From A to B

It happens rarely, but somehow Linda was able to change Shiva's mind this podcast. And we got it ON THE RECORD.

What did she change his mind on? Linda "The Winna" Bustos brought some compelling conversation to the fact that company CAN differentiate in 'cookie cutter' websites (e.g. Shopify) in really, really creative ways.

We got into:

- The importance of copy when you're using a generic 'cookie cutter site' (e.g. Shopify templates)

- Letting your brand shine through to help you differentiate (including some hilarious examples of how some brands have accomplished this)

- Cool trends Linda has been seeing in ecom space

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

2:58  Shopify Is Basically A "Paint By Numbers" Website Generator

7:41  Using Shopify When Your Product Truly Is Unique

9:53  Tips On Stand Out From The Crowd On Product Pages

12:40  Mattresses Is An Industry To Keep An Eye On

18:56 Shiva Glazing Liquid Death (For A Good Reason Though)

21:23  Other Creative/Creative Brands Which Have Done Cool Shit

27:44 Make Your Copy Memorable (And Palace Has Amazing Copy)

30:30 How Do Luxury Brands Differentiate?

36:01  Product Finders Can Be A Differentiator

41:03 Do Better Competitor Comparison Charts

Go follow Linda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindabustos/

And check out her website Ecom Ideas: https://ecomideas.com/

Also go follow Shiva on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/⁠Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content!

https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

Do product/CRO people REALLY know well? There may be some Dunning Kruger happening, and maybe we really don't get why they keep complaining about our initiatives.

Spoiler: Many times, they have a VERY legitimate point!

Who better than the freaking VP of Nielsen Norman Group "Checkmate" Kate Moran to come dish all the things we're getting wrong about UX, and how to better work together.

We got into:

- What product teams/CRO can learn from UX, and vice versa

- Why product teams really need to focus on longer term relationships with the customer (and not chasing short term gains)

- Amazing (and not so amazing) use cases for AI in UX

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

1:52 How Does UX View Experimentation / CRO?

6:51 What Are The Biggest Problems UX Faces As An Industry?

13:03 What Can CROs/Product Learn from UX (And Vice Versa)

17:22 UX/Product Share This In Common: No One Knows What The Fuck We Do

20:55 AI in UX - DON’T (!!!) Blindly Trust It

26:56 What Is “Google Gullibility”?

30:51 Context Matters in UX

38:05 Shiva Is Kinda Agegist (My Bad lol)

Go follow Kate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-m-moran/

And check out Nielsen Norman's new live online courses!

https://www.nngroup.com/training/live-courses/

Also go follow Shiva on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/⁠Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content!

https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

How many of y'all feel a bit nervous about going to in-person conferences / networking events? André Morys and I have been there before. Would you believe that "Sensei" André is actually an introvert?! Could've fooled me 👀

I wanted to get feedback from someone who RUNS conferences to figure out what tips and tricks we can utilize to get the most out of in-person events, ESPECIALLY coming from two people who are actually pretty introverted (if you can believe it...)

We got into:

- Tips for introverts to "get out of your own head" at conferences / in-person events

- Feeling imposter syndrome at conferences (and how to break the nasty mental hold it has on you)

- Being curious about everyone and everything is probably the BIGGEST tip you can take away

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

3:32 Rules for Conferences (NOT Tips - obey these always)

 9:01 How to Be Your Authentic Self At Conferences

12:54 Tips for Introverts at In-Person Events / Conferences

18:24 Feeling Imposter Syndrome at Conferences

27:05 Don't Overthink - Just Be Curious (When Interacting With Humans lol)

29:32 More Tips for Introverts (And Extroverts - It’s Your Job to Help Introverts)

37:40 How Do You Shut People Up Who Just Keep Flexing / Selling

50:00 Pace Yourself - The Value of Conferences Happens AFTER The Talks

Go follow André on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andre-morys/

And if you're interested in signing up for the GMS conference (using the promo code André shared in the episode, which to remind y'all I get 0 kickbacks or dollars from lol) - go buy a discounted ticket! https://www.growthmindedsuperheroes.com/home

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content!

https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

Also go follow Shiva on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/⁠If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

What REALLY is the impact of leadership in growing an experimentation? And is "stable leadership" something which may actually be messing up your ability to grow your program?

This was something I wanted to enlist the thoughts from the "Taco King" himself, Lukas Vermeer. We went into some great thoughts and conversations around building trust, being perceived as a credible person to help you grow your experimentation program, and other important things related to leadership and experimentation.

We got into:

- How Lukas REALLY built anti-fragile experimentation at Booking.com (and how some parts MAY have been influenced by the ... Dutch Mafia?!)

