Episode 198: Recession-Proof Retail: What’s Actually Working in 2025 w/ Cathy Donova
In this episode of the Gloria Chou PR Podcast, I sit down with Cathy Wagner—retail industry veteran, founder of RETAILMavens, and host of The Richer Retailer Podcast. With nearly 30 years of experience in independent retail, Cathy has seen it all: running her own brick-and-mortar stores, navigating bankruptcy, and building back stronger to now help small retail businesses scale to 7-figure revenue.
If you’re an independent retailer or product-based business owner struggling to adapt to inflation, tariffs, AI in retail, and shifting consumer behavior, this episode is your wake-up call—and your roadmap to survive and thrive in today’s economy.
Why Retailers Fail (and What the 7-Figure Ones Do Differently)
According to Cathy, retail isn’t dead—but staying stagnant is. The top-performing retail businesses embrace change, silence self-doubt, and make data-driven decisions, not emotional ones. She unpacks the four traits that successful retail founders share:
Kill the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)
Reframe fear as excitement
Focus on what you can control
Know and use your numbers for better retail sales growth
Real Tactics You Can Use Right Now to Grow Retail Sales
Forget the hype. Cathy breaks down real, proven strategies that help retail store owners boost profits:
Adjust your retail pricing strategy to reflect actual cost increases
Use email marketing for retail (minimum 2x/week) as your most profitable channel
Curate tighter product assortments to reduce overwhelm and increase conversions
Host low-cost retail events focused on connection and community
Build brand trust by leading with your core business values
AI for Non-Techie Retailers: A Simple Hack That Works
No need to master tech. Cathy shares how small retail business owners can use ChatGPT to gain customer insights from top-performing content. Just copy and paste your best emails or product pages into AI and ask:
Who is my best customer?
Who is NOT my customer?
What messaging drives purchase behavior?
This simple AI habit has delivered surprising clarity and results for Cathy’s clients—and it can for you too.
Why Neutrality Is No Longer a Strategy in Retail Branding
You don’t need to be political—but you do need to be personal. Cathy makes a compelling case for ditching generic, faceless branding and embracing authenticity. Whether you’re selling confidence, comfort, or community, your brand story and values should shine through every retail marketing email, event, and conversation.
Final Takeaway
Final Takeaway
You don’t need to show up everywhere or master every tech tool. What independent retail business owners do need:
✅ A clear brand stance
✅ Consistent and authentic communication
✅ A community-first mindset
✅ Courage to evolve with market changes
Whether you’re struggling to compete or trying to grow a small retail business in a noisy digital world, this episode reminds you: you’re not alone—and the best is still ahead.
Resources Mentioned:
Join the PR Secrets Masterclass
Join the Small Biz PR Pros Facebook Group
DM the word “PITCH” to us on Instagram to get a pitching freebie https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/428633254951941
Connect with Cathy Wagner:
Podcast: The Richer Retailer Podcast
Instagram: @retailmavens
Website: https://www.retailmavens.com
Additional Resources:
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TRANsCRIPT
00:00:00 Gloria: What's up, small business heroes? Welcome back to small business PR, where we make PR and marketing super accessible for the everyday small business owner. Today, I have my friend, Cathy Wagner. She has been in retail for nearly almost three decades. She's had her own stores, went bankrupt, came back, and now she is helping retailers hit that 7 figure mark. She's the founder of RETAILMavens and also hosts her own podcast, Richer Retailer. So today, we're gonna talk all about what is happening in retail because right now, at this very moment, at the time of recording, I believe, and you will too after this, we are at a critical juncture in retail. So, Cathy, welcome to the show.
00:00:36 Cathy: Thank you so much, Gloria. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:00:40 Gloria: We know that people are going to buy things retail is here to stay, but I had a really interesting question before you came on, which is you've seen it through so many ebbs and flows. You've seen it through the crisis of 2008. You've seen it through COVID. What is the word or words that you would describe where we are at this juncture when it comes to retail?
00:00:58 Cathy: It's interesting the way you said it because it is true. Retail is not going anywhere. People are gonna keep buying things. But I'll tell you, you're fucked if you're not changing. That is bold and fresh, and people that know me know that I don't swear very often ever. But it's true. It's interesting because way back in 2008 and then when COVID started, and again now, we're seeing so many people decide to leave retail, decide to close their stores. We have a whole program that we call Life After Retail where we help them either sell their stores or close their stores. And it's just part of one of the offerings that we do. We really help stores through their whole life cycle, honestly, starting and then the middle and then at the very end.
