Fashion Boutique, Candy Unique!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: On this month's episode of the local clique, we welcome Susan Marie Poss and Cindy Webb with Magnolia roots boutique in Smithville. And then we speak with Melissa Hebert at the candy bar. And then Justin will be here on the show as normal with some great tips. And in fact, he may help us with some of our web searches that we do. Lots of fun. Don't go anywhere. The show starts right now. Learn more about fun local events and interesting people throughout the heart of middle Tennessee with a dash of everyday tech talk thrown in for good measure. The Local click starts now. Welcome to the October edition of the Local Click. The Local click is the technology based podcast brought to you by DTC Communications each and every month where we talk all things technology and interesting people. My co host, as always, is Mister Justin Malden. Hello Justin, how are you? [00:00:49] Speaker B: I am doing fantastic, nick, how are you doing today? [00:00:51] Speaker A: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Hey, it's a great fun month, October being the month of Halloween, right? Are you excited about Halloween? [00:01:00] Speaker B: Listen, I get excited about Halloween every single year because as a big kid at heart with children also, it's a great time of the year for us to get together, play make believe a little bit, get some candy. Yeah, lots and lots and lots of candy. And you know, my children and I were already planning, you know what we're gonna be dressed up as, including myself. [00:01:27] Speaker A: So you do participate? [00:01:28] Speaker B: I do participate. Listen, as long as my kids are only gonna be little once. [00:01:32] Speaker A: That's true. [00:01:32] Speaker B: And if they enjoy doing it, I don't mind dressing up and putting something on with them too, to help them enjoy the excitement and to get out in the community and be involved and do some other things that, that happen as well. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And in my personal opinion, probably the most important job of any responsible parent during the Halloween holidays is probably quality control expert for all candy that's being brought in to home. Do you participate in making sure everything's of utmost quality standards before handing it off? You know, trying a few pieces here and there, that sort of thing? [00:02:05] Speaker B: Yes. You know, my engineering skills go to great use to make sure that everything is properly sealed, that it is in edible condition, and that it is suitable for my children to eat. And that does include inspection. That includes taste testing it, and it also includes them paying their parent tax. [00:02:24] Speaker A: Well, you're doing your job as a very important parental role model there, so we appreciate that. [00:02:31] Speaker B: I've got to make sure that that candy is up to the best standards set forth possible. And the only way to ensure it is to, to make sure that I'm consuming some of it. [00:02:41] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Thanks for doing your part, and I'm. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Sure they appreciate that it is a difficult task. You know, there's a lot of difficult tasks as a parent, and this is probably up there toward the top, but, I mean, I'll manage to get through somehow. [00:02:53] Speaker A: You'll manage to be okay. Yeah. Speaking of candy here, in just a few minutes, we'll be speaking with Melissa Aber with the candy bar in Carthage, a great candy shop that's locally owned and operated and does a fantastic job. But before we get to speaking about all things candy, we're going to start this month's episode with an interview that talks more about fashion. And we'll be speaking with Miss Susan Marie Poss and Cindy Webb with magnolia roots boutique. Thanks for watching. Thank you for being here with us. [00:03:24] Speaker C: Thank you for having us. [00:03:25] Speaker A: We really appreciate it. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. And I may not be the typical consumer of a boutique, but my wife definitely, and some other family members are, so. But anyway, before we get started, let's learn more about both of each of you. [00:03:40] Speaker C: Okay. I'm Cindy Webb, and we opened magnolia roots in the fall of 2019 right before the pandemic. And we've been in business for about five years. Susan Marie is my middle daughter, and I have two other daughters and my husband, CD, and we live in Smithville. [00:03:59] Speaker A: All right, good deal. And tell us more about yourself. [00:04:02] Speaker D: So I, like she said, I'm her middle daughter, Susan Marie. I also live in Smithville with my husband, Matthew Pauls, and we have a little dog named Sutton that we love. And, yeah, I help her with the boutique, and we also have a few others that help us out. But, yeah, we've been in business five years this fall and in our new location, so. Yeah. [00:04:26] Speaker A: And that was literally right before the pandemic started. So I'm sure that was kind of interesting from a business standpoint. [00:04:33] Speaker C: Yes, I was by myself. I was in the next door to where we are now with Melissa Knowles at market on main, and she was gracious enough to let me come in and have half the shop. I'd been thinking about it for a few years, and the timing was right, and then the pandemic hit, and we did not have a website. It was pretty much myself doing everything. Susan would come in every once in a while and help out a little bit, the girls for modeling, that kind of thing. But I, we survived, and God was good. And then we now have a website and we're ready for the next thing. [00:05:12] Speaker A: Those that persevere are the ones that usually succeed in business. [00:05:16] Speaker C: A lot of times it's not for the faint of heart being a small business owner. [00:05:20] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Speaking of business, what is it like being part of the Smithfield business community? Because it seems like it's really thriving here. [00:05:29] Speaker D: Lately I've been telling everyone Smithville is definitely growing. I've lived in Smithfield my whole life. Besides, when I went to school in Chattanooga and when I came back, I was a little sad to leave the city. But this past year, I've really started to enjoy living in Smithville again, seeing the growth, the potential that is there downtown. We have a ton of lake people that are moving there to their second home, especially during COVID That's when we started seeing it. But I've really enjoyed getting to know all those people and the growth downtown is definitely happening. We're starting to see some of our late customers buy some buildings and starting to invest in that, which makes me very excited. Of course, we have some great restaurants, shopping and coffee shops, but there's definitely the potential. We've heard a few customers recently been talking about how it has the potential to be like a Franklin. It's not as close as Franklin is to Nashville, but it's only an hour, and I definitely think that could potentially happen. And it gives me great hope for our county. [00:06:35] Speaker A: You can definitely feel a shift in the. Just the way it feels from a business standpoint. When you walk through, as a consumer, through the side streets of downtown, it's definitely different. In a good way. [00:06:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Just yesterday we had someone moved from New Orleans. We had people from Florida looking at houses yesterday. I mean, every day I say anyone can walk in from wherever and it would not surprise me. And we have that happen every day. I feel like. [00:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah, and it's. It's very exciting from a business side. As far as looking at. At how hard all of the downtown businesses work to bring the best to our county, there's really not anything that you can't get at any of the shops downtown that you could find in Nashville. We've been shoppers, yeah. For a long time. [00:07:23] Speaker D: There's four girls in our family, so we're the pros of shopping, you know. [00:07:27] Speaker A: You guys would know, is what you're saying. [00:07:29] Speaker C: So it's exciting to see that, you know, you can come downtown and pretty much get anything that you would possibly need, you know, from women's wear, gifts, shoes, coffee shops, restaurants. Really anything which is so satisfying as a business owner to think that we've got all of that available to our small county. