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Episode 274
:
Bryan Porter - Simple Modern

How to Sell 1/2 Billion in Drink Ware in 8 Years

Building a brand is hard. Really hard.

Building a brand on Amazon carries some unique challenges. Sure, Amazon has built-in traffic, but grabbing attention, selling a great product, and then getting customers to buy again and again is hard.

No one knows that more than Bryan Porter, co-founder of Simple Modern. They launched on Amazon in 2016 and are now the 4th largest drinkware brand in the US. You probably own one of their tumblers or know someone who does. 

This episode is a masterclass in:

  • How to build a brand on Amazon that people seek out. How to rise above the noise of "me-to" products and drive discovery and repeat purchases.
  • How to successfully go DTC when you're born on Amazon. This isn't easy, and most Amazon sellers fail outright or are only moderately successful. 
  • How to use product variation to increase conversion rates and drive search volume.
  • Branded search or no branded search and Bryan's rule of 20x ROAS.
  • Competing in a hyper-competitive category.
  • Eliminating every weakness your product has.
  • Why negative reviews might not be the only sign that you need to kill a product.
  • And much more!

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Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(04:11) Simple Modern’s Founding Story

(17:42) Demand Capture and Paid Ads

(24:40) Building A Brand On Amazon

(40:40) Transitioning To a 1P Seller on Amazon

(46:23) Outro

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Show Notes:

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Connect With Brett: 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, and more. 

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Other episodes you might enjoy: 

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Transcript:

Bryan :

The way that we win at Amazon is we take a customer who's searching for a water bottle or a kid's water bottle or a Tumblr, we convert them and the next time they're looking for something drinkware, they're searching for us.

Brett:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we're talking to Bryan Porter, co-founder of Simple Modern. We're talking about how they did it, how they became just a drinkware phenom, one of the top sellers on the planet, a brand born on Amazon that is just crushing it now in the omnichannel space. And really just a brand that I've admired and watched from a distance and now super excited to dive in and learn firsthand how they did it. So with that, Bryan, welcome to the show, man. And how's it going? Thanks

Bryan :

For having me on, Brett. It's going great. I'm excited to talk with you.

Brett:

Yeah, I've been following you on LinkedIn and of course Twitter and you and one of the other co-founders, Mike, you guys post great content and so I've been consuming that, enjoying that. And then there's also a connection. I know Mike is one of the co-hosts of the Operators podcast, A quick plug to the Operators awesome podcast. My buddy Sean Frank is also on that podcast and so had some connections and so finally able to make this happen, and so super, super excited about that. Now before we dive in, Bryan, I think this will be important before we talk drinkware and building a brand in Amazon and D two C and all of that good stuff. If anyone's watching and seeing the video now they're potentially looking behind you and seeing some bottles, but they're like, those are not simple modern bottles. That's some kind of other, it looks like you're sending messages in a bottle or something there. So for those that are intrigued, namely me, what are those bottles sitting on your desk?

Bryan :

It's something that a coworker from over a decade ago started doing. Every time he went to the beach, he would bring back sand from the beach and put it in a glass bottle like this. I just ripped his idea, but I think it's super cool. I've had the pleasure of going to places, beaches across the world from Hong Kong to Greece and the Caribbean and places in Israel. And so bringing it back, having it on the desk is really fun thing to remind me of those adventures and fun to talk about with people who come in.

Brett:

Super cool. Yeah, super cool to be transported back to that experience and also need to see the comparison, right? Because sand is very different in different places, and so it's probably asking to pick a favorite kid, but do you have a favorite or favorite top one to three that you could mention? Not Kids Beaches.

Bryan :

It's funny because places in the Caribbean, that's what I think of when the Turks and Caicos is probably my favorite beach, but the most beautiful sand on my desk in a bottles from Destin, Florida or 30 a, that sands walking on powdered sugar. It's just the widest, softest. So I hate to say America, but in terms of just sand, it's hard to beat that.

Brett:

It's pretty amazing. And I'm not the international traveler that you are, but I've been to Rio, which those beaches are amazing. My family, I go to the west coast a lot, so we go to Southern California a lot. Love those beaches. But we do go to the Destin Panama City Beach area every year, and it's true, man, San, it's the best. It's the softest, it's the widest. It's fantastic. So very cool. Well, thank you for that little diversion. Super fun. Let's dive in because I think a lot of people are wondering how the heck do you do this? First of all, guys started in 2016, but why a drinkware company? Why Amazon and how have you achieved this runaway success? And so can you kind of tell the founding story we'd love to hear?

Bryan :

Absolutely. So the founding story really starts at my previous job I worked with Mike previously. We were coworkers working on an e-commerce brand that was really more of a marketplace than it wasn't like creating a consumer product brand. And then we have a third co-founder. The

Brett:

Focus was more just selling products on marketplace.

Bryan :

We were more trying to compete with Amazon, which there's a reason why we wanted to start a side business. Amazon was crushing everyone and still is. So yeah, we have a history and we like to think of our previous job is really kind of the foundation that we've built simple, modern with, and we really wanted to create products that could contribute to people's everyday lives. We didn't feel a ton of value out of running more of a marketplace, so we felt like who better to try and create an Amazon brand than people who have been writing search algorithms for another website and have just a great understanding of how customers shop on marketplaces and how algorithms would decide to show certain listings the highest. Yeah, so we started simple modern as a side gig.

Brett:

So actually lemme just double click on that really quickly, Bryan. So you guys were creating the search algorithms for this other marketplace?

Bryan :

Yes, yes. We ran several different websites and one of them in particular was purely a model that's very similar to an Amazon where we had to figure out how to show the most relevant best things to customers whenever they search

Brett:

Any key insights. I want to get back to the story, but you're a guy that has written search algorithms, so I think a lot of people are fascinated by that. Any key insights or learnings that you can tell? I know you didn't create the Amazon algorithm, but any insights there that you can share as a creator of algorithms?

Bryan :

Sure. There's a few parts to creating an algorithm. One is how do you index listings? What do you use to decide what's relevant to a search? And there's nuances too that are hard, like the difference between water bottle and bottle of water. Those are two completely different things,

Brett:

But the words are, one, wanting to buy water. One you wanting to buy a container,

Bryan :

The words are essentially the same just in a different order. So you need to be able to pick up on nuances like that. And really most of what you have to go off of are titles from listings, and that's what Amazon does. It mostly indexes off the title and some content within the listing. Maybe you give the option for sellers to feed you keywords, but that's dangerous because who knows what they're going to put in the backend so that they don't want customers to see. So there's kind of indexing side. And then you have to decide once you get your group of relevant products, the order that you show them to customers, and obviously you need to optimize towards the click rates. You need to have the products that are going to grab the customer's attention and get them into the listing and then ultimately convert. So you have to weigh that. And then the thing we thought about a lot is how much do you weigh profitability of listings versus revenue if you're the marketplace? And so there's kind of a balance there. So yeah, it's kind of all those factors tie into it

Brett:

Super interesting and that totally makes sense. And yeah, obviously we try to understand, you try to hack, so to speak, the Amazon algorithm or the Google algorithm, and it does come down to relevance and click through rate and conversion rate and things like that and sales velocity. But yeah, just thought it'd be super interesting to hear from most people. Just try to figure it out. Most people have not written them before in the past, so that's awesome that you did that. So cool. So you guys, you decide to launch a brand on a marketplace, but yeah, why drinkware and why when you did it and yes, so continue the story.

Bryan :

Yeah, so I think one thing that makes us a little bit different is, and I dunno, there's a lot of people who decide to sell on Amazon and then figure out what product they want to get into. But the genesis of our company is that we have more of a channel insight than a product insight that we started with. So we just wanted to sell on Amazon, we're analysts at heart, and we felt like if we tested as many products as we could that would give us a better chance of finding whatever it may be that is best for us to kind of center our brand around

Brett:

Super smart.

Bryan :

So yeah, if you throw enough darts at the dartboard or I guess the more darts that you throw at the dartboard, the better chance you have of hitting the best possible option.

Brett:

So you didn't just start then with drinkware, you tried a few things and drinkware was what checked a lot of boxes and was taken off for

Bryan :

You, correct? Yes. And we did this all at night on the side. So we ended up being able to test I think five different things. They were all things that you could airship to not mess with sea shipping right off the bat. They had to be cheap in terms of nominal dollars per unit and costs because we didn't have a ton of money. So there were parameters that we use to decide what to test. So outside of drinkware, we tested things like a tea infuser, french press, silicone baking mats, a few other things. And this was in 2015 for context, right when Yeti 30 ounce Yeti Rambler was really

Brett:

Actually taking off

Bryan :

At that point doing doing what Stanley is right now. So drinkware was a young category and really starting to blossom at that time. So I think that testing a 32 ounce insulated bottle, the timing was really great. We didn't know it at the time, but choosing the vacuum insulated drinkware category was really the best thing we could have done because that category has been the fastest growing category in home and probably across every category, one of the fastest growing in the last 10 years.

Brett:

And who would've predicted Bryan with drinkware? You'd think you could survive with one or two of these things, but that's not the case, especially for moms for whatever reason. And so my wife, God bless her, she buys a million of these, but there's never enough. There's never enough drinkware because you need different sizes, you need different straws, you need different handles, you need different everything. Everything's got to be different. So you guys really you chose well. So congrats on that.

Bryan :

Yeah, it is funny how much wear has become more of a fashion accessory than a practical thing that you have in your life that you just want one of. And that is really the insight that we doubled down on that contributed to our success whenever we decided to go all in on drinkware after we tested different products. The question then quickly pivoted to how do you create the best drinkware brand on Amazon? Yeti existed, hydro Flask did swell, you have a bunch of these high margin competitors and then you have the factories at the lowest costs and there wasn't really anyone in the middle in terms of price. So that was one observation. So

Brett:

You found that gap of people that want quality but don't want to pay through the nose for it and people that don't want cheap. And so you found that gap and filled

Bryan :

It. Exactly. Typically brands don't like being in the middle. They'd rather be at the top or the bottom on price. But what we found is that we could provide value with the fashion elements, just the number of choices we give customers in our listing. A company like Yeti isn't really incentivized to sell more than eight or 10 different colors because they need to sit on a physical shelf and stay in stock. They're not e-commerce first and manufacturers aren't incentivized to have a ton of different color options because they're not wanting to have all their money sitting in inventory. They want to be buying manufacturing equipment. So they don't want to necessarily run that playbook. And that's really where we found our value prop was to, we got up to 45 different colors at one time, which is, I acknowledge that's way too many. And we've come back down to about 25 D

Brett:

Colors. I sure I can name anywhere near 45 colors, just be making stuff up at some point. That's

Bryan :

Amazing. It's decision fatigue well beyond that. But the beauty of offering all those different options to customers was that it mattered to them. When drinkware is becoming more like shoes or purses where customers want unique things, that's a value add. It also helped us to create a higher conversion rate on our listings, just a better chance for customers to find what they want. If we offer more variety with e-commerce, it does a cool thing where you create more front doors to your listing, more search terms you can rank on. So if we're the only company that sells yellow water bottles, not many people search for them. And so when a hundred percent of that search volume can be helpful, especially things like Mickey Mouse water bottle or licensing, it really helps to bring more customers into your listing.

Brett:

Yeah, and just curious, when did you start going down the licensing path? Was that fairly early or did that come much later?

Bryan :

It started pretty early on. We ended up having success adding more variety into our listings and we doubled down on that as much as we could until it just became ridiculous. And a part of that offering customers variety was with licensing. We started with a local license for the University of Oklahoma, which is where we live, and you can get local licenses, like local fan shops can do this a lot to be able to sell product from teams in their area. So we got that and we got a local license, we Oklahoma City Thunder, and we're able to leverage those local licenses basically into one. We leveraged into a Sam's Club deal, which this is something that Mike spearheaded and did an amazing job. We didn't have the licenses for most of college football or college sports, but got Sam's Club to commit to a PO that was across all the schools. So we leveraged the PO with Sam's Club to get the licenses. So essentially we didn't have anything but leveraged

Brett:

The PO first. That's brilliant. Takes away the risk completely, right? Yeah, almost.

Bryan :

So that's how we got our foot in the door. Ultimately it led to the NFL and Disney, which are the biggest ones and it's really hard to get in with Disney, but obviously it's really helpful, especially if you sell kits products. Yeah,

Brett:

Yeah, I love that. Looking at product differentiation, both as a way to drive conversion rate, but also just as a way to grab more traffic. Because you mentioned this in one of your posts, you guys are demand capture first, and that's sort of the thing of Amazon, it's search driven query-based traffic for the most part. Any things to point out there? Why did you guys choose demand capture type product versus something else?

Bryan :

So that goes back to our experience before simple modern, that e-commerce business that I was telling you about was very dependent on paying for customers and it was great until it wasn't. And our experience really is kind of like, I don't know, a scar that we carry with us that maybe to a fault, we do not want to be dependent at all on advertising and it was really kind of the one main strength of our previous company. And once that goes away, you are in trouble. So we built the business to be 100% organic, not dependent on Amazon ads, not on Facebook ads or meta, whatever. Our whole mantra is we want to be able to win when we're sitting on either a digital or physical shelf next to all of our competition, we're building a product that a customer is going to pick up instead of the other ones. So it's works to this point, although ironically we're trying to figure out how we can add on paid advertising now.

Brett:

And you guys did, now you did Amazon ads for a while, so it seems like I read a post about that, but it hasn't been a central part of your strategy.

Bryan :

So heading really, I guess the first five years of the business, we used Amazon ads as much as we could to grow the brand and it wasn't a dependency as much as an accelerant for us. Makes sense. And we spent about 8% of revenue on ads and we actually got to a point in 2020 where we weren't sure how helpful ads were. It felt like there wasn't fully a correlation between our ad spend and our top line revenue. Certainly there is some benefit, we just didn't think that we were getting all that Amazon says that we were getting. So we turned it off for four months just to see what would happen. And I could talk for a long time about this, I'll spare you from that. But we essentially learned that probably about half of the ad spend that we were doing was driving incremental traffic and the other half of it was just fat that was not providing value to the business.

Brett:

It goes back to that original John Wanamaker quote. Some people attribute it to PT Barnum, but he said, I believe that half my advertising is wasted. I just dunno which half. And that's kind of been a consistent feeling throughout the ages

Bryan :

And that is our experience. So we've trimmed down to about 4% of our revenue we spend on ads, so

Brett:

4% tacos

Bryan :

And we've tried to root out as much as we can the spend that is just lighting money on fire and it's led us to focus a lot on spending on competitor keywords, spending on keywords where we're just not as relevant or as strong with our product offerings or we do spend on branded search when someone searches for simple modern, I'm just not willing to run at lower than a 20 row ads to counteract the lack of incrementality that those sales tend to have.

Brett:

Yeah, it's super interesting. I think it is really necessary to run some branded ads, otherwise you are going to miss out on sales. And we talk about this a lot on the Google side, of course our agency focus on Google and YouTube also, but also Amazon. But on the Google side you can actually segment where you can say, Hey, I'm just going to bid on people that search for my brand name who've never bought from me before. So you can separate those out from say a repeat purchaser and that's kind of nice. But if you just disappear altogether, there's still a percentage of customers that they'll just click on whatever they see and they'll think that if I search simple modern, then what I'm seeing is simple, modern and they'll click on it without ever noticing and they'll buy something else because somebody else is going to, especially at your volume or your size, someone else is going to bid on your term, but if brand doesn't have a wildly successful ROAS or MER or ACOs or however you want to, whatever your metric of choice is, then something's wrong. You got to restructure if that thing's not just crushing it. But it's good to hear you say that because yeah, I think you are going to miss opportunities and especially those first customer opportunities. I think if it's a repeat customer they're probably going to find they're probably going to buy, but you may miss some first time customers if you don't do it.

Bryan :

Yeah, for sure. And with branded ads specifically, we've run a bunch of on off tests and Amazon has started to give us insights on market share and click share for different keywords. So we'll look for all of our branding keywords, how many clicks were we getting when we were running ads, how many clicks did Amazon ads say that it was generating? And then when we turn it off, it would make sense that you would lose the amount of clicks that Amazon ads is taking credit

Brett:

For that you were getting right.

Bryan :

But it turns out we don't. It's about

Brett:

Nice. Interesting. About

Bryan :

20% of the clicks that Amazon ads is attributing we see lost in our total clicks. So

Brett:

That kind of led you to the 20 roas so that math checks out. Yeah,

Bryan :

That's exactly how we got there. And our strategy of what we advertise on branded search is not our best stuff that's going to rank number one. We want to merchandise show customers things that they probably dunno we sell and that they probably won't click on. We love to do that or a new product launch. It's a way where we can try and get some juice to something new.

Brett:

Yeah, super insightful there. Kind of the merchandising component of it. You want to control the SERP and be able to show the products you want to show. So that's really, really smart. Let's talk about, this would be a good jumping off point to talk about building a brand and and I talked a little bit before we hit record. This is something we started as an agency, as a Google YouTube agency first. We've been doing Amazon since 2016, but because of our D two C background, a lot of our Amazon clients would come to us and say, Hey, how do we diversify? We're crushing on Amazon, how do we launch our Shopify store and sell direct to consumer? And it's really hard, most of the brands that we saw attempt to do that only had moderate success. Now we've seen a lot of people have success the other way, we worked with a native deodorant for a long time now p and g brand and still do their Google and YouTube, but they were D two C first and then went on Amazon and that crushed it.

Boom by Cindy Joseph, long time client, shout out to their Firestone, we managed their Google and YouTube and Amazon and we actually helped them launch on Amazon and took off, went from zero to 6 million in one year because they had that brand built off Amazon. But you guys have done something unique in that I can really only think of, I want to have a couple, you guys anchor where you started on Amazon, but you have a real brand. People look for you, they want to buy your product, people are creating tiktoks about your product, you've got a real following. It's a real thing. It's not just some white label product that somebody buys a lot of reviews and it's a cheap price. It's a brand. And so how have you guys done that? How have you built a brand on Amazon?

Bryan :

So this is something that's taken eight years to get to this point, which I think is definitely worth saying. It's been a lot of work to get this point and a lot of trying things that did not work to get to this point. I think that it has helped us D two C that we've been omnichannel. So we started in 2015 on Amazon. We've been selling in Target for, gosh, probably last five or six years and in Walmart and Sam's Club. So I think developing more of a exposure to customers where they see you on Amazon, they see you kind of browsing the aisles at a different retailer. I think that helps to have impressions in different places. But in terms of D two C, we tried for a long time to compete with our Amazon offering and tried to give customers the as good or better of pricing with shipping on our website. It just didn't work. There's no reason to do that.

Brett:

The math doesn't check out, right?

Bryan :

Just let 'em buy on Amazon or if you're

Brett:

Going to do that, yeah, they're going to buy on Amazon anyway. It's easier. All their information is there. It's one click to check out. Why compete with that.

Bryan :

That's right. And Amazon's built the best logistics distribution network for e-commerce and by far we cannot be as profitable.

Brett:

We'll touch that anytime soon.

Bryan :

Yeah, we're less profitable selling the same single item on our website with free shipping is on Amazon, so there's no reason to do that. So what we did was really try to understand the strengths of D two C and try to use those unique characteristics. And what we learned was that on D two C, you can have better economics than Amazon with higher A OV, you have to have a higher average order value putting things in the same box if you have one three PL or one warehouse and you gain a ton of efficiency from multiple unit orders. For us, I guess an example is it would cost us say $10 to ship one Tumblr to a customer, but it would cost us $12 to ship three tumblers to a customer. So your cost per unit just goes down a ton with every additional item. So you want to incentivize bigger carts. And we started off with bundling where we merchandise different things together that customers could add and get a discount better for both of us. Our catalog is thousands of SKUs now, and so what we've pivoted to is more of a in cart cart dollar size discount. You get $10 off at a hundred dollars cart size and so on. There's different tiers as you get bigger. And then we use upselling to try and do the merchandising component of bundling. So there's that component.

Brett:

So it's not so much just offering a bundle outright, but it's more upselling as someone is going through the checkout process,

Bryan :

Right? Yeah. We do it that way just to try and give more flexibility instead of buying these exact three skews together, it's like here are things that you'll probably add them with what you have in your carts and you'll get a better deal. So that's one component. Another is the email and SMS lists that you can grow on D two C are incredibly valuable and it's one of those that you just have to, it takes time, you have to grow it over time, but you're never going to have

Brett:

That usually, especially for a brand like yours where you're primarily on Amazon, the people that are on that email on SMS list, they're your super fans.

Bryan :

Yeah, exactly. And you cannot do that on Amazon. So now since we've diligently tried to grow these lists, whenever we try to drop things weekly is kind of our long-term goal of limited edition drops, but you can tell all of your best fans about it and as long as you're coming out with things that they probably want, we've seen that it goes very well at driving traffic for free to your website. And then the third thing is personalization. Obviously you can't build things like that onto Amazon or have that in Target, but you can give a really awesome unique experience with customers on your website to make it more of their own. So those are really the three levers that we've really doubled down on.

Brett:

It's really great and it makes so much sense why try to compete versus Amazon and competing with yourself on Amazon doesn't make sense, but what are the strengths of D two C? What might people want there? What might be the reason they would do that? And I think you nailed it. And so that's really, really great. And I love the personalization piece too because there's something about that one, people are willing to pay premium so you can build in nicer margins. Also people share it. I saw a TikTok with 800,000 likes or something. There's one you shared, I'm not on TikTok a whole lot, but of just the lady showing her a Tumblr that had her name on it and it blew up on TikTok. And so that's more likely stuff like that is more likely to happen with a personalized product or you get a little different variety there. So really, really smart. That's awesome. And

Bryan :

There's one other thing that I'd like to add in that I think is really interesting and it's kind of what we're doing this year to grow our D two C. If you shop in other product categories for printers, you'll see there's different price ranges of printers and as you go up, it's the same printer but it has better features. The same thing with cars. There's different tiers of cars and

Brett:

Chevy Cadillac or Toyota and Lexus. Is it kind of the same but a little bit nicer

Bryan :

Or even you could buy the standard option or the premier or whatever that just has different stuff inside or sunroof or no sunroof. And so as I mentioned, we've been very sharp on our value prop because we're an Amazon first brand or we started on Amazon, but that's hard on D two C where the best brands typically have high margins, maybe even like 80% plus margins where they can spend a ton on advertising. So we are bringing out offerings that we're calling our signature line for our website only. We're not going to offer it on Amazon. And it comes with really awesome features like ceramic lining on the inside that people like that. It doesn't taste like retain flavor, any of that unique lids that have better features. Silicone rings on the bottom, just kind of like add-ons where it allows us to make really awesome drinkware that's not going to necessarily do great on Amazon because it's not as sharp of a low price point, but for our fans, they are going to love it and we can also advertise it and use it as customer acquisition on Facebook. So we're trying to develop both a mass retail and a specialty retail type strategy within our website and maybe push our website more towards the specialty retail type product offering.

Brett:

Love that. It's really great. And we see this with shoes too. I'm a Nike fan and you can buy the basic Nike shoe at various retail outlets, but to buy the real specialty or special colors, you're paying two or three x, but you got to order online. So yeah, I think there's a real place for that, again, to cater to that customer that really wants that. And so super smart. Let's talk about building a brand on Amazon. And this is not a new thing per se, it's existed. If you walk into Walmart, you can buy Coca-Cola can buy lace potato chips, or you could buy great value stuff. So kind of the white label or the private label, whatever, the own brands. But you guys have done a really good job where people go to Amazon looking for simple, modern or they go to Google looking for simple modern. You've built a real brand there and I think that's possible to do that on Amazon, but it's difficult. So any keys to building a brand on Amazon?

Bryan :

I've got a few thoughts. I know that simple modern is in drinkware and it's contextual to this category and this moment in time. It's hard to say there's a one size fit all approach, but the way that we think about it is the way that we win at Amazon is we take a customer who's searching for a water bottle or a kid's water bottle or a Tumblr, we convert them and the next time they're looking for something drinkware, they're searching for us and not the generic search term. That is our goal. And if we're able to accomplish that goal, even if they're not going to our website, it's searching for our brand on Amazon, we don't have to engage in the knife fight that is like Amazon PPC, we've won the battle at that point. So that's a high level objective of ours and there's all sorts of different tactics to try and achieve that objective. There are some obvious things like whenever we first started, I viewed imagery on Amazon listings as a sales pitch, why the customer should buy your product, all the features and things like that, which isn't wrong, you should do that, but I missed at first that the quality of your images imputes quality onto your product.

Brett:

Totally.

Bryan :

So if you have just this amazing photography, a lot of times customers will make up their mind before they even get the product that this thing's awesome. And it kind of develops that narrative in their mind that I just bought an awesome product and when they open it, it's like what they saw, then there's a good

Brett:

Chance, as long as you don't do anything to diminish that, they're going to have those same feelings once they open it. Yeah, really, really great insight.

Bryan :

So you want to create an experience with your customers that kind of maybe prepares them to use the products in a favorable way. Another one's packaging like unboxing experience. It kind of sets the expectations. If it's very high quality packaging, it signals to the customer that the product in it is also really high quality.

Brett:

It's kind of that second moment of truth. I think Proctor and Gamble may have said this first, I got the first moment of truth, which is kind of the experience on the shelf or in this case the digital shelf. How are you interacting and seeing it? The things you just described. But then when you open it and unbox it, that's kind of the second moment of truth. You can either really establish the brand or you could diminish it a little bit. And you guys do a great job with the product packaging, by the

Bryan :

Way. I appreciate that. We've tried, we've tried our best to create that type of an experience. And almost everyone has unboxed like an Apple product and they do the same thing. It's like next level, you don't want to throw their boxes away, so on.

Brett:

Yep, yep. So

Bryan :

True. So that's a big component. Ultimately we are our products, brands are their products. So being obsessive about rooting out any negative feedback that you see about your product and reviews is vital to creating a high net promoter score and getting repeat customers. Now, I would say one other thing that's a little bit more tricky on that front is that you could have products that aren't a great experience, but you wouldn't necessarily see that in the reviews. You could see it maybe in the return rate. An example is we used to sell, we have the bestselling taller backpack on Amazon and we had a 12 liter size and a seven liter size. The 12 liter size is the most common. It fits like three and four year olds, seven liters, really small. It fits like two year olds. So there is a purpose for it and it was a good product.

But the problem was whenever we sold out of the 12 liter, customers would just buy the seven liter because it was in stock and they wanted that pattern that was on it and they would get it and it'd just be like, this is way too small and I'm going to return it. It creates a negative experience, probably a customer that's not coming back and it's really expensive for us. Totally. They're not going to leave a review because it's not a bad product. But we actually discontinued that seven liter size even though it was a pretty good seller, but the return rate was just too high and it wasn't creating that customer

Brett:

Experience and nothing kills margin faster than a high return rate. So yeah, super smart.

Bryan :

Yeah, absolutely.

Brett:

So let's talk about one thing that I thought was super interesting as an agency and we're working with smaller brands typically, or those that are so rapidly growing, much more likely that they're three p selling through the third party marketplace. But you guys transition to being a one P seller on Amazon. Any insights as to why you did that and then from your perspective, when could or should someone consider making that switch?

Bryan :

So yeah, this is a great

Brett:

Question. I know this could be like we could probably talk an hour about this topic and we had a few minutes.

Bryan :

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great question. I have talked to vendors who are sick of being one P and just want to get back to the marketplace. And I've talked to people in the marketplace who are like, should we make the jump? Should we not? Grass

Brett:

Is always greener,

Bryan :

The grass is greener, haven't loved the marketplace, is one P better? So my advice for my generic advice would be that if you can have leverage with Amazon, then being a vendor is great because you have Amazon's attention being a vendor, you need Amazon to help you do things that you could just do yourself in the marketplace. Variating different SKUs together into one listing or whatever. Changing content. If you're a vendor and you don't have Amazon's attention, sometimes you just get stuck and it's just terrible. No one's helping you and you have things broken. But we're fortunate to last year we grew, gosh, about 50% on Amazon. It's

Brett:

Amazing. It's amazing your volume to grow that percentage rate. That's unreal.

Bryan :

So we have their attention and they care about us. And so it's good. It's good right now. And my goal is to continue that growth rate and to be worth their time.

Brett:

So it's got to be a volume component and then also probably a growth rate component. Otherwise you may just be better controlling your own destiny as a seller as opposed to a vendor

Bryan :

For sure. And we ended up making the jump to being a vendor, sadly, the week the pandemic started, which was a whole story in itself. Oh my

Brett:

Goodness,

Bryan :

Not a great time to totally transition the most important part of your business. But the reason why we did it is we were getting to a size, we did I think maybe 70 million in retail in the marketplace whenever we decided to make the jump. And we were looking at what are the kill shots to our business? And one of them is like, what if Amazon turns your account off and you can't get it back? It's unlikely, but that is kind of a kill shot. That was a factor. We craved really deeply a partnership with Amazon. We felt like we were doing enough business with Amazon that

Brett:

You would warrant

Bryan :

That we shouldn't be left up to whatever rep we pay for and then just people overseas to run our business. We want to be partnered with them. And you are as a vendor. It's more like a relationship with Target or Walmart where you have a buyer who's helping to facilitate your account, and then you also have a rep that works with you and your buyer and there's more access to teams within Amazon, whether it's the in stock team or compliance team or whatever it may be. So the other component to our transition is that we were really starting to scale up in Target as well, which is retail. And Amazon retail wanted us to be a retail partner because they were noticing there's data that is published whenever you're in places like Target where everyone can see they can pay for your sales data. And so Amazon was aware of our growing business within Target and Walmart and wanted us to be a vendor with them as well. And on that note, I think it actually has been a really helpful thing for us to become a vendor. And once you're an Amazon vendor, your data starts showing up in the mass retail data that everyone sees from Walmart to Target, and it just helps those other retailers understand how big of a business you are. They don't see that your sales when you're in the marketplace.

Brett:

Right, right. Interesting. Yeah, so once you get to a certain size and you want to get into more brick and mortar retail, then being vendor on Amazon that can help make that

Bryan :

Case for those retailers. And I think the year that we jumped from the marketplace to being a vendor, we were already kind of on the radar with our target sales, but it looked like our growth just exploded in 2020 just because they could now see our Amazon sales from being a vendor. So all of a sudden Costco starts calling and Whole Foods and places like that.

Brett:

That is awesome. Well, Bryan, we have just about run out of time and I'm a little bit bummed because I've got five other questions I want to ask you, but we covered a lot of ground. This is super helpful, really insightful, keep doing what you guys are doing. I'm going to keep paying attention. You're one of the brands that I watch closely. But as we wrap up, anything new that people should check out, anything you want to plug or mention a passion project or a new product release or anything that you want people to do? Obviously they can go shop on Amazon or at your D two C, a lot of retail stores, but any asks or passion projects?

Bryan :

Well, for better or worse, I think my passion project intersects directly with what I do, 40 hours, 40 plus hours a week. So yeah, I would say for anyone listening, we simple modern has gotten to a point where we're about the fourth biggest drinkware brand in the us It's crazy. And we're privately owned, we aren't focused on profits. We want to scale this up to be as big as we can make it. So yeah, I would say just follow, keep up with what we're doing. We're going to, for better or worse, do things that are interesting and continue to try and scale this thing as big as we can make it. So our plan is to try and get to the top of the category if at all possible. So I would say stay tuned.

Brett:

Love it, man. Love it. And yeah, I'm enjoying Tasty Beverage out of the, this is the Kona, I believe. That's right. And I realized that I always like black. Oh, there you go. I just like simple colors for my drinkware. I probably should have got one of the wild and crazy colors just because you guys do that. Also, I probably need to get Kansas City Chiefs mugs since I just won the Super Bowl and I'm a longtime cheese fan, but keep creating great products. Super, super fun. So Bryan Porter, ladies and gentlemen, Bryan, thanks for the time, man. Super, super fun.

Bryan :

Yep, I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on.

Brett:

Absolutely. And as always, thank you for tuning in. We'd love to hear from you. What would you like to hear more of on the show? If you've not done it, please leave that review on iTunes. Go buy a simple, modern mug as well. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

Episode 273
:
Brett Curry - OMG Commerce

6 Candid Lessons from Parenting 8 Kids + Running an Agency

I have 8 kids. Yep, 8.

Being a dad is like being a founder/entrepreneur (only harder).

Here are 6 parallels between the two. 

I posted this on LinkedIn several weeks ago, and it was my most shared, liked, and commented post on LinkedIn ever by a long shot. 

So, I decided to do a deep dive into these parallels for this week's podcast episode. 

Hopefully, these will be especially helpful if you find yourself in a stressful season. 

#1. We're all making it up as we go. 

Every week as a parent or business owner, you do at least 1-2 things you've never done before. 

Follow a system. Sure. 

Follow principles. 100%.

But don't shy away from the moments you feel like you're making it up. 

You are. We all are. 

#2. You're never really ready.

 

Waiting until you're fully ready to become a parent, a business owner, or a leader means you'll never start. 

Waiting until you're fully ready means you'll never launch that new service or new offering. 

You'll never feel fully ready. 

Step up. Do it anyway. Try. Fail. Learn. Improve. Try again.

#3. Listen and communicate clearly in multiple ways.

 

I haven't always been the best listener. 

I sometimes jump to conclusions. 

I've had the tendency to be dismissive. 

I'm getting better. 

I'm pretty good at communicating from the stage. 

Sometimes, I'm less effective one-on-one. 

Sometimes, you have to say the same thing five different ways before it really lands. 

#4. Admit when you're wrong.

Brittany (my superhuman wife) and I became parents when we were young. 

The "making it up as you go" stuff really applies when you're 22 and mostly clueless. 

We've had to apologize to our oldest a bunch (love you, Nate). But to all of our kids, a lot. 

Same with our team members at OMG. Especially those who've been with us the longest. 

Don't be the parent or leader who won't apologize. 

Own your stuff. 

#5. You might want a coach.

Our marriage got better when we saw a counselor. 

My parenting improved, too. 

We didn't wait until we were in big trouble. 

We sought help when we had a few things we couldn't solve well on our own. 

We're now BIG believers in counseling. 

Even when (and maybe especially) you feel you don't need one. 

My leadership skills improved when I got a business coach. 

My parenting improved more. 

If the top performers need coaches, it's silly to think that we don't. 

If Jordan needed multiple coaches, you and I probably do too. 

#6. Be all-in.

Parenting or leading in business well takes everything you've got. 

Not just focus and effort. Everything. 

Your emotions. 

Your brain. 

Your creativity. 

Your problem-solving. 

Your area(s) of genius. 

Your courage. 

Your tenacity.

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Chapters

(00:00) Introduction 

(03:12) Lesson 1 - Where All Making It Up As We Go

(06:58) Lesson 2 - You’re Never Really Ready

(09:19) Lesson 3 - Listen and Communicate Clearly In Multiple Ways

(12:17) Lesson 4 - Admit When You’re Wrong

(14:39) Lesson 5 - You Might Want A Coach

(19:39) Lesson 6 - Be All In

(22:52) Outro

Connect With Brett: 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, and more. 

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Other episodes you might enjoy: 

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Transcript:

Brett:

Hey, we are all of us making it up as we go, right? And we want to pretend like we've got this master plan and everything is well thought out. And the only reason I'm successful here is because my planning and execution is so brilliant and I think the truth is

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the e-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today is a unique episode because one, I'm flying solo, so you just get to hear from me today. Two, I'm going to get a little bit personal on this podcast. Now, this is still going to directly apply to your business, to your D2C business, your service-based business, whatever the case may be. But I'm going to talk more about myself and my family and my background than I ever have before on this podcast. So recently I posted on LinkedIn six parallels or six lessons from being a father that also apply to running a business, and specifically in my case, a seven figure agency. And so I've mentioned on the podcast before, if you're a long time listener, you certainly know it, but I have eight kids, the OCHO eight count, 'em eight kids.

