End Hype with Callye Keen

When you hear some amazing piece of fortune cookie coaching, does that phrase unlock new thoughts and modes of being or is it BS?

Is the opposite equally true? 

What if the biggest opportunities in life were from thinking the opposite as the trending "truth"? Contrarian Thinking provides exactly this approach. 

Learn how social selling is changing ecommerce.
How will you prepare and take advantage of this growing mega-trend?

End Hype host Callye Keen dives into the future of e-commerce, looking at Shopify trends.  It’s hard to believe that e-commerce isn’t the leading way consumers buy.  Online stores are so prevalent in our lives.  Especially after the past 2 years, with more businesses online.  E-Commerce is on the rise, and Shopify is the platform that most direct to consumer businesses use.  

Shopify recently released The Future of Commerce report, and they cover the same topics I cover in group coaching, in my Facebook group, and on this podcast. Today we’re going to talk about one of those trends, rising customer acquisition costs. A topic that includes brand messaging, brand strategy, and satisfying the market. 

“Direct to consumer competition is rising. Advertising costs are skyrocketing across platforms and brand building is helping attract and keep customers.”

[01:44]  Brand loyalty and product fit is a necessity 

Rising acquisition costs are forcing brands to foster long-term relationships with their customers. Actually building real brands. Getting off the addiction to paid ads. As e-commerce grows, as more big brands see e-commerce as their main channel, the competition for eyeballs is fierce. 

[04:01] Don’t blame iOS

We could also try to blame the iOS update and technical reasons for why ads are getting more expensive.  But I'm seeing this kind of cumulative effect because as ads work less, people are spending more to get less. Instead of people leaving the system, they're spending more money.  Ad expense is increasing as its effectiveness decreases.

[06:15] Long term strategy over short term gains

If you think of spending money on ads as a brand positioning exercise at the top of your funnel, in which you continue to nurture a community of customers, you're going to win.

[09:17] Measure what matters

You need to figure out how to measure what's important to you. How many customers do you need to get? What's their average order? How many customers do you need to return? Who's opening up your emails?

[10:20] Position yourself for success

The long-term optimal scenario is to not spend any money on ads. Maybe on ads for growth or penetrating a new market, but best case scenario, no ads. Your product sells because people love you. They want what you have. And when you announce that it's coming, it sells out. That's what real product market fit looks like. 

[12:48] Try a marketplace

Shopify suggests using marketplaces as both sales and marketing channels for your ecommerce business. A place where you can list your product and sell it everywhere. Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and Etsy are great examples. This doesn't have to be your home base of operations. But if you're looking at additional channels to test, if you're looking at new channels to acquire customers, these people own the eyeballs. Marketplaces are an effective marketing strategy. 

[16:00] Differentiate

If you want to build a brand it needs to be simple and memorable. Something people can remember so they tell others, but it needs to deeply resonate with who they are. You don't need everyone. The world is big. 

“Everything works until it doesn't, but the brand will always work. It is an eternal strategy. So you've got to figure out how to speak to somebody. Create differentiation, create a community, curate that community, nurture that community.”

Welcome to the 2 year anniversary of End Hype Podcast.  Callye Keen has led us through over one hundred episodes on product businesses. He's interviewed successful entrepreneurs, breaking down obstacles and big challenges early stage and existing product businesses face. Providing tips, tactics, and strategies. Everything you need to help you grow your business from product concept to product design to products to market.

Two years goes by quickly. At End Hype we thought the podcast would be successful very early. We put in significant effort. We talked to people that host successful podcasts. We jumped into a mentorship group. We hired a top-tier coach. 

We put the pieces in place and it still took two years to make significant progress. It took a year and a half before we had a 10,000 download month in podcasts. That's a hallmark milestone in podcasting. Not a lot of podcasts have even a hundred downloads a month. We achieved 10,000 downloads in a month.

We appreciate our subscribers and listeners. End Hype is a labor of love. End Hype provides us a way to communicate effectively on a large scale.

[05:40]  Continue the conversation

You need to find a way to constantly communicate with your customer. That means you've got to figure out who your customer is and how they want to be communicated with. You need to continue the conversation, whether it's a one-sided conversation like we're having right now, or it's a proxy conversation where you come on this show. Communication promotes idea generation and product ideas.

[05:52] No excuses allowed

How are you communicating with customers? How are you bringing them into your world? How are you having a conversation and figuring out what the real problems are? The other takeaway from here is adaptation.  What forms of communication are you leveraging?