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Speaking of the type of typical items that we can now, you know, get in Smithville without having to drive to a larger town. What do you guys carry there in your boutique? [00:08:05] Speaker D: Women's clothing, of course, is our main focus, but we also have gifts. We've actually, our space is limited, but we have been bringing a little bit of children's stuff, like little gift stuff for them. We also have gift jewelry, accessories, I guess you could say. We carry big shoe brands such as Dulce Vita shoes. Barefoot Dreams is a big brand that we were lucky to get. We were actually wanting the last stores in the state of Tennessee to get that brand, so we were very happy to get that. Capri Blue is a candle line that we carry that's pretty popular. [00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah, we cater maybe to say, ages 30 to about 60, but we have stuff for all ages below that and over that as well. Charms are big right now, so we have a whole charm bar set up with. You can come in and build your own necklace, bracelet. And those tend to do well for the younger girls as well as the older, the older, more mature ladies. [00:09:08] Speaker A: And I'm sure that would be a great gift opportunity. Right? [00:09:13] Speaker C: Something you could add, too? [00:09:14] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, of course. We have, like, gift cards as well and stuff like that. But, you know, we try. It's football season. We'll get a little bit of ut stuff in or you can't go wrong there. Yeah. And this is how, you know, I love my business. I'm not even a UT fan, and I will definitely bring that to our locals. So we go. We try to go beyond for them and bring them stuff locally so they don't have to drive 45 minutes to an hour to get that stuff. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Now, have you always been interested in fashion? I mean, that seems like you would have to have some kind of background in fashion trends and clothing and that sort of thing to be successful in this type of business. [00:09:57] Speaker C: I graduated from Tennessee tech with a fashion merchandising degree. Minor in business, actually. My mom and one of my sisters and myself had a shop probably 25 years ago. Things are a lot different now. There was no social media then. All your advertisement was through the local paper. Of course, that's not how it is now. And then was in business for about five years, and things began to shift to the malls and bigger retailers. I was starting a family, my sister was starting a family. So the timing was good for us to get out at that time, but I've always enjoyed fashion and shopping and the latest trends, that kind of thing. And then the daughters just kind of picked up from that. [00:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:49] Speaker D: Yeah. So she was always, I feel like that's where her calling was. I often, you'll hear my mom jokingly say, Susan's the boy I never had, because I actually was so tomboyish growing up in high school, I kind of started getting to more fashion and stuff. I worked at a boutique Jamie Anderson used to have, downtown Smithville. I would work there on the weekends and stuff. And then when I was in college, she told us she was going to be opening. She kind of was wanting to do a store. And I went with her to the first market is where I could go and help her get her social media set up, kind of. But I never dreamed that that's what I would end up doing, too. I had planned to go into the medical field, so I had taken a lot of my science classes and how they fell one semester, I needed to add in some classes. And my dad works in the medical field, and he was always like, you know, anyone who works in the medical field, they have the opportunity. I think you should take a business class, because even with him, his is kind of a business as well. And so I did that. So I do have, I tell everyone a little bit of knowledge, a bunch of sciences, businesses, all kinds of stuff. And I think that has helped me out to this day. And then actually, our kind of right hand man, my best friend from high school, Elizabeth Cripps. Me and her took a class. I was very involved in epilepsy in high school, and the teacher at the time had started a new class my senior year that we kind of got up and going. And it's kind of crazy that what we did in high school then is kind of here we are working together full circle, right? It's kind of like our day to day, what we do now. And that class was to prepare us for, like, a work field, working with. And that's kind of, it kind of worked out in the end. So it's funny how that happens sometimes. I graduated college with my degree, and then I just felt like that's, you know, Covid was a scary time for the medical field, and I just felt like that's where I should be. So that's where I've been at ever since. [00:12:50] Speaker A: That's great. Now, how do you stay on top of all the fashion trends? Because it seems like such a moving target. I mean, it seems like it's always constantly changing. How do you do that? [00:13:00] Speaker C: It's very fast. Social media has a lot to do with that. But going to markets, we go typically four times per year. Atlanta or Dallas. We love Dallas. And that's where you'll see the newest, latest, greatest. [00:13:18] Speaker A: So you'll see it there first. [00:13:19] Speaker C: You'll see it there first. And she's really good about knowing what they are. I'm a little bit more, I guess, on the traditional side, but we kind of have a mix which works out really well. And we hear that from our customers. [00:13:37] Speaker A: It's a good blend. [00:13:37] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a very good blend. [00:13:39] Speaker D: I definitely think Dallas is who sets the fashion trend for the south, at least. And it's like she said, I feel like we have a little bit of traditional. I'm finding that sweet spot with trends because we know they are very fast. And then also knowing that, you know, is it where our store, they're gonna come to our store and buy this item versus getting it off big, Amazon or, like, sheenza thing, competitive. So finding that sweet spot, that's. This is unique, this is different. The quality is up there, which is something we value. And so going to market, doing that research and work, it's fun, but it's exhausting. And I definitely. [00:14:18] Speaker A: It's a job at times. [00:14:19] Speaker C: I'm sure you're ten or 12 hours at market for about three days. So by the time that third day rolls around, you're kind of tired of fashion. [00:14:29] Speaker A: You're ready to relax, but then you. [00:14:30] Speaker C: Get home and you're excited to bring it, and not only to bring it to a smaller community, because sometimes we are a little behind with trends, but to bring it at a price that's affordable because, you know, we know we live in a community that, you know, doesn't have a lot of free money to spend to throw around. And so, you know, we try to find, like she