Now, it's not a blended family. This is just go to old fashioned growth. Now, a lot of people ask one, do you know how this happens? Did you mean to do this? All kinds of quite personal questions honestly, but I don't mind it. And the truth is, my wife, Brittany and I, we always planned to have a big family. We wanted to have four, or maybe the stretch goal was five, and then we just completely overachieved and ended up with the crazy number eight. So it is not what we expected or planned for, but would not have it any other way. It is pure chaos. It's noise, but it's a ton of fun. We were talking in a, we actually host a small group at our house too from our church, but talking about how there's a lot of loneliness actually going on right now fueled by the virtual world we live in and things like that, and that it's a real issue.

That's not something we deal with. I do not have alone time because when would I do that? I'm either running a company and around people or at home, which is full, which again, absolutely love it. So what are the lessons here? Because I think there's a lot of parallels between being a parent, being a mother or a father, leading a family, helping a family grow, and also leading an enterprise. And I would argue that being a parent probably harder, it's probably more of a challenge to be a parent than it is to be a business owner. But let's talk through six parallels, and I'm going to get a little bit transparent and a little bit vulnerable along the way, but hopefully this will be fun and inspiring because my guess is you probably find yourself in a time of stress. We're all stressed, you're probably in a time of growth.

I think this year is going to be a year of growth for most of us in our industry. And so hopefully these six parallels or these six lessons will help you in your journey. So parallel number one between being a parent and owning a business is, hey, we are all of us making it as we go, and we want to pretend like we've got this master plan and everything is well thought out. And the only reason I'm successful here is because my planning and execution is so brilliant. And I think the truth is yes, we should plan. And so we've got over $10 million total revenue agency. It's growing. I got a team of 63. We're certainly quarterly, annually planning. We've got targets, we've got OKRs, things like that that we're trying to hit. But hey, every day, or at least every week and for sure every month, you're going to deal with stuff you've never dealt with before.

And the same is true as a parent. I remember when all of our kids were little and we had several in diapers and several in car seats, which by the way, the amount of diapers I have purchased and changed, and my wife obviously changed more diapers than me because I was working a lot, but it's an astronomical number. You could Google that sometime and do the math, but I dunno, it's like 50,000, I'm not sure. But it's an insane number. And so there was a time though when all the kids were little, and I remember hearing people say, yeah, enjoy it when they're little, because when they get bigger, the problems just get bigger. When they become a teen, those problems just get bigger. When they start dating people, the problems just get bigger. And I'm like, really? But this is difficult right here. I've got a kid who has declared war on bedtime and Maggie, who's now a teenager, but she declared war on bedtime for about five years.

About five years. She said, no, I'm not going to bed. So there are times when you're like, dude, anything could be easier than this. But then as is often the case, some of that sage advice of, Hey, enjoy them while they're young. The problems do get more difficult. I would just say they become different. And as your kids start to date and especially have daughters and they start dating, it's tricky. And so then you're dealing with, Hey, my daughter is initiating a breakup, or she's initiating a break with her boyfriend and I'm coaching her through that. We're talking through that and trying to help her be strong and advocate for herself and be independent. But then every day there's, there's something new. And the same is true in your business, slightly different dynamics. Maybe you've handled a situation similar before but not exactly the same.

And so we all have things we're doing that are new. And so I'm a big believer in systems, although I'm not a super detailed guy, I'm a little more of an improv guy, but I do like to follow plans. I love following principles, right? We are a principle based company, a culture first company. And so if you focus on culture, and for us at OMG, we think like owners. So we behave and operate like owners, not employees. We have fun solving problems. We don't shy away from problems. We have fun solving problems. That's part of what we're paid for. The biggest thing we're paid for, honestly. And then we constantly improve, meaning we help each other level up and we take the initiative to level up ourselves. So we are principle first, but the reality is a lot of us are making it up. I remember hearing this interview, this quote with Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and somebody was like, Hey, how'd you guys do it?

What was the plan? How did you become the Beatles? And he's like, and nobody knows when they're starting a band, we didn't sit down and say, Hey, what if we became, I don't know, the biggest band ever to ever walk the earth? They didn't do that. They just started making great music and then things started to make sense and unfold and still succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. So number one, we are all making it up as we go. Number two, you're never really ready and you're never ready to be a parent, never fully, never fully ready to start a business. You're never fully ready to start the new service or to launch the new product or to do the new thing. You're never fully ready. Why? Because you're always going to learn as you go. And if you wait until you're fully ready, then you will never do anything new.

You'll never start the family. You'll never start the business. You'll never launch the new service. Here's the deal. It does depend a little bit on what type of business you're in. If you're selling a physical product, obviously you can't launch before it's safe or tested or at least a minimum viable product. But there's something to be said about launching and iterating. This is kind of the way Google has always operated. Hey, let's launch a beta. Let's test. Let's learn, let's fail, and then let's improve. And then let's keep iterating and iterating and iterating until eventually we've got Google search. We've got Google AdWords, which is now just Google Ads, but we've got a product that is absolutely amazing, but it wasn't perfect in the beginning, but we launched a minimum viable product and kept improving. Now, apple is a little bit different. That's more of a measure, twice cut once type of company.

We can't just launch the new iPhone and say, Hey, this iPhone's going to be, it'll just be okay, but we'll be better on the next one. And so that doesn't really work in that model. But for the most part, you can't wait until you're fully ready. You need to launch, just do the thing and then get better as you go. I love the explanation or the picture of being an entrepreneur is jumping off a cliff and assembling the airplane on the way down and hoping that you complete that thing before you crash and come down to earth. And there's certainly some elements of that, right? There are some things you can figure out ahead of time, but a lot of it you have to figure out as you go. And Jeff Bezos talks about a lot that, Hey, when you're 70% sure about something, do it.

Because if you wait until you are 90 or a hundred percent sure it's going to be too late, you're going to be too slow. And what you learn in that extra 10 or 20% or whatever, probably won't make a difference. Launch the thing, learn, get better as you go. So number two, you're never fully ready. Number three, listen and communicate in multiple ways. Now, I can be a pretty good listener. I love people. I genuinely love people. I love hearing stories. I love meeting people. I go into trade shows. As long as you're meeting authentic people, and it's not just an endless line of people that want to sell you stuff or whatever. I like meeting new people. I like engaging in conversations. When I go to an event and I speak from stage and then I share in a group or whatever, it's more of an energy gain for me than it is an energy drain.

Of course, it's tiring too, but I love it. I thrive on it so I can be a good listener. But let's face it, man, I can tune out as well and I can jump to conclusions. And I'm not always the most patient person. I do like growth. And so sometimes I'm not the best listener. I think I'm a pretty good communicator, and I can communicate on stage and be pretty clear on a podcast and be pretty clear. One-to-one can be really good, but sometimes I don't do so well. And I'm going to share a quick story, quick story from when my daughter Sophia was a kid, and Sophia is spunky and ornery and smart, and just, she's so much fun. But when she was little, I was tucking her into bed and I wanted end the day on a positive note. I just wanted to be an encourager.

I totally believe in words of affirmation and building your kids up, and they're going to rise to that level if you keep putting positive thoughts and positive words into their minds. And so I said, Sophia, there's no one like you, right? And I'm just kind of smiling looking at her, and she pauses and she thinks for a minute she says, well, Nana likes me and my friends like me. And then it dawned on me, I was like, oh no, you misunderstood. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Of course, of course Nana, that's her grandma. Of course Nana likes you. And of course your friend's like, I like you too. I think you're amazing. I said, but lemme think of this another way, no other. And I kind of point at her and I touched her. There's no other Sophia. And she says, dad, I know three other, there's two at church, there's one at school.

And I'm like, okay, all right. This is not working well. And so I said, Sophia, I love you. You're awesome. And that was it, right? And so what's interesting though, I thought I was being clear. I was like, there's no one like you, Sophia heard. No one likes you. And so it was just a reminder though, like, Hey, your market or your team, they may not be as transparent or as quick with their feedback as Sophia was. You may have said something you thought was brilliant and super clear, but your team's walking around thinking he doesn't like me, or He doesn't like this, or this isn't going well. So we have to be ultra clear. And usually the way you become ultra clear is by saying the same thing in multiple ways. Listening, listening for feedback, listening and watching body language and the way people are responding and reacting, but communicating in multiple ways.

I believe everything hinges on communication. You want to be a better leader. You want to be a better CEO, you want to be a better founder, you want to be a better marketer. You got to be better communicators. That's point number three. Point number four, this is a difficult one. You got to admit when you are wrong, and this is hard. If we are confident and we have big egos with which most of us do if we're leading a company, it's hard to admit when you're wrong. Nobody wants to do this. But this is something my wife and I had to do. So we got married very young. I was 20 when we got married. We had our first son, Nate when I was 22. And so this whole thing about, we're all making it up as we go, let me assure you, as a 22-year-old, first time father, I was absolutely making stuff up.

And so was my wife, Brittany, although she's better relationally and she was just made to be a mom. She's amazing. But we were making stuff up as we go. We've had to apologize to Nate on multiple occasions. And even recently, he's 22 now, but we're like, Nate, hey, we didn't know what we were doing. We were young, we were figuring it out. And unfortunately you caught the brunt of us not knowing what the heck we're doing as parents. Fortunately, he's doing awesome. He's got a sales job, he's a great kid. But we had to apologize a lot on the work side. At OMG, we have two longtime employees, two employees that were here almost from the very beginning. So they've been with us now for over 13 years. They've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in every season. They were with us when we were just doing cool stuff, but making lots of mistakes.

And so they could have quit or they could have harbored resentment or they could have not gotten over things or the whole thing could have not worked. But we have had to apologize in numerous ways at numerous times being like, Hey, thank you for sticking with us. We didn't know and we didn't show enough appreciation on this, or I didn't understand you fully in this, or We didn't handle this situation the right way. And so don't be the leader, don't be the parent who won't apologize. It is not a sign of weakness. One of my mentors and actually the pastor of the church, we attend Craig Gross show. Shout out to the Craig Row show leadership podcast. He says, people would always rather follow a leader who's real than one who's always right. You should always be real. Don't try to always be right because you're not going to be always right.

So be quick to apologize when necessary. Number five, you may want a coach. Now, lemme just talk about my marriage for a minute. I'm super, super grateful for Brittany. She is a supermom. Anybody that can give birth to eight kids and still be functioning and be a sane member of society. And she's awesome. She maintains relationships. She's a cheer coach. She keeps me in check. She's amazing. So we've actually had a pretty solid marriage. We genuinely like each other. We like to spend time with each other. We like to travel together. We like to have occasional date nights, which by the way, we are prioritizing this year. Over the last six months, we've prioritized date nights, as you can imagine with eight kids. That has not always been possible. There for a while I was like, Hey, we're on our semi-annual date here. We get two of them a year is basically it.

But now we're doing it on, we're having dates on a weekly basis. And so we've had a pretty solid marriage. But we went through this period of time about four years ago where we were just disagreeing a lot. It was kind of when a couple of our kids at the teenage years, we started disagreeing more than we ever had and still committed. Relationships still solve, but it was kind of rocky. And my wife suggested, she said, Hey, what if we saw a counselor? What if we met with a counselor? She'd actually been meeting with a counselor to kind of help her work through stuff. And she said, Hey, Nicole, who's her counselor? Nicole can do couples therapy. Would you be willing to do that? And I said, yes. So here's what we found going through that process. One, it allowed me to see myself a little bit better.

How am I showing up in ways that are unfair? How is Brittany perceiving me in the way I'm behaving at home? Or the way I'm a little too relaxed with teenagers or whatever, and not, she's more structured. I'm a little more loosey goosey on certain things, especially at home. And so it allowed me to see how she was perceiving me, showing up. It also allowed me to dig into and say, what are some false beliefs that I'm holding onto? What are some half-truths or no truths that I've got playing in my head that I need to rewrite or get rid of so that I can be a better parent? And it was not always easy. Being vulnerable and being transparent is not always easy. Again, this was another time we had to admit to each other when we were wrong. We also had to fight for like, Hey, this is why I'm doing this, and I don't think this is actually wrong, but let's talk about it.

And so it was hard work, but it was so worth it. And similar things on business. And myself and my business partner, Chris, had a great partnership over the years, but had a few times we're like, Hey, we're not agreeing on this. Let's bring in a coach. Let's bring in someone to kind of help us. And so we went through a period of time, met with a coach. He coached us through the process of nonviolent communication. Really recommend that book Marshall Rosenberg, I believe it is. We'll link to it in the show notes. I may have said the name wrong, but nonviolent communication, this coach Matt walked us through, helped us with that. It was so transformational. It improved my communication and my listening and me understanding. When am I communicating a way that's really feels and sounds and kind of is judgmental rather than communicating, fact communicating, emotion, communicating when I'm frustrated or when I'm disappointed, or when I'm fearful about something.

So communicating with emotion, but communicating in a way that is non-judgmental towards the other person, transformed the way my business partner and I communicate. But at the same time, it may be better communicated to the whole team, and it made me a better communicator at home, made me a better dad, better husband. And so you probably need a coach. And hey, I'm a huge sports fan. I am 100% in Camp Jordan, team Jordan, for the goat, for basketball. And here's a way to look at it, right? If Jordan had multiple coaches, if the greatest basketball player to ever lace up a pair of Nikes, which by the way, he was such a good basketball player that Nike is what it is today. Without Jordan, there is no Nike as we know it. If he needed multiple coaches, if he needed a strength coach, if he wanted a shooting coach, if he wanted a mindset coach, which already his mindset, his mentality was insane.

He wanted and needed coaches. If he did, then you do too. And I know, depending on where you are in your journey, you may be able to invest in a counselor, invest in a coach, or you may not. But hey, podcasts, books, those can make great coaches too. Somebody that I consider to be a coach of mine is Jim Collins. I never met Jim Collins, but read a lot of his books. And I pour over those books and he becomes like a mentor to me. I mentioned Craig Rochelle, I've actually got to meet Craig RHEL and hang out with him just a little bit. But it's not like we talk a lot or ever really, other than just one time. But he's still a mentor to me. And so you can find coaches, you can find mentors even if you can't afford one. So number five, you may need a coach.

Alright, number six. And to wrap it up, hey, you got to be all in, right? There's no halfway in this thing. There's no halfway as a parent, there's no halfway. As an entrepreneur, there's no time for you just to coast. You can't mail it in. You've got to be on your game. So to use another sports analogy, I like to coach. I coach basketball. When you are on the floor, this is what I talk to my kids about a lot. When you're on the floor, your head is in the game. You're not anywhere else. When you're on the floor, that's all that exists. What's going on in the stands doesn't exist. What's going on at home doesn't exist. That's all that matters. And all there is because you start to lose focus for a minute, you're going to catch a ball to the face, you're going to dribble it out of bounds.

You're going to make a mistake. You're going to let your team down if you're not all in. So what does it require as a business owner? Well, it requires your creativity. It requires all of your brainpower. It requires all of your tenacity. Not giving up, not giving in. It requires all of your wisdom, right? Because we don't want to quit on things. But also, we do need to learn where's there a time to be wise and to pivot because this isn't working as we're doing it. So we got to pivot and do something else. So it's going to take really all that you've got. And another parallel. I trained in Juujitsu for just a short period of time, didn't work out in my schedule. I actually loved it. I'd love to get back into it one of these days. But when you're on the mat and you're rolling with someone, especially for me, man, I was a white belt, obviously, very much a beginner.

You are not thinking about anything else, right? The dude across from you is trying to choke you out, right? You are fully focused on what you're doing. You can't panic, right? You got to stay calm and monitor your breathing and learn to try to make moves and counter moves and things like that. And that's really the way it is in business, right? Yes, we need times to rest, but you rest after the bell sounds right. You rest when it's time to sit and rest. You rest when you're on the bench catching a breather. You don't rest when you're in the game. And the same is true as a parent. We rest when the kids are asleep, which when you're in my world where you got little kids and you got teenagers, nobody's ever, there's never a time when all of them are asleep, it feels like.

But it's going to take all that you've got and then more. And I love a quote from Alex Hormo that I heard not long ago where he said, I'm not going to just say I'm going to give my best, right? Because what if my best isn't enough? I'm going to tell myself I'm going to do what's required. And I think that is very much true as a business owner or as a parent, because listen, there may be times when your best isn't good enough. Now, I fully believe you are capable. You're capable of being an amazing parent. You're capable of being an amazing business person. But you may need some tools. You may need some skills. You may need that coach we were talking about. But you may need some training and you may need to level up. So have the mentality that I'm going to do whatever it takes to be successful in this endeavor, or to be successful training these kids, giving 'em what they need and helping them become amazing humans.

And so, hey, I hope that was fun. We'll get back to the pure moneymaking content and talking about ads and e-comm growth here with just the next episode. But that was fun for me to record. Like I said, it really landed, it resonated in the LinkedIn, and so I wanted to dig a little bit deeper and share those insights with you. But as always, we would love your feedback. And so if you've not left that review on iTunes, please do that. If you listen to this podcast and someone else would be encouraged by it or someone else would enjoy it, please share it. That would make my day. If you've not left a review on iTunes, I would love that as well. That helps other people discover the show. And with that, until next time, thank you.

Episode 272
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Kyle Fraughton - Get Roster

Ambassador Programs that Fuel Growth

Kyle Fraugton is a passionate dude. Get him talking about good trail running gear or well-built software and look out. He’s an instant ambassador.

The interesting thing is that you have Kyle’s in your customer list right now. People who are passionate about what you sell and who you are as a brand. And the cool thing is that with a little encouragement, structure and incentive from you - they can become super ambassadors.

The right Ambassador Programs have a few great benefits:

  1. Increased word of mouth. We all know this is the most effective form of advertising. It’s just slow. But yo can speed it up.
  2. Better ad content. With the right Ambassador program you’ll have an endless content flywheel.
  3. More purchases from Ambassadors. While the point of an ambassador program is to get them to advocate for your brand. You’ll also get them to buy more in the process.

Here’s a look at some other key points Kyle and I discuss:

  • How to identify the ideal customers for your Ambassador program.
  • Why you want to be picky, but not too picky
  • How Ambassador programs lose momentum and how to avoid it
  • How to track programs and make them work
  • Why Authenticity was the word of the year last year by Merriam Webster and how that applies here
  • Is UGC really dead? 

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Chapters

(00:00) Introduction 

(02:40) Kyle’s Background 

(03:53) Authentic - The Word of the Year

(05:55) Is UGC Dead? 

(10:51) The Digital Age Version of Word of Mouth

(13:32) Strategies To Facilitate Word of Mouth

(15:26) What Does A Good Ambassador Program Do?

(16:16) Influencer Program vs. Ambassador Program

(26:08) How To Set Up An Ambassador Program

(34:50) Ambassadors and Ads

(38:41) More About Get Roster

(43:06) Outro

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Show Notes:

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Connect With Brett: 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, and more. 

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Other episodes you might enjoy: 

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Transcript:

Brett :

It's time for another Spicy Curry Hot Take the part of the show when I get just a little bit spicy, I've heard several people say recently, UGC user generated content is dead finished, done over. And I would say to that, not a chance bad UGC in authentic UGC was always dead. And so maybe the days when just UGC all by itself was a hack and you could just do it and it would work. I would agree those days are over, but authentic stories from real customers will always work. I've been in this marketing game a long time. I used to do TV and radio back in the early two thousands, and I remember running into people, I had clients that were doing direct response type advertising and I'd hear people say, ah, testimonials, get rid of it. People don't believe them anymore. Don't do testimonials. And I'm like, really? The best infomercials use testimonials. They always have. They always will. And so the key here is be authentic. There's no shortcuts. Getting good UGC from real customers saying real powerful things will always work. So you got to put in the work. You got to be picky then about what UGC you use, but my friends UGC is not dead.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today we're talking about ambassador programs. UGC, is it dead? Is it not dead? Is it still effective? We're talking word of mouth and we're talking about how to leverage all of that for continued growth for your brand. My guest today is the CEO of Get Roster. Kyle, he was introduced to me by Desiree, used to be at Shopify. She's one of the most connected people in e-commerce that I know. And so she connected us and I'm like, Hey, this is going to be a great topic. And so wanted to have Kyle on the show. So with that, Kyle, welcome and how's it going, man?

Kyle:

Thank you. It's going great. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Brett :

Really excited to talk about this. I love this topic. And it's so interesting. It's been all the rave to look at UGC and influencer and ambassador programs. Oddly enough, it's getting a little bit of backlash right now. It's getting the opposite of love from a few people. We'll talk about that in a minute, but lots of good things to unpack here and really excited to get your perspective on a number of key areas. Before we do that though, Kyle, what's your 32nd background and how did you get into starting and developing get roster?

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I've been in software startups for most of my career and help grow them, sell them off as they've gotten bigger. And I've always been super passionate about sharing things that I love with other people. In fact, my wife would always get mad at me after we'd be at a party or something and I'd be there super long talking about a certain product. She's like, why do you have to push this so hard? I'm like, I love it and I want other people to enjoy it. And so

Brett :

You're a natural ambassador.

Kyle:

I'm I'm a 100% natural ambassador and I think a lot of people are actually, a ton of people are. And yeah, a few years ago we started roster and we kind started in more of the influencer space, but it evolved into something a little bit more authentic with ambassadors, actual users of the product. And we developed software to help brands engage with their customers and turn them into ambassadors.

Brett :

Love that approach. And you mentioned a word a second ago, you even said this could be the word of the year, and so we're going to talk about this a little bit, but authentic. Why would you say that could potentially be the word of the year, especially related to this topic? Why is that so important?

Kyle:

I mean, I think it's incredibly important, and not only could it potentially be the word of the year, but it actually was the 2023 word of the year from Merriam Webster. Was it really? Yeah, hundred percent.

Brett :

When you sent that note over, I just assumed it meant it was your word of the year, Miriam Webster's word of the year. Yeah,

Kyle:

This is legit. I'm just not making stuff up. It's 100% accurate, but I think it's huge. We live in this world where artificial intelligence and deep fakes blur the lines of reality. And it's just people want authenticity these days. We don't even know what's real, but we recognize it when we see it, when we see something authentic that you always know if something's not real, it's like, well, maybe it could be. You try to figure it out. You just instantly know when something is real and authentic. And I think it's important, especially when it comes to building a brand, when it comes to advertising, when it comes to any type of way that you're trying to interact with a consumer, authenticity is absolutely critical.

Brett :

And I just finished a book by Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite authors called Blink, and it's called Thinking Without Thinking, the ways we can make snap judgements and often be very right. And you got to read the whole book obviously some ways that our initial impressions can be very, very wrong. And so it's not just to say I instantly know everything when I see it, but we think we know what's authentic or not. And sometimes we can't explain it, but we can feel it. I can feel it when I see a testimonial. Is that a real user? Is that not a real user? Usually we can just tell, and I kind of tease this as doing the intro of the show, but I've had even some close friends of mine who've been in the game for a while saying, I think UGC is dead.

I think it's dead. I'm like, come on bro. U C's not dead. But I've been in this game a long time and I did some TV back in the day, had several clients that ran infomercials, and every now and then you'd hear people say, yeah, don't do testimonials. Don't get real customers on camera because nobody believes those anymore. And this was in 2002 or something. And I'm like, yeah, no, that's actually not true. That's almost like saying, yeah, don't give personal recommendations to anyone anymore because no one trusts them anymore. But it comes down to authenticity. Is it a real story? Does it ring true? Is it a powerful UGC and a powerful testimony? If it is, then people are all ears.

Kyle:

I think that's absolutely true, and we can see it anytime that someone's, if you see any kind of an advertisement, and UGC is a form of advertising for sure, but it's like if people are actual users of the product or not pick anything. If you're an outdoor sports person, maybe you run outdoors, you do trail running and stuff like that, you can recognize people who are authentic trail runners who actually use the products that they're talking about. And so I think it's dead in the fact that I think people who say it's dead have never experienced true authentic UGC. It's like they found or paid influencers to create what they're calling UGC. But I think there's a difference between a macro big influencer who you're paying tons of money to create content to versus someone who is offering their content to you almost for free.

Maybe it's completely free because of a love of the product. You see people post about this stuff all the time and their environment and the areas that they love, and they'll mention the brands that they're using. I'm super into the outdoors and into trail running, so I'm using that as an example. But when I see people post or my friends or peers post about that kind of stuff, they're in their element and they'll talk about the gear they use to get them there because they love it. And that is very authentic. And I can tell, in fact, I'll even see that. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to try that. I've had my own for a long time and now all of a sudden that's what puts me over the

Brett :

Edge. And you can tell when someone's not in their element. I was working with this brand and doing some consulting and we're helping with Google ads and stuff, and I won't mention the celebrity or the brand because I don't want to embarrass anybody, but they were showing me this video of a pretty well-known celebrity that was in the kitchen cutting fruit and doing stuff to tee up this product. And you could tell this celebrity did not spend much time in the kitchen. It was almost like they were holding the knife backwards. I'm like, this feels so staged and inauthentic. Now someone may pay attention a celebrity, but it's like, nah, this is not their element. This was probably not the right pick.

Kyle:

Yeah, I think that's what it is, is you have to find people who are in their element. So I think it's super important for brands these days to find their actual users, like their customers, the people who utilize the product on a regular basis and engage with them. They will give you the most authentic content you could ever possibly have. And our eyes are trained for that sort of stuff. I mean, we know that more and more eyeballs are on social media than ever. We're not typically out reading blogs anymore about the top bikes of 2024, finding this stuff on social. And if you're anything like me, if I'm scrolling social media, my eyes have now been trained to skip over inauthentic content. If I'm just scrolling really fast and all of a sudden I see a post from a friend and it might not be talking about any kind of product at all, it's just a post about their family.

I'm able to stop because the picture looks different. I'm not reading the names, I'm not seeing that stuff. It just looks real. And so I stop and I pause and I'll go back. And so when you get that kind of stuff happening and people are talking about your brands become super, super powerful for a brand. And so I firmly believe that every brands need to be adding this to their arsenal. It needs to become a pillar in your go-to-market tools. And that is utilizing nano or micro influencers, the small people, the ones with hardly any followers in comparison to the millions of followers that you have to be able to utilize those people in order to help spread word of mouth marketing and get that authentic content.

Brett :

Love it. And so let's actually talk about word of mouth for a minute because if you go and talk to local business owner, local retail shop, local service provider, and you ask, Hey, what's your most effective form of advertising? My guess is they'll say word of mouth. Word of mouth is like that. That's tried and true. That's how great businesses grow. That's also kind of enough. You got a good product, you got a good thing going as if there's word of mouth. But how do we create that same effect? How do we stimulate word of mouth through ambassador programs and things like that because word of mouth is powerful, but word of mouth can also be kind of slow. And so how do we stimulate that?

Kyle:

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think if you look at word of mouth, the example you gave is fantastic, and it's always been something that I think a lot of businesses have said is super powerful form like, oh, that's my best form of advertising, or they at least say I want it to be my top four of advertising. Everyone aspires to have that be their number one, but there's no way to track it. There's no way to really understand how powerful it is. As we've evolved as a society, and this is actually kind of sad I guess, but people communicate now any kind of word of mouth on social, right? Totally. I think my kids, my teenage kids and the majority of their interactions are all on Snapchat

Brett :

Digital or on

Kyle:

Some kind of social media. They don't just talk face to face all that often unless they're at school. They find ways to do it through technology, and we have to be able to adapt to that as brands, we have to be able to do the exact same thing. And so there are people out there right now talking about your brand, any brand that has already established some product market fit and you've got a handful of customers, you will have customers that are absolutely passionate about your product. And even if there's lots of competitors in the space, I think of how many different athletic shorts are out there right now, different brands. They have very passionate customers, every single one of 'em. All thousand different companies have these passionate customers, and you've got to be able to find those people and you want them to start spreading the word of mouth, especially on social because that's where people are. That's where the eyeballs are now. That's where people are connecting and learning more about their friends and what their friends do and what their friends use and then what they want to start using. And so I think you have to be able to utilize social media to spread word of mouth in today's economy. I think it's absolutely critical.

Brett :

What are some strategies or some approaches to help facilitate that? Yeah,

Kyle:

I think the biggest thing is as a brand, you've got to be able to find out who are your most loyal and passionate customers, and that's super simple. You can pull reports from your e-commerce site and you can see who's buying the most frequently, who's buying the most often or the most product. Yeah,

Brett :

Kind of your RFM reports, right? Your recency frequency and monetary value. So who's bought most recently, who buys the most and who buys the most often or who buys the most quantity.

Kyle:

Both of those things are super important and engage with those people, and oftentimes you'll reach out to them and one, they're honored that they'd reach out to you because they're clearly a fan of your product. And just like anyone else, these people want connection and they want to feel like they're a part of your brand. I mean, put yourself in their shoes. If you have a brand that you love and they reach out and you're not some big mega influencer and they're like, I would love to be able to get your help in spreading the gospel of insert your brand here, right?

Brett :

Yeah, it's a big deal, man.

Kyle:

It's huge.

Brett :

That feels like I'm a real VIP, not just like you're sending me a VIP email, you want me to buy more. I feel like pretty important.

Kyle:

That's exactly right. In fact, so much so that if you look, and I'm not knocking on influencers because I think that's an important strategy for people to have. They should have a complete influencer strategy, but when you look at ambassadors, they're very, very different in that they're super proud to be an ambassador of your brand. They'll even post in their social bio that they are an ambassador for your brand. They're so excited about it, and they'll look for opportunities to post and mention and tag your brand and use whatever hashtags you have. But what you do is there's these people, like I said, they're out talking about your brand anyways, what an ambassador program is going to help your brand do is take control of the narrative of what they're saying. It's like I have lots of brands that I love and I'm talking about them constantly and I'm doing it in my own way, which is totally fine, but if someone gave me a little guidance, you're like, Hey, focus on some of these areas over here. We've got this new line out and you've been using the other one, we would love for you to talk about the new line that we have. I'm more than happy to talk about it, especially if I'm a user of it. But I think that's the key is as a brand, you have to be able take control of the narrative in today's conversations that are happening across social, and it's really easy to do and it's really easy to keep track of as well and to see what kind of impacts it's having on your sales.

Brett :

And so talk about that just a little bit. Influencer program versus the ambassador program. I'm assuming the difference, the way you guys define it is influencers could be people that are outside your brand and you're reaching out to them hoping that they'll want to talk about it. Ambassadors, those are your best customers that you're turning into micro or nano influencers.

Kyle:

Yeah, that's really what it is. And the lines can be kind of blurred, right? Sure. When you think about, we've got affiliates and we've got ambassadors and we've got professional athletes or just professionals in general, and then we've got influencers. This is what creates your community. These are all ambassadors to a certain extent, but each one of these areas is starting to become more and more defined. And the way that I've always defined an ambassador is just that it's someone who is already a customer of yours. You're not reaching out to them and product seeding, sending 'em some free product in hopes that they'll make a post or you're not signing a contract with them upfront saying, I'm going to pay you $10,000. I want you to post about this. You're going to send me your content and then I'm going to approve it. Once I approve it, then you can go ahead and post it.

That to me, that's more of the traditional influencer. An ambassador is someone who you say, great. I think that you have a great deal of influence amongst your sphere of friends, and if you look at it a nano or a micro influencer, their engagement rates are significantly higher than what an influencer would be. And that makes a lot of sense. You can't have someone who has millions of followers get millions of likes and millions of comments and millions of says all that sort of stuff. But if I have, I'll just use myself as an example of this. I have like 500 followers on Instagram. If I saw any one of my followers at the grocery store, I would go up and say hi to 'em and we'd have a conversation because we actually all know each other for the most part. And there's a huge difference there because I have a ton of pool and influence with them.

Most of the people for a person like me, and there are millions of us out there, my friends are in the same demographic as me, we have the same types of interests. And so with those things, I have a lot of pull and say and influence on what my friends will actually buy, especially if they're in the market. We share things all of the time with each other and it leads to purchases. Absolutely. So that's the type of thing that you need for your brand, I think, in order to grow, especially in today's current marketplace. And it's nice because rather than trying, when I talk to brands who are trying to find an influencer, there's a lot of angst over am I choosing the right one because this is a really big investment and if we get it wrong, it's going to cost us a ton of money and it can be off brand, and then we got to find someone else and we're going to commit for a certain amount of time.

Ambassadors is different in that you're trying to get as many of them as you can. If you have hundreds, wonderful. If you have thousands, that's great. And then it becomes kind of that VIP club, as you'd mentioned before for your brand where we have, or I know of brands that have tens of thousands of people lining up trying to become an official ambassador because it does make them part of a very exclusive club and they don't care how many followers they have. They just care about, are you going to make the social posts that we're asking of you? Are you going to do all of the other asks that we have a lot of things that are valuable to a brand beyond just a social post. Maybe there's some social swarming that you want to have happen. Maybe there's some support for the stuff that your brand is.

Brett :

Talk about social swarming. What do you mean?

Kyle:

So maybe there's a post that, let's say there's an ambassador that makes a post and you as a brand think it's awesome, you love it, and you can see that it's getting a lot of traction. You could reach out to your ambassadors at that point and say, Hey, we would love for you to go and comment on this post. Yeah, totally makes sense. And because your ambassadors love you, they love your brand, they want to feel connected to you, and maybe you're going to give them as an ambassador, you're going to give 'em a certain discount or they can earn some rewards. They're very, very happy to go out and do that sort of stuff. And so now you can kind of impact that algorithm where all of a sudden it goes from, Hey, this is getting a few thousand likes to now this is getting tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of likes because all of your ambassadors are liking or commenting or sharing

Brett :

That helps fuel the fire

Kyle:

Stories, whatever it may be. It just starts taking off and then all of their friends start to see it. And so it's really just the whole strength and numbers concept. You can have one person, but you're putting a lot on that one person or maybe the very few macro influencers that you're engaging with. Or you can say, I'm going to spread this across everything. I'm going to diversify my investment, which we all know is a good thing to do and say, I'm going to have hundreds or thousands of people doing this stuff for me. And then you get the same results. You get the same kind of reach as a single macro influencer would have, but it's across all sorts of different people and you've got a completely different demographic and a much higher engagement. And what I would argue is a much deeper pool from an influence standpoint.

Brett :

And really I think that the approach you just outlined, I think that's the way to approach influencer marketing if you want to go down that route, which I think is very valid. And if you want to look at ambassadors, so I did an interview recently with my buddy Cody Whittick from Kinship. He and Taylor run that agency and they focus on micro influencers. We're not looking for one or two, we're looking for a whole bunch and we don't know which ones are going to take off and which ones aren't, but we're seeding and we're getting a lot of influencers. Kind of the same with ambassadors. And what's cool is the way you described it where you've got friends and people that look to you for recommendations, it's kind of fun. I think you and I are similar in that regard. I've got several close friends that know what I do for a living.