[06:50] Superior Product and Service

Real entrepreneurs take excuses and use them as input data to adapt, to come out with a new strategy. If I can't go around the country and speak anymore. I'm going to go around the world and speak through this podcast. You can't excuse your way to success. Whether it's product management, advanced manufacturing or dropping an episode of your podcast on apple podcasts, you have to develop a strategy.

[08:55] Failure is normal

If you were to try a new strategy that you've never done before and you receive no guidance, no coaching, no mentorship and it just magically worked, that would be an extreme outlier. I'd love to hear that story. That's not the story of my life. I test things, they're a little broken, but I can see them starting to work.I learn and then pass that information on to clients. I pass that information onto you. Not everything that I do works. Even with advanced technical skills, I still fail.

[10:25] Dig deeper

When you find something that works, dig deeper into the knowledge. Find something that works and just double down. This will help you defeat that shiny object syndrome, because you want to keep contributing towards your business. Dig deeper. All the value in life is in depth and not breadth. 

[13:15] Seven figure business

My goal is to provide the information that allows you to create a seven figure business. That's not an easy thing. That is a massive challenge, but that's the challenge that I hold in my head. That's my north star.

“My mission is to put out the content that will help you take your idea and not just turn it into a product, but turn it into a product business.”

Silver bullets are for werewolves, not for businesses.

Callye Keen digs into the myths around product marketing that set false expectations for entrepreneurs. 

While Callye is quick to point out that he's not a marketer trying to create the perfect offer, he's a product person who knows that in order to be successful he has to market and sell his products. He believes in and promotes collaborative growth, and has built a business development system around that philosophy.   

There are too many marketers who push fantasy when it comes to marketing strategy. Callye believes reality is paramount to successful marketing systems and an organization's growth. He recommends starting with an understanding of why you’re on a given social media channel. Then consider, once you become successful on a specific social media channel do you need to be on more channels? Understand the value before adding more social media platforms or changing strategy. 

Successful product development businesses need to create quality products, invest in partnerships and build systems around those things. If you’re a marketing expert, Callye recommends that you create something simple that can help people. Complex systems take a long time to plan and put in place. Ultra simple processes are scalable.  Share information with small businesses to build credibility and add value.

Marketing is all about attention. And most entrepreneurs need an easy way to get attention from the right people. They need qualified traffic from potential customers who trust your brand. 

[02:55]  Myth #1: Working hard equates to more money

More effort, hours and grind equates to results. There are people who work extremely hard, but that effort doesn’t necessarily match with revenue.  

[03:46] Myth #2: Everyone runs ads on social media

Most “social media experts” aren’t experts at all. They run paid ads and claim huge results and then recommend paid ads as the solution to your growth problems.   

[04:49] Myth #3: Complexity and magic

You’re just one ad hack away from success. Every failure brings you one step closer to success. Yes, there is learning in failure, but there isn’t one single silver bullet to fix your business problems.  

[06:50] Marketers aren’t good at marketing

Crazy customer journey maps, bad market research and funnel shapes, conversions and other crazy data are easy to find. There’s an army of college educated marketers creating infographics designed to confuse people. Most marketers that I’ve met aren’t good at marketing, they are good at confusing people. 

[10:00] Attract and nurture 

Your product launch only needs two marketing activities. Attract and nurture. People in general take a long time to make a decision on high ticket items. Because you’re working on minimum 6-figure orders, you need to attract them and nurture them until they are ready to transform their business. Consistency in engagement helps to nurture.

[14:15] Digital marketers are 5 years behind 

Social networking sites continue to grow in popularity. A Facebook group is risky because the ad costs are shooting through the roof and the organic traction is difficult. It’s a challenge to get people to engage in groups. The Facebook ads strategy was a great strategy 3 or 4 years ago, but not today.  

[16:00]  Channel strategy

You need three channels, and that’s it. You need a community channel, an authority channel and a partnership channel.  

How do you translate attention into customers into a growing business?

Dylan Cato joins Callye Keen to talk about creating viral products, building a brand people trust and the value of selling security. Dylan is the co-founder and COO of Altor Locks, which creates the safe series locks. The world's only power tool proof locks.

Altor's early stage product, a lightweight high-security lock, hit the market and they quickly realized there was a problem in the market that all other lock manufacturers had failed to solve. As their original product was becoming popular Altor learned that thieves were using power tools to cut through locks to steal high-end bicycles. 

Cycle enthusiasts were desperate to have their problem solved. Dylan knew they had the ability to solve the problem after completing some market research.  The product concept designed was the introduction of the Safe Series Locks. The locks combine the world's best materials, technology, and innovative design to create unique products and build a brand people trust.