00:01:35 Cathy: In those three instances where there's been these big change, big pivotal changes in the world, we've seen a lot of people leave. And that's great because you can't feel tied to your store, to your source of income. You won't succeed at it. You will die. You will. I'm happy to see people leaving because if you are not willing to change, if you aren't willing to use AI, to change the way you've always sold things, you're not gonna be around.
00:02:03 Gloria: I think change is constant, but I will say regardless of what industry we're in, we are experiencing change at a crazy rate. I think someone said to me, it feels like we are changing ten years for every year that we're in. It seems like every month, it's a whole year of change. If you look at it as a hockey stick analogy, even with AI, the way that it accelerated, it's insane. So I love what you said that we're in a season of if you're not changing, you're fucked. I don't wanna be doom and gloom, but you're absolutely right about that. So you have seen, like I said, through COVID, through crisis, through supply chain chaos, now we have the tariffs. What have you found to be the thing that keeps them in business despite all the hardships and all the things that's going on?
00:02:40 Cathy: That's such a great question. And I have talked to many people. We talk to prospects who think, oh, well, so your clients are just lucky. That's why they're thriving. And it's like, no. It's not why. What it is is it's that they think differently. Anyone can do this if they choose to. That's the thing is that they have to choose to. The fact is is that they lead themselves and they lead their team well. And they'll tell you as well as I would, and I know you do too, you must experience this too. It feels like it's a day by day process and sometimes even a breath by breath process where you feel so confident and on top of the world, then something happens and feeling certainly in the deep valley. And I feel like that happens more now than it ever has because of all this change.
00:03:26 Cathy: The most important thing that you have to do first is to stamp out the ANTs, A-N-T, ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. I learned that from Dr. Amen, he's got great stuff on Instagram and TikTok. It's how these automatic negative thoughts rule our minds and make us go to the negative. They do all the time. And you've got to stomp those out and reframe them right away. This isn't happening to you. You have to keep repeating to yourself, even when you don't believe it, that all this change is happening for you, not to you.
00:04:00 Cathy: Because the second thing is refusing to allow fear to drive you. I just actually spent the last three weeks in an area of pretty deep fear and didn't even really see it so clearly. I learned that fear and excitement actually are activating the same exact part of your brain. And you know what I read yesterday? That fear is excitement without breath. Isn't that great? You have to address it. You can't just box it up. We're in an age of mental health where we know that boxing stuff up does not work. You can't do it long term. You have to refuse to let fear drive you.
00:04:40 Cathy: And the third thing is that you have to stay focused on what you can control. We can't control tariffs. We can't. Use that as an example. People were certainly really afraid of it, led a lot of classes, did a lot of podcasts, and did a lot of teachings around. So the tariffs are going to be coming. What are you going to do about it? How is that going to impact your pricing? How are you going to handle it? That's what you have to do because you can control how you respond to it. You can't control the fact that all this change is happening, but you can control whether or not you're going to keep moving forward because you can't stand still.
00:05:13 Cathy: This leads me to the fourth thing, which is that they also know their numbers. They know what their numbers are, and they use numbers, not fear, to make decisions. Every business you're in is a combination of science and gut. There is the two things. And gut will lie to you. And numbers, you can sometimes be looking at the wrong numbers and not even know it. And so you have to use the gut and the science together to make your decisions, and that's what I find that so many people don't do.
00:05:42 Gloria: I think the mindset part is so important. With everything, there's always a mindset, but then also a tactical thing that we can do. So let's talk about numbers. Let's talk about what's actually working. Can you give us some actual strategies on what's actually working, whether it's numbers, whether it's keeping track of things, whether it's from a pricing perspective? What can we do right now?
00:05:59 Cathy: First, I wanna talk about is your pricing. No matter what business you're in, reevaluate your pricing. The cost of doing any business has changed, has increased because of all the SaaS services, software as a service. It used to be that you could buy things and you owned it and then you used it, but now we're paying all that. What I love about what we get to do is that my coaches and I are deep into our clients' numbers all the time, so we see clearly how the last three years, the cost of doing business has increased. So when was the last time that you really looked at that for yourself and were bold enough to increase your costs? Because right now, with the rate of inflation, if your business isn't growing by whatever the rate of inflation is. You go and look up right now. Google what the rate of inflation is, and unless your business is up at least that much, you're losing ground. That's an incredible thing to think about. That's for sure one thing that that's working.
00:06:50 Cathy: The other thing is about the balancing of AI. Everybody's talking about AI. But, Gloria, it's what you just experienced yourself with your live event. People crave connection more than ever before because of AI, I believe. And because there's so much fake things in the world now that when you can talk to somebody real face to face and get to know them, I mean, you've experienced that too, haven't you, how important that is?