Obviously they know that I'm talking to brands and I'm trying products because we're going to do some advertising on YouTube or Google or Amazon or whatever. So they're always like, Hey, what have you tried that's new? What do you like? What do you like? And I'm always very honest, obviously because behind closed doors, but I'll be like, yeah, I tried this product. I didn't like it, but someone else on my team did. I tried this project. It was awesome. You got to give it a go. But you as a brand, you have people like that that are part of your customer list where if you just encourage them and help them and gave them tools and gave them the ability and incentivize it a little bit, they would become an ambassador. And it could be you do that enough times and it's a game changer

Kyle:

And it will absolutely take off. But I think that every brand has established brands have thousands of these people that are just like you and me who want to share. I view it as, I always talk to my kids about this, a big piece of chocolate cake. I can go into my room and eat a piece of chocolate cake by myself and not share it with anybody, but that's just not very fun. It's not nearly as enjoyable. That's

Brett :

Not what you do with cake, right? Cake you share. It's

Kyle:

Meant to be shared. So you sit down and you enjoy it with someone. You talk about how great it tastes, you get that little sugar dopamine hit and everyone feels really happy together. I think it's the same way about your products. You love to share the things that you truly enjoy with other people. It's just a matter of finding them and then asking them for help, and then they are going to feel so much more connected to you. The other thing that I think is super intriguing about this topic is that when someone becomes an ambassador of a brand, their purchases of your product increased for sure, because all of a sudden they're going, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm kind of part of the team here. I'm not an employee, but I'm part of this brand now I feel actually connected to this brand. And then if you look at all of the other things that go along with that, when a ambassador or anybody for that matter recommends your product, the person that they recommend your product to will purchase, and this is an actual statistic, will purchase 200 times or excuse me, 200% more than what they would otherwise just coming in through any other method.

And you think about it, it's because there's instant trust. If we're trying a brand for the very first time, I'm this way anyways, I'm a little hesitant to just go all in because I'm like, I don't know much about it other than it looks really cool and interesting, but if I have a friend that's told me about that brand, I'm like, it's good. It's totally good. I know I'm going to get it. That's a huge thing now too, right? I'm going to actually receive my product. It's going to be good quality, and so I'm willing to buy three or four items as opposed to just one on that initial purchase. And then the people that you recommend not only will buy more upfront, but their lifetime value increases significantly as well. They'll come back time after time.

Brett :

They'll be more likely to refer as well.

Kyle:

Yes, those people are more likely to become ambassadors for your brand as well. All of that stuff is amazing for you as a brand. That's the stuff that every brand dreams of having, and it's right there at your fingertips. It's just a matter of knowing and understanding how to engage with these people and knowing what to ask them to do so that it is beneficial.

Brett :

Cool. So let's talk about that. What are some of the things we should do? How do we ask someone to become an ambassador? Do we equip them and make it easy for them to be effective as an ambassador? What are some tips there?

Kyle:

And I think every brand's going to approach this stuff differently. And I'll just share with you examples that I've seen over my career. And some people try to make it a super exclusive program. I personally feel like if someone approaches your brand and says, I would like to work with you, you don't want to turn 'em away. You don't want to say no because all of a sudden they're going to sour on your brand just a little bit. Whereas like, God, I got rejected by them and maybe someone else will say yes to me. So I always recommend to brands to kind have what I would call a farm league type of a program where it's like, look, anyone can get into this. It's a tryout. You're going to come in, we're going to ask you to do certain things if you perform well and do all the asks, then you can get elevated.

If you're good enough, you can get into a more exclusive, I guess, ambassador program. But what we see brands do all the time is they'll obviously post about it on their website and on their socials. That's the easiest thing. And then as part of their post-purchase landing page, they'll announce, we've got an ambassador program, would you like to join it? And they'll talk about the different perks that come from it. And the other thing too that I'd like to just mention is the perks don't have to be crazy. You don't have to give away a ton of free product. You don't have to give stupid discounts. Some of the things that people like the very most speaking of authenticity is like, Hey, you're going to get an opportunity to product test some of the new things that we have coming out. You're going to have an opportunity to meet with some of our product managers so that you can give input into future things that we're coming out with and your say matters. That kind of stuff makes people feel incredibly important. And surprisingly, they'll do even more for that type of a reward, which costs you nothing as a brand. In fact, it's only beneficial

Brett :

In fact. Yeah, in fact, you're getting good feedback, but people want to be valued and people want to be heard. And so just giving them a voice and just saying, I want to hear from you, you're important. That says more than a little freebie.

Kyle:

Yeah, exactly. And so that's a post-purchase landing page, and then always have on the bottom of your website down on the footers, become an ambassador, have something about that where they can click and they can become, learn more about your ambassador program, that sort of stuff. You can put inserts into all of your packages. You can put stuff on the labels about joining your ambassador program, the little QR code that will take 'em right there. There's a lot of ways to engage with those people. And then the other ways is if you're targeting, we mentioned this stuff earlier, if you're looking through your reports and finding who's buying the most, who's buying the most frequently, then the outreach to them specifically. And if a brand is out doing outreach to their customers, their customers are usually super stoked. Response rates are really, really high for those things. So I think there's a lot of different ways. It's pretty simple, but I'd say the easiest thing that anyone can do is just figure out what you want your ambassador program to look like. What would, and that's really important, if I can just tangent on this for a second. Absolutely. One thing that I've seen too is that brands don't really put themselves in their customer's shoes. What would get you motivated to be an ambassador for a brand?

Brett :

Not what makes the ambassador program valuable for you as a brand, but what makes the shopper feel valued and what makes them likely to actually do something?

Kyle:

Yes. I mean, it's crazy to me. I see, and we all know this, you can go to just about any e-commerce site right now, and if I put my email address in, I'm going to get a 15% 20% discount. It's nothing, right? But some of those very same brands will say, there's no way I'm going to give my ambassadors a 20% discount. It's like, why would you not do that? Because it can be so just you have to be able to look at your program and say, I would be super excited if someone made this offer to me. And if that's the case, chances are that they're going to be very excited to join your program and you figure out what you want to do for your program. And from there, just put a footer in your website and say, join our program. Get people to start engaging with you because engagement is key in all of this. And you have to be able to continually give your customers your ambassadors things to do,

Brett :

And who does this really well? Who should we go pay attention to? Maybe get on their email list to see how they're running their ambassador program.

Kyle:

There are so many brands I think that do this well a lot, and they do it for different reasons and for different motivations. And so you'll find different things when you look at some of these different brands, meaning there are some brands that their sole purpose of an ambassador program is going to be to drive sales and revenue. Ultimately, that's always a goal of everyone, but they're meticulously tracking it. They're trying to find out, great, who's using referral codes? Who's using discount codes? What do the revenues actually look like? There's other brands that their number one goal is just, we want to be able to generate a lot of UGC. We need that user generated content for our own marketing purposes, and they're going to run a program in a very different manner than someone who's trying to drive revenue as their primary goal. And then there's others that are just trying to create general awareness like, look, we just need people posting.

We want to look at our reach on social. And so all three of those scenarios, they're all ambassador programs, but depending on what the goal is, they're going to have something different out of every single one of those. But there's, all of the big brands are doing this now, and they have teams that are dedicated to it as well. Because I will say this, an ambassador program is not, it requires work. It's not something that you can just say, cool, I started an ambassador program and now it's just going to take off. You have to put in a ton of effort on your end. I mean multiple hours every week where you're coming up with, okay, what do I want my ambassadors to do for the month? At least you have to have a plan in place just like you'd have a marketing calendar you need to have, and it's even better if it aligns with your marketing calendar, an ambassador calendar where it's like, here's all of the different types of actions I want people to do.

And it can be simple things too, where you take all the different technologies that are out there and you say, cool. I want my ambassadors to be leaving me reviews. I want them liking and commenting on my brand's social posts. I want them liking and commenting or sharing some of my ambassador's posts. I want them posting at least once a month. And you can give them ideas of things to post about, and they make it authentic because it's usually just throughout what they would normally doing in their regular life. So if you can take the time to create a good ambassador program, it will pay huge dividends for you, and it just supports everything else that you're doing.

Brett :

Totally makes sense. And what's interesting is even if you look at this like, Hey, even in the beginning, this may be more of a loyalty program. We're getting our ambassadors to buy more, and then everything else, it's all going to grow as you go. But I think there's a few things that work there. If I'm an ambassador and I'm not talking about your brand and I'm talking about why I like it and I'm posting and I'm liking stuff, the first person that I'm selling on that is me. I'm reaffirming to myself why I love this brand, which means I'm probably going to buy more. Also, there's this law of consistency. If we say we're into something, if we say this is important, we want our actions to line up with that. And so I think that leads more purchases also. Hey, Luke got a little justification, right? It's easy to say to our spouse like, Hey, I'm an ambassador now. I've got to fulfill my duty. I got to buy these yoga pants or whatever to make this work. And so really interesting.

Kyle:

Yeah, and it's funny that you said that about loyalty because I think that there are some similarities. I was just thinking about it the other day. When I say lines are blurred ambassadors, it's almost like a loyalty program, but rather than asking your ambassadors to just keep buying more and then they're going to get more credit, it's just we want you to talk about our brand more and we'll give you more credit. You don't even have to buy it more. Just start talking about it more, but naturally.

Brett :

Naturally. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Let's talk about ambassadors and ads. So how do those two work together to make your ads better? Well,

Kyle:

I think the biggest thing is you can't talk about those two things without recognizing the importance of user generated content and all of that stuff. And you'll see there's more and more brands. In fact, there was an article that came out not too long ago about Yeti specifically going away from their traditional stock images and photography and using solely user generated content. Awesome. And I think that is really cool for all the reasons we talked about before with just how authentic that stuff actually is. But you utilize your ambassadors, like I just said, to align with your marketing calendar and you say, okay, here are the different themes that we're focused on this month, or maybe it's this quarter and get as much UGC as you can possibly get. And then you as a brand, you either boost that UGC, you use it for your own post.

Because the other thing too is that if you have a legitimate ambassador program, you as a brand actually own. If someone signs the contract becomes an ambassador with you, you say, Hey, I'm going to give you this in exchange for it. Maybe it's a discount. For example, you own all of that UGC, whatever they posted, it's yours. You're able to utilize it however you want, and you just get much better engagement. To the point that I've seen many brands that have got so much more traction from utilizing their ambassador's content as a social post, again, because people are scrolling through and they recognize that, Hey, here's a real photo. This isn't some advertisement, I guess. And they'll stop and they'll look at it and they'll engage with it. And so the engagement rates are significantly higher. In fact, we see that on average they'll raise by 25 to 30% just by utilizing your ambassador's content,

Brett :

It really becomes a content flywheel, right? You'll just constantly have new content to test and use. And I know, especially the social platforms, meta and Instagram and certainly TikTok, they're content hungry and you got to feed the beast really hungry, more content, YouTube less, but we still need new stuff on YouTube and we look at UGC Mashups or UGC to help highlight a point within a broader video. And so all kinds of use cases there. Big believer in that. Let's talk about, go ahead J. No,

Kyle:

I was going to one last thing. The other thing is you think of your marketing team, and no matter the size of your brand, you might have a one person marketing team, you might have a 10 person marketing team, but if you have someone who's focused on this area, there's only one, let's call it one to 10 minds, thinking about all of the different ways that you could advertise or market your product and you engage with your ambassador team to do this sort of stuff, you now get hundreds of different ideas, thousands of different ideas, because they're going to think of it very differently if it's like, Hey, here's our theme. This is the overall arching topic that we're trying to discuss. You'll get so many different unique ideas that it's absolutely amazing. And we all know this too, that everyone's become a photographer. So even if you're talking about the nano or the micro influencer, the contents, the U GC is pretty good. I'm not can ever say it's influencer quality, but it's really good. And like I said before, there's brands out there that are opting for a less quality product in terms of the setup because it is authentic. And that gets people to stop in their tracks.

Brett :

Yeah, love that so much. So let's pivot a little bit here as we're kind of wrapping up. How does get roster work? How do you facilitate ambassador programs? How do you identify? How do you manage? How do you make the whole process easier?

Kyle:

Yeah, so we've got an awesome piece of software that makes life super, super simple. We're custom built for ambassador programs and we allow people to run everything. Your affiliates, your ambassadors, your professionals, influencers, everything through our platform. But at the heart of what we do is we really try to automate the engagement process as much as possible. One thing to start an ambassador program, it's another thing to keep those people continually doing something for you. The goal is to have your ambassadors doing something at least monthly for your brand. They need to be doing something of value for your brand, the very least monthly. And sometimes people get excited about it and they come out of the gates and they're gung ho and they're doing everything you want 'em to do. And after a month or two, you kind of stop coming up with ideas and you weren't reaching them as much because it's human nature, it's what we do.

Brett :

It takes work to keep that momentum, otherwise it's just going to lose

Kyle:

Steam. And so we have a lot of stuff in place that allows you to continually have, reach out to your ambassadors, continually giving them things to do. We have tons of different templates where you can almost put this in autopilot, not completely. I mean, you still have to do some things, but it's like there's all the different ideas of things that you can do from an actions perspective, from a post perspective in order to keep them going. And then we just keep track of everything on the backend so that you don't have to figure out who do I need to send product to and who do I need to send a discount to or a coupon code to or any of those things. And so we provide you with referral links or affiliate links. We provide you with the discount codes, we integrate with all of the different shopping carts out there and just automate it as much as we possibly can.

So it makes it super simple for brands to be able to run their ambassador programs. And what we'll find is that someone who's tried to do this manually in spreadsheets, a lot of people will come to us having done it in spreadsheets. We will save people 30, 40 hours a week. I mean, we can essentially give someone their life back and their job back so that they can focus on all of these other things because they can now automate it through software. It's just software that's custom built for this sort of stuff. Everything that we just talked about from an ambassador, stuff you can do through the platform. And we've seen so many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of brands do this and have amazing success through running their ambassador programs. And so many of them even said, look, we were built on word of mouth and for the first time, we were able to take control of the narrative and measure it as a result of roster. So

Brett :

Talk a little bit about, before we talk about how people can check it out and stuff like that, how do you measure it? Because an important piece, how are we measuring the impact of this?

Kyle:

Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways that we do that. One is just from a brand awareness or from an earned media value perspective, what does the reach look like across the board? How many likes, comments, shares, that sort of stuff are you getting from a social perspective? And then we utilize the same thing that this is not new at all. It's discount codes, it's referral links or affiliate links to be able to see how often those are shared, how often they're clicked, how much revenue's coming through that particular link. So if I'm an ambassador and I say, Hey, yeah, you should check this brand out, I can share my link and I can get credit for anything that happens through there. So I would say those are the two primary ways that we're tracking all of that information is through that

Brett :

Makes sense for those who want to check it out and learn more, how can they do that?

Kyle:

Just check out our website, get roster.com, go there. Tons of really good content on there, give us a call. We're happy to give people a demo. And at the end of the day, it's not a high pressure situation. We love helping brands grow their businesses. It's what we're passionate about. And you'll find that we'll share information with you. Sometimes it's like, Hey, this might not be best for you. Maybe you're not ready for it. It's super low pressure. We're just, we're low pressure people overall and we just want to help brands

Brett :

Grow getting that vibe for sure. And so, hey, this is something I'm all fired up now, fired up for ambassador programs and I see it all working together, right? Ambassador program, influencer marketing, your standard social advertising and search advertising and all of it can work together. And man, that's really what it takes. Yeah, that's the key to D two c e-commerce, right? You're not going to just find one thing that you can do to grow to your e-commerce brand and to sustain growth. It's going to be the combination of a lot of little things executed well. And so get roster will help you do that. Kyle fr. And ladies and gentlemen, Kyle, thanks for the time, man. Super fun and best wishes to you guys, and excited to see you guys grow.

Kyle:

Okay. Sounds good, man. Thanks. We'll talk

Brett :

Soon. Absolutely. And as always, thank you for tuning in. We'd love to hear from you. What would you like to hear more of on the show? Give us some ideas. Also, if you've not left that review on iTunes or wherever you consume the podcast, please do that. It makes my day, but also helps other people find the show. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

Episode 271
:
Sean Frank - Ridge

How to Win in 2024 with Sean Frank of Ridge

Sean Frank is a true legend in the DTC space.

He's the CEO of Ridge, a thriving 9-figure DTC brand. They started by selling wallets and have since successfully launched a premium travel line and rings. 

Sean is arguably my favorite DTC follow on Twitter, and he's the co-host of a new podcast called The Operators. He co-hosts with other 9-figure Ecomm CEOs, Jason Panzer (Hexclad), Mike Bertulli (Lomi & Pela Case), and Mike Beckham (Simple Modern).

I wanted to get Sean's take on his expectations for Ecomm in 2024 and what it will take to win. As always, he did not disappoint.

Here's a look at what we discuss:

  • Why MER is the magic number for measuring your Ecomm growth.
  • How AOV is likely where you need to focus to improve MER. You can only do so much with conversion rates, and ad costs will increase over time.
  • He expects 2024 to be a normalized year for growth for eComm.
  • What to focus on if you're under $10M in annual sales as a brand.
  • What channels can you start to focus on when you're over $10M in annual sales?
  • How he thinks about selling more new stuff to new people in new places
  • How to take advantage of his advice to "be lucky."

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Chapters: 

(00:00) Introduction 

(01:18) The Operators Podcast 

(06:30) Ridge’s Background

(09:38) What To Expect For DTC Brands In 2024

(16:08) What Does It Take To Win In 2024

(25:13) What Channels Is Sean Most Excited For In 2024

(30:15) How To Grow Profitably 

(38:52) Expanding Your Product Line

(43:44) Outro

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Show Notes: 

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Connect With Brett: 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, and more. 

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Other episodes you might enjoy: 

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Transcript:

Sean:

LTV doesn't matter if you go out of business. You're thinking about future harvest when you could starve this winter.

Brett:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And today I have the man, the myth, the legend, Sean Frank. He's the CEO of Ridge. And listen, if you are in the D2C space, if you pay attention, if you care at all about this industry, then you're probably on Twitter. And if you're on D2C Twitter, then you know who Sean Frank is because this guy just owns it on the D2C Twitter sphere. And so he's one of my favorite follows of all time. Got to know this dude several years ago talking influencer marketing and Ridge was very successful then. And now it's just Upper Stratosphere, which is awesome. And one thing I didn't realize until recently, he's also the co-host of the Operators podcast, and I hear this is just news on the street. He's the most handsome member of that four person podcast, the Operators podcast. So with that, Sean Frank, welcome to the show. How's it going man?

Sean:

It's going good, man. I'm sorry I had a bribe you to say that, but it's very funny

Brett:

And truth be told. So you got the best beard of the bunch for sure. But in all honesty, that's not a bad looking group of dudes, right? So break down for folks that haven't heard of the Operators podcast, who are your other co-hosts?

Sean:

Yeah, nobody worth mentioning. No, I'm just joking.

Brett:

It's Sean Frank and some kind of wannabes that are trying to be like Sean Frank riding on his coattails.

Sean:

Yeah, so you have Jason from Hexclade, and if you dunno, Hexclade they are probably the most premier cooking company out there right now.

Brett:

So Good

Sean:

Ridge is doing good. Hexclade is doing three or four times as good as Ridge. Those guys are just fucking crushing it. I mean, they have eight figure days, they're just on top of the world. It's insanity. So there's Hexclade, there's Matt, he has two companies. So he has Pela Case, which is Tech Accessories, and he has Lomi, which is like, I don't know how you would describe it, but I call it like a new age composter. It is a dirt making machine, basically you buy and put it in your house. So he's on the Green Tech front. And then you have Mike from Simple Modern, who is by unit sold the most popular water bottle on Earth. So he's crushing it. So it's just all of us chopping it

Brett:

Up. And I love each of those brands and Simple Modern, so cool. Actually, they're going to be on the podcast, spoiler alert here in a few weeks, but really a brand that launched on Amazon, but it's a real brand. It's not just a product that people are hawking on Amazon. It's like a real brand and they're doing it. And yeah, Hexclade, what a story. And then, yeah, I got to meet him when Pela was young in its infancy and it's doing so well. And then of course our mutual friend, I hate to give him any airtime, but Ryan McKenzie told me about the appliance business that TUI has and sounds like that's doing some good work and it's really taken off. So yeah.

Sean:

Yeah, it's a good mix because you have a retail focused brand, like Simple Modern, very big. And Target, Walmart, whatever else, you have a subscription business, which is Matt and Lomi, right? So it's Hard Tech with subscription tied to it. You have a rocket ship in Hex Cloud and then you have Ridge, which is the greatest e-commerce brand of all time. So good combo guys. Dude,

Brett:

I love it. I love it. It's hard to argue that for sure. And so yeah, check it out. And really before we dive in, there's so many things I want to pick your brain on related to e-comm and the growth that Ridge has experienced. But you guys decide to do this podcast, and by the way, it's crushing. I'm watching your viewership on YouTube and other places. People are loving the pod, but why do it?

Sean:

Well, I used to do a newsletter and the newsletter would just be like me on Sundays just typing whatever thoughts, and it took about an hour and I'm like, oh, well the podcasts will take an hour. So I just stopped doing the newsletter, started doing the podcast, and it is more three dimensional, not just me sitting alone with whatever I want to talk about. I get feedback, I got to learn from people who are smarter than me. And being a CEO is like, I mean, it's obviously a prestigious jobs. Lots of people want it. It's incredibly lonely. It

Brett:

Is for sure.

Sean:

You have problems that nobody cares or wants to hear about,

Brett:

Right? Can't tell your family. Probably can't tell a lot of your closer friends. They wouldn't understand and they don't care. I mean they care, but not really. Yeah,

Sean:

I'm from a blue collar background, same. My best friend's from high school, one works in a warehouse, one does, if there's disasters, he cleans up. If there's a suicide, he'll clean up the houses or whatever, just like the gnarliest job ever. And then one of 'em installs garage doors. So they have real problems, wife, kids working hard. And I have to be like, well, my ROAS is down this week and I'm pretty upset

Brett:

About it. What's wrong with you?

Sean:

They're like, shut the fuck up, get some real problems. So it's just good to have other people who I can bounce off issues, even if things, I mean, this is what everyone talks about, how great their brand's doing all the time. Anybody ever raising money tells you how they're changing the world and everything's going great, dude. The reality in every brand is I got two things that are going good and I got 50 things that are breaking any point. So it's hundred,

Brett:

It

Sean:

Have people to synthesize with

Brett:

Skeletons in everybody's closets. There are issues in every business. And if you say they're not, then they're probably bigger issues than in other businesses. Yeah, man, really great insight there. So for those that don't know Ridge, give us a 62nd version of what is Ridge and what's, what's your background? You got kind of this unique trajectory to get in becoming the CEO of Ridge?

Sean:

Yeah, so we are a modern men's accessories brand. We're trying just to be a modern accessories brand, drop the men's part of it. But we mostly sell, we have a travel line that's doing really well. We have a men's wedding band and engagement line that's doing really well. And think about the products that a Tomi would make or a coach would make. And we're making the updated modern premium version of those. So the men's accessories business is probably like a 25 billion a year tam. The wallet business is a 10 billion a year tam. We have over 1% of the global wallet market and we're growing really fast. So our biggest competitors are whatever your parents got you when you were 18, whatever wallet from Walmart or LVMH. We're just trying to be the new age accessories brand. How did I get here? I had an ad agency. One of my clients, the only client that was actually crushing it was a company called Ridge Father-son, best friend started it. They didn't want to run it anymore, they just wanted to do product. They didn't want to do marketing or customer service or ops or logistics or whatever. So we merged, me and my CMO Connor took a big chunk of the business and we've been running it ever since. And we started working together in 2016 and it's 2024. So a big part of the company history. It's been us working together,

Brett:

It's so awesome. And Connor's the man love talking marketing with that dude as well. So yeah, the wallet is primo. You guys, I dunno if you invented the category, but you certainly dominate the category if you don't have the George Costanza fat wallet, right? The reference from the nineties or a money clip or something else. You need a rich, right? So the RFID wallet basically indestructible. Did you guys invent the category or just the ones that dominated it?

Sean:

So we have a lot of patents and technology around our particular wallet. And I would say we definitely invented our style of wallet, but wallets have been trending minimalists for 10 years or whatever billfolds that the old classic dad wallet has been losing market shares like card holders. We've made an updated card holder that can fit as many cards as you need, as much cash as you need. So it's the expandability of the storage capacity of a billfold, but in the profile of a card holder. And I'll tell you, we invented it, but people have been buying wallet for a long time. It's a big stale category. Yeah,

Brett:

Yeah. Hats off to you guys for so much success there. I want to get into travel and rings in a little bit. We'll circle back to that here as we go, but want to get your take as we're still in the early stages of 2024. What are your expectations for this year and what do you think it's going to take to win for a D two C brand in 2024?

Sean:

Okay, so first my expectations, I think it's going to be the best year for e-comm since 2019. Nice. So everyone had at least one good year in 20 20, 20 21 or 2022, depending on your category, depending on your supply chain. You had at least one really good year, but then you had one okay year and one really bad year. So it just depends on your business and your profile. And if you zoom out and look at that, the collection of three or four years as a cohort, it's a pretty blended flat line. But when you zoom in, you see these spikes, you see these troughs. So this is going to be the first year of 2019 levels of normal like normalcy. And the number I always point to is E-commerce penetration. So e-commerce penetration since 2010 has been a straight steady line up until 2020 when it spikes. But then there's a pullback because people are traveling and shopping in person or whatever. And at the end of 2022, we were in a worse place than if the trend has continued. So if the trend has continued the whole time covid never happened, we would have more higher e-commerce penetration. So there's some charts we could post 'em either in show notes or maybe right here on screen. I don't know how much editing we're going to do, but

Brett:

Show notes for sure. Let's see what Nick is up for if you want to throw some graphics in there. Nice. And part of that too is what really made that difficult. I love the way you frame that, right? In that three-year period, you probably had a great year, you probably had a year, and then you probably had a bad year. And we saw that with our clients or companies we invested in or people we talked to. But the issue with 2022, especially in 2021 potentially, is we all thought we were going to ride that rocket ship forever and we were staffing up and we were buying inventory, we were doing all kinds of stuff, and then things pulled back maybe even below trendline. And so that compounded issues for sure.

Sean:

Yeah. Yeah. So we talk about the global economy, or specifically the US economy did not have a recession, but there was an e-commerce recession for sure. Right? E-commerce growth wasn't existent in some of those quarters depending on the category. So this is the first year where I think we're back to where the trend would be if covid never happened. So we have solid steady e-commerce penetration growth. That trend isn't going anywhere and the world is kind of normalized VC dollars civil out. So there's, people aren't just dumping money into Facebook ads, there's more ad space. And I think by the end of the year, temu stops being a thing in America or it stops being a big spender. So

Brett:

I think interesting. You mean because of regulation or why is Temu exiting?

Sean:

Well, this has to do with the Chinese stock market, but I think is, so Temu is owned by a very large worth, hundreds of billions of dollars, big Chinese conglomerate. And I think the entire thing is actually a fraud and

Brett:

Interesting.

Sean:

It wouldn't be the first time, but there's been a massive fraud on the, I mean, go to their website and go to their investor relations. I think their company's PDD check out their investor relations. It looks like an Enron style scam. So that's my,

Brett:

But consumers want their $9 trendy hoodies or other gear that we might want for our midlife crisis or something. But yeah, it's taken off for sure. Timo has taken off, but watch out. It may be on the decline. Oh

Sean:

Man, I don't know how much time we have to talk about this, but without going full tinfoil hat. So every day Amazon does, I think it's like 4 billion in GMV across the Amazon's total ecosystem. And teos goal this year is like 15 billion in GMV. So it's like a week's worth of Amazon sales is what team is shooting for all year. And TikTok shop's like 10 billion. So they're literally just drops in the bucket of what Amazon is doing on a day by day basis. And then the other thing is they're paying for all this customer acquisition in a time when you can't do that, right? The arbitrage is gone. Amazon gives you all this value, it gives you not only movies and TV shows, not only music and audio books, it gives you all of these things. And they acquired those customers back in 2008, 2010, 2012. So DMU has none of the premium features. It is literally just like buy shit for cheap, the lowest common denominator.

Brett:

Yes, that's exactly what it's,

Sean:

And they're dumping money into it and all of that is propped up by this large conglomerate who's down to lose money. But the Chinese stock market in the past two weeks, they've restricted short selling. They know that there's a big correction coming. So

Brett:

Interesting. Well tune in. You heard it here first, folks. Sean calls that this is not going to be a good year for stay tuned. Yeah.

Sean:

But anyway, what was the question? Oh

Brett:

Yeah, so what else are you expecting? So in 2024, we're going to get back to normal style, normal pace growth for e-commerce. What else are you expecting for this year and or what is it going to take to win? Yeah,

Sean:

Okay. I think it's going to be a very, it's going to be the first normalized year for a long time. We're going to see m and a come back. So we've already started to see, I've started gotten a lot more emails from PE groups who basically shut down in 2023.

Brett:

Yeah, we're seeing that tick up as well in the agency space.

Sean:

Yeah, I think most of the bankruptcies have worked their way through their system. Obviously razzi will be in the big one, but I mean two days ago there's another Amazon aggregator that just went bankrupt. So I think those will be out of the system by the end of Q1 and we'll be back to an m and a and potentially an IPO and merger mark. So I think we're going to see that come back up. That always breathes life and excitement into the industry. That's kind of been dead for a little bit. Brett just asked me, Hey, what events are you going to, what talks are you going to? And dude, there hasn't been any good ones. Most of

Brett:

2023. It's so true. It's so

Sean:

True. People have just been in hibernation mode, right? Nobody feels good. No one wants to brag, no one wants to talk. I think a lot of that kind of just starts to reverse towards the second half of 2024 and what does it take to win? This kind of ties into the marketing conversation. So if we're ready to have that conversation, let's

Brett:

Do it.

Sean:

I talk about MERA lot. I think MER is the gold standard you should be measuring your business on, and that is for how much dollars are going into sales and marketing and how much revenue is generated and there's a ratio there. So you want a three XMER for every dollar in sales and marketing, I get $3 in total revenue.

Brett:

So not to say, just to clarify, and all our marketing junkies out there are totally tracking, but this isn't in platform ROAS per se, or what you're seeing in Google or Facebook, anything else. This is total money in and total money out. So I'm investing every dollar I invest in ads, my total revenue, total enterprise revenue should be $3 as an example.

Sean:

And I think that's best in class. So if a lot of small e-commerce brands listening to this, they're like, no, well, I need an eight XMER. I want to spend $1 on Facebook and get a total revenue of $8. They are living in 2015. Well, I don't know how they got a time machine, but that's where they're living

Brett:

Not happening. And that time's not coming back. It's not coming back

Sean:

Ever. Yeah, there's nothing the indication that the next time will come back. So the cost of marketing will go up forever because Facebook's a publicly traded company who needs to show revenue growth. Google's a publicly traded company needs to show revenue growth. They're not adding any more users. Facebook is adding more ad space, which is very interesting that they're able to do that. But outside of ad load increasing, which is the percentage of posts that are ads on a platform, where would they generate more impressions to lower CPMs? So the cost of advertising will go forever. Now going back to MER, another way to say MER is a OV over cac. Right? Now I'm leaving out the LTV part of this equation, right? Because there's no CAC associated with return of customer revenue. But what I'm really saying is CACs will increase over time. So one way to increase MER is to increase a OV. So a big focus, and this is just something people should think about. Clicks are going to cost what they're going to cost. So if your CPCs used to be 50 cents, now they're a dollar, they're always going to be a dollar or above. There's nothing and there's nothing you can really do.

Brett:

It's a new floor not going to change it.

Sean:

There's nothing you can really do to lower the cost per click. We've all seen in Facebook, you have an amazing click-through rate. Well, for some reason that ad has a higher CPM and you have a horrible click-through rate. Well, that ad gets a lower CCP M, and it's because Facebook wants to make a certain amount of revenue for everyone leaving their platform. That's what I think another tinfoil hat theory you're going to be hit. But all of that to say is if your business needs to operate on a, you have a $50 A OV, what happens if clicks go to $3, people are going to convert the exact same that they're always going to convert at your business that was soluble. And making money is now insoluble and losing. So the only way to combat that on a business level is to get higher. So you have to increase prices or launch new products with higher AOVs to that can thrive in this new ecosystem. Going back to, I'm going to tie everything together. Okay,

Brett:

Love it, man. Love it. I'm totally tracking. This is awesome.

Sean:

So what to expect in 2024, how to win in 2024? I think it's going to be the best year for e-commerce. So we avoided a recession back. So you have tailwinds going out of your business, but inflation did happen. So the cost to operate is going to be higher and the cost per clicks is going to be higher. So why did Ridge launch rings and why did ridge launch travel? It's because both of those categories have higher AOVs. So rings have high margins. So the perfect business, you could sell something for a thousand dollars that costs $1 to make. So you could put as much dollars into marketing as possible. That is gambling apps and that is who you're competing against. You're competing with Sports King and Draft Bookie and ESPN just bought all these different, because

Brett:

Driving up to CPMs, right? They're driving up to CPMs on these ad platforms,

Sean:

Insurance companies, gambling companies, and VPNs can spend as much money as possible to acquire customers because they're selling vaporware. You're selling a widget, so you don't have that headwind. So you have to look for higher, a higher AOVs with higher margins. So you can just put more money into ad dollars to get the same level of performance. That pressure is coming regardless if you do this or not. And if you do nothing, you eventually go out of business. So you have to be looking at higher A OB categories and higher margin categories. So that's rings for us, that's travel for us. So we have a travel line, we're going to sell $600 travel kits, the wallets cost 150 bucks. So I immediately can Forex an A OV on this new product line and assuming the same margin profile, I can have a CAC that is Forex higher. So that is what we're doing to survive and win in this environment.

Brett:

That's amazing, man. And that's exactly the right way to think about it. We of course, we're looking to optimize all of our ad channels, better copy, better structure, let's get increased click-through rates and increased view rates because there are some rewards there, but costs aren't coming down. You can make little improvements, little adjustments, and they do make a difference, but over time, costs are going to keep going up. And so really the only way you win is if you can sell customers more stuff. And ideally, and when you're looking at customer acquisition costs, what can you sell them immediately? And LTV is a thing. I know it's a little bit different for when you guys were primarily just wallets. LTV is pretty different there, but now it definitely has expanded. But yeah, how can you sell them more on that first purchase? Because that totally changes the game.

And I love the, I believe this is old Dan Kennedy wisdom, but he said the company that can afford to spend the most to acquire a customer, they win because all things being equal, ad costs are just going to go up. There's an upper limit, like you said, to conversion rate. You can only get so many people per hundred to convert. You're going to hit a ceiling. And so what are you doing to be able to afford higher CACs? And one of those is more expensive items, but then better margins. Love that. And so as you guys launched rings and travel, that's primarily for new customer acquisition and changing the math there, or was that also a play to say, Hey, we've got all of these wallet customers, what else do they want to buy? Let's sell them these things too.

Sean:

Yeah, the first point on L-T-V-L-T-V doesn't matter if you go out of business. So you're plotting out, it's true,

Brett:

A 12, you could die waiting for that LTV to kick in, right?

Sean:

Yeah, it is. You're thinking about future harvest when you could starve this winter. So let's just make sure this harvest goes great. Let's make sure your first customer acquisition is profitable and paying for everything. And if they happen to come back in the future, fantastic. I would love to have them back. And so what happens when we launch rings? Well, we launch rings, we email it to 5 million customers on our database and we sell some rings without a doubt, we're going to sell rings. Same thing with luggage. We sold out a luggage in like 45 days. We sell it into this big customer base. Awesome. That is not repeatable. You launch a new thing into your customer base one time and then I'm going to acquire customers, I'll have upsells, I'll have, I'll have all that stuff. No, you're looking for new product lines to acquire new types of business.

Got it. What we've seen is that there's some amount of people who need to buy luggage today. So we now have luggage and we can acquire a new customer who has a new need and a new pain point we've never been able to serve before because the amount of people who need a wallet today is zero. But if somebody's traveling in two weeks, they don't have luggage, they need it. So it's a brand new customer, it's a new entry point to the brand, and that person is very likely to buy a wallet from us in the future. So that is the real unlock is that we have these new flagship product lines that bring people in and then at some point we'll sell 'em a wallet or we'll sell 'em a ring or we'll sell 'em a luggage or whatever.