said, the sweet spot of what's affordable, what's on trend, but yet, you know, you still feel good wearing it, and you feel like you're in the know of what's going on. And so for our customers, we really try to push our customer service and get to know them on more of a personal level. And we feel like that kind of sets us apart. [00:15:17] Speaker A: Sure. [00:15:18] Speaker C: Because we are very thankful for all of our. Our customers. [00:15:21] Speaker A: And that feedback, that immediate feedback when you're shopping in person is something you don't get online. Like, when you walk up to, you know, someone walks up to one of you and says, what do you think of this? How does this look on me? Or whatever, you know? And you can get that personal feedback from someone who's around the industry that sees all of these fashion trends, and you can actually help people maybe pick out some of those items that really would work well for them. [00:15:43] Speaker C: And we typically will put on social media. We'll ask our customers before market, hey, you know, what are you looking for? What do you need? What do you like, what do you don't like? And keep, keep them in mind when we are shopping, right? [00:15:54] Speaker D: Yeah. There's many times I see something I'm like, so and so would like that that looks like them. And we have plenty of women. They come in and they, they want us to dress them. You know, they want to come in and say they want that help. So we always enjoy doing. That's probably one of my favorite part is getting to help for all the different occasions of life with this job. You see, you know, sometimes it's for something exciting, a wedding, and sometimes it's during a hard time for a funeral, and we get to be there for all that inciting different stages of their life. [00:16:27] Speaker A: So now, do you usually stock a variety of sizes and stuff like that? [00:16:32] Speaker D: All depends. So speaking of market, there's different levels. I say the higher up the floor, the higher the price, the item or, you know, higher end brand you're going to get. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:45] Speaker D: So the good thing about the higher end floors is that sometimes they are more able to send you like an item if a certain size. But a lot of times we get packets of stuff that come standard, so we can't special order when it comes to clothing. But like certain things, like maybe our barefoot jeans, blankets, you know, if there's a certain one you're wanting, I can definitely try to get that and more likely to, but I say half the store is. The packets come small through large or small through Excel. And then some of our brands that we carry, which I feel like are actually more catered to mature women is extra small through XL that they offer. So it's great. The clothing fits them and we try to get brands that they run generous or they're true to size. We very. That's something we really research and find things that don't run small or junior fit, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. [00:17:47] Speaker A: How important is it to leverage the power of the Internet in your business? Because I know you're a retail shop, but you kind of made mention of it just a second ago about social media and things like that. I'm sure Internet must play a pretty big part in what you do. [00:18:01] Speaker C: It's a huge part. I mean, you know, from our website to the system that we use for checkout. Yeah. If it's not up and running, we are in panic mode. [00:18:13] Speaker D: Yeah. I tell everyone it's a full time job. Like I said, when I was in college, I took all kinds of business classes as well. I took marketing classes. Never dreamed. That's what I, that's pretty much I do twenty four seven. I did it on my honeymoon. I do it when I'm on vacation. I'm still working. I say social media is a full time job because I'm, you know, answering people questions or the website thought was a big task that we came in over. Me and Liz worked really hard, took us, and once we got that, that was a big accomplishment. [00:18:47] Speaker A: It looks great, by the way. I took a look at it before the interview and I was like, wow, this is amazing. I mean, there's a lot of time. [00:18:52] Speaker D: But our biggest thing, not just with social media, kind of with our store, is consistency and knowing every day it makes a difference. Posting, being active, we tried. I've been traveling a lot this summer, so I've been slacking a little bit. Doing like, our new Thursdays are new arrivals day, so I'll try to do a video. And that makes a big difference for locals knowing like, hey, I need to come in and get that. Because when we do those, we sell out of stuff so much faster. TikTok, as we know, is definitely where it is at. I tell everybody, all the other business owners we've worked with, the influence before. That has made a big difference. Definitely because we've shipped now all over the United States. We've actually had some people reach out, out of the United States. But stay up to date on social media is very important because that's where our world is at nowadays. So. [00:19:47] Speaker A: So tell us, what's your web address if someone wants to check that out. [00:19:52] Speaker D: So it's always tell everyone the best thing to do is to go to our Instagram or Facebook and click on, it's linked in our bio. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:00] Speaker D: But if you were on the, like, safari or somewhere, you could do search just magnolia roots boutique, it will pop up and you'll see it's a little pink icon right there and that will take you to our page. Or I believe it's www. Dot manolier dash roots dash boutique.com. [00:20:20] Speaker A: And what are your hours if somebody wants to stop by? And what is your address? [00:20:24] Speaker C: We're open Monday through Saturday, Monday through Fridays, 10:00 to 05:00 Saturdays are ten to three. We are open late on Friday nights. The first Friday, all of downtown is until seven. It's called the first Fridays and then 103 West Main street. Right on Main street at the end, you'll find us. [00:20:46] Speaker A: You can't miss it, right? [00:20:47] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it's right there on the corner with the. You'll see our letters in gold. Yeah. [00:20:53] Speaker A: Well, Cindy, Susan, Marie, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to be with us today and exciting to see everything going on in Smithville. Downtown is vibrant and you guys are definitely a big part of that. [00:21:04] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having us. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Thank you everyone. Stay with us. We got more of the show coming up in just a moment. [00:21:12] Speaker E: Great communities attract talented people to live, work and raise their families. We've deployed a high speed network that helps the best and the brightest enjoy better lives in our smart rural community. Great small businesses provide jobs that help workers earn a good living and provide for their families, while strengthening local economies. We deploy fiber Internet that helps those businesses succeed. Great doctor and patient relationships create bonds that lead to healthier lives. We deliver secure connections so every home and rural healthcare provider can connect to the best health care options. Great schools help knowledge hungry students learn, think creatively and follow their passions. We've built a network that helps their dreams take off. Great farmers provide the food that sustains and nourishes our nation and the world. We keep those farmers connected to the technology that ensures their crops can thrive. We've planned, engineered and constructed a cutting edge communications network. We're committed to delivering future proof broadband so our friends, families and neighbors can live rich lives in smart rural communities across America. Your community is our community. We're your rural broadband partners. You do great things. We make great things possible. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Gaming builds real skills for real careers in esports and beyond. Project manager. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Content creator, customer service rep. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Software developer build your skills with fibre gaming network and DTC. Learn [email protected] welcome back everybody to the local click. It's time now to throw it to Mister Justin Malden, where he likes to drop some of those truth bombs on us each and every month with a little segment we like to call Justin's tech tips. Justin, take it away. [00:23:44] Speaker B: All right, I'm ready to get more tech savvy this month. Now, I know your favorite search engine of all times is probably still ask Jeeves. Is that right? [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yes, it's my favorite. I just can't break away from it. [00:23:56] Speaker B: I remember using Ask Jeeves, you know, 20 plus years ago because it was, it was, it was great when it first came out and people loved it. Didn't evolve enough. It's probably been shut down for 15 years at this point. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I had it. I had it bookmarked right at the very top of my Netscape browser and. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Most people aren't going to know what that browser is. We just introduced a couple relics of technology. But while ask jeeves may not be around anymore, search engines are, and we use Internet searches, web searches all the time. I would venture to guess that for the majority of individuals who have access to the Internet and are using technology in any sort of way, that they are using a search engine multiple times a day. I've never counted how many times I've actually used a web search engine, but it would be intriguing to think, I'm sure it's double digits, just about. [00:24:52] Speaker A: It'd be shocking probably, to know how often we go to the web to search. [00:24:56] Speaker B: I mean, it is so easy to access that information and to be able to find it, but maybe sometimes we're doing it, we're not using it as effectively as we could. And so today we're going to talk about, you know, speedier searches, more effective searches, and just some tips that will help you become better and get to the information that you're looking for a little bit faster. So we want to ensure that you're getting the best results and the most accurate results that you can get. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:22] Speaker B: You know, the first tip, and, you know, some people still don't know this is when you are searching. If you want to search for something specific and you want it to be included 100% as you've typed it in a search result. Because if you search for something that's three or four words long, you're going to get a mismatch potentially of some things within, within your search results. If you know specifically I am looking for this item, make sure you put it in quotation marks because when you put it in quotation marks, it tells that search engine and it doesn't matter what search engine you're using. If you're using Yahoo, bing, Google, Duckduckgo, any of those, if you put it in quotation marks and all these rules will apply for all of those different search browsers, it will say, hey, I want you to find this exact result. So if it doesn't specifically state it in this exact way, then I don't want to see it. And that can become helpful because, say, for instance, you know, I live in Carthage. Well, I live in Carthage, Tennessee. So if I'm trying to search for something in Carthage, well, there's also a Carthage, Missouri. There's a Carthage, North Carolina. There's, you know, the county that I live in is Smith county. There's multiple Smith counties right across this country. And so if we're trying to narrow it down a little bit, maybe I want to, only I want to search for Carthage, but I want to make sure it's in Tennessee. So I put Tennessee in quotation marks. You know, same thing. If I'm searching locally for Smith county, you know, I'll put Tennessee, or I'm searching for something in Smithville, I want to make sure that I include that so it will narrow down those search results to help just get you. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Saves a lot of time, too, probably because you get more relevant search results. You're not sitting there going through page after page of things that really don't pertain to you. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Yes. And that's the whole point of all these things, is that you get the accurate information faster. Right. It's. It's a time saver. And speaking of time savers, tip number two, and this is probably one of the easiest, easiest ones that you can think of, and people still don't do it, is, in all modern browsers, you can search directly from the address bar. We used to call that the address bar, and that's still what I call it, but it can be used for so many more things now. But your browser has a default search engine built into it. You can change that search engine, too, but you can go to it and you can do your search straight from it. You don't have to open up and type in whatever your preferred browser is, be redirected to that page, and then start your search. [00:27:37] Speaker A: I'm guilty of that, by the way. I do that to this day, so I could listen to your tip right now. Probably be more effective. [00:27:44] Speaker B: And the thing is, you think about it like, oh, well, it only takes me, you know, three to 5 seconds to do. Well, when you do three to 5 seconds hundreds of times in a month, that time adds. That's a lot of time, you know, valuable, valuable, valuable time. You know, we talked about using quotation marks to find exactly what you need. You can also do the reverse of that, and you can exclude things that you don't want in your search results. So if you want to filter out certain results, you know, for instance, Apple will say, if you wanted to search Apple, well, if I say apple, I can almost guarantee you, I'm not talking about the fruit. I'm talking about the company, Apple. [00:28:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:22] Speaker B: But if you just did a search for Apple, you're probably going to get hits for the fruit and you're going to get hits for the company based in Cupertino, California. And if you wanted to try to help alleviate that, you could do a search that could be apple, and then you could also add the keyword fruit with a minus sign in front of it. So if you did apple, then space minus fruit, it would exclude all search results referring to apple as a fruit. [00:28:48] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:28:49] Speaker B: And so that way, again, you're filtering out those results. Okay. I know I'm going to get some false hits here. And so I want to know about the company. I don't want to know about the fruit as itself. So I know I'm going to go in here and exclude that. And so sometimes that's something that's common. If there's something that may be used across multiple industries or businesses, it's easy. [00:29:07] Speaker A: To get confused with something else. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Yes. So you can, you can take that out. You can also go so granular to search by specific websites. So if, you know, hey, I want a new, I'm, I remember there was a news article on this website and I can't find it. You know, go to your search engine and you can actually type in site, S I T e, in a colon. So site and then a colon and then whatever the URL for that is. So if you're doing Fox News or you're doing CNN or you're doing NBC or ABC or whatever new site that you're, you're using and then type your search result. [00:29:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:44] Speaker B: And it will only search within that specific website. So it will narrow down. So you'll still get the listing within your search engine, but it will only be for that specific. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Wow, that's really the, that's a really good one. Because a lot of times you'll remember reading about something on a site, you know, a couple weeks ago, and you go back there and it's no longer on the front page and you're trying to reread that article or get that information again and you can't seem to find it. [00:30:09] Speaker B: So. Wow. Yeah. And that's something, and that's something that happens to me, you know, and think, and most time, what are we going to do? Like, oh, well, I know it was on Fox News or I know it was on CNN. So I'm going to type in. Okay, I'm going to type in the name of the news outlet and then what the article was, what you can do. But if you want to get really specific and make sure you're only in that site, you can narrow it down. [00:30:29] Speaker A: What's funny is I bet sometimes you can find your results faster doing that than going to the actual sites search function. [00:30:36] Speaker B: Well, that's what those, that's all those search engines do is find stuff on the Internet. So that's what they're built for. And so they're, you know, they're very good at, very, very, very good at doing that. Just a couple more things as we wrap up here. This is a very neat one that I didn't know for a long time. But if you are looking for something, you're like, well, I wonder if somebody else makes something similar to Spotify. For instance, you're like, okay, I know I've used Spotify, but maybe there's something else out there. You can actually just, like we typed in site earlier, you can type in related and you can do related and then do a colon and then type in whatever you're looking for. And it will bring up things that are similar to it. So it won't do a search for Spotify, but it will do a search for things that are similar to Spotify. So it may offer other services or you may get a hit. You know, one of your hits on that search engine may be, here's some alternatives to Spotify, you know, seven alternatives to Spotify. Here you go. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Now that's helpful too, right? [00:31:32] Speaker B: And so it's, you know, that's when I'm not looking for Spotify. I'm looking for things like Spotify or similar to Spotify or whatever it is, you name it. And, you know, maybe you're thinking, okay, I'm looking for, you know, I'm doing some research into history or whatever, and I know this person was there somebody who is, you know, could be somebody that was in that person's life or family, you know, there. It can be used for all sorts of things to help you do research as well, right? Not just find maybe a specific product. And then the last thing that we'll talk about is maybe sometimes you're looking for a specific file type. Now, we think of most times, okay, if I do a web search, well, I've already got images up there, so if I'm looking for a picture, I will go up there and I will type images. And that's fine. You can do that if you're looking for images. But what if you need something else what if you're looking for a PDF file, you're looking for something that you can print off easier because sometimes it's difficult. You find a web page and it's difficult to print a web page. It may have ads and extra stuff and other things in there. Well, what you can also do is you can type in file type with the colon and make your search result, and it will only bring up that specific file type. So if you're looking for a PDF, maybe there's a PowerPoint. Like again, I found, I know I saw a PowerPoint somewhere on this, on the Internet. You can say, hey, look for this search result. And actually on this one, you do the search, then you type file type and whatever you want. So if you were looking for, you're like, I know there was sheet music out there for this song that's in the public domain and I'm trying to find it. And so, okay, I need to find the sheet music for amazing grace. So I type in amazing Grace file type PDF, and it will show me search results for amazing grace. Limited to the PDF type. [00:33:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to, you know, try to find that sheet music and you want to print it off in an easy to read format and know that it's going to work, you can search specifically for that or same thing. Okay. I know there was this presentation I saw out there. They made the, they made the PowerPoint available online and I can't find it. Again, same thing. You can do file type PpT for Power PowerPoint, because you do use the file extension and go look and try to find that PowerPoint. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Wow. [00:33:44] Speaker B: If you want to become a power user and get more, more effective, and there's way more than what I've mentioned, this is just a few of them, right. But it'll help you save quite a bit of time. [00:33:55] Speaker A: And we're all about saving time. Anything we can do to be a little more efficient and get more of our personal time back, each and every day is a good thing. And for this segment, we have Miss Melissa Aber with the candy bar in Carthage, Tennessee. Melissa, thank you so much for being on the local click. [00:34:12] Speaker F: Certainly. Thank you for having us. [00:34:15] Speaker A: This is my kind of business, by the way, because, you know, I kind of like candy. I'm a candy lover. So I'm excited to let us chat about some things like this. So. And I can almost guarantee you there will be a lot of hungry people looking for a special snack after we get through speaking about some of these things. [00:34:34] Speaker D: Super. [00:34:35] Speaker F: We got lots of different treats. [00:34:37] Speaker A: So introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about you and how you ended up in the area. [00:34:43] Speaker F: As you said, my name is Melissa Aber. My husband and I moved to Smith County, Tennessee about 14 years ago. We had done a big search on where would we like to live. We've moved around quite a bit with my job. I'm a telecommunications consultant and decided, let's find a place where we really want to settle down, finish raising our kids. They were getting to an age where they really needed some stability. And so we chose Smith county. Have fallen in love with the area and the people here. And then about, let's see, about eight years ago, we had the opportunity to rent this space on Main street in Carthage. And at that time, there wasn't a lot going on. And this space became available, and we weren't really ready to do it. But we had seen, my son at that time was 16, and a bunch of his friends were really struggling to find a first job. And so we had the idea, hey, let's do something fun. We can. That we can hire teenagers, have it be a first job experience, and also a family friendly thing here in Carthage. Because Carthage at that time was struggling. And so we opened the candy bar where we sell nostalgic, weird kind of candies. We sell hand dipped ice cream and then a lot of different treats. We do popcorn, we do homemade cotton candy. We make super shakes that are like the really big, super sized things that have a banana split on top or a top. Yeah, really fun things like that. So we're coming up. October will be our 8th anniversary that we've been here in this location. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Oh, congratulations. That's a big deal, too, for a small business. You know, it, to make it over that hump after a certain length of time in business. And it makes you a survivor, so to speak. So that's awesome. What was your original inspiration, as far as, you know, how you have your shop set up? Did you have any other experience shopping at some other candy stores, you know, or growing up around them or anything, or kind of talk us through that process? [00:36:59] Speaker F: We were thinking more of the general store. We love to go to Granville and see what they have, all of their activities there, and they have the general store there, and they also serve the ice cream. So that was sort of what we had in mind, more of a general store type of feel. And then as we got into it more, we just added a few things. And there was a dress shop in Carthage that was. Had a gorgeous inside. And so we decided, okay, we really need to remodel it, make it look cuter, kind of fit in with their vibe, and just kind of have gone from there. We did serve coffee, lattes, cappuccinos, those kinds of things at the beginning. And since then, our friend Virginia Alexander and her mother have opened the rockabilly coffee across the street from us. So we've not done the coffee anymore, but we have continued to expand and finding different kinds of treats and sweets and always looking for something new. [00:37:59] Speaker A: There's so many options. How do you narrow that down and decide what you want to carry? [00:38:04] Speaker F: It's really working with some of our wholesalers watching. What are the TikTok trends? What are the youngsters like? What are some of the smaller, the shorter customers, as we like to say? What are those little kids like liking? You know, paw patrols coming up. Okay, what do they, you know, what are those kinds of themes and just, you know, continuously looking for different things. [00:38:27] Speaker A: I've always wanted to ask this question. This is a guilty pleasure question, so I hope you'll amuse me for a moment. What does the owner of a candy shop like yourself like to eat at a candy shop? So what's your, what are some of your personal favorites? [00:38:43] Speaker F: Yes. Well, I first have to tell you that, believe it or not, I'm diabetic. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:38:48] Speaker F: I actually limit myself very much on what, what I like. I will very often have popcorn. We do have a few. We try and cycle through a few sugar free types of things, and we do some of our treats, like our slushy slush, we can make as sugar free. So there are some. But then when I decide, okay, I'm going to splurge and go with something. For me, it's cotton candy always. [00:39:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You're talking my son's language. That's his favorite flavor on anything from ice cream to actual cotton candy, of course. But what are, speaking of people's favorites, what would you say are some of your customers absolute favorites? [00:39:28] Speaker F: Middle school boys like some of our weird things. We have flavored crickets that they can get. We've done some of the hot, hot candies. And always, you know, have a glass of milk there in case, in case they need that afterwards. The youngsters, the little bitty ones, the boys and girls sometimes like the cars and trucks and tractors. We also have some, I don't know, roll on lip gloss. That's a candy blue raspberry, for sure. Anything that's in blue raspberry, the kids love it for ice cream. It's our Superman ice cream that turns your tongue blue and stays that way for a couple of hours. The kids love that. [00:40:15] Speaker A: And you mentioned ice cream. I know we spoke a moment before we started the interview off camera, and you were kind of informing me about this new ice cream option, this rolled ice cream, is that what you call it? Roll ice cream? [00:40:28] Speaker D: Yes. [00:40:29] Speaker F: We are looking to add that during the wintertime, we've got to do a little bit of remodeling. We are a very tiny shop, so everything's always, can we fit it in? How will we rearrange things? And so we're going, we're hoping to do a small bit of remodeling and add rolled ice cream during the winter. [00:40:46] Speaker A: And you mentioned that you have an Etsy store as well, right? [00:40:50] Speaker F: That's right. You can see behind me some of the arrangement, candy arrangements that we do. And if you've not seen a candy arrangement in person, think of an edible arrangement, but with candy. And one of my best friends started this store with me eight years ago. She's since moved away that she was really creative and started doing candy arrangements and helping sell them. So we deliver anywhere in Smith county. So we'll take them to the schools for a birthday or for Valentine's Day stay, but also on our Etsy store, which we, we had it before, but it really became big during COVID when we, we shut down and we were doing more shipping nationwide. And you can give us favorite candy or a theme or pick from things that we already have envisioned, and we can make an arrangement and ship it anywhere you'd like. [00:41:42] Speaker A: I saw some photos of some of the candy arrangements that you had made that were optioned under on your website. And I thought, what a great idea. You know, something a little bit different, you know, from nothing wrong with sending flowers and that sort of thing, but something like that, that's just a really festive, fun way to show someone you're thinking about them. So I just thought that was fun. [00:42:01] Speaker F: And we've done everything from, there's an airbnb that we work with that we do very small little welcome gifts. We've done golfing and fishing arrangements for tournaments that are themed like that. We do a lot for either graduation or for when kids are accepting their offers to go to college. We do some really big. Both of my kids ended up going to University of Tennessee, and so I've done some really big university of Tennessee balls type arrangements for them as well. [00:42:32] Speaker A: I can tell just by talking to you that community is a very big part of your inner being. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that. I know you mentioned about when you started the shop there that you wanted to have a place where we're local kids and people like that could work. But what's your personal thoughts on how important it is to have that tight sense of community when you're running a small business? [00:42:55] Speaker F: Absolutely. Absolutely. The community is what keeps us going, and we have to pay it back. So we encourage our employees to participate in different community activities. We, as a storefront, we participate, whether it's, you know, giving out gift certificates for the summer reading program with the library. We do a thing where if the kids bring in their report cards, whether it's home school or public school, and it's from pre k all the way to high school, seniors, bring in your report card. You don't have to make certain grades. All we ask is that you've done your very best and you get a free cotton candy. So we really think it's important. And I. I'm very happy that I was. Received the community service award at our last chamber of Commerce banquet here in Smith county. So I also serve as a Tennessee promise mentor. So I think it's very important that we provide to the community and also encourage that. We also here, by the way, have a. I have to watch my wording very carefully. It's not a little lending library, but it is a come and take a book as you want. You can see it kind of behind me underneath one of the coke fridges. But we have books there that it's mostly preschool or early readers that you can come take a book and read while you're at the store, take it home with you, bring it back the next time, trade out as you wish. [00:44:28] Speaker A: Even in the candy business, right, you got to have a dose of technology to make the suites go down, right, so to speak. So how do you use technology in your day to day business? [00:44:37] Speaker F: We use square as our point of sale system. We also are able to then take that out. If we go to a festival or a community event, we can have it on our phone. And if we are doing a festival or something here, then we can open a second, register outside just by using your phones, that type of thing. We do offer free Wi Fi for our customers. And like I mentioned, for Etsy, we so film making some of the candy arrangements. We edit the candy arrangements using that kind of technology. So. And then we, of course, post social. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Media, share with us where you're located and your hours of business. [00:45:21] Speaker F: Okay. We're located at 315 Main street in Carthage, Tennessee. We are across the street from the historic Walton Hotel and just down the block from our historic courthouse. We are right next door to Nobel's restaurant, which is pretty easy to see from the street. We are a tiny shop, so a little bit, a little bit harder to find, but we're right there on Main street. Our hours are Monday through Friday 11:00 a.m. to 07:00 p.m. and Saturday 09:30 a.m. to 06:00 p.m. and if someone. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Wants to learn more about your product offerings and that sort of thing, do they just need to follow you on social media or follow us on social media? [00:46:04] Speaker F: We also have a website. It's www. Dot the candybartn for tennessee.com. and then you can also look us up on etsy. Look for the candy Bartn. And we're there. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Well, you, you've got it going on. I'm very excited to see what you're doing there. And, and we'll be by very soon because like I said, you're kind of speaking my language there. I like, I like the sweets. So definitely need to stop by and say hello and come see us. So. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to be with us here on the local clique. And we wish you all the best. Keep doing what you're doing and thanks for being such an important pillar to the Carthage community. [00:46:43] Speaker F: Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it. Come see us. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Will do. Stay tuned with us, everyone. We'll be back in just a moment. [00:46:50] Speaker G: My name is Ashley Roth. My husband Caleb and I own stain and seal experts based in Alexandria, and we are a DTC customer. Caleb grew up in the fence industry, so when we got married and wanted to do something on our own, it made sense for us to start staining fences and manufacturing fence and deck and log cabin stains. We manufacture our own stains that check all the boxes for us that we offer to our customers here locally as well as nationwide that buy our products. DTC services all of our phone systems. We also have their fiber Internet. For our phone system to work is instrumental for us. We rely heavily on our Internet and phone services from DTC. It means a lot to us that they're local, that they've always been local, and that we're able to support them and their services give us what we need to support our customers. Hi, I'm Ashley, and that's the DTC difference. [00:47:54] Speaker A: Right now. We're going to throw it back to Mister Justin Malden, where he's going to share with us all the things going on in technology with his segment. What do you like to call tech news, Justin? [00:48:05] Speaker B: It's not just October. It is Techtober. Oh, it is one of the best times that you get there. Yes, it is one of the best times of the year if you are a tech enthusiast like I am, and you're very interested in what's going on. So first we got to start for a lot of our listeners, they're going to know exactly what I'm about to talk about. But Apple held their annual iPhone event and they have released now some new products for this year. But now we're going to be looking out for some more stuff this month because they're going to make some more announcements this month as we get into the holiday season. It's that time of the year where it's not just Apple, but other companies are going to be announcing new product lines and software and all kinds of things. But for Apple, they did introduce the new iPhones. So we are up to the iPhone 16. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Hope Santa's listening right now. I bet there's some people putting in their wish list. [00:48:58] Speaker B: I'm sure that there are. You know, I don't know who would be the person who would go out and already be purchasing the new iPhones at all. You know, would. [00:49:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Who would do that would just shock. [00:49:10] Speaker A: I don't know if anyone who would be on the forefront of something like that. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Just, it just, it just shocks me how people go after these new products. But, but Apple's introduced the iPhone 16 and they've continued with their normal line of the iPhone 16, the 16 plus the Pro and, and the Pro Max. And so you've got the differentiation between the 16 and 16 Pro line. And they've introduced, of course, you know, their normal, you know, camera spec improvements and things of that nature. But the big introduction this year and this, again, we never talk about AI on this show. [00:49:45] Speaker A: What is that? [00:49:46] Speaker B: This is actually the first, at this point, the first time I've mentioned it on this show. But they introduced their version of artificial intelligence that they are calling pretty handily Apple intelligence. So it will be AI as well. But it is Apple intelligence. It's been introduced. It is not yet available. It will not be available until the launch of their iOS 18.1. So iOS 18 has launched as well. That was announced back in June, but that feature set is now available and they're going to be implementing over the next few months, some of these Apple intelligence features. But I will tell you, I'm looking, I'm looking forward to it. You know, you know, there's other products available, but if you're like me and you are heavy into the Apple ecosystem, this is going to be a huge plus. You know, I, you know, looking back, we think about this show, it's like, well, I know, I know that we interviewed Melissa Abearden on the local clique, but what episode was it that we did? You pop open Apple intelligence and say, hey, you know, when did we interview Melissa Abeir on the local click and it'll search your device. Maybe you've got, you know, we've got a calendar reminder, we've got a task that is saved and it will use that information to say, well, hey, on this date is when this occurred. So, you know, when you're trying to look back and think about things, well, when was my doctor's appointment? When, you know, maybe when did I make a specific phone call? [00:51:16] Speaker A: It almost sounds like an enhancement to Siri. And the way we interact with it. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Still will be generated through Siri. Now, one thing that was different for me when I set my new device up was it is not the traditional Siri voice that I'm used to. [00:51:30] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:51:31] Speaker B: That was not an option. The five options that were given, I'll be honest, I was like, I want Siri. [00:51:38] Speaker A: You were so used to hearing, I. [00:51:39] Speaker B: Want the traditional Siri. I've been listening to her for the past decade. I don't want to change it. I don't want, like, I like a lot of other change. I think I wanted Siri to stay the same. But so that had, that has changed a little bit. They've also introduced an update to the Apple watches. So the Apple Watch series ten is now out. And it's crazy to think, to me, we are on double digits of the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Now we think of how we think the Apple Watch is still a fairly recent device. We're going on a decade of Apple watches. [00:52:10] Speaker A: And if you think about it, a little younger than us, you know, they probably didn't even remember life without an iPhone. [00:52:17] Speaker B: Some other things that have happened recently, Microsoft held their surface event again, this is an annual event that they hold as well. They did that. They, they have announced a new surface product called the Neo, and it is going to have a Snapdragon Elite X processor. And some of these laptops and these touchscreen laptops have been rolling out already. Again, it's very interesting. Apple swapped to ARM based chips a few years ago, Microsoft is integrating Arm based chips into all of these new laptops. This is being powered by their AI assistant co pilot. And, you know, we're seeing again, this shift in. And really these processors are, they're efficient. They technically have less ability and less instruction code sets built within them, but they're so efficient. So for battery life and being able to extend things. And so, so Microsoft has got that introduced. And again, their AI is coming along, and Gemini for Google is coming along. If a 2024, which is the. I will not try to actually say the name of it since it is in German, but it is. [00:53:28] Speaker A: I'll go for it. [00:53:29] Speaker B: It is an annual tech conference that is held in Berlin every year. And so that was held during the month of September. And there's. That's probably the biggest international tech show that occurs. And their Acer, we're talking about power efficiency. Acer has introduced a laptop with a 24 hours battery life. [00:53:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:53:50] Speaker B: That's what they are rating it for, for 24 hours of use. So if you really need to get some extra work done and not sleep a wink, you have got, and you're on the go. You're not next to a charger, you can't plug up, can't do anything. You've got literally all day battery life. [00:54:07] Speaker A: I'll be honest with you, that's a little too efficient for my needs. I need a break for myself before 24 hours is up. [00:54:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't imagine using a device that long. But they, like I said, they have redefined what all day battery life is. With that, we're going to continue down that path where AI is going to be in anything and everything. [00:54:29] Speaker A: The genie is out of the box. [00:54:31] Speaker B: On this technology for sure. Chat GPT, you know, they have just released a preview of their next iteration of chat GPT. So chat GPT four. And then you had four. Oh, and now you've got 400 I or something that's in preview. You know, it just keeps getting a little bit better each and every time. And Apple's got Apple intelligence and Google's got Gemini, and it doesn't matter if it's the military or if it's healthcare or if it's education or the private sector or the public sector. This is getting involved into every aspect of human nature and everything that we do in all kinds of sectors, in everybody's lives every day. [00:55:17] Speaker A: Well, just like we were talking a second ago, the current generations that are out there don't remember a life before the iPhone. The generations that are coming up now that are young, won't remember a life before AI and the impact that it's having. So it's a big deal. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, we, you know, we talked about search engines earlier and we think of, oh, how much information is at our fingertips with search engines. And really AI is going to cause the search engine space and the access to information to be completely, you know, I remember a few years ago when there was an app that came out where you could take, use your camera to go over a math equation and it would try to read it using OCR technology and decipher what it was and then break down how to solve it for you. And now this is one of the things that's coming with the new iOS update in notes you can take and write out those equations, handwrite those equations, and it will capture it and it will do the same thing. [00:56:19] Speaker A: Oh, man. Where was that during math class back in school? [00:56:22] Speaker B: Or if you, you want to write out, you know, oh, I need to, you know, two x squared, you know, minus three. I need to graph this and it'll graph it for you. You know, it's, it's very, it's very interesting. It's scary. It's interesting, but it's scary at, at the same time. [00:56:40] Speaker A: There's no stopping it, though. It's like I said, it's out there. So let's just all buckle up for the ride together and hope that we can retain that human element of life. Even this technology tries to make some parts of our lives better. So. But thanks for the updates, Justin. I appreciate it very much. [00:56:55] Speaker B: And we'll be back with more next month. Remember Techtober. So I expect there to be a lot of releases, a lot of interesting things that come out this month. [00:57:05] Speaker A: Is there a tech member? [00:57:07] Speaker B: You know, tech member just doesn't sound as good as tech. [00:57:12] Speaker A: No, it does nothing. [00:57:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't have the same ring, too. But hey, maybe by this time next month we're going to have some product launches. Hey, maybe as we get closer to Christmas we do. Maybe we'll make a product guide or give, give out some. That's right, give out some suggestions on a potential holiday shop. [00:57:30] Speaker A: So stay tuned for some of that. And we're going to change gears right now and go to the part of our show we like to call what's up, DTC. And this kind of explains some of the places, places that we'll be at for the month of October. And we'll start this list off with the Cannon county car show, which is a rain date makeup that will be held on October 5. And then, speaking of Cannon county, we have the Cannon County High School career day, which will be on October 8. The DeKalb County High School Career Fair will be on October 11. The Pumpkin Festival in downtown Smithville, that sounds fun will be on October 12. And then the Cannon County Senior Health Fair will be on October 18. And that will be held at the Cannon County Senior center. The Alexandria Fright at the fairgrounds event will be on October 26 from five until 07:00 p.m. at the DeKalb county fairgrounds. And the William Walton Days event will be on October 26 in downtown Carthage. The Smithfield Bubash will be here on October 31 from noon until 05:00 p.m. on the Smithville Square. And the Gordonsville City Festival will be on October 31 from five until 08:00 p.m. in downtown Gordonsville. And that's going to wrap up the October edition of the local clique. We'd like to thank all of our guests for being on the program this month, and Justin as well for sharing all of his useful information. We hope you're having a wonderful October and we hope that you get a little bit of that candy to try from your kids. You got to do this quality control thing. We talked about it. It's important. Don't let this tradition down. But anyway, that's all we have for this month. We hope you've had a good time and we hope that you'll tune into us next month for the next edition of the local Click. Until next time. We'll see you later. Learn more about the show by visiting us [email protected]. also, be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast or video platform so you won't miss our next episode of the local click. See you next month.