00:07:15 Gloria: Yeah. Back to the basics. Anything else that we can do to get ahead of this trend or even adapt? So you talked about numbers. You talked about pricing. You talked about more human connection, and we can do that with post purchasing text and emails. What's another thing that's helping people right now?
00:07:30 Cathy: Two things. One is that customers have changed so much. They don't wanna make as many decisions anymore. People want decisions made for them. What we have found is that it's more important than ever to curate a collection. You might see a Bath & Body line that has 25 different sizes and scents and all that kind of stuff, but really all you should be bringing in is about five and then bringing in more of them. You've gotta go deeper on the one thing you sell because people don't wanna make decisions and they get really distracted. People are so distracted. You also have to communicate more clearly to them and in more emails. In fact, what we tell all of our people now, we expect all of them to be doing at least two emails a week, at least two emails a week, because email still remains the most highly profitable form of communication of marketing.
00:08:17 Gloria: So my business is living proof of that as well, just like yours. What about from a shipping or upselling, anything else we can do on the back end to retain our customers?
0:08:28 Cathy: I know for sure that you have to be so cognizant of who you really are and what it is that you're really selling. You're not really selling shirts and necklaces and bottoms, whatever. You're really selling, perhaps it's confidence. You're selling a woman feeling confident. Maybe you're selling trends. Maybe your store is the store that's always on top of whatever the trends are. Maybe you're selling really unusual gifts. Realize the emotion that you're selling and do things that are around that.
00:08:57 Cathy: We call them Richer Retailer events because everyone's doing events. Everyone knows about how experiences are the thing. That's what you have to do. But it's not just about doing something to increase traffic. It's about doing something to increase connection. One of our stores is a yarn store, and she did this event where she rented a riverboat, rented on the side of the river, and sold tickets for it. It was really profitable. She started doing it a couple years ago. Now she does seven riverboats in a year. She does it two times, spring and fall and fills it up and people just come out of the riverboat and knit and eat a sandwich because she's really selling community, right? So what is it that you're really selling and how can you sell more of it? Because your people want it. They want it.
0:09:36 Gloria: I think a lot of people think, well, I'm just selling something. I don't wanna be in front of the camera. They do that, and they think that also means that they don't have to really connect with their customers. It's absolutely not true. Right? I think now we wanna know what your values are. I think also in this economic and political environment, being neutral is no longer a… you just can't be anymore. So faceless account, I think it only goes so far. So what you said about community absolutely makes sense. For people who are not able to do events, there's a budget concern, how can we cultivate community in a way that's a little bit more low cost and more accessible?
00:10:07 Cathy: Oh, that's a great question. And it is really only limited by what your imagination is. I have somebody who has a brew pub down the way, it’s a maker store and so they just called up and said, Hey, can I bring a bunch of people over? And so the people just came over and all sat in their back. It was the brew pub's slowest day of the week and so everyone just went there and just created things. You can do a Prosecco tasting in your store where you just get in a couple of bottles of Prosecco and a couple things and say, hey. Come on in. We'll give freestyle consultations, tell you what the latest trends are, and you can have a glass of Prosecco. It does not have to be heavy lifting. Thank you so much for mentioning that.
00:10:40 Cathy: Because you're right. Renting a boat and all that kind of stuff seems huge. Anything you can do that has a focus, it's not just come in and see our new stuff. In fact, going back to those emails, if I could one more time. The other thing you have to remember about your emails is that if your people love community and if you're a good resource in your community, you should be talking about other resources in your community. Every email you send out should be a gift, which is genuine information for them, not an ad. Not an ad. A gift can be talking about a product. It's not that. You could be talking about how, oh my gosh. We just got in these Jeliska glasses. Oh my goodness. This is my favorite. Did you know that they're handmade so that every single one is blown separately? You can tell because they're all so different. I tell you, I feel so graceful and feminine when I'm holding it in my hand. Like, that's not just an ad. You're sharing why it is you like it so much. That's different than just saying, hey. Come on in. Look at these cool glasses. And so the messaging of it becomes so important, which is one of your key messages, is how the messaging of everything is so important.
00:11:43 Gloria: Yeah. Let's talk about messaging. I think everything is messaging. And I think now with everything that's happening, we cannot stay neutral, and people will make up stories about what you stand for even if you say them. So it's better to just go with our values. So in terms of messaging, what have you found to be working now? There's all these templates. There's all these experts and gurus telling you message this way and that way. What have you found to really be the key components of what's working right now with the age of AI and people just honestly being oversold to what's working?