Brett:

But that's a secondary aim. That's a secondary benefit. The real benefit is this is a product that it's going to allow me, it's going to change the economics for me to go out and get more new customers. Love that. Love that a lot. So I want to talk in a minute about profitability and how you do all of this because I know you're a master at how do we maintain ebitda and while we're still innovating, launching process. So I want to get to that in a minute, but since we're talking marketing, what channels are you most excited about for this year and beyond? So as you guys are growing, speak specifically to Ridge, then also talk to the general D two C brand as well.

Sean:

So if I was a sub $10 million brand, I'd be very excited about TikTok shops, YouTube shopping meta shops, that's like the current white space. All three of those things. YouTube shopping isn't fully live yet. I think it's still a beta program you have to get accepted into, but it has more potential than TikTok shops does, right? It's

Brett:

Coming. Yeah, it's coming. It's big.

Sean:

And then meta shops, 10% of our sales in Q4 came through Metas shops. So I mean they're putting billions of dollars of volume through that. They're learning purchase conversion behavior and tying it to people. And I think that could be a massive, massive driver of business. So if you're sub 10 million, those are the three areas that'd be focused on and really unlocking those Amazon's harder than it's ever been. People talk about wholesale, don't go into wholesale until you're ready. But if you're a bigger brand, if you're doing above 10 million a year, the fastest growing lines of our business and our strategy year sums up in it through things. We're going to make more stuff. We're going to sell it to more people, we're going to sell it more places. So that is as simple as the company can get. We're making new stuff for new people and we're going to sell it in new places. So the fastest growing lines of our business are the new product categories because last year was the first year we had rings, it did eight figures. So that's pretty fast growing. It's insane. The second biggest product line for us, or the product expansion for us is actually going into wholesale. And I talk a lot of shit about going into wholesale, but we just got an eight figure PO from Best Buy.

Brett:

Dang, dude.

Sean:

Yeah, so wholesale is growing hundreds of percent year over year for us. So that is a big unlock for us. So if you're ready, if you can bite off and deal with payment terms and chargebacks and get displays wholesale, there's a lot of value to be unlocked there. The third one's international. The UK is in a recession, so it's a harder market, but Australia is an underserved e-commerce market. There's 27 million people basically in California just sitting down there and they love to buy stuff online. It's a big ass country, but it has pretty good infrastructure. So international has been a big unlock for us. So that's where we're currently winning.

Brett:

Nice. And so wholesale that, how recently has that become a focus for you guys? Because playing well into that nine figure space as a brand, when did you start really considering a wholesale? Yeah,

Sean:

It depends on category if get in earlier, but we got into wholesale in 2019 with Nordstrom's. That was our first big one. And then Shields, but it's always been single percentage points of our business, two percentage points of our business. It really didn't start to be more than that until 2023. So our wholesale engine took four or five years to really turn on. So in 2023 it was probably 7% of our business was in wholesale, and I think this year it'll be 10, something like that. So

Brett:

That is nice. I mean that's material and that also when you've got the wholesale component that does allow some of the marketing efforts that they multiply at least to a certain degree, a group of people that still really want to touch, hold, feel a product before they buy it. And we talked a little bit about e-commerce penetration numbers, and I believe the latest stat is like, it's like 15, 15.6%, something like that of total retail is e-comm, right? So I leaves 85%. I know, and there's different ways to dissect the numbers. Are you including auto and gas and some of those things or restaurants or not? So different ways to measure it, but is that the number you kind of work with as well? About 15% is,

Sean:

Yeah, I think this year it's 16 and a half. But like you said, do you include cars or not? That's the big one, right? Auto is a huge part of it, but what I'll say is wholesale is mostly demand capture. You build all this awareness on these great platforms, these big megaphones that are YouTube and Facebook and everything else. And then Christmas Eve we did seven figures in Best Buy because people are walking in looking for gifts and it's like, it's insane. They see the Facebook ad, they know it's in Best Buy, they walk in to capture it. So it's demand capture, but it's demand capture you can't get anywhere else. I'm not going to have stores, I'm not going to have 600 stores. Best Buy is

Brett:

Yeah, super, super cool. Love it man. So then as you look at, you're doing all these things and I know recently on the operator's pod, they talked about inventory management. You guys talked just all the big things that you got to manage to make sure you're growing profitably. But how do you approach this? So you're launching new products in new categories, you're launching in new places like wholesale and some of these other things. You are actively investing in new customer acquisition through all the meaningful channels. How do you do that and protect EBITDA at the same time? Well,

Sean:

We're very lucky. So our brands listening should try to be lucky, I guess

Brett:

If you can do anything, be lucky. Yeah,

Sean:

So we have never raised money, so no investors tell me to do anything. There's no debt on the business. So no, I don't have any loan payments or anything. I got to pay back. And everyone who is on the cap table at Ridge was super fucking broke at some point. So a father son, best friend who started it, he was a special ed teacher for like 35 years. So that's awesome. We talking about people who had no money. I mean me and Connor, when we started our agency business, I didn't own a car. So we would take Connor's 1997 Honda Civic with no paint, the paint was chipping off and we would drive back to client meetings, try to sell 'em. We lived in a one bedroom apartment.

Brett:

Dude, quick funny story. When I started my first agency, I had a 2002 Honda Civic and I would go into meetings and I would park a few blocks away because I wanted to not be seen in that thing. And what's also funny is that hit a certain age where I started getting pulled over more where it looked suspect dude's driving that he's probably up to no good, right? I was fine. But anyway, just interesting. Yeah, humble beginnings for short.

Sean:

So why does that matter? Us being broke? Well, because we can have a business that pays everybody decent salaries and distributions every once in a while and nobody's breathing down anybody's neck being like, I need a Lamborghini, I need this, I need this. Right? It's awesome. It's awesome. A lot of people who have a business, and this is my big

Brett:

Problem, it gives you optionality, right? You've got options now when you don't have to pay for the Lambo or for your 12th house or something like that.

Sean:

And this is one of my biggest problems with e-comm operators is that they have a $10 million business, so they think they're worth 10 million bucks. And it's like, dude, a 10 million business means you probably can make a salary of $500,000 a year. And it's like people hate hearing that You're better off working as a Facebook project manager, you'll make more money than owning your 10 million e-com business. So obviously there's enterprise value, but you're not fucking tapping into that dude. It could all go away tomorrow. So it's a huge disconnect in perceived net worth and income of e-comm operators and what's actually feasible living in the moment. So anyway, just throwing that out there, it's like, guys, it is really fucking hard to run these businesses, but so we bought a factory in Arizona this year. We bought two JVs for Chinese suppliers to get stuff made better, cheaper, faster, whatever. So we're investing all this money in this business so we can actually improve it over time and that's how we can do stuff, launch all these new product categories.

Brett:

And so I want to actually double click on something really quickly because this is important. You said be lucky if you can do anything, be lucky. But there's actually this concept that I heard from Jim Collins, which I love as they studied great companies and then comparison companies that weren't as great, but they had a lot of similarities. They found that there wasn't a difference in luck. One, the successful companies didn't have more good luck and less bad luck and the meh companies didn't have more bad luck and less good luck. There was a difference in return on luck. And so this is where you are setting yourself up to succeed, to ride the wave and capture opportunities, but you're also setting yourself up that if stuff gets bad, you are okay and you can weather the storm. You don't have a sixth house mortgage to pay for and that sort of thing. So I think that's really what you guys have done is you are set up to get a great return on luck. So hopefully this, and I would agree with you, I think this year is going to be a little more consistent, a little more normal in terms of growth. You are ready for that. If things get bad though, you're probably ready for that too. So you got this return on luck.

Sean:

Yeah, there was a two month period. Nobody ever wants to fucking talk about this in March of 2020 when the world felt like it was going to implode. It did.

Brett:

It did.

Sean:

I remember being, I was living in Santa Monica or Venice at the time, going to the Ralph's and just seeing people buy everything off the shelves except for medicine. I remember being like, I'm in the medicine aisle, I think people are getting sick. We buy halls or something, but they were buying bread, whatever. Nobody was thinking I should go on Amazon and type in ridge wallet and buy a ridge wallet right now. No doubt. So we watched sales fucking fall off a cliff. Obviously everything we're covered and we're sitting here today and it's awesome. But the first thing we did was every owner made zero money. We just took our salaries to zero because we're like, we got a business to support.

Brett:

You had the option to do that.

Sean:

And nobody DMed me like, Hey dude, I got a gambling debt, I got to pay off or something. It did not work like that. It helps a lot of people in our business at the ownership or executive level are some of the cheapest people I've ever met in my entire life.

Brett:

That's so awesome.

Sean:

We had a big ridge retreat in Vegas last year and that's when we fly everybody in and two of the guys who are on the cap table just assumed that they would be sharing a bedroom, just sharing a hotel room.

Brett:

We'll bunk together. Yeah, we'll take the room with bunk beds.

Sean:

Yeah, we give 'em separate keys. They're like, no, but the room has two beds. We could be saved at a hundred bucks right now. So that's really helped. That's part of our

Brett:

DNAI love that mindset and really once you have it, it never fully goes away. And I remember Moise Ali from native, good friend of mine, we helped native in the early days and still do, but he talked about how even when they were growing like crazy and making millions a month and stuff, he was still looking at the p and l and he's like, Hey, why are we paying $7 a month for this tool and stuff? He wasn't spending all his time doing that, but he was looking at it, right? Just like we can cut that $7 out. And I think part of that is, yeah, you saved seven bucks, that's great. Or you saved a hundred bucks on the hotel room, that's great. But I think the bigger thing is the mindset, right? We're not just going to waste money because we can. We're going to preserve it. I love that. That's awesome guys. You said built a warehouse or you built a factory?

Sean:

I bought a factory in Arizona.

Brett:

Nice, nice. And Matt, what has that done? Has that helped lower cost and speed up production? What does that meant for the business? Well,

Sean:

It, it's still in production, so I'll let you know in 35 or 40 days when we've actually fucking finished the thing. But the goal is to make wallets here. It adds consistency to the supply chain, helps us start buying already. China is essentially just an assembly factory. We're getting carbon fiber from Japan, we're getting titanium from, who knows, right? It's already all these raw parts. So we're mostly looking at changing the supply chain to be final assembly in America. We can start sourcing the parts from wherever makes the best. Whoever makes the best deal, we'll buy that. Whoever makes the best screws, we'll buy that. So it builds redundancy in the supply chain, builds resiliency in the supply chain and it's not that much more expensive. Like labor in China is getting pretty expensive. A lot of it's robots, fuck it. Anyway, so for the same price I can make stuff here, might as well do it. So that's what we're

Brett:

Doing. It's amazing. It's amazing. So really want to hear, and so we're coming up against time just a little bit, but you guys have successfully moved into rings. You had an eight figure launch there. You successfully moved into luggage. That's not that common. I talked to other brands that they have successful launches, but there's usually some misses in there. They launch a product and it's like that built flat on its face, thought everybody wanted it. Turns out none of our customers did. Or we launched a product and it just wasn't good. Our core product is great, everybody loves it. New product, it's getting bad reviews. What do you think the key is as you're launching new products and as you're innovating, how do you create products that both delight customers, so there's some customer satisfaction there and they sell well and they just work to grow the business? Yeah,

Sean:

What I'll say is it's not like we fucking only hit home runs. People are always shocked when they hear about a product expansion. People are like rings. That doesn't make any sense for your business. I have suggested every single product category to our product and occasionally I get one past the goalie. So I mean I was like, yeah, we need to do beef jerky. I literally have a deck written out where I'm like, yeah, we got to sell beef jerky. It's consumable. That's what we got to do. So I've suggested every single product category. Occasionally we make stuff that sucks, we launch watches and we make a great watch. Nobody wants watches. That is the reality. It's a

Brett:

Horrible category. It's a very tough

Sean:

Category. It's a horrible category to be in. So we didn't sell very many watches. I think we ordered 10,000. I sold the story maybe on the operator's, but I think we ordered 10,000. I'm like, we're going to sell out day one. No, it took us a year and a half to sell out those 10,000. Then we launched a second version and it's way more just like a gift for our customers. There's more value in that wash than any watch you're going to buy in the market. But it's a category that sucks. But I'm like, okay, cool. Take my lumps, move on. I did the same thing with deodorant. We did the same thing with T-shirts. We did the same thing with socks. We did razors. It's like you keep launching stuff until you find something that works and then you go back and tell the story that like, no, it actually was a success the whole time.

And I point to Bick as the best example, I brought this up in the last week's episode, but B makes the number one pen in the world, the number one razor in the world and the number one lighter in the world. Those things have nothing in common with each other. Now they have tattoo products. These things have nothing in common with each other except they made out of plastic. So what happened was a guy had a plastic factory in France and he is like, well, what else can I make? And he just made whatever the fuck he wanted until it worked. And now we talk about how it's a great business. There's billions of dollars a year in revenue, so don't be pressured with your product expansion. Try stuff, it's going to fail. Just make sure you buy in small enough quantities, it doesn't bankrupt you. And Ridge is a big enough paycheck or has a big enough checkbook that I can do things like waste 300 grand on watches and try 500 grand on luggage or whatever else I'm going to do.

Brett:

Yeah, it's a really great example. Bick. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, it's not like you buy the razor and then you're like, man, I really wish I could just get a pin from this company too. Or dang, I wish I had a matching lighter. Not that they even match, but yeah, so there's some relationship and manufacturing, but not in anything else. And so I really love that and also love that. And I've noticed this trend and I get to fortunate enough to hang out with lots of successful entrepreneurs and just good quarterbacks or great athletes. You've got a short memory on the mistakes. Of course you take lessons from mistakes, but hey, we launched deodorant, it didn't work well, we better just take a little time away from launching products. Not good at it, apparently. Let's sit and stew on this for a little while now. You learn from it and you launch the next thing and you launch the next thing and you're going to be able to double, triple, quadruple down on the winners. And so yeah, how do you bake that ethos into your company? Or is it just kind of happening where you're like, Hey, we're going to try the next thing and we're going to be thinking ahead and we're not going to fear a failure on the next thing we launch?

Sean:

Yeah, really great companies, this is something we all have in common, create space for failure, and this is, it typically falls in the executive or the co-founder or something like that. What I always say is, I'm the CEO O, so I have to be reckless. I'm the only person who can be a rebel. I'm the only person who can't get fired. So I have to be pushing the boundaries of this business because I can't task a junior marketing person to do that. I can't task a junior product person to do that because they don't want to lose their job. So they're going to play inside the lines. And it is your job to be pushing the company forward and trying new things and failing because you're the only person who can do that. I go back to the ownership team and I'm like, yep, I tried all this shit, but I'm trying new stuff and I hope it works. And there's a high tolerance for me to do that because they trust me and they know that I'm not going to fuck anybody over or I'm doing things in the best interest of the business. But the first thing you do when a junior employee loses money is you're like, well, I got to fire. Like yeah, it's not creating space for failure

Brett:

And they know that. And so they're going to be risk averse. They're, it's just human nature. They're going to protect themselves. And so you've got to be the one taking the risk and being willing to make those mistakes and those losses really, really good. Man, this has been fantastic. I could talk to you for another hour or two at least, but what else should we be watching for? I mean, I recommend everybody go to ridge.com, get on the email list, go to twitter slash x, follow Sean, which by the way, what is your Twitter handle? It's

Sean:

Sean eCom.

Brett:

Sean eCom, so check that out. But what's coming down the pike for Ridge, or what should we be watching for here in 2024?

Sean:

We have a really big announcement in the next 30 days, so I can't spoil it. I'm under NDA, but it'll be the coolest thing we've ever done as the business. So that's be, if you aren't following me on Twitter in 30 days, you're going to get something really fucking cool coming across your timeline. So be on look after for

Brett:

That. That's awesome. And then, yeah, what's next for the Operators podcast? I just feel like you guys, you're in your groove. Everybody's cranking. Sounds like that's just beginning to take off and it's doing very well,

Sean:

Dude. I appreciate you saying that. I'm just trying to get 10 episodes in a row where everybody shows up on time, audio works, and we have all four of us there, so

Brett:

Everybody's so busy running nine figure businesses and stuff. So I'm sure that is a nightmare to try to get everybody there. So keep with the good work. I'm going to keep tuning in there as well. So Sean, thanks for your time, brother. Super fun as always.

Sean:

Thank you Brett. Talk to you

Brett:

Later. Alright man, and thank you for tuning in. We really appreciate it. Hey, let us know what you'd like to hear more of on the pod and if you've not done it, we'd love to get that review on iTunes, helps other people discover the show. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

An eCommerce Podcast Hosted by Brett Curry

Welcome to the Spicy Curry podcast where we explore hot takes in eCommerce and Digital Marketing. We feature some of the brightest guests with the spiciest perspectives on how to grow your business online.
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Ezra Firestone’s Top 7 eCommerce Growth Strategies for 2022
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Ezra Firestone

Ezra Firestone’s Top 7 eCommerce Growth Strategies for 2022

No one knows more about eCommerce growth than my friend Ezra Firestone. Arguably, no one is a more interesting interview than Ezra either. This episode does NOT disappoint. Ezra bootstrapped growth for Boom from $0 to $40mill + per year. He also recently bought another high-profile eComm brand (more on that in the show).This episode is straight fire. Here’s a look at what we dive into:

  • How Ezra is approaching email marketing and email list growth in 2022. I’m guessing you’re missing his email strategy - even if you consider yourself an email marketing pro.
  • How BOOM is approaching front-end offers.
  • Why you should consider inventing a holiday and how BOOM has done that.
  • Growing your SMS list.
  • Plus MUCH, much more!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Ezra Firestone

   - LinkedIn

   - Instagram

   - Twitter

   - Facebook


BOOM! by Cindy Joseph

oVertone

Zipify Pages

Smart Marketer

Blue Ribbon Mastermind

Klaviyo

Postscript

Attentive

Dan Kennedy

Jay Abraham

Native Deodorant

Northbeam

John Grimshaw

Molly Pittman

Train My Traffic Person

Transcript:

Brett Curry:

Welcome to the Spicy Curry Podcast, where we explore hot takes in e-commerce and digital marketing. We feature some of the brightest guests with the spiciest perspectives on what it takes to grow your business online. Season one is built on the old business adage that it really takes three things to succeed. One, have something good to say. Two, say it well. And three, say it often.

Brett Curry:

Today, my guest is none other than the e-commerce legend himself, Ezra Firestone. If you're serious about growing your e-commerce business, then you have to pay attention to Ezra. And arguably, there's not a more interesting interview than Ezra Firestone. He bootstrapped Boom by Cindy Joseph from zero to now, $40 million a year in growth. He now owns and operates Overtone, a $25 million a year e-commerce brand. He also co-founded Zipify Pages, Smart Marketer, and he's the mastermind behind my favorite e-commerce mastermind, Blue Ribbon.

Brett Curry:

This is a wide ranging discussion. We talk about things like cold plunges and samurai swords. But yes of course, we spend most of our time talking about e-commerce growth strategies. We look at Ezra's really unique approach to email marketing, and how much of his ad budget he's dedicating to growing his email list. We also look at SMS marketing. And we look at how to invent a holiday, and what that looks like. And then we're also looking at how Boom is crafting and creating front end offers. You won't want to miss a minute of this show. I hope you enjoy my interview with Ezra Firestone.

Brett Curry:

The Spicy Curry Podcast is brought to you by OMG Commerce, Attentive, OneClickUpsell, Zipify Pages, and Payability. All right, I am absolutely stoked out of my mind for this next guest, and personal friend of mine. We do some work together. I always count it a joy when I get to talk to this guest. And so, to have this uninterrupted time to dive in deep on strategies, it's going to be amazing, and I'm glad you get to listen in. And so if I look at, man, if you need tactics, if you need strategies, if you need help for how to take your e-commerce business to the next level, and if you need to get a little bit spicy, you need Ezra Firestone.

Brett Curry:

And so today I've got the man, the myth, the legend. He's flexing if you're watching the video. Got Ezra Firestone on the call. We're talking about eight top strategies to just blow up your business this year in a good way. We may not get to all eight, we'll see how it goes. But with that intro, Ezra, what's up, man? How you doing? And welcome to the show.

Ezra Firestone:

Brett, the Fury Curry, I'm fresh out of the cold plunge, dog. One minute, 30 seconds, 32 degrees. My whole body is red, I'm shivering, I'm shaking, we're podcasting. Happy to be here man, thanks.

Brett Curry:

It's hilarious. You hopped on the call and I was like, "Oh no, something's wrong with Ezra. He just doesn't look right." It's like, well, you just got out of a 32 degree bathtub. Of course, your body's in shock. But I appreciate taking the time to do this. And man, it's just always, always fun to chat.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, man. And just watching your journey, I seen you come up in the game from back in the day, when you had an SEO agency. You know?

Brett Curry:

Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

From way back. I don't even know if it was 2008, 2009, it was a long time ago. 2010, whatever it was. And then to watch you rise to be one of the most prominent voices in the e-commerce world, and also to have a top 2% advertising agency, maybe you guys are top 1% at this point, I mean, you run all of our stuff. So it's been fun to watch your journey and just happy to be on the podcast.

Brett Curry:

Dude, thanks. It's been so fun to grow. I credit you and your community with a lot of that growth. And your approach to having fun, and doing what's right, and being extremely successful, and that blend, is awesome. Your motto, for those that don't know, is "Serve the world unselfishly and profit." And actually before we get into tactics and strategies for this year, and there's some amazing ones, can you talk a little bit about that for those that are new to the world of Ezra Firestone?

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a description-

Brett Curry:

... Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

I think it's a description, not a statement. It's how I have seen things work. That when you are in a role of service, unselfishly with the goal of serving, you do profit by the very nature of serving. And it may not be monetarily. Maybe it's spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, energetically. But my goal is to serve. And I find joy in the act of service. I think there's a lot of value, and fun, and enjoyment, and good. And also in business, if you can truly serve a community, you will be profitable. And so I think that's just a description of how it goes. And also it's what I'm looking to do. I'm looking to serve the world unselfishly and also profit. I want to take care of my family. I want to take care of my community. I want to put resource towards causes in the world that I find noble. And I need fucking money to do that. Right?

Brett Curry:

Exactly. Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

And the way going to get that money is by helping a group of people out with solutions to problems they have.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, I love that. If you look at, what is leadership, what does it mean to lead a company or to be a CEO, it's really serving. Serving your team more than commanding and dictating.

Ezra Firestone:

100%.

Brett Curry:

And how do build a brand, how do you build a business? It's serving a community. It's serving the needs and meeting the needs of buyers. And so, yeah. I love it. So it's really, really just-

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah. And then just because you're serving a group, doesn't mean you can't sell them stuff.

Brett Curry:

Exactly.

Ezra Firestone:

Selling them stuff is also serving them.

Brett Curry:

Because people want to buy stuff, right?

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah.

Brett Curry:

They want to have those needs met. And retail therapy is a thing too. So one of the greatest acts of service you can do, is sell a good product to the right person.

Ezra Firestone:

I'll tell you what dude. You and I both know that this last six months have been the most intense and stressful on the personal side of my life, with some health problems of some family members. And I done fucking discovered stress shopping, bro. I had never done that. I'm not a guy who buys shit that I just don't need or want. I'm willing to buy things. I have a lot of money, and I didn't come from money. I now have more money than basically everyone that I know, and I'm not against purchasing things. But I usually purchase things that I really like. I'll buy a nice espresso machine, or I'll buy a nice skateboard.

Brett Curry:

Which I've had espresso from that espresso machine. And you pull a mean shot of espresso, my friend.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah. I will spend money happily on things that are enjoyable and that I will use, but I don't just buy frivolously, until now, dude. I bought six pairs of the same Chelsea boot. When I turned around, I was like, "What? I have lost my mind, dude." This is stress shopping.

Brett Curry:

Why did I buy this?

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah.

Brett Curry:

I think one time I was on a call with you and you just recently bought like a samurai sword or something. I don't think it was actually a samurai sword, but it was some kind of sword.

Ezra Firestone:

A katana. Yeah, it was a Japanese katana. I use it to chop wood for my sweat lodge. So that was actually a useful tool. It's good for chopping kindling.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. That's awesome, man. Super fun. So people are buying right now. The economy's pretty hot, and certainly there are some issues too. But people are buying stuff. So let's dive in. You recently wrote a blog post, which I'm going to link to, so you can see this in the show notes, talking about eight top growth strategies. And first of all, for those that don't know the journey, talk about Boom by Cindy Joseph and how it's grown.

Ezra Firestone:

(singing)

Brett Curry:

Because you guys are set to do about 40 million this year, right?

Ezra Firestone:

So I started this brand in 2010. Took me to 2014 to make my first million dollar a year in total revenue. By 2016, I was doing 17 million. This last year, I did 42. This year I think I'll do 47. Top line revenue at about a 25% EBIDA margin, so maybe making six or 7 million a year in profit on that.

Brett Curry:

Which is amazing. Amazing.

Ezra Firestone:

I got about 30 employees at that company. I also own Zipify Apps, about a $10 million a year software company. Also a couple million bucks in profit on that, maybe about 60 employees there. And I just bought a company called Overtone Color, which has about 20 team members. It'll do about 25, 30 million this year. And I got Smart Marketer too. And I'm just a guy. I didn't go to college, I have no special skills, other than that I'm a good communicator and I'm willing to put my foot down and do the work, and ask for help when I need it. And I think my story shows that if... I'm a complete failure in the eyes of the school system. They labeled me a dumb kid, and someone who was not going to be successful. And I think for anybody who doesn't fit into the mold, who maybe is dyslexic, or maybe has some reason why the general society is telling them that they can't be successful, the internet opens up an opportunity for us.

Ezra Firestone:

And there's skills that we can develop. Advertising, direct response marketing, landing page optimization, copywriting, product development, podcasting, social media, that can support us in taking care of our families. And I didn't come from resource, and so I wanted to create that. And I've been able to, and I've been doing it now for 17 years. I got pretty fucking good at it. I made every mistake you could make. I didn't pay my taxes, I did all the stupid you can do. But I did it when I was younger, and earlier in my... And I didn't have podcasts like yours to learn from. I had a bunch of creepy dudes on an internet forum who were shilling fucking gambling and porn. That was when I got into the game.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Online marketing was a bit of a dark place back in those early days.

Ezra Firestone:

You didn't want to say you were an internet marketer. It wasn't good.

Brett Curry:

No, no, that was not prestigious. No one looked at that highly. For sure.

Ezra Firestone:

So yeah. So I've been doing it a long time now, I'm really good at it. And I've been talking about it since about 2011. I was one of the first people to start blogging about e-commerce. And by the very nature of being one of the first, I became popular. Not that I was anything special than anyone else, but I was the first to do it, and so I got real popular. And I've stayed in that space of documenting my journey. And I got a bunch of people who think it's cool, and follow what I do. And I'm pretty good at it, you know?

Brett Curry:

Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

And I've been able to successfully train and educate, and bring up in the game, thousands and thousands of internet entrepreneurs over the years. You being one of them who I've impacted.

Brett Curry:

Big time.

Ezra Firestone:

Not that I did anything for you, other than show you what I was doing. So yeah, so I like talking about this stuff.

Brett Curry:

It's been so amazing to watch that progression as well, and getting to see behind the scenes, seeing you operate with your team. So I've been to your house and I've hung out with the inner circle of Smart Marketer and Boom. And of course we were on calls, and our agency serves you and stuff. So I've seen you in a lot of different capacities. And man, you're the same leader behind the scenes as you are on stage. You care about people on stage or one on one. You're extremely smart and strategic, and you get marketing, and you understand human in nature, and you take massive action. All kinds of stuff we can break down. So it's been really fun to observe that and get the front row seat of that as well.

Ezra Firestone:

I can also do a cool poker chip trick. Look at this.

Brett Curry:

Is that right? Oh, look at that.

Ezra Firestone:

Wait.

Brett Curry:

Look at that.

Ezra Firestone:

Hold on. Damn, that was not cool. I dropped it. Hold on.

Brett Curry:

We're going to try this again. So if you're listening, just take my word for it. He's a great poker chip-

Ezra Firestone:

My hands are frozen. My hands are frozen. We should probably get into tactics.

Brett Curry:

Do not attempt a poker chip trick out of a cold plunge.

Ezra Firestone:

People are going to be like, "Enough of this bullshit, dude. You should talk about some tactics." We should talk about some strategies.

Brett Curry:

Exactly. So here we go. So let's dive in. One thing that we've seen you guys operate on, we're running this on YouTube for you, but you're buying more email leads. So talk about that. So this is top strategy number one, buying more email leads. What does that look like, and why?

Ezra Firestone:

Dude, nobody's talking about email. Everybody's like "SMS, video ads." This and that. Well guess what has always been since I've been in the game, about 25 to 40% of my business? Literally since '05, dude. Emails.

Brett Curry:

Email. Email.

Ezra Firestone:

I've been sending motherfucking emails since 2005. And it is to this day, it'll be 36% of Boom's total revenue this year.

Brett Curry:

It's crazy.

Ezra Firestone:

And nobody-

Brett Curry:

Email touches 36% of all purchases through Boom.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, it's last click, dude. It's last click for 36% of my purchases.

Brett Curry:

It's awesome.

Ezra Firestone:

So why would I not be putting so much energy in growing that list? Nobody does it. Everybody just runs top of funnel video ads, conversion ads, and they hope that when somebody comes to their website, their onsite popup, or their card abandonment, or their exit intent, are going to capture the email lead for them. Great, do that. But also, you know what I'm doing? Gated content. I'm doing giveaways. I'm doing all kinds of different straight up lead generation campaigns. One of my best ones, is we use these things called pre-sell articles, which are basically articles that are story-based, like, "Five makeup tips for older women." Or "Seven makeup tips for women who wear glasses." Or "How to overcome perfectionism in your fifties." Or whatever kind of content that our community is interested in, that leads back to our products.

Ezra Firestone:

And we use those in our email auto responders, we run ads to them, we mail them to our email list. We use them everywhere. At every stage of the sales process. What we also do, is we gate them. So we put an opt-in front of it, and it says, "Hey, enter email address here to get our five makeup tips for women over 50." We run ads to that with a conversion objective for the lead event, the lead event fires on the thank you page. They enter their email address, guess where they get dropped? On the same pre-sell that I'm running at the top of the funnel.

Ezra Firestone:

But now we have their email lead, and we put them on a automation sequence, to warm them up and try to sell them. And if they don't buy, we put them on our bucket list. I also run giveaways every six weeks. And basically those are my two main top of funnel lead gen strategies, is gated content and giveaways. But I'll do Facebook lives, and I'll do other things as well. But if you just do gated content and giveaways, you should spend about five to 10% of your total marketing budget on email lead generation. Because some people take a little longer to warm up than others. So if you're only running conversion ads, you're going to miss out on growing your audience in a way that could be beneficial for you.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. I love this so much, and it's something that we've observed you doing, and something we're talking about now with other clients. That, if you can grow that email list, and if you're properly running email marketing, you're going to be able to convert that at a really high rate. And so gated content, so information people want, and/or giveaways, great ways to drive that list. And I was looking through some of your notes here. Looks like over the last 12 months you spent about 200,000 buying email leads that have then generated 750,000 in sales. So about a 375% return on add spend. That's not bad. But that's not like-

Ezra Firestone:

And that's with excluding anybody who was already on the list, dude.

Brett Curry:

What's that?

Ezra Firestone:

That's with excluding anyone who was already on the list. So those are new leads.

Brett Curry:

Just strictly new leads. So that really changes the game, because you could be looking at those campaigns and thinking, "Well, I just drove an email sign up. I didn't make a sale there, so it's not really worth a whole lot." But then you've got to look at that whole picture. What did those email subscribers do for you over the next six to 12 months? And in your case, it's a 3.75 X ROAS, which is amazing.

Ezra Firestone:

Pretty sweet. I mean, not that everyone's going to have that result, but it's worth doing, still, nonetheless.

Brett Curry:

Exactly. So, all right, awesome. So strategy number one, buy more email leads. I'm sold on that idea. Idea number two, launch new products. So talk about how Boom is approaching launching new products.

Ezra Firestone:

So to have a successful e-commerce business, you have to get your repeat customer rate up. Ideally over 30% of total revenue comes from repeat customers, people who bought from you once before. The best way to do that is to sell them more of what they already bought, if it's consumable. Or to introduce new items that they might want from you. And by the way, if somebody knows you, likes you, trust you, you're putting out content, you're engaging them, you've delivered a good product, they're going to probably want to buy whatever else you have to offer if it's tangentially related to what they bought in the first place.

Ezra Firestone:

So what we do is we send a customer survey every six months to our two X buyers, and we give them a bunch of stuff, like "If we were going to add more colors, what colors do you want? If you could wave a magic wand, what products would you have us create?" We have a 20 question survey. We say, "Hey, five people who take this survey are going to win $100 gift certificate to the store". We get a couple thousand responses. Based on that, we figure out what products to make next, based on the desire of our community.

Brett Curry:

That creates your product roadmap.

Ezra Firestone:

As an example, 50% of people wanted a mascara, 46% of people wanted a lip gloss, and 53% of people wanted an additional color of Boomstick. We released all three of those products last year, based on that information. They were our three best product launches ever. We just released the Boomstick color last week, we sold 15,000 units in 18 hours. 650 grand in revenue in 18 hours.

Brett Curry:

Whoa. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Say that again. You sold what?

Ezra Firestone:

We sold 15,000 units in 18 hours, dude. We sold out. 650 grand in 18 hours. Now of course I've got a mature company, but the point is that this process gets better over time. So when you're developing a new product, you're doing it in desire to your past customers, in relationship to their desire. And for us, you have componentry, formulation, and secondary packaging. So componentry is like, what is the component that it's going to go in? Well, the Boomstick, we already have that. That's great, we'll reuse the component we already have. The formula is, what is it going to be, why is it going to be that way, what are the benchmarks other brands are doing that we want to meet? We go through a bunch of iterations, we send it out to our best customers to test. It takes us about six months to a year to develop a formula.

Ezra Firestone:

And then our secondary packaging, is what is the box, what's the write alongs, what are the inserts? We get all that together, we run a photo shoot for it. And then we do an early bird. "Hey, we're going to launch this new product. This is what it is. Get excited, sign up for it to hear about it first." And then what happens is, as they're signing up, and as they're posting on social about it on the thread, we're finding out what they want to know. They're asking, "Is it hypoallergenic?" And we're like, "Oh shit, we don't have hypoallergenic on the sales page. It is hypo allergenic." So we add that to the sales page. The questions they ask, they become the FAQs that we put on the... So we use the pre-launch as a way to build out the marketing material. Build out the FAQ, build out the sales page.

Ezra Firestone:

And then we launch it, run ads to it, do emails to it. And then it becomes part of our ongoing marketing. Put it in bundles. And you can do this too with products you already have. So you can reformulate them to make them better than they already are. Based on feedback, you can change the componentry or packaging, make it more sustainable. You can bundle it with other items to make a kit. So you can renew and make better products you already have, and relaunch them, as well as introducing new items. But for us, we are aiming to introduce four new items a year, which is once a quarter, which is hard to do.

Brett Curry:

That's aggressive. That's one a quarter.

Ezra Firestone:

It's hard to do when you're making them all from scratch.