They took their first Safe Series lock to Bicycling magazine, where a gear editor set out to cut through it. It took him over an hour with an angle grinder, which he had to change the blade 6 times, and he had to stop to charge the grinder. For context, you can cut through an average bike lock with an angle grinder in 20 seconds.

“Do More.  Worry Less.”

[05:30]  Innovation requires risk
Anything that solves problems effectively, you have to be willing to take risks and put the product out into the market. If you want to innovate there is a certain element of risk because you are bringing something unique to the world. The product development process has to consider both risk and reward.

[10:40]  Crowdfunding campaigns versus pre-order on your website
The company was built through Kickstarter, but the launch of the trailer lock was not a good fit for a crowdfunding platform, so we did a pre-order campaign on our website. We understood the market enough to know we would get a high conversion rate through our website.

[15:05]  Building a business through collaboration and partnerships
Building relationships and collaborating in order to do more is a great business model.  Proving out your products and processes is vital for scalability. Having partnerships allows for idea generation and expands the innovation process.

[17:17]  Viral growth
Altor started the company in 2016 and didn’t become respected by the Lock Picking Lawyer until 2020. There were a lot of years and lessons learned in between there. Viral growth doesn't happen overnight.

[19:50]  Product development, innovation, and risk
I was confident in the product, but the lockpick lawyer is the best lock defeating person in the world.  Maybe he finds something we don’t know about and then we look terrible. With the high reward, there is risk.  

[24:15]  Emotionally connecting with your target market
The trailer lock is a divergence if you think of yourself as a bike lock company. If you think of yourself as an asset protection company, then the trailer lock makes sense. If you look at yourself as an assurance or safety outdoors company, then there is no difference in the strategy. 

“Imagine a bike lock on steroids. You can’t grind through it or cut through it. If I was stealing bikes I would skip any bike with an Altor Lock.”

Learn more about Altor:
https://altorlocks.com/

Watch Bicycle Magazine try to beat the SAF lock
https://youtu.be/1HvMPh6JBBI

Watch Lock Picking Lawyer review
https://youtu.be/ixPFDFp8Cfo

Jamie Grove and Hans Fex launched Mini Museum in 2014 via a Kickstarter campaign that out performed their initial $40,000 ask by more than 25x.  Jamie and Hans raised $1.2 million in just 10 days, and that early stage Kickstarter campaign was only the beginning of their insane journey.

Imagine an office that is filled with triceratops horns, samurai swords, pieces of SR71’s, and Steve Jobs turtlenecks.  That’s just a sampling of what you would find at the Mini Museum offices.  

With a background in development, manufacturing, and fulfillment, Hans and Jamie set out to turn their million dollar product launch into a business.  A business founded on interacting with customers, high quality products, and over delivering on customer expectations. A business poised for viral growth.

When Jamie and Hans finished Mini Museum 3, they realized that every time they stepped up to home plate they had to hit a home run.  They needed to make enough money to sustain the business for a year or more.  

“Manufacturing was our sweet spot.  We felt totally comfortable.  The question was ‘do we have enough stuff. Do I have enough stuff to make the units we need?’  That was our scary part.”

[05:50 ]Leveraging your expertise

We made calculations based on how much material we had.  We didn’t worry about the product development process.  At the end of the day that’s what we knew how to do.  We knew how to scale up something, manufacturer and ship.  A lot of people who get into Kickstarter may have never shipped a single thing in their life. 

[07:00] Being transparent with customers to increase brand awareness

That first Mini Museum was really hard because there were just a handful of us.  We had a short time window and we almost immediately announced a delay.  We were always very open with our backers and worked hard to share information, which made everyone feel connected to our cause. 

[10:00] Our products make the world a smaller place

When they get our specimens they ask why they are delivering with such care.  And it’s because we care.  We are going way above and beyond.  We want to deliver something that is super awesome and will last for generations.  

[12:25] Leveraging someone else’s traffic to build brand awareness

Part of the reason to use Kickstarter is to get funding but also to get an audience.  Kickstarter is expensive money.  Nothing beats selling a new product to your existing customers.  If you make something that is great, your customers will buy it.

[15:03] The importance of exceptional customer service for longevity 

You’ve been around for a considerable amount of time.  How do you see the challenge of maintaining that business over time?  Customer service.  We work really hard to make sure that our customers are taken care of.

[18:50]  Reading the market, knowing what customers want, and making it work operationally

Getting more customers on board and sharing more things, you have to get to a lower price point.  So we moved to a single specimen model.  

