Yes, Ma’am: Teach Your AI the Way You’d Teach a Child — Weekly Retail Tidbits #252
“Repetition is the mother of learning.”
— Latin proverb
“Yes, Ma’am”
I grew up saying “yes, ma’am” and “yes, sir.” My momma reinforced it until it was just a habit — the same as “please” and “thank you.” When our three boys were small, I taught them the same way, saying it over and over until it stuck.
That’s how it works with people. We learn slowly, shaped by what’s around us — everything we absorb.
It’s not so different with AI. A brand-new model shows up knowing a whole lot about the world and nothing about you. Every answer it gives comes from what it learned somewhere else, filtered through someone else’s choices — smart, well-read, and generic. Plenty of that’s useful.
But the answers that actually move your business — the ones that fit what you value, what you know, how you want a thing to look — those only come after you’ve taught it. And if you haven’t set up a system to hold what you’ve taught it, you’ll just end up teaching it the same things over and over.
My momma had a system. Daddy helped, of course — but she was always home with us, so she did most of the teaching. My four younger siblings and I knew what was expected, how our family did things — we saw the whole world through that lens. The system is what made it stick.
I wouldn’t call myself a techie, but I do love it — and little by little, every day, I’ve built and learned. Now when I ask my model a question, it knows my context, knows where to find my answers, and knows how to talk to me — including never ending a sentence with a preposition. 😂 That one’s non-negotiable, same as “yes, ma’am” was in my house.
Here’s why I’m telling you this. Asking a fresh AI a smart question about your store is like asking a stranger — a stranger with a head full of facts who knows nothing about you. Not what you carry. Not what you value. Not how you like things done. It’s getting better at remembering. But “better” still depends on you choosing to teach it, on purpose.
So I’ll ask you what I had to ask myself: have you spent any time teaching your AI about you — the way a parent teaches a child? Kids come wired to remember. A machine can remember far more, and far better — but only once you decide to build that memory on purpose.
Market’s almost here, and here’s what I love most about it: some of you I’ve worked with so long that we just pick right up. I know your story, your town, what you sold last fall, and the bestsellers you and I can hardly keep in stock. With others, we’re still finding our rhythm together. Both are good, both are joys.
With AI, the stuff that’s worth anything gets built the same way: a little at a time, on purpose, until it sticks. You can teach a machine to know you, but the people around you who already know you — who remember, who’ve been in it with you season after season — that’s the part you can’t shortcut. It only gets more valuable the longer you build it.
xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay
Insider Tech Scoop — The Hidden Mark in Your AI Photos
Just something fun to know: every image made with AI now carries an invisible watermark (Google’s SynthID) baked right into the pixels — you can’t see it, and cropping or screenshotting won’t remove it. Instagram, Facebook, and Google can read it and quietly tag a post as “AI.” The good news: it won’t hurt your reach or your search ranking. It’s just a little nudge to use AI for the fun stuff — mockups, backgrounds, previewing a color — and a real camera for the actual product.
3 Tango Tidbits
FacePlant Dreams
A beautiful FacePlant display at Lemon in McMinnville, Tennessee.*
FacePlant is on a mission to help us sleep better and feel better every day. Being zero-tox may be trending now, but it’s something FacePlant has worked toward since day one — choosing the best natural fibers and holding every fabric to the highest standard.
It’s luxury loungewear built around exceptional fabrics. Most brands buy fabric off the shelf; FacePlant has spent nearly 20 years developing their own — insanely comfortable, made for real living, soft enough for sleep and stylish enough to wear out.
New this Market — the gorgeous taupe Racerback Tank & Long Lounge Pants, just right for fall.
LINNEA
LINNEA keeps growing — there’s lots new this Market, including a new Hand Lotion in two favorites, Cashmere and Lavender Rosemary. The Heirloom Tomato hand wash shown here is one of four — with Crushed Mint, Lavender Rosemary, and Cashmere — a perfect little touch for a kitchen or powder bath.
Bunnies by the Bay
Eek the Bat and Munch the Monster.
Bunnies by the Bay has been giving glad dreams since 1986 — a precious, complete baby plush line of loveys, buddy blankets, books, and keepsakes made to grow right along with a little one. What makes it so clever is the fabric: the fur shifts from collection to collection and piece to piece — from their signature, heirloom-soft Scraggle Fur to plush cuddle fur to the softest little knits — and yet it all feels cohesive, every bit of it irresistibly soft.
Their sweetest Halloween friends are here, too — Boo Boo Kitty the black cat, Eek the Bat, and Munch the Monster. Market is the perfect time to set your fall and holiday plush, so come feel the difference in the showroom.
And Everything Else
These are just three of the 15 lines Tango represents — and we’re merchandising them so beautifully this week, you won’t want to miss it. I also keep my catalog page updated year-round, so you can click through to each line’s resources there anytime.
Bunnies by the Bay · Cobblestone Living · Compendium · erin gray · EvaBelle · FacePlant Dreams · Lenny and Eva · LINNEA · LJ Sonder · Mary Lake Thompson · Meghan Browne · ORI London · The Winding Road · True South Puzzles · Whispering Willow
“Little by little one walks far.”
— Peruvian proverb
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I can’t wait to see your faces, catch up, and show you what’s new. Come find me in Atlanta! 🎉 xoxo, |
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With heart eyes on — finding things we ❤!
January 2026 Market fun.
❤ Charlotte’s Web — Chattanooga, TN
❤ Mauk’s of Jonesborough — Jonesborough, TN
* Special thanks to Amanda at Lemon — not only an amazing FacePlant retailer and retail partner, but also so kind to let us use her beautiful display photo.
AmyFay Chandler
She reads all of this so you don’t have to. Based in Knoxville, TN, AmyFay is a wholesale sales rep for the brands she represents across Tennessee and Kentucky, and she oversees the D2C side for Sweet Tree Jewelry and Caroline B Cook — two of those brands — making sure brick-and-mortar retailers always come first. She writes Weekly Retail Tidbits (now in its 252nd issue) because she’s living the same questions her retail customers are living, and figures things out alongside them. Her whole project: helping independent retailers stay human while the rest of the industry tries to automate them away.
Also from AmyFay
Two of the brands I represent run their D2C side through me, with brick-and-mortar partners prioritized at every step:
- Sweet Tree Jewelry — school-spirit polymer-clay earrings
- Caroline B Cook — children’s books (the Virtue Series, Church Kitty)
Wholesale questions? [email protected]
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