Brett Curry:

It's hard to do, yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

But it's a huge, huge part of the business. So yeah, it's really important to continually making the products better.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. And it's interesting that it's also fairly risky, too, to launch a new product. Will it go well, will it not go well? But the approach you're taking, it really eliminates a lot of the risk. You know that if you deliver a good product, which you guys do, you know how to do that, you're delivering exactly what someone is requesting, and exactly what someone wants.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, and they also then can become a new top of funnel sales processes. So we can run top of funnel ads now. So for our mascara, I mean, that's our second best seller of all time, and we can run it at the top of the funnel because everybody's interested in mascara. And we didn't have one before. So we couldn't run ads for it at the top of the funnel. So we were missing a customer acquisition funnel there that we were able to add to the business.

Brett Curry:

Love it. And so then this actually directly ties into it. So this is strategy number three. Create more front end offers. So talk about that and how that's evolved for Boom, more front end offers.

Ezra Firestone:

I think that's mature business strategy. For Boom, we did 10 years where we had one front end offer, which was our Boomstick trio.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Boomstick.

Ezra Firestone:

And all of our social proof, all of our sales funnel optimization, all of our pre-sales, all of our video ads, all of our email sequences, everything was about that front end offer. Just make that as deep as possible. Have marketing assets for it, loyalty assets for it. Just really work on that and scale that. And that's a lot easier to go deep rather than wide. And a lot of people have a thousand skews, and they can't do that. Like with this product, this brand, I bought, Overtone, I got a hundred skews. So it's hard for me to have one front end funnel.

Ezra Firestone:

But for low skew e-commerce, it's easy. You just pick whatever your widest and best seller, and most relevant seller is, and just focus on that. But once you scale that, now you got to start introducing new front end offers. There's only so many people who are interested in a multipurpose blush stick. Some people aren't interested in blush, but they're interested in mascara, or lip gloss, or brow gel, or whatever. So we've now introduced a bunch more products to the... You're right, my voice is kind of frozen. It's funny, I sound like a frog.

Brett Curry:

You're good, dude. Hey, you're so you're bringing the fire, even though I'm feeling cold for you.

Ezra Firestone:

I usually have such a rich, deep voice, man. Anyways, it gives us the ability to have more fish hooks in the sea.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Love it. Love it. Let's go on to the next one, and this is related to number one, but this is now strategy number four.

Ezra Firestone:

By the way, another front end funnel is one of those lead gen funnels, too. Even if it's leading to the same product.

Brett Curry:

Yes.

Ezra Firestone:

It's a new top of funnel way of getting people in the mix. That's a new funnel. It doesn't have to be a new product.

Brett Curry:

Totally. And so looking at that, and what we've observed, working with Boom, working with other successful brands, is that a lot of them have one to three really successful top end funnels that they just push hard on, almost forever. And then with some tweaking and changing, and then you've got all your backend stuff as well. So, yeah. Really, really good. So let's talk then about strategy number four, growing your SMS subscribers. So diving into text based marketing. So, tips or suggestions you would give there for growing that list and utilizing SMS?

Ezra Firestone:

I mean, the 80/20 of SMS is this. Have the collection at checkout, where you're collecting people who check out from you, who click the little box to be collected. And have a two step opt in. First, get the email, second, incentivize for the SMS. So they come to your site, you say, "Hey, get 10% off, entering your email address". They enter it. "Hey, by the way, do you want an extra 5%? Give us your SMS". Klaviyo lets you do this, Postscript lets you do this, Attentive lets you do this, et cetera. Those are your two main ways to collect. And that's 85, 90% of the value. You can do other shit to collect, but it's not worth it. Just do that. And then when you send an abandoned card email and they don't open after 18 hours, slide a text in there, via Klaviyo. So connect it to your email logic, and do your-

Brett Curry:

Is that usually the way you do it, where you'll email first? And then if there's no response there, then you text?

Ezra Firestone:

Always. Yeah, because SMS is more expensive. So we'll use it as a... And you can only do this if you're using Klaviyo, because it talks to it. You can't have Attentive in Klaviyo, because they don't talk to each other. So if you're using Klaviyo, Klaviyo's a little more expensive for SMS, but if you're doing it the way I do, it doesn't matter, because you're only using it as a... You know? You're using it as a way to capture the people who aren't responding to email. Instead of just blasting them with both, and spending the money for that. So, if they don't respond to the card email, we'll slide an SMS. If we go purchase email, they don't cross-sell, we'll slide an SMS. And then once a week, you broadcast your bucket list with a piece of content or a sale. That's it. That's all you need to do. Have an opt in pre purchase, have an opt in at checkout, use it in your automation sequences, do one broadcast a week, your solid potato salad, you have 85% of the value you can get from SMS.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. You really go beyond that, it's just going to be tiny little gains. And potentially a difference-

Ezra Firestone:

It's not worth it. It's not worth it.

Brett Curry:

Not worth it. Not worth the effort.

Ezra Firestone:

Just spend your energy acquiring more customers.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, totally. And so those weekly broadcast on SMS, are you doing a mix of promotions and content?

Ezra Firestone:

So those will be content. The best piece of content from the week will drop via the SMS. And then if we're running a sale, that week, we won't send content, we'll send about the sale.

Brett Curry:

And your best piece of content pulling from the way Boom is doing it, it's based on blog, is that right? So you're writing blogs weekly or something?

Ezra Firestone:

We send three pieces of content to our list every week. Maybe it's a long form article, maybe it's a user generated content video, maybe it's a recap from a Facebook live we did. Whatever. We're sending content every week, at least three pieces, long form written articles, videos, user generated content. We've got a whole social media content engagement system. And so whatever worked the best that week, we'll drop to the SMS list. And then every six-

Brett Curry:

Nice. So you're emailing that content initially. So you're emailing-

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, we're emailing that, we're posting it to the blog, we're posting out to social, we're amplifying it. We're doing the whole system. And then the best shit, we drop to the list, which links over to the blog. And we drop to the SMS list. And then every six weeks we're running a product launch or a sale. So that sixth week will be a promotion via SMS.

Brett Curry:

Got it. And anything you can say about response rates, metrics? How is SMS working in comparison to email? I know it's just designed to be a compliment to email, but anything you can say about stats, performance?

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah, I mean, SMS gets better response rates, but you have smaller lists. And you get way more unsubscribes. So it's-

Brett Curry:

And you got to be really careful about spam related stuff.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah.

Brett Curry:

People get pretty hot on-

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot you got to worry about with that. But basically it works really well, and you should use it as a compliment, and not instead of... And you should do what I'm talking about, which is basically 80/20 it.

Brett Curry:

Not really standalone. You're not going to just be like, "Hey, SMS is my one strategy."

Ezra Firestone:

Some brands do. Some brands do. But I think if you ignore email, what are we doing?

Brett Curry:

Right. For most people, it's just a beautiful compliment, and a way to really increase the effectiveness of email. But it is a compliment. Awesome. So now we're going to move into strategy number five. I actually love this one. I love all of them, this is all gold. But this is something that was kind of an aha moment for me. I first heard about a strategy like this, it was made be Dan Kennedy back in the day, maybe Jay Abraham. I go way back, man, looking at marketing stuff. But you're talking about inventing a holiday. So there's this idea that people need a reason why. They need a reason why I should buy now, they need a reason why your product is better. And sometimes an invented holiday is a great reason why you should buy now. So, talk about invented holidays, and talk about what you're doing at Boom.

Ezra Firestone:

So excuses to communicate are important. And we take everyone we can. We communicate on Earth Day, we communicate on Animal Friendly Day, we communicate on National Dog Day. Because people like that kind of shit.

Brett Curry:

They do. People like it.

Ezra Firestone:

And everybody has a dog, and everybody likes the earth, and so on and so forth. And we do too. And so we are always doing emails like that. Like, "Hey, it's Earth Day. And you know what? We care a lot about sustainability. And these are our most sustainable products, for these reasons." And whatever. And so we're constantly mailing on using the fake or created holidays as a reason to communicate on social and on email. And so we made up our own. We made Pro-Age Month. We are the first people to say pro-age. Now it's a commonly known thing. Now you've got a million knock brands, but we spent 40 million over six years, popularizing the concept of pro-age, back in 2010. And now Allure is stealing it, and it's like we have penetrated the mainstream with this.

Brett Curry:

It's awesome.

Ezra Firestone:

We've entered the zeitgeist with this concept. And so now it's a thing. And so we want to claim ownership of that, because we do own it. You don't never own an idea, but we created that movement. And so we created Pro-Age Month. And the month of August is Pro-Age Month. And we tell pro-age stories, and we've got a logo for it. And we are claiming our rights to the pro-age movement. The pro-age revolution that we started in 2010. And a good way to do that, was to create a holiday around it.

Brett Curry:

Create a holiday, create a month, and people love that. And it's such a great conversation starter and connection point. And if you think about one of the big components of building a brand, is just building that connection and that community. And sometimes odd or unusual holidays do that. And inventing your own holiday, I think it's brilliant. I think more people should look at it. And I think a lot of brands lend themselves well. Maybe it's not pro-age for you, and Ezra owns that anyway, so back off, really. Seriously.

Ezra Firestone:

I mean, whatever. You could say pro-age if you believe in that. What I find, is most people say pro-age and they don't actually know what it means. Which is hilarious. They'll be like, "Pro-age..." this or that. And then they'll have anti-aging skin drops.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. "But cover your gray, and no more wrinkles." Yeah, yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

You've missed the point here.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Yeah. But inventing a holiday, pure gold, I love it. Anybody can do it. And so highly recommend that as well. So we're getting tied on time, so we're going to have to maybe move rapid fire through some of these or just save some of them for the blog. But number six is, list products on Amazon.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah.

Brett Curry:

What are you guys doing there for your brands? Talk about that a little bit.

Ezra Firestone:

Amazon will make up 20 to 30% of a good brand's sales. And you're going to miss those customers if you're not over there. And our-

Brett Curry:

Because some people only buy on Amazon. That's just it.

Ezra Firestone:

I mean, yeah. And we waited 10 years to put our products on Amazon, because we could fill the demand that we had with... Our supply chain could barely fill the demand we had from direct to consumer. But once we beefed up our supply chain, and we realized that adding to Amazon wasn't going to cannibalize our direct to consumer platform, we added our main product on there, and it just crushed. It just added 10 to 15% of incremental sales.

Brett Curry:

Immediately. Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

So now we're adding every one of our products, once every two months, onto Amazon. You guys are running all of our ads over there, doing all of our A plus lists. All we do is do the customer support, and create the assets for the page. You guys literally do everything else. You run all the ads, you optimize all the pages, you handle all the seller support. You do fucking everything for us. So it's great for us, because it's a channel that really works, that we don't really have the expertise for, that you just do for us. I mean, we pay you for it, but probably not what you should get paid. Because I think you give us a deal. But-

Brett Curry:

We do. We do. But, gladly. We gladly give you that deal, for sure.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah. So it's been really good for us.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, it's been amazing, it's been fun to execute on our end for sure. And one thing we noticed with you, we noticed this with native ... as well, client, friends. And we don't run their Amazon, but we observe. We run their Google and YouTube. Is that there's some expectation that when you launch on Amazon, there's going to be some cannibalization of your store's sales. And certainly that happens some, but this has been mostly incremental growth for you guys, right?

Ezra Firestone:

100% incremental. There's been no cannibalization whatsoever. Which is crazy, because I was sure there was going to be. We sell it at the same price, and some people just like to buy over there. And I think what was happening was a lot of people were seeing our ads on Facebook, going to buy on Amazon, not finding it, and then buying knockoff brands. Because they only buy on Amazon.

Brett Curry:

Buying something else. Buy knockoff. Yeah, we experienced that. That'd be a topic for another podcast. The copycats and the people that were...

Ezra Firestone:

...

Brett Curry:

... really leeching off of your brand name on Amazon.

Ezra Firestone:

Nightmare.

Brett Curry:

But yeah, nightmare for sure. For sure. But we're getting there. So yeah, big believer in Amazon. And what's interesting to me, and this is where Boom and Overtone are set up perfectly for Amazon, is that success on Amazon in the long term, and I think even right now, is based on building a brand. So taking the community building aspect, the brand building aspect that you're doing off Amazon, and do that on Amazon, that's where you see long term success. It's not just hacking the titles and the keywords, and the bullet points, to try to inflate your ranking, or using super URLs, or some other strategy to hack your ranking, but building a real brand.

Brett Curry:

And that's what you guys are good at, and that's what we're helping you with. And it's working. It's working on Amazon right now. So let's talk, and this will probably be our final concept for the podcast, and I'll push the final one, people to go check out on the blog post. But the seventh strategy for growth, is advertising on television. TV? What? Come on now. So what are your thoughts on TV? And this has been fun to watch too, but what are your thoughts on advertising on television?

Ezra Firestone:

I think it's really only for very, very, very mature brands. Because the minimum that you need to do it is 350 grand. Minimum. Just to test. And that's a two month test. And you also have to produce television quality ads. Now we were able to use user generated content. We spent 50 grand on a TV commercial produced by a fancy agency, and at flopped all crazy. And then we made our own ad, based on UGC that we had. And we crushed. So we're much better direct response advertisers than these TV agencies, it turns out. Which we should've known, because we've been fucking running direct response ads for 15 years. Makes sense we would know what would work, versus what they produced. Even though what they produced, it was a whole... We could talk about that another time. It wasn't very good.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ezra Firestone:

But it's hard to tell how successful TV has been for us. We've spent about half a million dollars over the course of six months, and I think incrementally, it has been successful. But we're having Northbeam, which is a company you hooked us up with.

Brett Curry:

Shout out to Northbeam, Austin, and the folks there.

Ezra Firestone:

We just turned it off, and looks like sales are down 15K a day since we turned off TV. We'll see. I think TV is great for omnichannel presence. If you're spending three, four, 500K a month on social media ads, you should add in TV at 10, 15% of your budget, to reach more people, and reach the people that you're reaching on social in a different area. And for us, we just turned it off to see how it's going to impact whether we run it or not. And so we're still trying to figure out the attribution on it, and how well it's working. But our sense is that it worked pretty well.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. And that's a great way to test it. Turn it off, see what the impact is there. And it also helps tremendously to have a tool like Northbeam, third party attribution. Brilliant stuff, check it out. And we're seeing some similar things. So first of all, I got my start in TV, radio, print. So I still really like TV. I'm still involved in local TV just a little bit with a friend of mine. But I love this strategy. I think it is for bigger brands. But yeah, if you're spending multi six figures on Facebook ads, YouTube ads, then TV may be something that you check out. But along a similar vein, we're testing now, we tested it with Boom and with a few other clients. Creating some awareness, we call it awareness layer YouTube campaigns.

Brett Curry:

And again, you kind of need something like Northbeam in place, to really see the impact of this. But the idea there, is as well we're just going for low cost engagement, low cost views. We're seeing CPMs for some of these awareness level YouTube campaigns at six bucks, five bucks, which is crazy low. But there's something to be said, and this is marketing 101, old school stuff. If you talk to the right people enough times, with a right message, so right message, right market, right media, you're going to get results. And so obviously you got to be ready for it with budget, and you have to have the tracking in place to really make good use of it. But I love that you guys are testing TV. And I also love the fact that it wasn't the super duper polished stuff that worked. It was what we do. The UGC stuff that did well on TV, too.

Ezra Firestone:

Yeah. It was UGC. And we started doing video view advertising on Facebook, when iOS 14.5 happened, because Facebook lost all its data. So we started running video view campaigns to all the audiences that we used to run conversion campaigns to, to let Facebook build up some data of the people who watched most of our videos. And then we would follow up with those people and run conversion ads to them. And now we're doing that with YouTube as well. And I think that strategy post iOS 14.5 on both networks, where you spend a thousand bucks a day at our scale, running video views, or maybe 10% of your overall spend, is a great strategy. We're doing it at Overtone too.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, this has been amazing, Ezra. So that's seven of the eight tips. Hey, to get that eighth tip, check out the show notes, go check out Ezra's blog, smartmarketer.com, and get that final one. But Ezra, as people are listening, I know we got some super fans-

Ezra Firestone:

I'm cold, man. I'm cold. That's what's going on.

Brett Curry:

You're cold. Then yeah, you need to go warm up, dude.

Ezra Firestone:

I do. I need ...

Brett Curry:

Get your robe, get your blanket, go sit by the fire, or something like that. But for those that are listening and thinking, "I need more Ezra Firestone in my life." How can they connect with you, where should they learn more about you? Where should they do that?

Ezra Firestone:

I'm on Instagram @ezrafirestone, I'm on Twitter @ezrafirestone, I'm on Facebook, Facebook.com/MeetEzra. I'm on smartmarketer.com, which is a blog that I have, I'm on zipify.com, which are my apps for Shopify. But you can find me on social media. I'm on YouTube, all the social media networks. Whatever ones you use, I'm there. You can Google me on there or search me on there. And yeah. Thanks for hanging out, hope it's been some kind of helpful. Appreciate you, Brett. I love that you're between two ferns over there.

Brett Curry:

That's a hilarious show. And you're not the first person to say that. They're like, "Dude, are you between two ferns here? Are you Zach Galifianakis or what? What are you doing?" I'm a little more courteous to my guests and a little more on topic, but that show is hilarious.

Ezra Firestone:

It's awesome, dude.

Brett Curry:

But another plug that I'll make here as I'm sitting between two ferns, is, do check out Smart Marketer. Molly Pittman, John Grimshaw, running that with Ezra's leadership, Ezra started it. But some amazing resources there. Train My Traffic Person. So if you got in-house media buyers, you need to send them through Train My Traffic Person. You get to learn from me too, I'm a faculty member there teaching YouTube and teaching Google. But check that out, smartmarketer.com. Highly, Highly recommend it.

Ezra Firestone:

Thank y'all.

Brett Curry:

Awesome. Ezra, appreciate it, brother. This has been amazing, thank you so much. And see you next time.

Ezra Firestone:

Talk soon.




Disruptive Innovation in Marketing with Miki Agrawal
2
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Miki Agrawal

Disruptive Innovation in Marketing with Miki Agrawal

I’ve never met anyone quite like Miki Agrawal.

She’s incredibly creative. No really. She once hosted a “funeral for a tree” at an old cathedral in NYC hosted by comedians and actors. It drew a crowd of thousands, generated millions in free press and helped shed light on the toilet paper waste that her company TUSHY can help solve. 

She understands trends in marketing. She knows how to grab attention. So much so that she was banned by the NY   transit authority from running subway ads. Which led to a PR fight that she won…and in the end, got more press and attention than if they hadn’t been banned. 

She’s also warm and kind and FUN. 

She’s created multiple 9-Figure businesses and has garnered some pretty incredible recognition. She was named "Fast Company's Most Creative People", “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum and INC's “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs”.

She’s also the author of #1 best selling books Do Cool SH*T and Disrupt-HER.

In this episode we unpack Miki’s wacky, impossible-to-forget and wildly successful marketing strategies and tactics.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

  • How Miki was banned from advertising on the NYC subway and turned that into a huge PR win for her brand THINX
  • How to use Accessible + Relatable language 
  • How to create ads that are both effective and “fridge worthy”
  • How iteration is perfection
  • How to start with play to create great ideas

Mentioned in This Episode:

Miki Agrawal

   - Website

   - Instagram

   - Link Tree to Resources


TUSHY

   - Website

   - Instagram


Thinx

   - Website

   - Instagram


Wild

   - Website

   - Instagram


“Do Cool Sh*t” by Miki Agrawal


“Disrupt-Her” by Miki Agrawal


“Zero To $100 Million” on Mindvalley

Cap Con 5
Ryan Daniel Moran

Toto

“Funeral for a Tree” by TUSHY video on YouTube

Butt Con by TUSHY




Transcript:

Brett:

Welcome to the Spicy Curry Podcast. We explore hot topics on eCommerce and digital marketing. We feel feature some of the brightest minds, with some of the SPT perspectives on what it takes to grow your business. Season one of this podcast is built on the old business adage that, what it really takes to succeed is three things. One: have something good to say. Two: say it well. And three: say it often.

Brett:

My guest in this episode is Miki Agrawal. She's the founder of TUSHY, but she's also the entrepreneur behind several other wildly successful companies. I don't know anyone better than Miki at the, have something good to say and say it well, aspects of growth. And so just a couple of accolades. Miki was named one of Fast Company's Most Creative People. She was also named by Inc Magazine as one of the Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs. She was also my favorite speaker, and she's also one of the favorite speakers that most of the events that she attends.

Brett:

We're going to dive into some crazy wild stories from her entrepreneur journeys. We're going to learn why she was banned by the New York subway from running ads there, and how she actually overcame that and then ran some pretty powerful ads on the New York subway system. We're going to talk about how she creates events that are just, blow your mind. Like, they had a funeral for a tree, and there's a reason why they did that and got millions of dollars in free press. And she talks about how to craft things that are both artful and fridge worthy, but also effective. And so, I think you're going to absolutely love this interview. And so, lean in, buckle up and enjoy this interview with Miki Agrawal.

Brett:

Over 81% of consumers are opted into text message messages from their favorite brands, and that's where Attentive comes in. Meet Attentive, the company helping thousands of innovative brands connect with their customers through personalized text messaging. Attentive's text marketing platform lets you grow your subscriber list, interact with customers in real time through two-way conversations and drive the war revenue. Brands who use Attentive see $55 in sales for every $1 they spend. See what Attentive can do for you, at attentivemobile.com/omgcommerce. Attentive: drive sales with text message marketing.

Brett:

All right, well today I am abs absolutely thrilled that my guest is Miki Agrawal. Now, I was recently at an event, CapCon 5 in Austin, Texas. My good friend, Ryan Daniel Moran was the host. And there was a star-studded lineup of speakers. Amazing, blow your mind speakers. And I got to say, Miki was probably my favorite. And I hope that some of my other friends that were speaking don't hear this, because I don't want to hurt their feelings. It's just that Miki was amazing. And so, Miki is the founder of a number of really transformative businesses. Most recently, TUSHY. Also, THINX and WILD. She's also author of some amazing best-selling books. Do Cool Sh*t. Disrupt-Her, which I'm actually in the process, I've gone about halfway through it right now. And even though it has "her" in the title, Disrupt-Her, instead of disruptor, it's for dudes too. Right, Miki? And so, I'm actually getting a lot of value out of it. And so, we're going to talk about growth and having an amazing marketing message, and thinking differently and all kinds of great stuff. So Miki, welcome to the show, and how's it going?

Miki:

Yes. I'm so happy to be here with you. And just, the thing that I just can't, I'm just so like, I love is that you have eight children, and you're sitting at the table with 10 people every night for dinner. That just blows my mind.

Brett:

Yeah. The level of noise at the dinner table is sometimes crazy. And we do this thing called highs and lows, where everybody goes around and tells their high of the day. You have to have a high of the day, you don't have to have a low of the day if you don't want to, but it is required to have a high. And the noise level is crazy, but it's also super fun.

Miki:

I love that you do that. That's beautiful, that's amazing.

Brett:

Yeah. So, part of what attracted me to you, Miki, and why I was so thrilled to chat with you afterwards. Is one, you're a master marketer. And the way you craft messages and the way you get attention, it's mind blowing, which is awesome. But you're also like, you believe in strong women, right? And I've got six daughters and I just, I want them to conquer the world. That's probably a weird thing to say, but I want them to just do whatever they feel led and whatever they feel passionate about doing. And so, love the energy you bring and the inspiration you're bringing to young women as well.

Miki:

Six daughters. I mean, it's just, yeah. Like, I think about the food bill just for that dinner, just for those meals, just now. It's just [crosstalk 00:05:10].

Brett:

The food bill is crazy. So I'm happy to talk about that with anyone offline. Yeah. So, when you include groceries and eating out, it's a median household income. It's a lot of money, yeah. But grateful to be able to do it. I wouldn't have it any other way, but it is completely [crosstalk 00:05:28].

Miki:

I love it.

Brett:

So yeah, it's awesome. Well, let's talk about a few things. So if you would Miki, give people kind of just the quick background on you. Because we're going to dig into some of the specific messages that you use at TUSHY and things like that. But give people the background. Like, how did you become this, because not only were you my favorite speaker at CapCon, but I've seen, you were voted best speaker at Inc and Fast Company, and some of these other big events. Everybody loves what you have to say. So really, how did you get here?

Miki:

Well, I'm one of three children, and the interesting fun fact about the three of us is that we are all born within one year. So I have an identical twin sister. The third sister, who's 11 months older. So we're actually, we're Irish twins.

Brett:

Yeah, Irish twins and identical twins [crosstalk 00:06:18].

Miki:

Irish triplets.

Brett:

Okay.

Miki:

So we're twins, plus Irish triplets, yeah.

Brett:

It's insane.

Miki:

Yeah. And then we grew up to a Japanese mother and Indian father. So my mother's from Japan, speaks with a thick Japanese accent. My dad is from India, speaks with a very thick Indian accent.

Brett:

I'm doing the audio book of Disrupt-Her. And you do the Indian accent for your dad, an it's just amazing. You do such a good job, yeah.

Miki:

But yeah, his most, the thing they always say is, he says, when he meets somebody, he goes, "Very good vibes". Or, "Very bad vibes." And immediately, because yeah, he can sniff people out just by "their vibes".

Brett:

By "their vibes", okay, I love that.

Miki:

By "their vibes".

Brett:

That's awesome.

Miki:

Yeah. And I grew up in Montreal, Canada. In French Montreal, in the south shore of Montreal. In a town called [foreign language 00:07:12]. And it's like, I grew up in French, like literally, we were the token Asians in the most French neighborhood ever. And so, it was really beautiful to grow up in this true mosaic of cultures. Japan, India, French, American. And then of course, Canada attracts so many, I mean, every culture, every religion, and they're all celebrated. And so of course, growing up in a household of just diversity and then going to school with just all diverse kids, I think we just learned to question everything. And to look at things from different angles. To be like, oh, this is how the Indians look at it, this is how the Japanese look it, how the French look at it, and the Americans look at it, this is how the Canadians look at it.

Brett:

It forces a fresh perspective, rather than just everybody being the same.

Miki:

Totally. So it's a mosaic versus melting pot thinking. And I think that that mosaic thinking creates beautiful picture. When you think about a mosaic image, and it's just this, all these colors and all these textures, and all of the different historical context of things, creates a different frame than just a single pain. So I think I was very blessed in just being born where I was born, to be given the various perspectives. To not just be like, okay, this is the way it is. It's like, wait, is this, or should I question it? And is there a better way, or is there more thoughtful way? Or that kind of thing.

Brett:

When did you realize that, hey, I might be an entrepreneur? Or have you ever? Like, is that really a conscious thought? Like, when did you think, hey, I'm going to build companies? And not just companies, but wildly successful and disruptive companies.

Miki:

Yeah. I mean, I think I'm just genuinely unemployable. I think I'm just like, you're not my Indian father. That kind of vibes. Where like, anytime someone told me what to do, blood would rush to my head and I would just get really frustrated. I would, I don't know, get triggered or something. But no, I think I just always beat to my own drum. And I think because of this questioning, because of this philosophy of looking at things from different perspectives, I think I just always had different ideas that I wanted to put out in the world. That entrepreneurship, when it was introduced to me, I remember, I'll never forget. I met my very first entrepreneur, standing in line in New York City when I was 22 years old, at this Armani party.

Miki:

I was invited to my very first VIP door, or whatever. [crosstalk 00:09:47] And I was like, oh my God, I'm so cool. It was like, Armani. You know, whatever. Back when it was really cool to go to those things. And I remember standing in line, and in front of me was this gentleman who I'd met. And his name was Graham, and he's now since become one of my dearest friends. But I met him randomly, standing in line in front of me then. I was 22, and he was in his mid-thirties when I met him. And I was like, "oh". Like, "What are you up to?"

Miki:

And he's like, "I'm an entrepreneur."

Miki:

And I was like, "What do you mean?"

Miki:

And he is like, "I have my own business." And this is, by the way, in 2001, when entrepreneurship wasn't a school thing. Nobody was getting invested in, it wasn't a thing. I mean, Facebook wasn't even there until 2006.

Brett:

Now it's super trendy. Everybody wants to say entrepreneur, stamped that on their [crosstalk 00:10:33].

Miki:

Now, everyone. But back then, nobody. It was doctor, lawyer, investment banker, management consultant. Going to work for a company. Becoming a whatever at a company. Becoming a person who starts a business was just not even in the lexicon, in the zeitgeist of culture back then.

Miki:

And he was like, "I'm not in firm."

Miki:

I'm like, "What do you mean?"

Miki:

He's like, "I have my own company."

Miki:

I'm like, "Well, what do you do?"

Miki:

And he's like, "Well, I started a company called treehugger.com."

Miki:

And I was like, "Oh, that's cool."

Miki:

And he's like, "And I sold it." I think he sold it to Discovery Channel, whatever.

Miki:

And I was like, "Wow!" And then he, the next day, invited me to this brunch with a bunch of other entrepreneurs. And that's when it was my big ding, ding, ding moment. I can start my own company, I'm going to do that. And I think in life, we just get given these gifts of chance meetings. And either we kind of get opened by it or we close to it. And I was sort of just blasted open by the possibilities of that. And I think that's what really put me on the course of this new way of thinking and being, and then carrying forward.

Brett:

That's amazing. And I do want to, let's give kind of a brief overview of some of the companies. Just to give people some texture and some more context. So your mind was blown, and you're thinking, I could do my own thing. And then you have, and you've been wildly successful. Really at, essentially, everything. But can you give a quick rundown of the companies, and what they've done?

Miki:

Yeah. Well, I will first start by saying, one of the biggest stories that changed the course my life was when I was 22. After that time, 9/11 happened, and that was a huge turning point in my life.

Brett:

Yeah, because you were an investment banker, working down on Wall Street, right?

Miki:

Yes. The World Trade center was my subway stop every single morning. And it I was working at Deutsche Bank, in investment banking. I call it douche bank.

Brett:

Wow. Someone was asking for that, honestly, right? Deutche Bank, it's so close to douche, you're going to make the jokes, yeah.

Miki:

Know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, when I was there, yeah, 9/11 happened. I was supposed to be there, and 2 World Trade Center was my subway stop every single morning. And I would walk upstairs to 2 World Trade Center, at the cafe there. And I would get tea with my girlfriend, who worked on the 100th floor. And then I would walk across the street to my office, directly across 2 World Trade Center. And then 9/11 happened, and it was the first day of my life, the only day of my life that I slept through my alarm clock.

Brett:

That is crazy and amazing.

Miki:

Yeah. And 700 people in my girlfriend's office died on that day. Two people in my office died. It was one of those, just like, you can't make this shit up. Like, this is not a real movie, that kind of level of unfathomableness.

Brett:

Unfathomable, yeah.

Miki:

Yeah. And so that single experience, again, it's those moments that I kind of really recognize as these turning points in my life. And that was a big turning point in my life. Where I was like, wow, I could die tomorrow. And when you're 22, you don't think about death. I feel like we start thinking about death after we have children, in a lot of ways. And I'm just always making sure I'm not going to die. Do you know? And I'm sure, with your eight children, I don't even know how [inaudible 00:13:50]. You know?

Brett:

Yeah.

Miki:

But death, it's just not a thing, when you're a kid, when you're 22, you're just sort of like, whatever.

Brett:

You're usually not thinking about it at all, yeah.

Miki:

Just not thinking at all. But then, because I had this near potential death experience, and people around me died, and I was just sort of like, wow, this is a real thing. And I really felt my mortality in that moment. And it was like, wow, I got to make every single day count.

Brett:

Got to do something, yeah. We're going to blink and we're going to be 70, right? And so, what are you going to fill your time with now? Yeah.

Miki:

That's right. And so yeah, for me, it was, I wrote down three things. The first was to play soccer professionally, the second was to make movies, and the third was to start a business. And that sort of set me on sort of a total path after 9/11,.I played soccer for the New York Magic, I worked in the film industry for a couple of years, and then I started my first business, which was in the restaurant space. And so, my first business was born out of a stomach ache. We know that famous thing, necessity is the mother of invention.

Brett:

Yes, so true.

Miki:

Yeah. So the first business was born out of a stomach ache, and I couldn't eat pizza anymore. It was my favorite comfort food, but I just couldn't eat anymore because it made me bloated and gassy, and just so gross feeling after I ate it. And it was full of bleached flour, processed cheese, sugar-filled sauces, processed toppings, it was all that. And so yeah, I basically started New York City's very first gluten free alternative pizza concept. And 17 and a half years later, we're still in business. Almost 18 years this year. In November, 18 years.

Brett:

Amazing. And it's called WILD, correct?

Miki:

Called WILD. Just go to @eatdrinkwild on Instagram. We have a couple locations in New York City, and one in Guatemala.

Brett:

And [crosstalk 00:15:42] for surviving the pandemic. I couldn't imagine owning a restaurant during the pandemic in New York City. That had to been just absolutely brutal. So grateful, yeah.

Miki:

It was nuts. My partner Walid is incredible, and he's such an ingenious person. He has lots of [inaudible 00:15:57]. Where actually what we did was, we opened up, on Seamless Web, three restaurants, out of our restaurants. So during the pandemic, not only did we have our regular standard fair, but we opened up two different restaurants, working out of our kitchen. So basically, we made tacos and we did burgers, or whatever, so that people could order from us multiple times a week.

Brett:

Oh, super smart, super [crosstalk 00:16:24].

Miki:

So, take away. And not just have our gluten-free pizza stuff every week, but they would have tacos one night, and different stuff. And so we just opened three different restaurants under the same roof during the pandemic. And then we got the outdoor cafe seating. And that, our business all came back. And it was actually incredible, because it felt like a bit of Europe being in New York, with all the outdoor cafes everywhere, and people walking around with the menu. It was just, it was very romantic, very beautiful. So the rest restaurants was the very first business I learned. I think I learned so much of the thesis around people and psychology in my restaurants, that then led to building Thinks and led to building TUSHY. Both now valued over nine figures, well over nine. And so I, what I learned at WILD was, when I stood outside my restaurant for almost seven years, handing out little pieces of pizza, just handing them out.

Brett:

That's how you grew the business, was samples, yeah.

Miki:

Exactly, yeah. And getting people to try. And I would also test. Like, if I said healthy pizza, people wouldn't come. But if I said, farmed fresh, healthy farm to table pizza, people would be like, oh, what does that mean?

Brett:

Yeah. Nobody wants healthy pizza. That sounds cardboard.

Miki:

Exactly.

Brett:

But farm to table pizza, interesting. And so, you were testing out those messages as people were walking by?

Miki:

AB testing, literally like email, subject heading.

Brett:

I love that.

Miki:

You know? And it was such, seven years of, it was genuinely like double PhD in human psychology and what led people to come closer to attract them, or to kind of move them back. And it was a really interesting thing. Just by standing, literally person by person, like hand to hand combat, just really getting to know people.

Brett:

Fascinating.

Miki:

And that experience led to this thesis, understanding, that again, built THINX and TUSHY. Which was having a best in class product. Like, if someone bit into it and they're like, Ugh.

Brett:

It doesn't matter, yeah.

Miki:

[crosstalk 00:18:30] my underwear. Like tight now, I'm wearing my period-proof underwear. It was so amazing because, I started my period today, I went to my bathroom. You're like, I have six daughters, don't worry about it.

Brett:

So, it does not bother me in the least. Like, yeah, this is a common conversation around my house, yeah.

Miki:

Yeah.

Brett:

Think of the podcast first, though. First to confess on the podcast, which I embrace this, I welcome, this is awesome.

Miki:

First of all, every single human being is here because of a women's period. So, you're welcome. You know?

Brett:

Yes.

Miki:

[crosstalk 00:18:59] Be more uncomfortable. Yeah. So today, this morning, I went to the bathroom and I was kind of like, there's a little bit of blood everywhere. And so I basically sat on my toilet, used my TUSHY bidet, washed myself clean, And then put my THINX underwear on. And I was just like, ah.