- The impacts of working from home to building and scaling experimentation (spoiler: it DOES make shit harder)

- "Trust" and "Credibility" are two VERY important things in growing experimentation - how you actually GET those, well Lukas and Shiva have thoughts

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

3:02 The Leadership at Booking.com (and how it WAS stable)

8:57 Which Impacts Experimentation More? Stability or Trust?

14:54 The Impact of Working From Home to Growing an Experimentation Program

24:39 Making Experimentation Anti-Fragile (Along With A Fun Lukas Story About It)

40:20 What CAN CRO Do When Leadership is Unstable

47:29 How to be Credible Without Being Annoying

51:03 “PREACH” : Manuel De Costa

Go follow Lukas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukasvermeer/

And go follow Manuel on LinkedIn as well! https://www.linkedin.com/in/manueldacosta/

Also go follow Shiva on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/⁠If you like this content, go nominate us for a community award at: https://experimentationcultureawards.com/

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

"Running a Solo CRO program is easy"

- No one ever, in the history of the world

Erika Sentz (nicknamed "pancakes" for a very good reason...) and Shiva Manjunath have seen their fair share of Solo CRO programs, and wanted to go into tangible tips and tricks you can take away to action TODAY to help you have less stress and get more done as the only person managing that program.

We got into:

- The importance of building and maintaining relationships as you scale your program. And how exactly to do this!

- Where "delegation" can actually be a core unlock to maintaining your sanity AND improving the quality of experimentation

- Communication is maybe the most important thing when you're all alone lol

- CRO is like.... making pancakes?! Yes. Yes it is.

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

3:00 The Hardest Thing About Being a Solo CRO

8:17 Auditing Your Own Program Is Key

11:34 Importance of Expectation Setting with Stakeholders

17:16 Erika Keeps Talking About Pancakes

21:12 Topic Detour: A/B testing PEOPLE on Websites

22:51 Communication as a Solo CRO

32:26 Building Relationships is The Biggest Unlock

42:09 “PREACH” : Natalie A. Thomas

Go follow Erika on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikasentz/

And go show Natalie some love on her LinkedIn Post: https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoBNatalie

If you like this content, go nominate us for a community award at: https://experimentationcultureawards.com/

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

Do people have legitimate pushback to A/B testing? I mean, some don't. They just hate being proven wrong. But there are others who DO have legitimate pushback. How do we address this?

Ton "The Don" Wesseling offered a ton of helpful thoughts on how we could actually push back on "logical" (but incorrect) reasons why people don't want to A/B test.

We got into:

- Pushing back on "not all tests win" without sounding like an asshole

- Pick your battles wisely, and invest time in those who WANT to test (while don't prioritize those who DON'T want to test... for your own sanity)

- Legitimize their concern. Don't talk down to them like they're wrong, because that doesn't help you, nor does it not help them

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

04:08 Pushing Back on "The Test May Not Win"

09:50 Navigating Concerns on Testing Redesigns

16:11 Addressing Pushback When It's One vs. Many People (to A/B testing)

25:00 Someone Created Your CRO Role - Go Figure Out How To Be Helpful

32:35 When "Winners" Don't Affect Your Bottom Line

Go follow Ton on LinkedIn, and go nominate people who you think deserve Experimentation Culture awards run by Ton and others! (and feel free to nominate us there….)

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonwesseling/

- https://experimentationcultureawards.com/

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

Pretty simple to make a hypothesis, right? If/Then statement, and boom, done. I already did most of the hard work in just having the framework.

Not quite.

A lot of work (and pre-work) SHOULD go into making a hypothesis, so that it can go from a "meh" but functional hypothesis, to a hypothesis that not only drives results, but trust in your experimentation program too! And bonus: Juliana "Run the Jewels" Jackson offers 2 columns / buckets of info you probably never considered which should be available for stakeholders to improve on the presentation of the hypothesis and test doc as a whole.

We got into:

- What exactly IS a hypothesis (good AND bad)

- Why your hypotheses actually suck (and how to make it better)

- Going beyond the hypothesis to make sure your test ideas are matching what stakeholders are looking for

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

07:24 Hypotheses Need to Reflect What the Business Truly Cares About

12:54 Example of a GOOD Hypothesis

20:21 Do Hypotheses Need to Be MORE Tactical? Or More Strategic? (In Their Wording?)

27:18 Juliana's Two "Can't Miss" Buckets of Information You MUST Have for Every Test

34:31 Shit You Need to Know: Haley Carpenter

Go follow Juliana on LinkedIn, and check out her amazing “Standard Deviation Podcast” too!