00:12:11 Cathy: For sure. It's exactly what you said. It's about being honest. It's about being authentic. And the whole thing about, for example, about politics. During that time period, during the election, my whole politics in retail, anything I talked about that was so consumed and engaged with because it's a highly volatile topic, because there are so many people who believe that, no, you have to be neutral. And my point was is, oh, no, you have to take a stand. You can take any stand, but you have to take a stand. You could take the stand that voting is critical. You could do that if that was what's comfortable for you, but you have to say something about it. You can't ignore it.
00:12:45 Cathy: And that's still true now. That isn't gonna ever go away. I have one store who said that her biggest dream is to change the world. And I looked at her and I said, really? Change the world? That's a very bold goal. And she said, because I believe that with every dollar you spend, you can impact the world. And so every single item in her store and on her website… the name of her store is String Theory. Everything she has helps women, helps underprivileged women, helps BIPOC women. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And so her business has grown so much because she has stood so firmly in how this is what's really important to me. So you have to do that.
00:13:22 Gloria: So important. Yeah. I think a lot of times people think, I don't wanna be polarizing. You don't have to take a political stand per se that's bipartisan. It could be, like you said, what's important to you. So it could be the fact that it's made in the USA. It could be the fact that you hire women artisans in Peru. Tell us what's important about you. Tell us that there's a person behind it because otherwise, it's not only harder to compete with big box stores, is that people are just gonna find someone else to shop for. There is a revival that's creating a lot of opportunity for small businesses that people actually wanna shop small business. They wanna shop from independent brands as opposed to these big retailers. So double down on that competitive advantage by telling people what's important for you, and it doesn't have to be necessarily political.
00:14:02 Gloria: I love what you said about that. Is there anything that we can do, like retailers? Now in an omnichannel world, there are so many different parts of marketing. There's so many different platforms. How have you found to be really useful to not feel so overwhelmed juggling all these platforms and then having online and the offline working well together?
00:14:20 Cathy: First of all, I would say beyond a shadow of a doubt, pick one and don't add another one until you've mastered that one, until you really have it down so that it's a routine for you, so that it happens pretty effortlessly. And then you can add another and then add another because the fact is that you have to be able to use every channel you have to be able to talk to your customer. So someone makes one purchase from you, and then you have to obsess over the second one trying to get it to be through any other channel. So let's say they buy online for you. Well, so then you send them a coupon to buy in the store. Maybe they're not local, so they can't buy in the store. So then you connect with them on Instagram. You DM them on Instagram or find some way of connecting with them. Not in a creepy way. That wouldn't be your style.
00:15:08 Cathy: But find a way of connecting with them and then get them to come to a live that you're doing. It's crazy because certainly Instagram and TikTok have taken over so much, but Facebook lives still do great. It's just that they have to be entertainment. They have to be like a QVC style live where people really feel like you're connecting. And the beauty of it is that the more mistakes that you make, the more you trip over your own words, the more authentic you come across and the more people engage with you. That's really important.
00:15:39 Gloria: Yeah. I think a lot of things that we thought that were, like, barriers, right, like perfectionism, and we need lots of gear, and we need things to look polished, absolutely not true anymore. And now that we're coming back to the basics, there's so many advantages for small businesses to be able to show up imperfectly, to not have the best gear, to not be polished, and just come as they are. And that's really kind of the ethos of what I think makes the authenticity.
00:16:00 Cathy: One other thing about that last thing. If you get a customer to buy through a different channel, that means through a second channel on their second purchase or third or whatever, but if you keep after them about that, that it increases that customer's lifetime value by 30%. It's so powerful. And if you think about it, think about your own experience with brands. That's true. I will interact with somebody in a text, and then maybe I go to visit their website. And maybe I bought through a text before. I've also bought from their website. And now I love this one swimsuit line, and I keep buying their stuff.
00:16:32 Gloria: Yeah. Totally. It's really about loyalty, and we can't create that loyalty unless we have the right messaging and we take a stance. I think that's amazing. So at the time of recording, it's all about AI. Shopify has their AI integration, Canva, ChatGPT. What have you found to work really well for founders who maybe just aren't AI pros and they don't have time to learn prompt engineering? Like, what are some of the best and most direct ways to get immediate benefits from using AI for retail?