Brett:

You're like, this is amazing.

Miki:

I solved my own problem twice. Just now, in this moment. And that's when I was like, yeah, this is why these businesses are doing well. Because genuinely, they truly, truly, truly solve problems that we face every single day.

Brett:

Authentically solving the problem, not just identifying a problem and kind of addressing it just for a cash grab, but you authentically solve the problem.

Miki:

Needed it, yeah. Which is why in my book, Do Cool Sh*t, I talk about the three questions I always ask myself before starting any business. The first question is, what sucks in my world? That's to start with me, a problem in my world that sucks. And then question number two is, but does it suck for a lot of people? Because if it just sucks for me, then I'm kind of a diva or whatever, and who cares. [crosstalk 00:20:04].

Miki:

And then the third question, which I think is the most important. Which is, can I be passionate about this issue, cause, or community, for a really long time. We know the saying, it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. People don't want to sit in that discomfort for a really, really long time, and then they quit or decide to leave early, and they don't kind of get through it. I think about the entrepreneurs, I think about the musicians, I think about the actors, I think about all the people in my life who've made it. And they've made it because they've kind of grinded for a really long time. And they made through it, and they just stuck with their passion, they stuck with the thing they truly believed in. And so I think, yeah, what sucks in my world, has sucked for a lot of people. Can I be passionate about this issue? I think the passion piece is the most important. [crosstalk 00:20:49]

Brett:

It's super important. And this is something I think you may have shared at CapCon already with somebody else. But, tactics without the underlying passion are worthless or it's going to be short lived. Tactics only work for so long. Like, you've got to have that passion and that drive to push through all the messy and confusing and heartache and suffering that you have to go through as a business owner. And so yeah, the passion is super, super important.

Brett:

Now, why do you think you're so attracted to difficult things to sell? So we'll start with pizza first. So, selling healthy, gluten free pizza. When you started the business, gluten free wasn't trendy. Like, gluten free wasn't a selling point. It's not something you want to stick on all your labels. Because people were like, what are you even talking about?

Miki:

Yeah. And no one was talking about farm to table, no one was talking about [crosstalk 00:21:36], no one was talking about seasonal.

Brett:

None of that.

Miki:

This is in 2003-2004. I mean, it was still super nascent, all of those conversations, it was extremely different.

Brett:

Yeah. And when you started THINX, which is period-proof underwear, no one was really talking about periods. Or, not wanting to talk about it. And maybe some people don't want to talk about now. [crosstalk 00:21:50] But yeah, you just got to get over it. But then also TUSHY, a bidet. I still remember so many conversations just as stuff started to get in the news. People were like, "Oh, bidets are nasty."

Brett:

And I'm like, "How is it nasty to use water to clean yourself versus dry paper?" But anyway, you're choosing these categories that are difficult. Like, it's new to people or taboo to people. Why do you think [crosstalk 00:22:13]?

Miki:

Well, it's a culture shift that I'm interested in. I think from a creative perspective and as a creative challenge. Like, how do you change people's behavior, is the hardest change to make. And then how, how do you utilize innovation and creativity to do that? And so I think from a creative kind of person's perspective, it's like, wow, this is a really fun challenge to tackle. How do you get someone to change their behavior when it comes to food? When it comes to habits? Daily habits that they've been doing their whole lives, not even their whole lives, but for generations. To get them to try something new, and not only try it, but adopt it fully. I mean, that is why Toto hasn't made it to America yet. That is why the tampons and pads, which were invented by men, which is fine. But not that fine, cause they're made for women. So it's just, it's like, those are the most pervasive products in the world, because it's taboo. And so, how do we enter these conversations in a way that's artful? In a way that's accessible, and we're using the best in class product?

Miki:

And I think those, my thesis that I learned from the pizza, from the restaurants was that was that, was the three prong. Prong number one is best in class product. It has to be a best in class product. It has to be a big day that, when I clip to my toilet, it actually feels good, it looks good.

Brett:

It adds to the appearance of your bathroom. Like, it makes your bathroom feel better, cleaner.

Miki:

It makes it more upscale and cool. It makes people want to bring you to their bathroom when you're having a dinner party. You know like that? Or when you're wearing THINX, like when I'm wearing my underwear right now, I feel really sexy in them. I feel really taken care of in them. I know that I'm protect, I know that this product works. So, best in class product. The pizza, when I eat it, it tastes the most delicious pizza. It doesn't even taste gluten and free, it tastes the most delicious pizza you've ever tasted. So, best in class product, no question, that is baseline. Second prong, to really shift culture, is art. Using art to really challenge conversations.

Miki:

And I talked a little bit about this at CapCon. When I remember putting our first TUSHY ads up, or our first period ads up, out in the world, whether online or offline. People's first reaction were like, wow, that's so beautiful. And then their second reaction's, oh my God, they're talking about poop, they're talking about periods. Like, oh my [crosstalk 00:24:49]. But their very first reaction was leaning into the art and the beauty of that. And I think that, that opens up people's hearts and minds. Art just does that, and for everyone at every level, does that. It opens, art just gives people something to lean into. And I think when they're leaning into something, it makes them be curious. And so the first thing is, can we design from a lens of art? So, we hired all artists, we hired all creatives. I think art is such a beautiful lens to shift people's perspective. I mean, that's why people go to museums, people look at magazines, people look at nature as art. And a place to go and really open up our souls, open up our perspectives, change the way we look and see things.

Miki:

And I think that really lends itself to giving people the space to question their existing thinking. And I think that's all we need to do, is give them that space to question, and they can make the decision for themselves. And so then, that's the artfulness, the best in class innovation.

Miki:

And then the third part is the accessible, relatable language. I think we so often want to be so heady, and so clinical, and so technical, and so medical, and so academic, and sound really smart. And make everyone feel we've been and doing all this patent pending work and whatever. And it's just like, people don't care. They want to know, does it work? Does it make me feel good? Does it support me and does it support my life? Like, what's the point of this? Like, I don't care about your terminology.

Brett:

Patent pending.

Miki:

And like, I don't care about high sounding or smart. Like, whatever. And then, I tested all of that. That was all tested. I learned that, the more we speak from our space of truth, the more we speak from our place of that lit fire inside. We talked about that at CapCon as well. The more we speak from that real, true, authentic place, people respond. Because it's real, it's true. It's not coming from like, I wonder what they want me to say? And I'm just going to say it that way. That doesn't feel good, to receive that kind of inauthentic message. Like, imagine if you're receiving a text message from a best friend. And you can tell when they're being inauthentic or they're authentic. You can tell when your sister or brother is being authentic, you can tell when your wife or husband is being inauthentic or authentic.

Miki:

And so it's just that, can we write copy, can we text, can we write our messaging in the same way as we're texting our best friend? And I think that is such an important way to think about messaging to people. Because we're just being bombarded with advertisements, with so much people shouting at us. And we don't want that. We want authentic truth, we just want that juicy truth. And I think that truth is really what, that truth, coupled with art, coupled with the right beautiful aesthetic, the right innovation that you would want to use where, on a daily basis. That together, creates change, creates culture shift. And I've seen that time and time again. Across Wild, across THINX and across TUSHY. All three of them share the same philosophy of best in class product, artful aesthetic design across every touchpoint of our brand, and accessible, relatable language across every touchpoint of the brand.

Brett:

I love it so much. And really, when you combine all of that, plus you go back to the starting point from your first book, Do Cool Sh*t, it has to be addressing something that sucks for you and sucks for a lot of people. Right? So it's got to be that. And so then, when it's addressing a real issue, and then you've got the artful design and best in class, and it works. And you got the accessible, relatable language. All that comes together and it just works.

Brett:

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Brett:

What's so interesting and what was so powerful for me. And I remember talking to the guy that was sitting next to me at CapCon, and I made a couple comments about this. I've been in the ad world for a long time. So there's the brand building space of advertising, which is interesting. There's direct response, which I followed and studied for a long time. And I've worked in the infomercial space and stuff. But you have this ability to create stuff that looks beautiful. Like, you just want to look at it. It's an ad for a bidet, but you want to look at it. But, it also kind of makes you say, I'd like to try that. Like, I would like a clean butt too. I would to do...

Brett:

Because I think sometimes people, they go too far into the art. And it's abstract, and like, I don't even know what you're trying to say to me. Or I'm talking about patent pending, and all aloof, and who cares. So, how do you strike that balance and how do you create something that's fridge-worthy? As you'd say, artful and fridge worthy. But also, that connects and makes you say, I want to buy that underwear. Or, I want to buy that bidet. How do you do that?

Miki:

Yeah. Well so first, just to quickly unpack the word fridge-worthy, for those who don't know what that term means. Fridge-worthy simply means the idea that, you know when you walk into your home, and you go to your kitchen and you see your fridge? You go out, before, you go to grab a beer or whatever from your fridge. You see your fridge, and on your fridge are emblems of your life. You see pictures of your family members, of your eight children in your 10 person family.

Brett:

They take up the whole fridge, exactly.

Miki:

Yeah [inaudible 00:31:16] all over. You have invitations to weddings, you have little postcards from family members, you have little pictures of nieces and nephews. Or whatever it is, right?

Miki:

Hi, Stan.

Miki:

And my challenge to my team has always been, can you create something so beautiful, so artful and so personal, that it can make the small real estate on your fridge? That it can really make that small personal space on your fridge, that it can take up that space. That you can make something for TUSHY or THINX so beautiful, something so cool, that it can live in your home in some way. And so we design from that lens. And from that lens that, again, hits you personally and makes you feel something.

Brett:

It does cause you to shift and think differently. Now it's not just about, well, I'm going to choose blue. Like, you're thinking about everything differently.

Miki:

Yeah. Like, what is it that's going to make, how does it make me feel? And that's a different lens to creating.

Brett:

For sure.

Miki:

Yeah.

Brett:

So then, how do you blend fridge-worthy then with some true sales power, or some power to make people say, I want to buy this.

Miki:

So I always say to my team, in the art of it, I still need to know. I mean, it depends. Like you said, there's top of funnel stuff, where you want to create intrigue and mystery. And that kind of stuff is like, if you look at our TUSHY Bellagio spot that we just shot. I just shot this ad, where I finally figured out, where my friend is this genius rigging person. And he rigged 10 toilets with bidets on them, with our TUSHY Ace bidets on them. That we can play them like a piano.

Brett:

Like the Bellagio fountains?

Miki:

Bellagio fountain.

Brett:

I got to see that, then.

Miki:

I'll share, I'll text with you right after this. It's crazy. And so basically, it plays. So we made this like, (Beethoven's 5th). And just this wildly weird thing. And we don't show you very much about it, but it just says at the tagline at the end. Which makes you mysterious and makes you want to click and see what the hell this is. So there's that mystery and intrigue, which hooks you into wanting to know more.

Brett:

It's a curiosity play, yeah.

Miki:

Pure curiosity play, pure top funnel. Just stuffing people in. And then we spend the rest of the time, really converting them to the bottom, bringing them down the funnel. Educating them on the product, the value propositions and all of that. So that's the one strategy.

Miki:

The other strategy for top of funnel. I always think about prospecting. I always think about, how do you get people to both fall in love with our brand, with our ethos, with our playfulness, with our just [foreign language 00:33:56], with our love of life? They can feel it in this thing, but they're also understanding, what is the product? How does it work? Why do I need it? So it really answers those questions. And maybe like, why do I need it?

Miki:

Like, we just shot another commercial with the singing toilets, with the kind of the playing toilets. Where, it's this very Wes Anderson, weird thing. Where it's like, five people laying, they stick their heads in the toilets at once. And they're laying on these, which kind of represents the heated seat. And then all of a sudden, we start spraying. Like, I start kind of smushing ice cream on this guy's face. And then, this one woman takes a chocolate cake and squishes it in her white glove. And then she smacks it on the ass of white pants on this guy. So it kind of represents all taking a shit, basically, the chocolate looks like shit. And then the sprays go off, and then we get clean. And it's this debaucherous clean thing. And then we press the blow dryer, and then we're getting blow dried. So you're seeing the value, of how it works. Like, you're seeing, we press the remote, and then the nozzles go off and it starts spraying. It's clean. And then you press the dry, then it just blow dries it. So you see slow-mo, the hair blow dried. We walk out frame. So you're kind of, you're getting the idea of what this thing is. But you're still intrigued, tickled. You feel good vibes, you feel "very good vibes". You know?

Brett:

You're probably laughing. You're probably like, I can't believe I'm watching this. But it's also product demonstration in a really fun and creative and crazy way, which is super cool.

Miki:

Yes. And so, it's a lot of things. And I always look at, what are our best performing ads? Our best performing ads are the edutaining ones. Ones that are hilarious, and the ones that educate. Tells you, why you need it, how it works and how to use it.

Brett:

Yeah, totally makes sense.

Miki:

You know? But in a really simple, easy way. And so, yeah, it is an art and science, and they have to go hand in hand. And, creative and marketing always do sometimes have this natural tension, but I think it's a good tension if you have the right leadership.

Brett:

It's a healthy tension.

Miki:

A healthy tension, yeah.

Brett:

Love it. So one thing you talk about a lot, and I remember you showing these examples. That, you'll use actual statements from real customers. And you also talk about campfire stories, sharing campfires stories as a team or whatever, to kind of stir up creativity. So, can you talk about that a little bit? Like, how do you use customer statements in your ads? And then, what about campfire stories?

Miki:

Yeah. So, I always think like, our best advocates are our customers, our users, who love our products. It just, it makes so much sense. And so many times, companies are scared to, they don't want to bother their customers. But if customers love it, and you're asking them, hey, just fill in the blank. THINX is blank. Or, TUSHY.

Brett:

This is my favorite, yeah. Just fill in the blank. TUSHY is, fill in the blank.

Miki:

Fill in the blank. TUSHY is, blank. Just fill in the blank. And within 24 hours, we got 1000 responses. For things specifically, it was, THINX is Mary Poppins in my pants. THINX is strength, freedom and dignity for all women. TUSHY is...

Brett:

One of them was, eye candy butt bliss. I wrote it down. I got the thing.

Miki:

Yeah, eye candy butt bliss. It's like, TUSHY: you could eat off my butt hole. You know? And just like, my rusty starfish has never been so clean. Stuff like that, where it's crazy, hilarious, random.

Brett:

Especially when you know that it was a real customer that said it. It's like, okay, that's super fun. And I'm now totally entertained by reading this.

Miki:

Yeah, by real. And we always say, name of the customer, from a real pooping human. And so, we now use these campaigns, as actual campaigns and taglines for our company. Because our customers know what's best. And we don't have to oftentimes scratch our heads to ask ourselves, what creativity can we use? We can literally just reach out to our customer base, and they'll give us, and they're delighted in giving it to us. And if they see it in the world, they'll be like, oh my God, that's my line. And they now feel even more connected.

Brett:

And then they totally will put that on the fridge. They will totally put that piece, and share with everyone they know.

Miki:

And they'll share it with all their friends, tell everyone they know. And it engages people, attracts them. The same thing with PR. I talk about that a lot. Like, we do a ton of inbound marketing, inbound PR. And we've gone viral so many different times. And it's because, again, studying the psychology of people. Like, how do you create intrigue? How do you create mystery? Where, they want to complete the storyline. So often, people are like, send press releases, and hope that the press will write about them. But it just never works. It piles up on people's desks. Versus, you send these mysterious boxes where you have to assemble this thing. Or like, unscramble a riddle. So recently, we just launched our TUSHY Ace, part of our electric bidet seat with the most beautiful remote in the world.

Brett:

It's the heated seat, right? Which by the way, if you've never experienced a heated toilet seat, it is pretty magical, it really is.

Miki:

Heated seat, warm water, blow dries your butt. Best blow dryer on the market. It's not like where you have to still use toilet paper, because this is a nice strong blow dryer. And it looks an Apple product. It's the most gorgeous remote. Our design, it's just, it's the most beautiful product. And so, we were launching this. And our team, we were like, okay, we are going to create mystery around this product. And so, we put together these deck of cards. And these deck of cards that we made, we made actual TUSHY deck of cards, designed by hand, by my designers. And we had this instruction sheet for the press. And we said, pull out all the royal flushes.

Brett:

Nice. Royal flushes.

Miki:

[crosstalk 00:40:03] And so, they'd pull out the royal flushes. And they had to unscramble the royal flushes, based on the riddles that they were given. Like, for the diamond royal flushes, this is the riddle. And you had to unscramble it based on the different words. The letters that appeared on the 10, jack, queen, king, ace. There was a letter hidden, that then unscrambled based on the riddle. So then, it made the press have to work hard to actually unscramble and send the responses. And then once they get the TUSHY Ace product and install it, they're going to feel they've accomplished something. Like, they actually, they feel so much better.

Brett:

And they're so engaged, and you've delighted them.

Miki:

They're so engaged.

Brett:

You've just made their day in so many ways.

Miki:

Instead of just sending them a product, review it. You're almost like, dance monkey, dance. Versus like, let me bring you into this fun, mysterious story with us. And we're going to be surprised and delighted together. And we're going this extra mile for you, to make you just regale in the delight. And I think that, that is what people want in life. They want to be just surprised and delighted. They want to be regaled. And like, "Oh!". And giggle. They want their heart to flutter.

Brett:

They want magic, they want mystery, they want excitement, they want to be kind of caught up in something. Right? Not just reading.

Miki:

Who doesn't want to be caught up in this ,"oh', moment. And it feels so good and it just enlivens our being.

Brett:

So, how did that work out? How was the press' reaction to that?

Miki:

Well I mean, this one, we just sent them out actually last week, so we're still underway. But guess what? The fact that we had almost, I think it was like 20 press asked for these cards. Because first, we were like, we're going to send you a mysterious package. Are you willing to take it? We need your home address, because we're COVID times. And so we had, almost 20 press gave us their home addresses, to send them the mystery packages. And so that already means that they're hooked. And we did this before, for THINX. Where we had people go and smash bricks, and they had to open the bricks and look for these invitations. And 80 people showed up to our event, after they smashed the THINX. 80 press RSVPed. We had another event, where we poked a hold in eggs, and put these mystery scrolls in them. And then all 20 press showed up to our event, because they wanted to crack open the egg and look at the scroll. And we said, you can't open them until you come to the event.

Miki:

So it's just, creating the mystery, creating the intrigue. It's human nature that, when they start something, they want to finish it. They don't like incomplete story lines, they like to complete story lines. And when there's an incompletion, there's still this intrigue, this mystery that keeps you wanting more. And so, we're in that storyline right now, with the TUSHY Ace, and I'll let you know how it goes, but I feel very confident.

Brett:

Yeah. That idea of opening and closing loops. Once a loop is open, people want to close and they want to figure out. They want to solve the mystery. That's why cliffhangers work, and all of those things.

Miki:

And in relationship and romance. When you're romancing, you're seducing. It's the same kind of storyline. It's so much fun, that game.

Brett:

Yeah. And I know you've got to go, so I've got two quick things. But I also want to mention, just briefly. You talked about two stories, two events. Because you're the master of doing these just crazy, off the wall events, that also work. So, one was ButtCon, and one was the Funeral for a Tree, for TUSHY. Are those outlined in one of your books? Because even if nothing else...

Miki:

Not yet.

Brett:

They're not? Oh, dang it. Okay.

Miki:

Not yet, but my next, maybe. I might have a Do Cool Sh*t sequel, and talk about TUSHY in that.

Brett:

We'll highlight that, or I'll find the story, that I can put. Anyway, I'll let the audience [crosstalk 00:43:41].

Miki:

I'm happy to share them really quick. I can share them over the next couple minutes, no problem.

Brett:

Okay, just do it quickly over the next two minutes, yeah.

Miki:

Sure, yeah. So again, it's all about creating unorthodox events, unorthodox gatherings. That make people go, "Huh? What are you talking about? What is this?" So we held two kind of events before COVID happened. And we're going to now resume them once COVID's now finally, hopefully at bay. But one of them was called A Funeral for a Tree. And the other one was called ButtCon. The Funeral for a Tree is, we actually held a real funeral for a dead tree at the Judson Memorial Church, which is the biggest memorial church in all of New York City. In Washington square park. We had a 400 seat capacity, and we sold out. And we had a 25 part choir. We had Matthew Morrison, the actor, is one of our dear friends, playing the reverend. We had his wife, Renee, who is one of my best friends as well, who played Maple, the wife of the dead tree. It was just the most wild experience. And the people who came...

Brett:

People were reading eulogies. Which, I got to hear one. It was hilarious. Just super funny and well done.

Miki:

I mean, it was just comedy. It was sad, it was beautiful, it was inspiring. It was all of the above, and people left so inspired to save trees. [crosstalk 00:45:14] And to do it by buying TUSHY, by doing all kinds. You know? But it wasn't a marketing...

Brett:

It didn't feel like a sales pitch. It didn't feel a, "Hey, here's your coupon for TUSHY." As you walk out the doors.

Miki:

For one second. It didn't feel like. It just felt TUSHY opened my eyes to these important things. [crosstalk 00:45:31].

Brett:

We are killing a lot of trees because of toilet paper, and here's how we can help solve that.

Miki:

That's right. 50 million trees are cut down every single year because of toilet paper consumption. 30 million cases of urinary tract infections, hemorrhoids. All these health hygiene issues, not to mention planetary issues. All these things could be alleviated by just using a bidet, using TUSHY, under $100 product. You know? But we didn't even say any of that stuff at our Funeral for a Tree event. That was, we just put on this amazing event, brought to you by TUSHY. And people just were like, this was the most inspiring theatrical event I've ever been to.

Brett:

You get an insane press on it.

Miki:

[crosstalk 00:46:07] ...

They said, "What are you doing?"

Miki:

What are you doing here?

Brett:

And the press you got from both those events, to pay for that kind of exposure would be almost impossible. But you got it because you did some crazy stuff.

Miki:

Yeah. It was truly, again, another reminder that just, what you put in. When you put in, like, if you build it, they will come. And you have to build spectacles. Again, things that surprise and delight. Things that make people go, I need to go and see what this is about. And that's the most important thing.

Brett:

I love that, I love it. So I know, you've got to go. So just kind of in closing. If people are listening to this and they're like, I need more Miki Agrawal in my life. And so, where can they, one, go to find your books? But also, just experience your marketing. Because hopefully, this has opened your eyes a little bit. Like, you need to pay attention to what Miki is doing from a marketing standpoint, you're going to learn a lot. So, how can people get more Miki in their life?

Miki:

Yes. Well first, you can also always come check me out on Instagram where I answer most people's questions pretty directly. Like, people have questions, I'm pretty good about responding. So Instagram, just @mikiagrawal. You can also go to mikiagrawal.com. If you subscribe to my mikiagrawal.com page, you'll actually get one disruptive move every week to do for yourself and for your business. So it's 52 disruptive moves. So that's just on mikiagrawal.com. And of course go to helloTUSHY.com. Check it out, get a TUSHY bidet. It's the best gift of all time. Holidays, it's the gift. It's just the best gift you can do for yourself. I mean, period, end of story. From a health high hygiene, confidence, feeling sexy, feeling good perspective. And then you can also, oh, if you want to learn about the strategies. I mean, definitely, Do Cool Sh*t, Disrupt-Her, check out my books. But then, if you want to actually learn about all of my tactics, of all of my strategy and building my companies from zero to $100 million plus, I built an actual course called Zero to a $100 million on Mindvalley.

Brett:

Mindvalley, I'll link to that in the show notes.

Miki:

If you go to my link in bio on my Instagram, I link to a free masterclass, a one hour masterclass which goes into a lot of these campaigns. But then, it also links to the quest, the Mindvalley quest, Zero to a $100 million. So, definitely check it.

Brett:

Beautiful. Got to check it out. I got to check that out. I got to watch that. And I'm going through Disrupt-Her right now. I absolutely love it, I highly recommend it. I like the audio version. I'm an auditory learner. And you narrate the books, so I get to listen to more Miki as I'm driving around. So that's been awesome as well. So Miki, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. I've been inspired, and got some new ideas cooking around in my head. I know other people have too. So, really, really appreciate it.

Miki:

Yay. I was happy to be here.

Brett:

Awesome, thank you so much. And as always, thank you for tuning in. We'd love to hear from you. What do you think about the show? What do you want to hear more of? Less of? Let us know. And until next time, thank you for listening.

Brett:

Are you a D2C brand spending over six figures a month on paid media? If so, then listen up. My agency, OMG Commerce, and I have worked with some of the top eCommerce brands over the years. Including Boom, Native, Groove, Monan, Organifi and dozens more. And every year, we audit hundreds of Google, YouTube and Amazon ad accounts. And we always find either significant opportunities for growth, or wasted ad spend to cut, or both. For example, are you missing YouTube ads? Whatever you're spending on top of funnel Facebook, you should be able to spend 30 to 50% of that or more on YouTube, with similar returns. So if you're spending 300,000 to 400,000 a month on Facebook, you should be able to easily spend a 100,000 to 150,000 or more on YouTube. Visit omgcommerce.com to request a free strategy session, or visit our resource page and get some of our free guides loaded with some of best strategies for YouTube Ads, Google Shopping, Amazon DSP and more. Check it all out at omgcommerce.com.

The Creative Process to Supercharge Your Facebook & IG Ads with Nick Shackleford
:
Nick Shackleford

The Creative Process to Supercharge Your Facebook & IG Ads with Nick Shackleford

Nick Shackelford was a pro soccer player for the LA Galaxy turned online marketing super star. You’ve probably seen him featured in FOUNDR magazine or speaking on stage of the wildly successful event he co-founded - Geek Out. 

I first met him when we both spoke at Ezra Firestone’s event in Denver several years ago and I’ve been a fan ever since. Nick is a master of media buying. He knows how to build agencies. And he has a really fresh take on creatives. We go deep into his creative process in this episode. Here’s a look at what we cover:

  • How a lack of diversity in your ads could be killing your results.
  • Nick’s agency’s creative process. This is pure GOLD.
  • How to use Amazon reviews to jump start your creative process - This strategy is so simple, so effective, you’ll kick yourself for not having used it.
  • How a tool called Monkey Learn can help you key in on the right words and hooks to use with your audience.
  • Why audience targeting is nearly dead and creative is KING.
  • How Nick uses Creative Strategist and why you should consider one too.
  • How to work with the algorithm rather than against it.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Nick Shackelford

   - LinkedIn

   - Twitter

Geek Out
   - Website

   - Events


Konstant Kreative

Structured Agency

Design Pickle

No Limit Creatives

Penji

Video Husky

Chubbies

Facebook Dynamic Creative

Josh Durham

Groove Life

Aligned Growth Management

Necklet

Monkey Learn Word Cloud

Luca + Danni

Northbeam

Triple Whale

James Van Elswyk



Transcript:

Brett:

Welcome to the Spicy Curry Podcast, where we explore hot takes in e-commerce and digital marketing. We feature some of the brightest guests with the spiciest perspectives on how to grow your business online.

Brett:

In this episode, we talk about the creative process that will supercharge your Facebook and Instagram ads. My guest is Nick Shackelford. You've probably seen Nick on stage at one of your favorite e-commerce events, or you've seen him featured in Foundr Magazine or in a host of other places online. More about Nick in just a minute. In this episode, we talk about the fact that audience marketing is nearly dead and why creative is almost all that matters. We talk about how Nick uses creative strategists and how you should consider using one too. We talk about how Nick use Amazon reviews to kickstart the creative process. This approach is so simple, so effective, so powerful, you'll kick yourself for not having used it before. We'll also talk about a tool that you can use to choose the right words and the right hooks for your ads. Plus, we'll unpack Nick's entire creative strategy. So lean in, buckle up, and please enjoy this interview with Nick Shackelford.

Brett:

The Spicy Curry Podcast is brought to you by OMG Commerce, attentive, One Click Upsell, Zipify Pages, and Payability.

Brett:

Well, I am absolutely geeking out about this episode and this guest. That was a little bit of a pun, you'll find out more about that in a minute. But, longtime friend of mine, absolute rockstar in the space. If you're paying attention to digital marketing at all, you've probably heard of this guy or seen this guy or you've heard the name. And so, today I'm absolutely thrilled to have Nick Shackelford, aka The Shack, on the podcast. And we're going to dive deep into really several things related to marketing. And if you've been listening to this season one of the Spicy Curry Podcast, we're really talking about three things, right? Have something good to say, say it well, say it often. Regardless of what changes in the online world, you've got to do those things. And so we're going to talk about what's working now, what's not working now, how to crush it like Shack does.

Brett:

And so a couple of interesting things about Shack for those that may not know, he was a professional soccer player for the LA Galaxy, and then decided, "You know what? I want my field to be online marketing rather than running around the soccer field." And so we actually met. We met at Ezra Firestones event, right, Shack? We both spoke at Ezra Firestone's event. I don't remember where that was or when that was. Was it maybe Denver, I don't know, three or four years ago?

Nick:

It was. It was Colorado.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. And I just remembered two things about you. One, you had an amazing strategy for influencer marketing on Facebook, two, you were rocking a killer hoodie, and three, you just had this swagger about you. And then as I've known you over the years, you always have a killer hoodie on. So what is the secret to getting great hoodies?

Nick:

Oh man, I actually am wearing one of them right now. This is an appropriate hoodie when you're just working at home 24/7. So this is [inaudible 00:03:41], which is another e-commerce brand that if you guys are in the space, they definitely do some interesting things. You should definitely talk to Davies. He's a smart, smart guy as well.

Brett:

Would love that intro, let's talk to him. You look like you're ready for a mountain expedition and/or you're ready just to chill at home and be super cozy.

Nick:

I like options, so the fact that I'm able to do both at a will is what I want to play with. But no, what you do, it's been fun to watch the growth of this, especially with the people that are doing it for a long time, because sticking with your theme of say it often, those that are usually saying it often are able to continue to be around because they've been preaching the same thing consistently. It might change a little bit, which trust me, I think 2022 so far, I mean, we're only 19 days into it. But yeah, there are a lot of things that have changed over the times, but we haven't stopped saying the same things, right?

Nick:

We talked about this at GeekOut. You came and you were like, "Hey, this is the consistent stuff that you have to do." And it's shocking... Maybe it isn't shocking, maybe it isn't. People forget what they have to continually do, and so reminding them over and over and over, they just might not be ready to hear it. So I always say, you always start with the basis so everybody's at the same page, but then you can get really to the nitty-gritty stuff, which you do so well, so I see you, brother, on this.

Brett:

Love it, man. Love it. So let's do this, we're going to dive into all the stuff you're doing right now on Facebook and Instagram and other platforms and what your creative genius is. And got an episode in season one here with Justin Brooke, my man, talking GDN, but I know I've seen him publicly say, "If you're not paying attention to Nick Shackelford, you're missing out, because Nick or The Shack knows what he's talking about." So tell me about GeekOut, or tell the audience. I know about GeekOut. I spoke at the last one in LA, and it was fantastic. I had so much fun, so much fun connecting with your group, with your audience. I could really nerd out or geek out. But tell me about that event and kind of what's ahead for this year.

Nick:

I absolutely will. Yeah, I was very fortunate you made it out there. GeekOut started five years ago now, and it started with the fact that I couldn't go to my partner and tell her, "Oh, babe, look at these campaigns. Oh my gosh, isn't this great?" Roll her eyes, she just didn't really care as much. And then [inaudible 00:06:04] James, he felt the same way. So we were geeking and nerding on all these things. We have a different vibe about ourselves, and what I mean... I literally have to explain this. We have the ability to deliver content and aggregate a room of people that want to learn, make money, and continue to build their business, but still feel open to talk about, "Hey, my employee just sued me," or "I'm going through this issue with my partner," or "I'm going...." these really intimate things that you don't feel comfortable expressing unless you're in a room that's safe and comfortable.

Nick:

And it just started happening organically, because I'm that way, right? I'm okay with things being very public. There's a couple things that I don't want to have super public, but I'm pretty much 99% out there on every channel because I do believe building in public builds relation, and there was no better way for us to do this except doing it in person. So this started, again, five years ago, and I remember we did it in Las Vegas literally on a couch. We thought we were renting a mansion, of course. Like all things in Vegas, you thought it was, and we figured what it really was. We got there, and I remember there was a putt-putt. One of the selling propositions on Airbnb was, "Oh, use our little putting green, and it was amazing." It was two holes, and I'm like, "Oh my God, what are we're going to do?"

Nick:

So we had a good run, but the thing that we never lacked was the quality of content. And so we've ran it back. We've done Tel Aviv. We've done Barcelona. We've done LA, Miami, New York, and we're gearing up for this year. We will be the only event that will do, I think, double digits of events this year. We're planning for 10. I think we'll probably, knock on wood because of where the world is currently at, get about six. And the first one starts in Dubai right before Affiliate World, and then we'll bring it back in for San Diego and Miami. Brett, I think I told you this before, it's the one business that I have that makes me the least amount of money but brings me the most amount of happiness, because you truly get a seed connection, and it's something that we've really, really gotten away from in the world for the various reasons that all of us are experiencing together, but it's just become way more important to me.

Brett:

Yeah, it was just phenomenal. I can't wait. I've been talking to my team about it. I've been bugging you for dates, because I'm blocking these out. I'm coming to speak at as many of these as I can or attend those that I can't speak at. It was just an amazing place to be, other like-minded, super smart marketers. I know you've had this experience. You were talking about talking to your partner. You can't really talk about ROAS. She doesn't care, right? I can't talk about ROAS to my wife. She glazes over. But you become acutely aware of how many acronyms we use in this space, right? ROAS, LTV, AOV, CLV. It's never ending, but this is your people. You can geek out about any of those things, but you can also talk about deeper stuff, people stuff, preparing for exits, buying companies. It's an awesome group, testament to you and to James, but just high level people, man. I would put it on the short list. If you could only attend a couple events this year, make sure one of them-

Nick:

[inaudible 00:09:22].

Brett:

... is GeekOut. I can edit this out later if I need to. Is there a rebrand coming too? Is it going to be GeekOut, is going to be something else? Or should we talk about that?

Nick:

Yeah, absolutely, we should. It's going to be called a GeekUp for two reasons. One, we have to level up, and so adding in that geek element is something that we still want to keep. And two, there was already a trademark called GeekOut Events. So as much of the branding I want you guys to be like, "Oh wow, that's so clever," I'm like, "Well, we kind of got into a situation."

Brett:

We're geeking out and leveling up. We're geeking up. This is amazing. Yeah, that's [inaudible 00:09:58]. Well, its going to be... I don't care what you call it, but GeekUp is super cool too. So if you attend only a few events, make sure one of them is GeekUp. And so I'll link to everything in the show notes. You can google it and check it out and stuff like that too. So fantastic, man. Any other notes on the event itself?

Nick:

Well, okay, so the segue into what I'm focused on a lot right now outside of the three businesses is we started GeekUp because it was about sharing and learning and getting that feedback of what's happening, and that led me to Konstant Kreative. We have almost our first year under our belts, and it's purely content because... Dude, you're a YouTube guy. You do good YouTubes. We don't do YouTubes, but we do a lot of Facebook, and we do a lot of Instagram, and we do a lot of TikTok, and we do a lot of Snapchat. And I used to be such a big teacher and proponent of strategies and hacks and tactics. I'll raise my hand here, I was one of the biggest people talking about various hacks and strategies 2017, '18, '19. 2020, I got a little quieter. 2020, I got real quiet. In 2022, I'm on that same quiet band because it just isn't as sustainable as it once was. I don't want to say we did this on purpose, but I like to think I did or had a feeling, my spider senses, for the new Marvel movie, which is fantastic, is tingling, and I was like, "Dude-

Brett:

That is a good movie. And actually, quick side note, the new, or new-ish, depending on when you're listening to this, Spiderman movie got us into the whole Marvel series. We watched Spiderman No Way Home, and then now we're going back to the beginning. We're, I think, three movies into the... It's like 30 movies. If you do chronologically through the Marvel series, it's nuts, but my family and I, we're going through it all, so it's super fun.