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliana-jackson/

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/standard-deviation-podcast/

Make sure you go follow Haley and check out her post too! https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoBHaley

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

Why are we wasting spaghetti? It's delicious! We shouldn't be throwing it at the wall...

Well Ryan "Big Brain" Lucht definitely is a big time lover of playing with food. And he makes a compelling argument for spaghetti testing, which delved into conversations into prioritization frameworks, should we TRY to "test everything," and other topics.

We got into:

-Spaghetti testing (Should you do it? Or nah?)

- Pure experimentation jobs are hard. And you’ll have to fight a LOT. But Ryan and Shiva have tips to help you on this journey

- What we can (and can’t) learn from big companies who have mature testing programs

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

02:31 What Is Spaghetti Testing?

09:33 Ryan Argues More "At Bats" (Tests) Needs To Be Priority (And He May Have A Point...)

19:30 There Are Some Major Things We Can Learn From Mature Experimentation Programs

26:10 Ryan Explains Experimentation Roles Can Be Frustrating and Demoralizing (WE KNOW RYAN....WE KNOW)

33:44 More Exploration to Things We Can Learn from Mature Experimentation Programs

43:51 Shit You Need to Know: David Bland

Go follow Ryan Lucht on LinkedIn.

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlucht/

And check out some of the cool thought leadership on Experimentation hosted by Eppo:

- https://www.geteppo.com/outperform

Make sure you go follow David Bland and check out his post too!

- https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoB-David

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

What does it ACTUALLY mean to be "data driven", and are #CROs adequately data driven? Should we be MORE data driven? Are there some opportunities for us to actually leverage intuition more? Will Shiva keep asking Bhavik "The Sick" loaded questions?

Short answer? Yes. Bhavik "The Sick" Patel and Shiva Manjunath discuss this pretty interesting topic, which may seem controversial, but there is actually a decent amount of truth to it.

We got into:

-What it ACTUALLY means to be data driven. Spoiler: the bar is pretty freaking high

- Where are the legitimate (and not so legitimate) ways to utilize "intuition" in the CRO process

- Your coworkers with domain expertise MAY have a point to override (some) data. As long as it's not entirely ego driven, we should hear them out!

To be clear - we definitely aren't saying "throw away all data and never use it - trust intuition always forever for everything". There is some middle ground to be had, with some very legitimate reasons (some practical, some not) to introducing 'expertise' into the conversation IN ADDITION with data.

There is always some middle ground 🙈

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

02:39 Picking The Wrong Metrics = Not Data Driven

6:25 Being "Data Driven" is a High Bar to Clear

13:09 Do CROs NEED to be... TOO Data Driven?

19:13 When the Results Don't Align With Basic Intuition (e.g. Twyman's law)

24:22 Post-Production Shiva Clarifies what HARKing Really Means

33:13 A Good CRO Has A Healthy Amount of Skepticism - Even When The Results Make Sense

43:03 Shit You Need to Know: Nils Stotz

Go follow Bhavik LinkedIn.

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/dodonerd/

Make sure you go follow Nils Stotz and check out his post too! https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoBNils

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!

If you squint your eyes really hard, there is something to the fact that CROs are simply Product Managers in "stats" clothing.... right? What ARE the actual differences between Product Managers and CROs? And how can CROs leverage these differences? Or how can CROs work more efficiently with Product teams?

I enlisted the help of Matt and Moshe (M&M), the experts in Product Management, to explore more of this (in addition to... MUTINY?! 🏴‍☠️)

We got into:

- Messaging matters. How CROs communicate, and work, with product managers dictates the outcomes. Be nice? Communicate well? Watch the relationship flourish and outcomes turn fantastic

- How can CROs gain the trust from product? And how much of 'lack of trust' is on product to... well, do better?

- Can we actually learn something from sociopaths in how we work / manage stakeholders? (Yes... yes we can)

Timestamps:

00:00 Episode Start

05:18 CROs are effectively... product managers. Right?!

13:55 How CROs HELP product managers by taking their tasks

18:51 Many product managers simply don't know HOW to A/B test.... (and that's OK)

25:17 How can CROs and PMs work together then...

34:45 The old "tell me how a test will do before we run it" conversation

45:27 Shit You Need to Know: Khalid Saleh

Go follow Matt and Moshe on LinkedIn. And DEFINITELY go check out their "Product for Product" podcast too:

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct/

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovsky/

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcast/

Make sure you go follow Khalid Saleh and check out his post too! https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoBKhalid

Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/

If you have listener questions, submit them at https://tinyurl.com/askfromatob for a chance to be featured too!