[23:40]  The importance of keeping your customers engaged

If we were just doing Mini Museums we would only launch one every 18 months, what are we going to do with our customers in between?  How many of them will move onto other things and not think about us anymore?  Then you’re back into the cycle of acquiring customers.

“There isn’t anybody doing what we do.  We welcome competition though, because they are sharing science and history.”

Learn more about Mini Museum
www.minimuseum.com

“Being an entrepreneur is a race without a finish line.”

Callye Keen sits down with Bill Strahan to talk about the lessons learned as serial entrepreneurs.

Bill has always loved making things. From a very young age he has been building things. He started by taking things apart and putting them back together, eventually moving to creating new things. He once called his grandfather at 2AM to ask him about how to rectify a current. His grandfather patiently answered him and then asked if they could continue the conversation in the morning.

Bill got into computers at the age of 12, and immediately fell in love with it.  He veered into software, building a company and eventually selling it.  He thought once the business was sold he would retire and enjoy life.  He is definitely enjoying life, but he is hardly retired.  He’s a serial entrepreneur. Bill and his wife Becky started a couple product based businesses, Armored Fitness and Bruce Charles Designs.

Soon after launching Armored Fitness, Bill realized that he knew how to start software companies but product development was a different challenge.  As a result, he’s spent the last 10 years learning how to run these businesses. He's focused on customer success, product development, and idea generation.

[06:10] Personal development and the fidget spinner

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I came across a YouTube channel, and was watching welding videos. Through those videos I realized how helpful a lathe would be. I learned how to build really cool products as a result of educating myself on YouTube. 

[09:30] Continuous Improvement 

You can buy a lathe for a few hundred dollars and start playing with it. You can be creative and make something on day one, and something better on day two. And honestly a year later you can still find a way to improve what you’re making.  The product development process is all about idea generation and product ideas.

[13:35] Innovations as a result of necessity 

Sometimes you meet people and you immediately know that they attract good people. I started at a new CrossFit gym and the owner was one of those people. I ended up welding some things for him, and eventually built what would turn out to be the XPO Trainer for him. But I wanted something different because the old model sled was inefficient. I built something with resistance and a motor to support strength training.

[15:55] Actions create opportunities 

We made expensive mistakes when we started. It took 6 or 7 years before we had a real company.  It was a hard dark time, but I’m glad we persevered. The business analysis and product management part of the business were new for me with a product.

[19:10] Don’t love your ideas too much

You don’t get to decide if you’re cool. You can be perfectly satisfied with being you, but that doesn’t mean you’re cool. Cool is what other people think of you. That’s how products work. That’s how businesses work. 

[20:30] Products that require customer education are hard to sell

There have been many times I have said I will never bring a product like our fitness equipment XPO Trainer to market again. In the early stages the XPO Trainer didn’t make sense to consumers. There was so much conversation to educate the customers in the early days. No testimonials. I had to find ways to improve processes around customer education. I quit trying to explain it and started telling people to try it. The product concept was a challenge.

Learn More About Bill Strahan
www.billstrahan.com

XPO Trainer
https://www.armoredfitness.com/

Get the Collaborative Growth Blueprint
https://www.redbluecollective.com/collab

“Be wary of anyone selling you help without a deliverable.”

Callye Keen hits on a topic that he has a love/hate relationship with, mindset, personal development, and imposter syndrome.

More entrepreneurs fail from inaction than they do lack of funds, and inaction can frequently be mapped directly back to imposter syndrome. We know the exact right thing to do and still not take action.  Why?

Fear.  Fear of failure.  Fear of judgment.  Fear that everyone else can see that we aren’t ready. That we aren’t smart enough. Imposter syndrome holds us back in so many ways that it's hard to see. It stops us from asking for the sale, from sending an email, and from living. It’s prevalent in our business and personal lives. It also makes us vulnerable to the bloodsucking gurus that prey on uncertainty.

Because we are so consumed with our own inadequacies we don’t realize everyone has them.  Those who take action, who lean into their fears, they win.  They recognize they are the biggest obstacle to their own success, and they address it. 

[02:44]  Just start

Around 2007 I started professionally using CAD and helping people reverse engineer simple products. I thought I'm not an expert in AutoCAD, but I started helping people design products.  I took action knowing that abilities can be developed.

[05:21] Imposter syndrome 

When I decided to go outside the walls of our business and start speaking at colleges, and other events. I wondered why somebody would listen to what I have to say about developing products. Why would someone want me as a mentor? Eventually I realized I'm not an imposter. 