Nick:

Oh my God, I am not a movie person, but I will watch though. It's culture. It's so culture. Okay. What put us into this position was understanding that content was never going to leave us, and so we put so much time and effort into building. We weren't first to do it. There's Design Pickle. There's No Limit Creatives. There's Penjee! There's Video Husky. There's so many other people that do this content on demand thing, but we had to do it ourselves, because arguably, I've never gone through a pandemic. I'm 31 years old. I didn't know what would happen if I couldn't understand how much revenue was being driven by each one of our employees across our entire company because I didn't know what I needed to go potentially [inaudible 00:12:26] so I didn't know what loans I needed to go get.

Nick:

I needed to know that I could do a dollar earned or average per each one of our employees contributing to the bottom line. Sometimes in just an agency space or sometimes in business space, you have admins or project managers that might not directly tie to bottom line. We know they impact it, but we don't really know what they drive. Designers are another one. Editors are another one. Copywriters are another one. Unless you're in this performance tower, you know each email or each thing you write, you get dollars back on. If you aren't structured that way, you're like, "Dude, I don't really know how much money's coming in from these people." So we actually built this service and fed it to ourselves. And I think the term is dog feeding ourselves.

Brett:

Yeah, so this is a Google term. So it's called eating your own dog food. They borrowed it from Purina or Puppy Chow or something like that, where literally that company, they would eat their own dog food. It's a metaphor for using your own stuff, right?

Nick:

Okay.

Brett:

You believe in your product so much, you use it. Yeah.

Nick:

Oh, so thank you. I actually didn't know where that was coming from, and I'm glad you [inaudible 00:13:29]. We built it for ourselves because content... If you're like, "Nick, what are you about right now?" it's content, and it's volume of content at a cost effective rate. Listen, before the pandemic hit, a lot of people didn't really open up their mind to the quality of support, quality of company building that you can do offshore. I'm not saying outsource. This is a complete different thing. Outsource to offshore is completely different. Offshore are full-time your employees, your people, your values, your systems, your processes. Outsource is white labeling. You don't know what's going on. They're delivering you something, you're going to wrap in a bow, you're going to deliver. So I'm going to be very clear on that.

Nick:

This was something that when we started to understand quality of talent allowed us on the agency side to operate at 35, 40, 55% margin at times on various months, you can do the same exact thing on a content iteration, say. The only issue that a lot of people don't get right when they're like, "Hey, I need a performance editor," or "I need a performance creative person," it's because they themselves don't know what they want. Here's why. There's a subjectivity in this that everybody can't get away from in the romanticism toward a brand they own or towards the content that's being shot. I'm sure you experience this, or do you?

Brett:

Absolutely. Totally. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we are our own biggest enemy, or often the brand owner is their biggest enemy in terms of getting creatives that work, creatives that actually connect and compel and move people to take action. Yeah, sometimes we're romantic about what we think that structure should be or what we think that message should be rather than focusing on... Let's not do something that's completely off brand, of course, but let's do what works. And sometimes you have the brand, or sometimes the agency gets in the way of that.

Nick:

It's so true because we're hired to do two things. Now, if you're hiring a branding agency or hiring a shop that needs to be really up here and be oh, really meta on things, God bless. I'm not in the space to where I can afford to create something that doesn't drive revenue. You're in the same boat. We have to validate the costs that we have for a lot of our partners. And so when you have this subjective idea of what happens, and I'll get into what testing, what we're doing now, what 2022, at least the bets that I'm making in this first quarter on how we're building out our testing and how we're building out our, at least our internal content structure. And actually, I'll fucking go into all the things, because I think the more that this information gets out there, it might actually spark some interest on your side, and you might have some interesting feedback for me too, so-

Brett:

Totally, totally. We're going to talk about one thing really quickly, and then I want to dive into the specifics.

Nick:

Okay.

Brett:

Actually, two things really quickly. What'd you say the name of the company was, the content company?

Nick:

Oh, Konstant Kreatives. Sorry.

Brett:

Konstant Kreatives. Awesome. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. But I could not agree with you more, right? I think in fact, back when we first met in Denver at Ezra's event, a lot of people were talking about hacks and here's little tricks and tips and things you can do to make Facebook and YouTube and all that work. And certainly, there's always going to be some hacks, but success is way more, way more about having great creatives, sticking to the fundamentals, and just being relentless, relentless on testing, relentless on looking for new angles, and then really just being consistent in what you're doing and doubling down on what's working. And so love that you're doing that. I got to learn more about your company there too so I can refer some people to you. But yeah, so let's dive in there. What is your process then for finding the right angle and getting that... Because you talk about volume of creatives too, right? You got to be testing pretty frequently, especially on Facebook. Not as much on YouTube, but especially on Facebook and Instagram. What's your process like?

Nick:

This is something that we think is an ongoing debate, kind of ongoing analysis. Let's think of it this way, you used to go to optimize campaigns at an ad level or an ad set level or even the structure of the campaign level, and we're having to do a lot of this before we even get to the campaign launch. What I mean by this is, before the conversation of cancel culture or before the conversation of inclusion really was being had, a lot of the ads that we saw were generally white males, white females across every brand, across every company, thin, thinnish, and you didn't really think about, "What if [crosstalk 00:17:49]

Brett:

Which is really just silly. But you're right, that's just the way it was. Yes, it was crazy.

Nick:

Yeah, it was silly. Listen, I'm not ignorant to who I am and what I am, but when you look at brands that are buying this, brands don't have this data. You can't run a quiz to be like, "Hey, what do you... " I guess you could, technically, but I don't know how it would come across us. "Who do you identify with? Or what do you identify as? Or what race are you?" You can't necessarily ask that, but that's the type of [inaudible 00:18:17] that you have to get done. Say, when we give a shoot or when we give content for others to see, "Hey, what do we need?" We usually recommend, "Hey, we need two different races and two different genders, and we need sizes of those genders to be appropriate to what we actually think is our customers buying."

Nick:

It's a great example, the Team Chubbies. Chubbies makes unbelievable male board shorts. I think they get an underwear too now, but makes male board shorts. And if you watch the progression over time of who was used in their content, fit male, white or black, fit male, white or black, little thicker, white or black, little dad bod, white or black, little larger, white or black. Do you know why? Because they're looking at all the-

Brett:

That's their audience, right? How many fit dudes are out there? Right? Most of us have dad bods. Not you, you're a former soccer player, but yeah, dad bods are everywhere.

Nick:

These are the frat guys that are buying it. And they literally... I've listened and watched the progression of this, and they're like... I'm sure that some people want to aspire to look great, but there's a point where you can get turned off by this, and you're like, "That's not really who I am." So it's this progression, this conversation of the testing begins at the inclusion of what's in the content. That's just a side note. I went on a tangent. I apologize there.

Brett:

Yeah, but I love it. I'll just, I'll key in on that. And so it's a side note, but it's important. A buddy of mine runs an athleisure business and they sell a lot of leggings. And so their models are very diverse, Latinos, African Americans, whites, every race, but also normal looking people, right? These are not all 98 pound supermodel. It looks like normal people, but they're joyful and they're smiling. And they are killing it because people look at it and say, "Well, that's me. That's my body type. That's my style." And it's so needed right now, so I'm really glad you brought that up.

Nick:

It's so true. And it kind of goes down to the typical structures that we run if I were to get a little technical in this. We still launch with dynamic creative. We still launch with... Dynamic creative is probably the first step. If we don't have a full hard belief, and this is the campaign structure, if we don't have a full hard belief in any one direction, whether it's like, we know this is worked in the past, but we're just trying to iterate on the value prop, or we're just trying to iterate on the USB, the box opening, we're just trying to iterate on a specific thing, we will still let Facebook choose or dictate the direction we need to go into up into-

Brett:

So by dynamic creatives, you just mean you're... Explain that for people that don't know the Facebook platform well.

Nick:

Thank you very much. So when launching a campaign, there's DCT, dynamic creative testing, which is a tool that you let Facebook choose. Essentially, you're going, "Hey, we don't want to impose any campaign restrictions to force spend," let's say on an automatic budget campaign, an ABO. You go, "I just need you to spend all my budget on these specific creatives that I, the media buyer, have told you I want you to spend on." And CBO can do that too with a little bit of limitations, but that's easiest communication I can give you on that. The dynamic creative testing [crosstalk 00:21:11]

Brett:

You're basically saying, "Hey, here's our creatives, and Facebook, you go wild and you find the winner."

Nick:

Exactly. We are not imposing a restriction on where money can be spent. We're letting the campaign dictate that. And that is... It's basically taking away the bias that we have of letting Facebook say, "Hey, we have this algorithm, we have this info, we have these consumers, and we're going to run this type of campaign on it."

Brett:

Yeah.

Nick:

Now I will have some of my media buyers look at me and go, "Chef, I won't always run this route," but that's the baseline that we start with, because if somebody has pushback on me, say, let's say David or Scott have a conversation, they're like, "Nick, I actually believe that's not the best use of this campaign, because we're only trying to compare two main concepts." And we'll say, Bernie says, "We'll use the athleisure brand here." We want to understand which color way of these leggings are going to be the one that hits or which price point of these leggings are going to hit. That doesn't need to be dynamic creative tested. That needs to be controlled and tested equally across the board. So that to me has probably been the biggest change. Before, I would launch all with minimum campaign budgets or some sort of structure where we're going audience testing, kind of put that after the fact, because it's not as impactful unless it's going to be purely based on the content or creative and the structure when you go live with it.

Brett:

Yeah. I love that. And so really, I mean, if you look at what is our job as advertisers, whether we're agencies or in house or solopreneur, whatever the case may be, our job is to make great creatives, but to feed the algorithm, to let the algorithm, whether that's Facebook, YouTube, or Google, let... The algorithm's smart. And in the long run, the algorithm's going to do a better job than you are in a lot of ways, so how can you feed it and give it enough creative so that it finds the winners? Or how can you do a very specific test? Like you were talking about, right? I'm testing two creatives, because I'm trying to find is it black or is it pink on the leggings that are going to hit, or is it this price or that price? That type of thing, a controlled test, but either way you're trying to say, "I don't know the answer here on what creative's really going to work, but we're going to find out." And then once we find out, then we're going to go all in on that, so-

Nick:

Because you and I both have these conversations with brands that talk about, "Hey, what's your brand book? What's your stance? What do you stand for? And they have the idea of who they want their customer to be, but it's not always what Facebook will agree to be or Google will agree for it to be. You have to let the replies come in. You have to let the data speak for itself. And I'm shocked. And I don't know if this is in your portfolio, we have about 116 brands right now, 117, I believe. The amount of post-purchase surveys on where you've heard from me or what information they're gathering is probably less than 15%.

Brett:

Totally, a very few of our clients are doing them. I think you've got to do it though, because you're going to be surprised by the answers you find out.

Nick:

Exactly, especially understanding touch points now the attribution is dropping a little bit, touch points and understanding where these people are coming from or how much I should be allocating per channel. We had a very, very intelligent brand, I'll say maybe 2020s, called Rove Concepts, which are a large... It's a larger retailer. It's a furniture, so purchase path takes a lot of time. You got to include your partner. A lot of it is generated interest on Facebook, but a lot of it is actualized on Google, XYZ. And these guys were making... This is the first company or brand that came to Jake myself and goes, "You know what? I understand that we gave you these [inaudible 00:24:37] a platform. I don't know if you guys are actually impacting the bottom line because it shows Google having way more conversions than you guys." I'm like, "Heck is going on?" I'm like, "Well, okay, I get it. I'm sure there's... It's an expensive piece. There's thousands of dollars. Can we just put surveys on the back of this? Or do you have this already live, or can you share this information?"

Nick:

A lot of what we started to see was, although that might not have popped up in the platform, a lot of it was saying I heard first about you on Facebook or Instagram, yet the conversion value, all the revenue was coming from Google. And I'm going, "You can't tell me to stop or that's going to be lowered." So we did a hard test turning off paid social, top of funnel. What do you know? Numbers dropped. Yeah, we wouldn't have been able to cover [crosstalk 00:25:22]

Brett:

Yeah, it's so true. I was just talking to a buddy of mine, Josh Durham, who used to be the head of growth at Groove Life and at an agency, and he talked about the same thing, doing those post purchase surveys and realizing that, man, 70, 80% of customers are going to say, "Hey, I first heard you on social, I first heard you on YouTube," or something like that. And I love Google, right? I'm a Google guy, but search and shopping sometimes takes the credit, especially branded search. You need to run it, but branded search often takes credit for a sale that, really, Facebook or YouTube generated, right?

Nick:

Sure. Preach to the choir [inaudible 00:25:59]

Brett:

Yeah, yeah. So, hey, I want to circle back to creative really quickly, and then we can talk attribution again in a minute, because there's some important notes there. As far as creatives go, what is your process? How are you guys coming up with hooks for the actual creatives, and what types of creatives are you launching with? I just want to give people ideas on what should they be testing next or how should they go about their creative process, or how should they talk to their agency to get them to do things more like you guys? Can you talk about your creative process a little bit?

Nick:

I can, yeah. We have one baseline process that we run with or usually use outside of if someone already gives us [inaudible 00:26:39]. Say a brand was coming to us and they already really had, "Hey, we know who our girl or guy is. Here's what we've learned outside of optimizing and looking at the current campaigns," we start with this process where we begin on Amazon, we begin with Reddit, and we begin with competitors. We don't go to the own brand stuff just yet, because we don't want any biases coming in from marketing messages that consumers might be regurgitating back. If you look at Amazon, there's very honest reviews at one star, two star, and even the three star, very honest reviews that use layman's terms that are common, that they're looking for solutions or points. And a lot of it on Amazon, actually, they don't really care about the brand itself. From the experience, from the information I have, they're not necessarily going to Amazon to find Lulu Lemon, they're going to Amazon to price shop. They're going to Amazon for the efficiency and the effectiveness of getting that product as quick as possible.

Nick:

You're not going there looking for a specific brand. You're usually typing in the product in which you need. Hydration packets, coats, clothing, that's the things that you're really searching for, so you usually get people that don't really about crap about who the brand is or what, and they're not going to hold back from you, because it's pretty anonymous at that point, or what have you. So what we started to find out is, before a brand would come to us and before they're like, "I don't know what talking points or hooks or explanations that need to be in this piece of creative," we go to the Amazon reviews. We probably export between 50 to a hundred. We drop it into a word cloud.

Brett:

So you're looking at the actual reviews from those customers or from competitors and from that category as a whole?

Nick:

Correct. Thank you very much to the clarification. We do not go to the brand own yet. We go from the competitors of the same exact product. So if I'm selling leggings, I'm going to the number one competitor with the most amount of reviews, similar in the legging side. I want to know why this product is winning. I want those five stars and four stars, isolate those by themselves. And I want those one stars and two stars, isolate them by themselves. I use three as a lever if I don't have clear messages of things to say or not say based on the four and fives, and the ones and twos.

Brett:

Got it.

Nick:

Four and five might be skewed.

Brett:

Right.

Nick:

One to twos might be skewed, but the threes might you my answer if I don't find it in the two buckets tracking with me.

Brett:

Totally. And this is brilliant by the way. I absolutely love it, yeah, because you're looking for real pain points, real motivators, real things that customers care about, and you're looking for their language, which just makes all the difference in the world.

Nick:

Because we are going to do market stuff. We're going to try and be cool and cute and playful. We'll do our best to not, but we sometimes fall into these categories. And I'll use one brand for this called Necklet. Necklet created a latch system that's magnetic that allows for stacks of jewelry to not get tangled. Brilliant. For women, or men, mainly for women that are wearing necklaces that don't want it to be tangled because they want to wear multiple, it's absolutely brilliant. It's genius. And the mechanism is a magnet on the back. What is it solving? Is a magnet strong enough? Is it latching? Does it pull your hair? These things are questions that the brand might not necessarily know. But guess who's going to know? The people that are buying it and the people that are leaving those reviews on Amazon. They [inaudible 00:29:51] will tell you exactly how feeling, whether this is a dumb concept or not.

Nick:

So we found out a lot of this. No matter how beautiful it might look, no matter how the feeling of joy might be portrayed, the mechanism is still the most unique value proposition for them, so we better go speak specifically towards. That, to me, was after we got from a competitors, put it into a word cloud. I think the easiest one you guys could use is probably Monkey Learn. It's called monkeylearn/wordcloud. I think you have to potentially set up an account. It's free, but if anybody else has a word cloud generator that is better than that, please hit me up. I'm always looking for more tools.

Brett:

Monkey Learn, and you're looking for... And this is like a word cloud builder?

Nick:

Yeah. So it's called Monkey Learn, and then it's a forward slash word-cloud or wordcloud. I'm not sure exactly on [inaudible 00:30:36], but I can pull it for you right after this. And that way, I'm able to aggregate all my star reviews. I would say it's easier if you... The more, the better. The more, the more accurate. Drop it into this word cloud, and it's going to generate and pull up the most commonly used words and tones. And that way, now here's your messages. Here's your information. Here's the things that you need to use. This, Brett, I'm telling you, this thing has allowed processes. Because if you don't know where to begin, that's where you go right away.

Brett:

Yeah, because if you don't have something like this, you're just going to begin with that discussion around the boardroom. It's going to be virtual, right? But you're talking to the client, you're talking to the brand owner, you're talking to the marketing director, and you're like, "Well, hey, our customer is this, and they believe this and they want that." And that's valuable, but this is amazing, where you're saying, "Okay, let's see what the people, the real customers are actually saying, and let's aggregate that. And let's look for tone and let's look for actual words." Yeah, just absolutely brilliant. I love it.

Nick:

The next step that we take from is... Say we already have this, say somebody already has this understanding, the next step that we have here is, where are you lacking? Where do you think your brand or your audience has not been addressed? This is usually right where we get in the conversation of inclusion, usually where we get in the conversation of, it seems like we're over indexed on a certain demographic, a certain gender, certain size. That, to me, is something that we really, really spend a great amount of time. We're very fortunate. We're in LA, so we have a melting pot of people to pull from, and that's something that we know, as a unique advantage, we have to leverage. So that generally is our second conversation that we have, of like, where can we do some tests to where we're not doing something that's not on brand, we're not doing something that we have fear of isolating a consumer, but we have the ability to actually get real learnings in a direction that we never ran before. Here's an example, Luca Danni, which is [inaudible 00:32:29]. It's a bangle and accessory company, bracelet.

Brett:

It's called Luke and Danni? Did I hear that right?

Nick:

Yeah. It technically reads Luca Danni, but Luke and Danni is what it is, and they sell bangles, they sell bracelets. Well, in this test, they usually always show the wrist, and it's the wrist of the woman buying it and the various women buying it. And they actually started seeing a little bit of a performance increase on the thicker in which the wrist began to [crosstalk 00:32:59]

Brett:

Interesting.

Nick:

And I'm like, why is this? Then you look at the export of the purchasing behavior of the people buying it. You have the strong representation of the Bible bell, strong representation of the south, strong representation of a little bit of the east coast. But you're like, "Wow, okay. I think some of our demographics are not the assumed thinner audience that we once believe there to be, so how do we mix this up?" So now we have wrists of all shapes and sizes. You hear me?

Brett:

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're there. I thought I lost you for a minute. Yeah, so wrists of all shapes. This is so important. What's really interesting, I going to key in on something that Ezra Firestone mentioned to me a couple years ago, where they notice, BOOM!, their brand BOOM! and Cindy Joseph, it's really women over the age of 50, skin care, makeup, and really good stuff, but they found... They thought, "Well, what if we went a little bit younger with our models, or a little bit younger with our ambassadors that we have in the videos." And they started getting complaints. People were reaching out saying, "That's not me. This person is younger than me." Right? We sometimes forget that people really are looking for, "Can I see myself in this video? Can I see myself in this product. And is this for me?" And if it's not, then they're likely not going to buy, right? And so fascinating test, that, hey, thicker wrists, bigger wrists lead to better results. Diversifying your models leads to better results. You got to explore and got to test. That totally makes sense.

Nick:

Anybody can do this too. That's probably the biggest thing that I want to drive home, is those testing of using Amazon first and Reddit first because the natural communication, community already being built there within your competitors. It's not rocket... The way you present that information, the way you speak to it really will pull in on the expertise that you have, but this isn't rocket science, man. We have anywhere between 100 to 150 brands at any time. And if anybody's looking for analysis of their creative or performance or angles or whatever they're taking, they go this direction, because they know they can get it, they can get it quick, and they don't need to wait on other people to do it. So it's something I would definitely like to pass that forward.

Brett:

Yeah. Love it. What else? What do you see working on Facebook right now? And I know that this stuff has a tendency to be short lived, but in terms of length of videos, what are you finding that's working, or maybe, maybe there's different links, different angles for cold traffic versus remarketing? What are some of the kind of tips and ideas you're seeing there?

Nick:

Well, I'm going to caveat this [inaudible 00:35:25]. We are using two tools. So we're using North Beam and we're using Triple Whale, because we are making-

Brett:

Both fantastic tools.

Nick:

I completely agree. We have to make sure that we're looking at the correct amount of information or data and it's purely based upon a third party tool that's giving me the direction of, okay, this campaign, this ad set, this purchase path is making the most sense for us, so-

Brett:

Yeah. And just a quick note here, because I know the guys at North Beam and at Triple Whale, great platforms, but I'll talk North Beam for just a second. The way it works, it's basically first party data. So they put a first party pixel on your site, they put DNS record there where now they can have an infinity timeframe-

Nick:

Yes.

Brett:

... click attribution, right? So instead of attribution being only seven days, right? So after click happens, and after seven days, Facebook can no longer track it. With something like North Beam or Triple Whale, you track it forever, right? And you can go back and say, "Hey, this one YouTube click or this one Facebook click led to a customer who bought 20 times." Right? You can see all that data, because then these tools integrate with Facebook, Google-

Nick:

Yes.

Brett:

... Shopify, your email platform. They pull all that stuff together. So anyway, this isn't a commercial for those tools. We don't make anything from those tools, but you need that data to know what's really working and what's not.

Nick:

Well, we never used to have... We always needed this.

Brett:

We both needed it, yeah. And [crosstalk 00:36:42]

Nick:

We can get close without it. And now we can't. So now when I'm looking at campaigns, so I'm looking at what's working. Right now, let's go January 19th, 11:50 AM, Wednesday, 2022. What's working right now is images. I'm now getting images with plain background colors, bold colors. I'm saying yellow blues, pinks and purples, and big bold text. Call outs of the pain points of the consumer. And if I were to be more specific, this is primarily top of funnel, and we're having very minimal branded elements here, because all I'm trying to do is build engagement, build a little bit of direction that I'm trying to go in this place, it's just the right path for me to go down towards, and it is the quickest thing that can be launched. It is the easiest thing that can be made.

Brett:

Yeah.

Nick:

Pain points, value propositions, big, bold colored text, and maybe, if you really want to include it, what does the product look like? Is can just be a product on a white image or somewhere the left or right side of things. We're using this top of funnel aggressively for two reasons. One, if we can get the engagement, and if we can get some sort of understanding of people agreeing with it, or maybe it say other way, not agreeing with it, but that you're usually just seeing the comments, the shares or the engagement overall, I know I'm on the right path. I need to make an image or a more detailed image, shorter video or longer form video to run top of funnel. This is Facebook specifically. So our launching period right now is major callouts with the value propositions or with pain points that we believe for each brand with that color text to kind of pop off page. Second, if that is already being done or something that's already going down that path, we are going with 30 to 45 second videos.

Nick:

I was a huge proponent of sub 30, generally around 15 seconds, but I need this bigger audience for people to pull from, because things on platform, the pools of remarketing are not as quality as they once were because of the drop in reporting. So the more that we can have people engaging or watching the videos longer, I'm running all of our remarketing, or at least our reengagement middle of funnel, off of these audience and pools of creative that we're actually spending more time, that these consumers are spending more time on.

Brett:

Got it. So you're running... So yeah, I remember, and I'm not a Facebook guy, but I remember people talking about, "Hey, shorter creatives are working 15 seconds and things like that," which I'm sure is still the case to a certain degree. But what you're saying, and this totally makes a lot of sense, is 45 seconds, 30 seconds to 45 seconds to your cold traffic audiences, because then you can remarket to people that have watched half of that or all that or whatever the case may be, and now that's a much better audience than maybe the remarketing audiences you would get from someone who engages with a 15 second video. Did I understand that correctly?

Nick:

You did, because we need the... Well, for just a stronger audience. And I don't know what happened. I think the biggest thing that we've seen, if we're talking remarketing, the content, I'm not too sure. I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking about what's working across the board for our brands because it's very [inaudible 00:39:44] and very particular.

Brett:

Yeah, yeah.

Nick:

But one thing that is been a constant is, we need more periods of time. We used to be able to be very segmented, and like, "Cool. One to seven day, you're going to get this message. 8 to 14, you're going to get this message. 15 and on, you're going to get this. It's not working for us. We can't get... I hope it is for others because it was so incredible to push them down a purchase path, but we're going 30 days, 45 days, the largest pull in which we can get from, I think the largest pull is probably around 90, but the biggest pull that we can pull from, I want that to be my remarketing pull, and it's just a mixture of various engagement testimonials of videos of them reinforcing the product or the brand. That's the only thing that I know I can get some consistent benchmarks on, because other than this, there's just no consistency.

Brett:

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. And as platforms are being more restricted on audiences they can build and how they track and how they report, I think in a lot of cases, we're just going to have to simplify, right? Some of the hyper segmentation of this seven day audience, 14 day audience, 30 day audience, some of that is going away. We're seeing that on Google too, actually, so I think that's probably pretty widespread at this point. Going simpler, going broader makes sense. How are you coming... Because I know, especially on Facebook, Facebook is hungry for new creatives, new concepts. How do you go about refreshing content so regularly and finding winning angles? Any insights there on process that you can share?

Nick:

So I don't have a... Ah, I got some stuff. So I don't have a firm one on this because it really is going to depend on budget. So I'll put a caveat there. The more money you have, the general amount of testing that you can do at higher volume. The only difference between a big budget and a little budget is that a big budget learns quicker, so it's no difference. The process is [crosstalk 00:41:37]

Brett:

You're doing the same things. It's just the speed at which you're doing them is what the budget really dictates.

Nick:

Exactly. Exactly. So I want to put, "Oh that's my brand is not spending 25,000, 50,000, whatever it is." I can't do that. You can, you just can't do as much or as quick. We did start the Konstant Kreative, why we built this is because we believe that there's an internal revision of content. There's an internal revision in planning of strategy for content. And then there's a marketing message. Generally, if it's evergreen, without talking about mother's day, father's day one-off moments, if the general process is happening, we are iterating on a seven day and a ten day window. Let me explain. Our current organization structure is, we operate in a pod system. So we have our copywriter, our senior media buyer, junior media buyer account manager, and channel specific buyers that we need to plug in.

Nick:

But the general makeup is admin, media buyers, strategist. We then started to build a new department, which is our creative strategist. Their core role is to analyze campaign performance on creative specifically. They don't care about the audience. They don't care about interests. Just the performance of the creative. Give that feedback into the client. Give that feedback into our creative director to shoot more content. And their job is to come up with the concepts of, "Here's why here's where I think the angles are going to be going towards." Now, it's various and different for all because the budget's going to be different for all, but it's usually out of two things. The increase of quality of life, that's one core concept, core understanding. Why is this product going to increase the value of my life or make my life better? Then, in the same flip side is, if I don't have this, how terrible or how poor or how unfortunate or how much struggle will my life have?

Nick:

So with those two deciding factors of how much I'm going to increase or how much I'm going to decrease, then we come into the concepts of positioning for each one of these products. So with that frame of mind, we have a seven day sprint to a ten day sprint of analysis, seven days to get the campaign running and live. First two, generally speaking, are not spending a tremendous amount of money, unless something works or unless we have... This is a commitment that the brand or us have [inaudible 00:43:48]. We are spending this money. We got to learn. I say 10 days because there's a little bit of updates attribution. You know, if you're running Facebook, data comes in very sporadically, so we want a little bit more time to run this. It's unfortunate because, at least for our team right now, gone are the days of launch a campaign on one day, slam budget on the second day, turn the campaign off on things that didn't work by the third day. That's more drawn out to a five day, seven day [crosstalk 00:44:14].

Brett:

Yeah. Totally.

Nick:

So if I sat there and go, the analysis that the creative strategy team needs to be doing is on that three day, five day, seven day, ten day window, because that's going to include a full week plus weekends and give you back on that Monday, because you're usually not going to get that launch data on that early, early day. To me, this is an ongoing iteration, it's an ongoing sequence of conversation with the brands, and I'm actually doing a pretty decent case study on what's happening on this. I'm going to unveil it live at Affiliate World, because we're working with Motion app-

Brett:

Nice.

Nick:

... which has some really good data on what's happening, where it's happening, and what insights that are having on their campaign, elements needed in creative. And then we have a large volume of assets on the constant side. So I'm trying to pull all the assets that we've seen perform before and all the assets that we've seen being requested, trying to pull a correlation between the two. And it should be some interesting stuff that we're going to find out, because a lot of this that people don't have, and I hate to hate to call it out, but they don't have a process of feedback loop. They don't have the understanding of when they need to go back and analyze and launch it. They can come up with great ideas, but how long does it take for them to make that test, or how long does it take for them to get information back to the people to create more?

Brett:

Just absolutely fantastic. So unfortunately, we're kind of running out of time, which is a bummer because I would like to continue to geek out or geek up here with you, but I want to kind of go high level for just a minute and just a few questions that I think will help anybody. And I think as people have been listening, hey, we got really technical, we got into some details, so pass this on to your media buyer. If you are a media buyer, I'm sure you're just salivating and loving every second of this. Let's talk high level, Nick. What should people be focusing more on in the coming year? And what should they be focusing less on? Meaning, kind of how are things shifting? What do we need to be really keying in on to get results? And maybe, what are some things that used to be important to pay attention to that now aren't?

Nick:

Great question. Fantastic questions. If you're media buyers or your agencies or your team is coming to you with audience insights or campaign structure insights, I would encourage them to let that go and encourage them to stop spending the time in finding structures and more spending the time on the research of what are these campaigns doing? What are the messages being said in the creative or content? And it has always been content first.

Brett:

All right, Spicy Curry listeners, here's the deal. Nick's audio cut out towards the end. Now, the good news is you heard 99% plus of what Nick had to say, but what you missed is kind of important. You missed how to get a hold of Nick. How can you follow him? How can you learn more about him? How can you get in touch with his agency? And so I'm going to tell you right now. The first thing is you have to follow Nick on Twitter. His Twitter game is an A plus. If you're in the DOC space, e-comm space at all, you got to follow him. And his handle is @iamshackelford. So letter I A-M Shackelford, so check that out. His agency is Structured. So structured.agency, check it out. They cut their teeth on paid social, but they also, Nick and Chase Dimond run an email marketing agency, so check out structured as well.

Brett:

And then one of my favorite events now. I think you should check it out. The events do get a little bit technical and nerdy, but GeekOut that Nick runs with James Van Elswyk, great event. So that's geekoutedu.com. So, check that out. You will not be disappointed. And as always, we want to hear from you. If you found this episode to be helpful, please share it with friends. Also, this is a brand new podcast, so go give it a rating on Apple iTunes, if you don't mind. It will make my day. It will allow other people to find the show. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.




Crafting Irresistible Offers & Building Acquisition Funnels with Molly Pittman
Episode 4
:
Molly Pittman

Crafting Irresistible Offers & Building Acquisition Funnels with Molly Pittman

Few people understand Facebook Advertising and Direct Response Marketing like Molly Pittman. You’ve probably seen Molly on stage at events like Traffic & Conversion Summit or Social Media Marketing World or you’ve seen her and Ezra Firestone create amazing content through Smart Marketer. In this episode we dive into a subject that is often glossed over - creating great offers and building acquisition funnels. Without a great offer, your ad efforts will fall short. And great offers aren’t just about discounting. 

It’s the perfect subject to help you win in a privacy-first online world. 

Here's what we cover:

  • How Smart Marketer and BOOM are building and launching new acquisition funnels every month.
  • How to test offers via email before investing in ad dollars.
  • What metrics we should pay attention to in a post iOS 14 world.
  • 3 ways to get more testimonials.
  • What is likely to change in the future and what most likely won’t. 


Mentioned in This Episode:

Molly Pittman

   - LinkedIn

   - Instagram


Smart Marketer

Smart Marketer Podcast

Ezra Firestone

Traffic & Conversion Summit

John Grimshaw

BOOM! by Cindy Joseph

“5 Makeup Tips For Older Women”

“The State Of Paid Ads In 2022”

“Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert

“Good to Great” by Jim Collins

“Turning the Flywheel” by Jim Collins



Transcript:

Brett:

Welcome to the Spicy Curry podcast, where we explore hot takes in e-commerce and digital marketing. We feature some of the brightest minds, some of the spiciest perspectives on how to grow your business online.

Brett:

Season one of this podcast is built on the old business adage that all it takes is three things to grow. One, have something good to say. Two, say it well. And three, say it often. My guest today is Molly Pittman. She's the CEO of Smart Marketer in partnership with Ezra Firestone. We're talking about crafting irresistible offers and building acquisition funnels for e-commerce.

Brett:

So, lean in, buckle up, and enjoy this episode with Molly Pittman.

Brett:

The Spicy Curry podcast is brought to you by OMG Commerce, Attentive, OneClickUpsell, Zipify Pages, and Payability.

Brett:

My guest today really needs no introduction, but I'll give a quick introduction just in case. Today, we're talking about a variety of things. We're going to talk about getting the right offers, and we're going to talk about acquisition funnels. We're going to talk about getting the right mindset as a market, as a media buyer, and as an advertiser.

Brett:

I have the one, the only, Molly Pittman joining me on the show today. Really, if you haven't had the privilege of hearing Molly Pittman, well we're about to fix that, but you've missed out. Molly is a legend, debuted at Trafficking Conversion Summit. It's been years and years ago now, I don't even know how many years. But just blew up and everyone was like, "Man, Molly Pittman is the best," and she is.

Brett:

Now she's partnered with my buddy, Ezra Firestone. Molly is the CEO of Smart Marketer, and I get to observe what she's doing there, what the team is doing there, and they're cranking out amazing content, amazing training that I get to be a part of at some level, which is super fun for me. We're going to dive into what's working now and a variety of other things.

Brett:

Molly Pittman, welcome to the show, and thanks for taking the time.

Molly:

Hey, let's do it. What's up, Brett Curry?

Brett:

What's up? What's up?

Molly:

I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. Hello to all of you listers. You're listening to an awesome podcast, huh? When Brett reached out to do this, I was like, "Hey, it's about time." I know you've had podcasts in the past, but excited to hear you more regularly. Yes, love working with you Brett, from the agency side of things, the faculty side of things at Smart Marketer. All of our students love everything you have to share. So, thank you for having me.

Brett:

We get to collaborate on some content. Any time I can go somewhere and hang out with you, John Grimshaw, and Ezra Firestone, I am saying yes to that. Anytime I can make it happen, I'm doing that, because you guys are awesome. [crosstalk 00:03:14].

Molly:

I don't know how much work we get done, but we have a lot of fun.

Brett:

A decent amount of work.

Molly:

I'm kidding.

Brett:

Totally. When we get together, like the last time we all met at Ezra's house, Ezra just cooked some really fancy, simple... He went into full-on chef mode for everybody, and it was pretty amazing.

