4,000 camera instead of professional models
• Staying close to customer feedback as the team grows
• Mentors and inspiration: Shelley Sullivan (MCoBeauty) and Emma Grede
• Long-form content, brand voice, and being the "chief reminding officer"
• What's next: a ready-to-wear capsule, the US market, and becoming the most recommended swimsuit brand