[07:00] Fear of rejection

Why aren't we just doing whatever the hell we want? Because we're not psychopaths. We're human beings. We're regular people. We're smart people. We see risks. Imposter syndrome is really just a version of that fear that you're going to be rejected. The only way to become good enough is to take action and gain experience. No one's going to come and magically save you. Mindset is the new psychology of success.

[10:15] Experience comes from action

Society says that growth is linear. When you approach next level opportunities, you think you don't have any experience running a $10 million company. You think you need a Harvard MBA. Well, the Harvard MBA is busy earning $150,000 as a mid-level manager at a consulting firm pushing paperwork. The Harvard MBA couldn't run that company because they don't have the experience. The experience only comes from action.  The Harvard MBA needs to start a business to gain confidence.

[12:30] Leverage communities for growth

Very successful people curate and develop communities. If you want to meet other people that are doing amazing things join a group. There's a lot of entrepreneurship groups or development groups to choose from. Start your own mastermind. Develop your own community to meet people that are more successful than you.

[14:37] Imposters everywhere

Imposter syndrome is everywhere. It prevents us from building the right team. How can you talk at an event? How can you help your customers when you're not honest with yourself about where you are? How can you have a mentor relationship? Develop a new product line? The mindset you've created doesn't support growth.

[16:20] No is easier than yes

How are you going to deal with the rejection of all of the nos? How are you going to deal with the yeses? Because when you get a yes, that's when you really have to think, what am I going to do? Am I good enough? How am I going to pull this off? And this happens at every single stage from your product launch to the biggest collaboration that you can lock down.

Callye Keen talks about one of his passions, art. But not art in a traditional sense, art from the perspective that the world's not all about super technical products and building drones with AI. We have little pieces of art all around us, and in this episode Callye shares a different perspective on everyday art.

Scott Alexander sits down with Callye to discuss his journey from art school, to working for a large catalog company, to managing a team, and ultimately feeling unfilled with Corporate America. Scott started making furniture in his garage as a hobby, using only hand tools to create beautiful masterpieces. 

“I live in an area where I couldn't take a class. I'd have to fly halfway across the country to get to a qualified instructor. I hopped on YouTube, bought a couple of DVDs and dove in. Eventually I figured it out. I was awful at it for the first couple of years. Little by little, I've been turning now for seven years, I went full time in August of 2020.”

“You can really build whatever life you want, if you're willing to do the work. And for me, it has been about learning the craft, becoming truly great at it. Undeniably great at it."

[02:30]  Acknowledge the spark

I cobbled together my first lathe from a bunch of parts. I taught myself how to turn chair parts. After I made about a dozen chairs my wife asked me “do you think you could make us a bowl for the house?” And that was it. That was the spark that started everything.

[04:00] When mentors become peers 

I’ve become great friends with some of the world's best production woodturners. It's kind of unreal to be seven years in and be able to hop on the phone with some of these people. And they're not mentors anymore. I'm almost an equal, which is kind of a cool thing.

[05:10] Superior product

There really hasn't been any secrets to it other than a lot of hard work and trying to take care of customers. Just keep trying things, try to make a product that stands above its function.

[06:43] Long lasting products

That's the counterpoint to making something that lasts. You make something truly amazing, make something worth sharing and it lasts forever. You have the length of that product to impress somebody else.

[09:40] Buy for life

A small part of what I'm trying to do help people to realize that you can buy something and enjoy it every day. Something sustainable and well crafted. There's a growing movement to buy for life. And that movement is at at the intersection of ecologically and sound principles. Support entrepreneurs.  Support made in America. Buy high quality products.

[12:15] Family business

I'm hoping that their daughter takes over that company and keeps running it the same way, and doesn't go the way that other US manufacturers have gone. I've seen some really great manufacturers cash out and sell to a big corporation. And then within two years, the brand is gone. 

[13:53] Quality erosion

Picking up our phone we say, “oh, there's a new app. This old one's no good”. And it's contributed to this replacement economy. Tech products are a good example, your phone itself or the computer that I'm using. We understand that in six months, it's not so hot. And in two years it’s garbage.

[17:17] The choices we make

There are some things with our modern lives that are amazing. I just think that we need to take a step back and make sure that the things we're doing with our purchases, with our money, with our lifestyles are in our best interests.

“He's literally cutting down a tree. Chopping it up and making his own blanks. So from the ground to the finished bowl, and I love your content.”

Learn more
https://alexanderdesigns.us/