Molly:

Hey, Ezra is the servant leader. I think we were there-

Brett:

He really is.

Molly:

... hosting a live workshop, and Ezra was like, "Hey, my job right now is to cook and make sure you all are fed." Good example of leadership right there.

Brett:

[crosstalk 00:03:49] make some lattes, or pour some espresso shots. He had this amazing espresso machine-

Molly:

"What do you need? I got it."

Brett:

Yeah. The funny thing is, I'm like, "So Ezra, are you going to drink some espresso?" He was like, "No, I gave that up." He quit. All right, so you're just making for everybody else.

Molly:

That is something that I love about what we're doing at Smart Marketer, is its different from any culture I've ever been a part of, even if it's a day of consulting inside of a business where we really do have fun first. We get our stuff done. We meet our goals. We serve the world. I think that that fun part is what a lot of people are missing out on. It is okay to have fun, and it actually makes the rest of it way more enjoyable and profitable.

Brett:

It's stress relief. It allows you get the right mindset, like fosters creativity when you're having fun and enjoying what you do, and enjoying who you're doing it with. Yeah, you guys do such a good job with that, and Ezra kind of drives that forward where it's like to serve to the world unselfishly and profit that mantra is true. It's not just something that sounds good, or sort of feels good, or looks good on a shirt. It's the way you guys live and the way you guys operate.

Brett:

I think it's part of the reason why we get along so well. We're huge advocates of culture, and putting people first, but also letting people shine and be themselves. You should enjoy working with one another. It makes a difference.

Molly:

Have more fun, y'all.

Brett:

And have more fun.

Molly:

It also allows a lot more longevity in this business. This year, I've been doing this 10 years, which isn't as long as a lot of you, Brett, or people like Ezra, but it's still a decade.

Brett:

Wait a minute. That sounded a veiled "old person" comment there.

Molly:

Well no, I just know your story.

Brett:

It's all good.

Molly:

You have seniority.

Brett:

A little bit. A little bit, yeah. In Internet years, a decade is forever. Yeah, I started like 2004, so I'm definitely the old dude when it comes to all that.

Molly:

Yeah, but you know a lot of my story where I had the opportunity to intern, and then become the VP of Marketing at Digital Marketer, and had an awesome time at that company. But man, I was grinding then. A lot of times, I felt like crap. To be in a situation where I still get to serve the market, still get to teach, still get to be in this business, but feel really good about it, the best part of it is I know I can do it for so much longer now.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

Molly:

It's a long game. It's not a short game, y'all.

Brett:

I'm really glad we brought this up. It was not planned. That feel good, have fun, and it will bring out the best part of you when you work as well. You'll be able to produce better when you're doing those things.

Brett:

Let's dive in, Molly Pittman. We've got a lot of ground to cover. We're going to talk mindset. We're going to talk tactics. We're going to talk strategy. I also want to talk about your dog rescue. We'll get to that in a little bit. Let's talk about offers for a minute. Those that have been listening, and hopefully you're listening to every episode in season one of this podcast, we're talking about something good to say, saying it well, saying it often.

Brett:

One of the things you and I were chatting about, and I love this, is that you're really focusing on your offers right now, and what offers are working, and what offers are not working. It really digs into that saying things well, and also saying them often. Talk to me a little bit about... We have two angles we're going to look at. We've got Boom on the e-commerce side, Smart Marketer which is kind of on the info training side, but what offers are working right now?

Molly:

Yeah, great question. First, I want to talk about what an offer is. I realized during our Mastermind call last week that people use this word to describe a lot of different things. That causes confusion in itself. There are a few different ways to talk about an offer. Really, what I'm talking about today are acquisition offers. Essentially, what vehicles are we using to start a conversation with someone who's never heard of our brand before, and turn them into a buyer?

Molly:

A lot of times, that means a lead magnet, or a pre-sale article, or some sort of coupon. It definitely depends on the business and where you are currently. The more, especially post-iOS 14 with all the crazy stuff happening in paid media right now, the more that you can focus on your offers, the better that everything is going to go. I mean that in a few ways. Number one, putting more time into offer creation. I would say in both businesses, other than making sure our products, the things people are buying, are good. Other than that, I would say offer creation is where we spend most of our time, at least at the C level.

Molly:

When it comes to marketing strategy, offer creation is where we spend most of our time. Sometimes, we'll release an offer that John, Ezra and I have maybe spent 15 hours discussing. It looks like an opt-in page that took 30 minutes to write, but so much time and effort went into the psychology of what it is, and the delivery of what it is, and how it sets us up to sell. It's really, really spending time here. As the CEO, I'd be like this is one of my still most important duties every single day.

Molly:

The second part of it is thinking about the way you deliver it. People miss out on this part of offer creation because what we don't realize is that someone might be interested in solving a particular problem, or they might be interested in a particular topic. But they may not be interested in the way you're delivering it. Let's take Boom for example, a pre-sale article that Ezra has been using for over five years, that's the best acquisition offer ever created for that business is five makeup tips for older women. Simple pre-sale article, we optimize for purchases, there are different products on the page. It's an amazing, amazing pre-sale article.

Molly:

Well guess what? It also works really well as a lead magnet. A way we've been able to scale that business is to take that pre-sale article, turn it into a simple PDF, and put it behind an opt-in wall. There are some people that would rather give their email in exchange for an asset, and see that as higher value. There are some people that would rather read an article. So, this isn't just about the creation of new offers, but also the repackaging of assets that you already have to deliver them in a way that's going to reach more of the market that you're trying to reach based off of how they like to consume information.

Molly:

It's why videos and still images are equally as important on a paid traffic platform, because there are some people that like people. There are some people that react images. It's important to keep both of those in mind.

Brett:

I love that. So, what is the offer, and really crafting it and thinking about how do we make this offer irresistible, how do we craft this article so that someone says, "I have to have that. One, that designed just for me. Two, that's solving a real problem or it's meeting a real need. Three, I got to have it right now." [crosstalk 00:11:29] those things. Then also, how you actually deliver it.

Brett:

I want to break that down just a little bit. You had mentioned that sometimes you, John, and Ezra spend 15 hours crafting an offer where it looks like just a simple page, but you're really thinking about this. This goes way beyond the, "Oh, should we do a 10% discount? Or a 15% discount?" That's what I want to talk about here.

Molly:

Yes, but it's also different. What I would see, I would say, in 90% of students, is they spend those 15 hours on the ad, and "Oh, the offer, I'm just going to throw a page up there." It's like, no if you have to choose, it should actually be the other way around.

Brett:

The offer, yeah. Yeah, it totally makes sense. Walk us through a little bit. What is your process as you're thinking about crafting an offer? What questions are you asking? What are you thinking about? What do you want to have in front of you as you're building that irresistible offer?

Molly:

Of course. The first question is, what do we need? What need is there in the business that we are solving with this offer? So, the need might be "It's Q4 and we want to monetize, we need a sale, we need a promotion." Or the need might be, "Hey, we need more of an evergreen acquisition offer-"

Brett:

[crosstalk 00:12:48] need as business [crosstalk 00:12:49].

Molly:

As a business, exactly.

Brett:

Yep.

Molly:

So, is it more promotional? Monetization? Or do we need something more acquisition that's evergreen that's going to continue to bring new customers in? It always starts with what does the business need right now? We try to create one of these in each business once a month we're creating a new offer. A lot of times, we're using other offers that we've created in the past, but we try to create one new offer every single month. It first starts with "What do we need? What does the business need right now?"

Brett:

Awesome. Then what comes next? You understand "This is what we need. We need something evergreen. We need a quick hit in this area. This is what need as a business." What do you look at next?

Molly:

What are we going to sell? What is the true end goal of this offer? Maybe the end goal is for Smart Marketer, we're going to sell our Smart Paid Traffic course, and we want to do that on an evergreen basis. We always work backwards with offers. If you don't, you're going to end up with a funnel that doesn't really make a lot of sense, that might have a really attractive front end offer, but doesn't transition to the sale, which is the opposite of what we're looking for.

Brett:

Yeah, totally, totally makes sense.

Molly:

Then we pick-

Brett:

[crosstalk 00:14:10]. Yeah, please keep going.

Molly:

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Then we pick the medium, so what medium do we feel is best suited for this particular scenario? That definitely comes down to business type. It comes down to what's already working in our business, what can we do more of, also what can we do that's different from what we've done in the past because maybe we have four or five evergreen acquisition offers running in our ad account. To add another, we either need to go after a different audience or we need to have a very different offer type that isn't going to compete with what we're currently doing.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Let's look at some examples here related to Boom that I think will help people a lot. You guys are working on an acquisition funnel every month, and that acquisition funnel I would assume, starts with an offer. Is that where that begins?

Molly:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brett:

What does that look like? Can you talk about any examples there for Boom?

Molly:

A great example of this is going back to "Five Makeup Tips for Older Women", the pre-sale article. We know that that works, so we know that this audience wants makeup tips, or they want to have discussions around makeup. What is something similar but different that we could do? Last year, we launched a lead magnet. We switched the delivery. It's not a pre-sale article. It's something you're opting in for. We're collecting the email address, and then going for the sale.

Molly:

So, using what we know works, but changing the conversation a little bit. Instead of five makeup tips, it was, or is, a 10 Minute Makeup Guide. So, still speaking to makeup, but now speaking to women who are less maybe concerned about the tips, but are more interested in the fact, "Holy crap, this only takes 10 minutes." That's an awesome speed and automation hook. That would be a good example of saying-

Brett:

[crosstalk 00:16:16] how to take care of your makeup, or how to do your morning makeup routine in 10 minutes or something like that, that's kind of the angle or the thought?

Molly:

Exactly. That came from a need of we have scaled the current evergreen acquisition offers as much as we can across our paid traffic sources. We need something new to talk about. We need to be able to walk into the party and have a similar, but different, discussion. Okay, let's change the topic and let's change the vehicle in how we deliver it.

Brett:

Yeah, that's awesome. The five makeup tips, and yeah we've had the privilege of running that on YouTube for four years or five years or something, and it still works. The five makeup tips is great. It does appeal to the curiosity. People are like, "Okay, well I would like makeup tips. I'm over 50," and I should not, by the way we were talking old jokes, I'm not over 50, and I'm not a woman either, so you're thinking "I want to know what these tips are," so there's a little bit of curiosity and there's also some benefit there that you want to get, which is cool.

Brett:

But this 10 Minute Makeup Guide, that's speaking to someone who says... It really resonates well with that over 50 powerful women audience that Boom is after, is they're like, "I don't have time for makeup, and I don't want to take the time. 30 minutes getting ready for the day, no way." How did you guys land on that? Was that something that you heard consistent feedback from customers? Is there something you guys started to pick up on, because you know the customer? Where did that come from?

Molly:

In both businesses, these ideas usually come from the customer, or feedback to anything that we're doing from an organic standpoint. In our businesses, that's the benefit of social media. It's not that we're going for all this organic traffic, which is nice, but not always sustainable. We use social media as a way to test different conversations with the audience. Usually, this starts, for Smart Marketer, as a blog post, for example, and Boom, too.

Molly:

Last year, we've released a blog post about our "Love Demo Love Formula" which is a formula we teach to [crosstalk 00:18:23]-

Brett:

Formerly known as "The Testimonial Sandwich", so there was the artist formerly as "Testimonial Sandwich", that "Love Demo Love". Feels better.

Molly:

It's a formula, a template that we teach for ad creatives. We see that that does really well on the blog. The email has high open rates. People are spending a lot of time on that page. They're clicking on whatever call to action is within that blog post. Wow, this is something our audience is interested in. Can we turn this into some sort of acquisition offer? Sometimes, it also comes-

Brett:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:18:54] clarify, just so people understand because you may be lost like, "What are you talking about? Love Demo Love, and with Testimony? What the heck?" It's Ezra's tried and true ad formula of starting with a testimonial, a real user-generated content testimonial, or maybe a couple, like one to three, product demonstration in the middle, product video demonstration in the middle of the video, and then you close with more testimonials or more love. So, "Love Demo Love", and also what used to be called the "Testimonial Sandwich".

Brett:

So, anyway, I just wanted to clarify for those that are like, "What are you talking about?" All right, go ahead.

Molly:

A lot of times, it comes from conversations with the audience, a response from the audience. Then sometimes, it comes just random inspiration. For Smart Marketer, an offer we're working on right now that's going to happen soon is the "State of Paid Advertising in 2022", which is a free four hour workshop. It will show an analysis we did of over $60 million in ad spend. That just came from a random idea I had in the shower, what would this audience be interested in, how can I help set them up for 2022? It's not always coming from the customer. Sometimes it's just a random idea that comes in when you give it space.

Molly:

Usually, it is coming from something that already exists, or that we see from competition, or other people out in the market.

Brett:

Just an interesting side note, are you an idea in the shower person? Is that where your ideas come from? I'd just be curious to know where do your good ideas come from? What's the space where disproportionately you have good ideas coming from that space?

Molly:

It's really whenever I give it space. That's the key. It's usually, in today's world where things are so busy, forced space, time away from my phone, which is the shower, which is driving in the car, or hiking. If you guys are interested in this topic, read "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's one of my favorite books. I read it in 2015 or '16, but she basically explains how this works, like how does creativity actually work and how can you set yourself up to be more open to cool ideas? The cool ideas are out there. Most of us are just too shut off, too busy, too addicted to what we're doing to allow the ideas to actually come in. So yes, any time you give it-

Brett:

What was the name of that book again?

Molly:

"Big Magic".

Brett:

"Big Magic". Love that. I'm going to check that out. Just a quick note here, because I've always found this fascinating, I have zero good ideas in the shower. I really don't know that I've ever had one positive, useful, meaningful idea from the shower other than "Hey babe, we're out of shampoo." That's all I think about in the shower. However, for me, two places that I get disproportionately high amount of good ideas, one is if in the morning if I get up when it's still quiet, and I have eight kids so it needs to be early in the morning when it's quiet, but if I feel like I'm ahead of the game, if I feel like there's nothing that I have to do right that second and I can just kind of sit in the quiet, good ideas come from there.

Brett:

The other place, and this is an odd one, but on airplanes. I sit on an airplane. They shut that door. I never pay for WiFi, I just don't want to. Some of the ideas that have shaped OMG, that have shaped the agency, came from me sitting on an airplane. I don't know why. That's my shower time. I even said a few times, I'm like I should just go fly somewhere and then fly right back, and I'm going to get great ideas.

Molly:

A lot of people do that. I have a friend who took a flight to Hong Kong and back, and never even stepped into the city just to write a book. The reason for that Brett, those are different forms of meditation. It's the same thing. It's essentially cutting off stimulation that is-

Brett:

Right, there's nothing else.

Molly:

... keeping your brain busy so that your mind and your soul can be quiet, so that these ideas can really formulate. That's the key.

Brett:

I love that. I love the fact that I'm not the only one that loves... I don't even like sitting on airplanes, but I get the best ideas. Anyway, cool. That's awesome. Cool, so thank you for chasing down that rabbit trail. I think that's so useful. Where were we though?

Molly:

We were talking about offers that are working right now, and I was chatting about the 10 Minute Makeup Guide, the workshop we're doing for Smart Marketer, and just saying that lot of the ideas comes from what you guys say, what we see as a need out in the market. A lot of them are random, unique, creative ideas, which are fun too.

Brett:

So, really fostering both, so you kind of need a vehicle or a mechanism to collect that feedback from customers, and then you need to create space for yourself to have these good ideas, and then bring it together with your executive team to get the idea when you're relaxing or whatever, and then you bring it to the rest of the executive team and you hammer that out. It may be 15 hours, but at the end of that time you've got a killer offer that you can really use to grow the business.

Molly:

Yeah, Brett, and some other steps that I didn't mention there, just to sort of round out the actual tactical, how do we get it out the door. Once we have the idea and we feel good about the offer, we feel good about its ability to do what we need it to do in the business, then we go into action mode actually creating this thing. That usually looks like a brainstorm call with our copy team where we discuss what is this, and how is it going to be presented?

Molly:

We talk about the big hooks, what are the big selling points of this offer, what problems does this offer actually solve? Of course, how do we want this to be delivered? Is it a PDF? Is it a pre-sale article? Is it a simple opt-in page where we're giving a coupon, like you said? How will this be delivered. Then they're able to go and make it sound good, not only the page in which we're selling the thing, but also the delivery of the thing. Then of course, that's passed off to design, it's passed off to our ads team and everything starts to get into motion.

Brett:

It's so good to get copy involved early, because that's such an important part of everything else. You have to be able to really strike that cord and make people want it, and copy is such a huge part of that. I love that you do that fairly early on.

Molly:

Yeah, and it's not just writing the copy that is the offer. It's also the selling of the offer. Even if it's a free thing, you're still selling someone on the idea.

Brett:

Totally. Totally, yeah.

Molly:

Every new acquisition funnel is first tested through an email promotion to the list, because we don't want to go out and buy-

Brett:

Okay, so you build the product, you test the email, email to the list first.

Molly:

Yeah. Of course, it's always going to convert better to your list than it will to paid traffic. We want to test it to the list first before we start to buy ads, mainly because we want to see of course, what's the conversion rate on this thing if it's free, and does this actually generate sales? We can create offers all day, but if it's not meeting the need of the business, then it's not going to work. It's first tested to email. That also gets some good traction going on your pixel so that Facebook and Google can start to see what types of people are taking action on this page, get some momentum.

Molly:

Then we stop for a second. We look at heat maps. We look at conversion rate. We look at the performance from a data standpoint. We make any optimizations that we might need to make, and then it's ready to go to you and your team, and hand over to our media buyer for paid ads.

Brett:

I love that. I love that. So, you're testing to the email list first to understand does this convert. And hey, if it doesn't convert to your list, it's not going to convert to cold traffic.

Molly:

Exactly.

Brett:

So, does it convert, and at what level, and kind of understanding that a little bit. Then you're going to run some ads and start getting conversions, trying to pixel, finding out what's what. You pause that. You then look at heat maps, make some tweaks/optimizations to the funnel itself. Then you go ham on the advertising at that point.

Molly:

Then it's hopefully ready for scale. Probably half of these that we create don't work still to this day. That's okay. We say, "Let's put it on hold for a second." It's never that this just doesn't work, and we're not going to use it ever again. It's "Hey, let's put this to the side and try to figure out why it didn't work, and maybe we can use it later." There are a lot of times that we just can't get it to work, and that's okay.

Brett:

Right. Really, you guys are the best. You're the best in the world at some of this stuff. If you've got a 50% success rate, what's everybody else going to have? That's likely to be 50% or maybe less even. What's interesting, we just walked through that four step process you guys go through, most people it's like think for five minutes about an offer, maybe it's more than that, but think about an offer and then "All right cool, let's throw a bunch of media behind it to see how it does," where you guys are testing with your audience or email list, you're running some small tests and ads, you're getting data, you're optimizing and then you're going big. I love that so much.

Brett:

It kind of goes back to one of my favorite business principles that comes from Jim Collins, the author of "Good to Great", and a book called "Turning the Flywheel". He's an awesome... I'm sure everybody's heard of him. He talks about this concept of firing bullets and then cannonballs. He used kind of this old warship analogy. The idea is fire bullets to make sure you got something that works, and then fire a cannonball rather than a lot of people fire a cannonball and they use up all their gunpowder, and all they've got available, and they're like, "Well now I've got nothing."

Brett:

So, test small and then go big.

Molly:

Also, understanding that these offers are not channel-specific. A lot of people create an offer, which they don't spend a lot of time on. They set up a Facebook campaign. They run it for a few days, and then scrap it all. "Oh, this offer doesn't work, and Facebook ads don't work." It's like guys, no it's so much deeper than that.

Brett:

Totally. Totally. Your kind of creating these acquisition funnels then for Boom, and spoiler alert, Boom is going to be releasing new products this year, which is great. Your kind of creating one of these acquisition funnels for each product. That was another thing too with Boom, and Ezra talks about this a lot, that it was just the Boom stick trio, or just the boom stick, that's all that you really use for cold traffic. Now you're building these acquisition funnels for other products, which is huge, and which is going to be a game changer.

Molly:

Look, honestly acquisition funnels are way easier for e-commerce than info or services.

Brett:

They are. They are. No doubt.

Molly:

Info and services takes way more of relationship buildup before someone purchases. It's mainly lead generation through a workshop, or a webinar, or a lead magnet, or a challenge, or a mini series, or whatever the hell people are doing today to try to convert someone into a customer or client. It's a little bit of a different ballgame than e-commerce. A lot of the plays with e-comm can be easier. A lot of the offers that Boom runs are simple. It's direct to a product page for a lip gloss, direct to a product page for a mascara, direct to something that's a direct sale essentially. Where with info, we've got to dance around it a little bit more. The offer creation is even more intensive for that business type.

Brett:

Yeah, it is.

Molly:

Like me. Good lesson, what Ezra has been able to do with Boom I think after working with us at Smart Marketer, is realize that there is a huge hole in the e-commerce space for offer creation that isn't just a giveaway, that isn't just direct to product page, that isn't just a coupon. That is a big reason Boom is able to excel, because we do understand pre-sale articles. We do understand lead magnets.

Molly:

Boom is even doing webinars. They're called "Ladies Night". These principles work for both business types, and there's actually a much bigger opportunity in e-commerce to get more creative with your offers because other e-commerce businesses are simply lazy or don't know how to go about it.

Brett:

You nailed it a little bit ago when you said that in a lot of ways offers for e-commerce, it's simpler. It's more straightforward than it is to do info products. Info products, you really got to get to the core of what this thing, and what is it going to unlock, and what are all the emotions we're trying to tap into here, and uncover here.

Molly:

And give way more value first.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. How do you do that? So kind of blending some of those principles, it's super powerful and it's definitely helped Boom get to where it is today without a doubt. Cool. We've got a few additional things I want to talk about, and not a whole lot of time to do it-

Molly:

Brett, hold on. I want to add one more thing. This is one of the biggest reasons that you might be failing to scale as an e-commerce business. If you are only relying on the people that are clicking from a Facebook ad, and directly converting and buying a product, you're missing out on a huge part of your market that just isn't ready to buy in the moment. If you're able to generate the lead, if you're able to nurture them via email, if you're able to set up a funnel where they get some sort of discount, especially if you add some scarcity, your scalability will increase in a way that you never understood, and it has absolutely nothing to do with your advertising. It's just that you are having a conversation with a different part of the market. That's all it is.

Molly:

So, if you are struggling to scale, it's probably not the ad platform, and B, the e-comm company that is willing to go outside of the box.

Brett:

Yeah, totally agree. It's not just I need to bid differently, I need a slightly different campaign structure in my ads manager or inside of Google Ads. Those things may be true, but often it comes down to offer and having the right funnel. Are we actually getting people to give us their email address and get a direct conversion as well? Do we have a nurture sequence? Do we have a remarketing sequence built in? All of those things really unlock the ability to scale rather than just "How do I bid differently or change my campaign structure?"

Molly:

Brett, I would say that your most successful clients, and the ones that you like working with the most are probably strong in this area. As an agency, that's a dream.

Brett:

No doubt. No doubt.

Molly:

The issue you usually have an agency is that you're great at running ads. You only have a few places to run ads to. There's only so much you can do.

Brett:

Yeah, that's one reason we love working with Boom.

Molly:

Just emphasize.

Brett:

You guys get it, and we're just able to work together and crush it. That's fantastic. Cool. Any quick insights, and I kind of designed this podcast series to have a long shelf life, but let's talk about a few trends. What's working right now, or what are some trends inside of Facebook ads that you're seeing right now?

Molly:

Good news is, as we do each year, we're seeing a huge decrease in ad cost at the beginning of the year. Almost 50% cheaper in most of our ad accounts in the analysis. We did over $60 million in spend than what we were seeing Q4, which is a huge relief with the dumpster fire that Facebook was the last six months of 2021.

Brett:

No doubt.

Molly:

That's a huge sigh of relief. We're also starting to see more accurate reporting, or at least I think we're all getting better as marketers getting our stuff together from a tracking standpoint. So, things are looking up, and we are working on offers, working on creative and copy right now so we can really take advantage of the next few months of cheap traffic, and try to do everything we can to set us up for a big Q4 again this year.

Brett:

I love it. Just one thing to keep in mind, this is going to likely always be the trend. Advertisers panic in fourth quarter because costs are going through the roof. But the costs are going to come back down in Q1, so be planning, and be thinking about that, and what's your acquisition strategy going to be in Q1 and then as you lead into and get ramped up for Q4. So, that's awesome.

Brett:

Any other specific trends you want to talk about now? I also want to dig into a mindset just a little bit, which will be fun.

Molly:

Really quick, I wouldn't say this is necessarily a new trend for right now, but it's something we've been preaching for a few years that I just literally cannot emphasize enough. I was actually just on a training call with some of our students, and one of them sells physical products. He's in the snack and wellness space. His Facebook ad results that I was looking at were incredible, $0.04 clicks, 15% click through rate, $3.00 add to cart, numbers I have not seen in years.

Molly:

Guess what he's doing from an ad perspective? It's native advertising. It's user-generated content. It is simply telling stories about people in their own words the experience that they had not even specifically with your product. This was a weight loss product. So, his best performing ad was a picture of a beach with an arrow to a certain area of the beach. The copy was telling a story from the customer's standpoint of, "Last year I went to this beach and I couldn't even walk up the stairs without getting out of breath. I felt terrible, and my health wasn't great. This year, 12 months later, I've gone back to this beach. I've lost 90 pounds. I was able to run around, and I really enjoyed myself."

Molly:

Those weren't the exact words, but that's how simple it was. It wasn't an ad about the product. It wasn't an ad about how great this product was. Absolutely nothing about features. Really, not even a lot of benefits other than the benefits that were woven into the story. This isn't necessarily new, but it's what people are still missing out on when it comes to Facebook and Instagram. These are true social platforms. People are used to engaging with stories from family and friends. Use imagery and copy that is that. It's really that simple.

Brett:

I love it. I don't really ever see that changing. We spend a lot of on YouTube and running YouTube ads, and we're seeing similar things in that videos, and usually you need slightly longer videos on YouTube than you do on Facebook in most cases, but still that user-generated content, those testimonial videos that you could weave into your YouTube ad works there too. I think it's always going to work. As long as it's an authentic, genuine testimonial that really hits on "Here's how my life has changed. Here's why I love this product. Here's my story," people eat that up. I think people will always eat that up if it rings authentic.

Molly:

Because it's a testimonial, that's not what makes it work. We chat about this and then students submit a testimonial, and the first line is "I love this product so much." It's like, guys that's words of customer, but it sounds like an ad. We need to start with things like, "As a mom of two, I didn't think I would have time to do X, Y, and Z." How much more relatable is that? It doesn't feel like you are being sold to.

Brett:

Yeah, one time we had a prospect, and we ended up not working with him. He submits these videos and you could literally read the people that are supposed to be customers. You could watch their eyes reading from a teleprompter. I'm like, "Guys, this not going to work." You want people to be sharing real emotion and their real story.

Molly:

Yeah, well sharing a life story. It's not about why the product's great. It is sharing their story and how it fit into their lives. So, we ask three important questions to get really good testimonials. If you ask these questions, it will set people up to give you really good answers. What was life like before you bought this product? That has them describe that undesirable before state, starts to tell their story. What is life like afterwards? Now they're talking about the after state, the benefits, how much better they feel. Then if you were to re-commend this to a friend, what exactly would you say? When you say it like that, they take off their "I'm a salesperson for this company" hat, and they put on their "Oh, I'm writing a message, or speaking a message to a friend. I'm going to be real about how this product helped me."

Brett:

Love that so much. Actually, since I'm such a believer in testimonials, but getting authentic ones, I created "The Ultimate Guide", I don't remember what I called it, but how to get authentic customer testimonials. It's on the OMG Commerce website. Check it out. I'm not sure if I have those exact [crosstalk 00:40:34]-

Molly:

That's sounds like a good offer for your agency, Brett.

Brett:

It's a good offer. Yeah. We can do that as an offer too for Smart Marketer. It's so true. The difference between a really good testimonial and then an average testimonial is two different planets, two different universes. Getting a good testimonial is worth it's weight in gold. Having one that's average, is really going to do nothing for you, or one that's weak. Anyway, I love that.

Brett:

What was life like before? What was life like after? What would you say to a friend? I love that so much. It's also good, you want to give someone a little bit of help as they're creating a testimonial. Otherwise, it feels like they're staring at a screen and not knowing what to say, or looking at a blank page or whatever. So, giving them some help is key, for sure. I love that. Love that.

Brett:

Let's take just a couple of minutes, and we're going to be short-changing this topic for sure, but I wanted to take a couple of minutes because this will be fun and I think it's useful. It's been a difficult road the last couple of years for e-commerce, entrepreneurs, media buyers, online advertisers, not rough [crosstalk 00:41:47]. E-commerce has grown tremendously. That's been good. E-commerce has grown, so no complaints there.

Brett:

But it's challenging times. I know you train a lot of people, you train a lot of entrepreneurs and media buyers. What are you teaching people about mindset and how mindset impacts results?

Molly:

Mindset is everything in this game. I don't think any of us are maybe even better marketers than one another. It's your willingness to stay committed, and to continue forward. It's what we talked about earlier with us being okay with half of the work we do not actually being used. Or as a media buyer, it's not even about who can set up the best ads. It's about who can continue to troubleshoot and optimize to make each piece of the campaign better so that they can move forward.

Molly:

This is personal development, a concept that most of you have heard of before, but it's really the difference between having a scarcity mindset, or having an abundance mindset. For me, I choose to be grateful. I choose to not get upset with these paid traffic platforms. I choose to look at things with the glass half full. I think that if there was anything unique about our culture at Smart Marketer, that is it. We have all chosen this mindset.

Molly:

There is going to be trouble in anything you do. I think as a human, the last few years have been hard. It's easy to get down. Of course, I still get frustrated, angry, depressed. All of those things occur. But I try to choose to bring positivity to our business, try to bring it to our employees, to our offers, to the trainings that we provide. It really is a completely different experience when you choose to do that.

Brett:

Yeah, I love it. I'm a really positive person. I'm naturally upbeat. I'm a glass half full kind of guy. But I have my moments. I have moments where I want to curse Tim Cook for the latest iOS update, and why are you killing a good thing, Tim Cook? Or whoever else is making the decisions at Apple. We can get in that mindset. It's okay to be frustrated and complain a little bit, but don't stay there.

Brett:

Get to a better place, because you're right, it's not just who's the smartest, it's not just who has the best campaign structure, but who can show up consistently and do the right thing, and who can be okay with "Okay, I got one, two, three campaigns that I wrote that didn't work, but then I had an offer that hit and then it scaled to the moon." Who could handle that?

Molly:

And who-

Brett:

Yeah, please add to that.

Molly:

[inaudible 00:44:31], and who actually cares? It's why I so believe-

Brett:

Exactly.

Molly:

... in the mission of our business that Ezra initially set out, serve the world unselfishly, and profit. If you truly care about the group of people that your business serves, and you care about the way that you're changing their lives, even if you're selling a toothbrush and you're helping their mouth to be cleaner, it doesn't matter. If you truly care about that, it changes the energy of the business.

Molly:

I can tell you, if you asked me "Molly, what is the difference between students that succeed or don't succeed, or friends that I know in the industry that have done great things, or people that are struggling," it really comes back to mindset, and it comes back to an authentic, genuine, caring for the group of people that you're serving. If you have that, and you stay consistent, there's no way that you can't make this work.

Brett:

Yeah, it's so true. If you can really be passionate about your customer, and I would even say about your team, then that's way more powerful than just being passionate about your product. I think both are important, but being passionate about your customer and about your team, that's really where's it at. One thing I discovered for me, and hey I've got lofty goals, I want my business to succeed and I want to it to grow, I think entrepreneurship, and businesses, and capitalism offer a lot to the world. If it's just about money, I burn out quickly. I get to a point where I'm like, "I don't really care anymore."

Brett:

But if I think about who I'm serving, and I think about that business owner that my agency is helping accelerate growth for, if I think about team members who were helping accelerate their individual growth, and I get to see someone step and lead a call, or mail a presentation, or come up with a strategy.

Molly:

Nothing better.

Brett:

I'm like "Whoa, I never thought of that." That is so fun for me, and so rewarding. Then when you key in on that, then guess what, the profits are better too, and then the business grows better too.

Molly:

Brett, aside from the money, I saw a study last year that rated digital marketing as the most stressful job or career path out there, even above brain surgeons, or people working in the medical field.

Brett:

That's crazy, yeah.

Molly:

I believe that. Think about it, we're basically day traders.

Brett:

[crosstalk 00:46:47] so much out of your control, and that's a scary thing. There's so much out of your control, it's scary. Yeah.

Molly:

Exactly. To be able to sustain that, and the changes, and the stress, and the fact that what we do never really turns off unless you choose for it to do so your mindset and who you are as a person, and how you treat yourself and the people around you, that is will what will sustain you moving forward more than anything else.

Brett:

Love that. So good. So good, Molly Pittman. All right, so people that are listening that are like, "Holy cow, I need more Molly Pittman in my life," where do you suggest people go? Obviously, there's lots of stuff people are going to enjoy at SmartMarketer.com, but where should someone get started, or what are some cool things, what are some offers you got going on right now?

Molly:

Yeah, check out SmartMarketer.com. There are some free resources there, depending on what we have going on at the time. I know this is coming out a bit later, Brett, so we do have that State of Paid Advertising in 2022 workshop coming up. We have lots of free resources on our website. If you want to follow me, I'm most active on Instagram @MollyPittmanDigital. I also read all of my DMs, so if you have questions, thoughts about this, I love hearing from you all and I would love to hear from you on Instagram.

Brett:

Instagram, check it out. What's your handle again?

Molly:

One more quick thing, Brett.

Brett:

What's your handle again on Instagram?

Molly:

@MollyPittmanDigital.

Brett:

@MollyPittmanDigital.

Molly:

Of course, if you like this format, you like podcasts, John, and Ezra, and I do have a podcast, The Smart Marketer Podcast. So, check that out.

Brett:

It is an intact podcast, where you get to be a guest for a couple of episodes. It was tremendously fun. Check out the Smart Marketer podcast. I'll link to all of this in the show notes as well so it's easy for you to access. With that, Molly Pittman, any final words? Any final words of wisdom, re-commendations, or asks of the audience?

Molly:

Keep doing it. Just keep at it. Take care of yourself. Maintain that balance in your life. Don't get sucked into this world so that you lose who you are. Or if you do, quickly bounce back from that. Just enjoy. We're living in a really cool time as humans, and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. When have we ever had the opportunity to do what we're doing from a business standpoint?

Molly:

It's complicated, but also the world is truly at our fingertips. Find a group of people that you align with, that you're interested in, that you want to help, and figure out how you can serve them, and figure out what you can sell to them. I just always go back to being grateful that we are able to work in this way. It's really, really cool. Hopefully, you guys enjoy it too.

Brett:

I love it. It's a super challenging industry. It's always changing. It's very stressful. But man, it's fun. It can be fun, especially if you have the right community around you. If you can find that balance man, it's an awesome place to be. Check out Smart Marketer. Check out the community. Get to know Molly Pittman. Follow her on Instagram.

Brett:

With that, thank you so much for tuning in. This show would be nothing without you who tune in and listen faithfully. If you haven't rated the show, please do that. Leave a review. It helps other people find the show. If there's somebody that you're listening to this and you're like, "Whoa, this person needs to hear this episode," then share with them. That would mean the world to me, and I know it'd make a difference in somebody else's life as well.

Brett:

With that, until next time, stay spicy.