00:16:57 Cathy: I feel that we've certainly been all fed and have seen on all of our screens that prompts. It's all about the prompts. It's all about the correct prompt. However, it doesn't have to be. I went through a period where I backed away from it because I felt like I didn't have the prompt. And, Oh, wait, what was that one method again? And what were the letters? And what did it all stand for? One of the things that I have found to be the most powerful… I personally did this and was shocked at what happened is to take any couple social media posts you have that you've had a lot of good engagement with and or taking a page on your website that is often visited and that gotten comments about or maybe even just your home page that kinda gives the whole story about the whole story and has a vibe to it…
00:17:36 Cathy: Just take all that copy and take the copy of that social media post or the email that got a high open rate and a high click through rate and put those into ChatGPT, and then just ask ChatGPT to tell you who your best customer is. What makes them buy? What other questions do you wanna know? What is it you'd like to know? Do they shop weekends? Because I tell you all that information is there. And then once you have it in there, in that channel, inside AI, then the beauty of it is you can go back to that channel any other time you have a question. We might have to remind you, do you remember who I am? Do you remember? And then it'll spit out and it'll either be right or wrong. And if it's wrong, you just go back up to the top and you say, oh, no. You just forgotten. Here's all the stuff I fed you. So now what would you say?
00:18:16 Cathy: One of the most fascinating things to me was putting in there, who is my anti customer? Who is the worst example of a customer for me? It was so mind boggling to me, and it was so true. I had never thought about who we shouldn't be marketing to. What are other events that we should be doing? All the information's there. Don't stress out about those prompts.
00:18:36 Gloria: That is so good. I think you touched on something which is I always tell my PR students, we're not a McDonald's. We're not trying to be for everyone. And if we are trying to be for everyone, then we are for no one because we will absolutely drown out in this noise, and neutrality is no longer an option. Just like what you said, it doesn't matter if you have a product or service. The more point of view, the more of a stance that you take to talk about what's important to you, the more the right people will find you and lean all the way in. And then you become this undeniable magnetic field where that energy automatically finds you, and then the people who are not then gets repelled. So I think you're right on the money, which is that's exactly where we are. Is there anything else you wanna leave our audiences with? This has been such a great conversation. You've seen retail go through so many different shifts. You've given us a lot of hope, which is good, a lot of reason for hope, which a lot of times people are like, oh, it's doom and gloom. Anything else you wanna leave us with?
00:19:24 Cathy: I want to reiterate what I said before about how it is not always sunshine and unicorns, cotton candy. Well, I mean, I can't even eat cotton candy really, but you know what I'm saying. It's not sometimes, it's not all that stuff. It's so funny how you can come on a podcast like and now I'm so hyped up and I'm so glad I was able to share all this information. But can I tell you how I've been struggling with depression and anxiety for the last three weeks? I sort of forgot the tools I had, and I'm saying that only because I just want you to know that it is not easy for people every day.
00:20:03 Cathy: Every single person is struggling. And so don't beat yourself up. Don't think less of yourself. Instead, take a deep breath. Remember to stamp out those ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. That's not who I am. This is who I am. I created an affirmation, like a list of affirmations that I read to myself and I actually recorded them and my coach actually put music to them and so it's now, it's like nine minutes. It is so calming to me because it reminds me of who I am because you forget. And it's so powerful. That is the biggest takeaway through all of this is that, listen, life has always been changing. And honestly, if you think about it, through every generation, they talk about how it's changing faster now than it was before. Oh, yeah. That's not going to stop. That is not gonna stop.
00:20:43 Cathy: So let's just embrace it and believe in ourselves. What I know for sure about Gloria and I, that we both share, is that we want you to be the best version of yourself you can be. That is what we want for you. And so the biggest gift you can give yourself is giving yourself grace, grace and accountability. I think those are the two things that everybody needs.
00:21:04 Gloria: So good, Cathy. I love that, those parting thoughts. How can people find you and get into your world?
00:21:09 Cathy: We're RETAILMavens everywhere. We have a great YouTube channel. We have an Instagram, Facebook. Podcast is The Richer Retailer podcast. We're always on there, and it'd be an honor to chat with anyone if you have any other questions about this. In fact, what I'd love to do is offer your listeners… listen, if you have any questions about what we just talked about, I would for sure talk to you for forty five minutes. How would that be? And answer any questions you have. All you have to do is DM me and mention that you heard me on Gloria's podcast, and I'd be honored to spend that time with you.
00:21:40 Gloria: That's so generous of you, Cathy. I so appreciate that. Thank you so much for dropping all the gems and giving us hope for someone who has been in retail for nearly three decades. And you can weather the storm. I know that there's gonna be a little hope for all of us. At least at the very minimum, we know that we're in it together, and me and Cathy are rooting for you. So thank you so much for being here. And for all the listeners out there, please DM Cathy at RETAILMavens and tell her that you heard her on the show, and she would be more than willing to talk to you and send this podcast to any small business you know as well. I know that times are hard, and the least we can do is just give each other on a pat on the back and say, I see you, sister. So thank you so much for listening.
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