From his early ecommerce days of enterprise level Google Ads arbitrage to his just-ended run as President of Kuru Footwear (a mid 8-figure DTC shoe brand), Sean McGinnis has seen a lot. And his professional throughline is his ability to build and manage teams.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Sean talks through the growth of DTC across his time in the industry, how he hires well and leads effectively, and what's next for him as he leaves Kuru.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

EPISODE SPONSOR

Visit Settle at www.settle.com/andrewfaris for a complete platform to manage Bill Pay/AP with fast access to extended payment terms at competitive rates and no personal guarantee.

FOLLOW UP WITH SEAN

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

EPISODE MUSIC

It's the most philosophical I've ever gotten on the podcast, and it's all around this question: why are you actually doing what you're doing in business? What's the point? And is it creating the kind of joy deep contentedness that you're longing for at the core of who you are?

This is an easier question to ask than to answer, but as my own business has filled up its capacity and my earning has exceeded my expectations, I'm working through it myself.

On this episode, I'm asking these questions and telling you my answers.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

OTHER EPISODES REFERENCED IN THIS SHOW:

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

EPISODE MUSIC

There's no one I've met who knows Amazon like Bryan Porter, the Chief Ecommerce Operator at Simple Modern.

Simple Modern will do over $100M on Amazon ALONE in 2023, and it's not an accident. It's the downstream affect of intelligent strategies that stretch all the way back to when Bryan and his two co-founders were testing which products to go to market on Amazon with in the first place.

If you're trying to scale a business (or just a portion of your business) on Amazon, you'll need to go beyond listing optimizations and ad strategies. What does that "beyond" look like?

Let Bryan Porter tell you.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

Listen to Bryan's previous pod appearance, "Simple Modern Is An Omnichannel Monster" on Apple or Spotify.

FOLLOW UP WITH BRYAN

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

EPISODE MUSIC

Your product didn't just appear out of thin air. It's the result of hundreds of hours of hard work, complete with crucial decisions you made so you could get it just right because you care about serving your customer well and being proud of the product you give them in exchange for their money.

But your customer doesn't know any of that. At least they don't if you don't tell them.

I'm back to discussing creative strategy on this episode, and the idea here is simple but constantly overlooked: learn to tell people about all the decisions that got made to make your product as good as it is.

The more they understand those, the more likely they are to buy it.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

EPISODE SPONSOR: Aronson Creative

Level up your brand with creative leadership from Robbie Aronson at Aronson Creative by visiting www.aronsoncreative.com.

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@andrewjfaris⁠⁠⁠

Email Andrew: [email protected]

Work with Andrew: ⁠⁠⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠⁠⁠

EPISODE MUSIC

Music Intro: "⁠⁠⁠Tell Me Mama⁠⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

Music Outro: "⁠⁠⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

Kelsey Lehrich is the co-founder and CEO of 365 Holdings, an aggregator that currently has nine brands in their portfolio. Which gives Andrew a chance to revisit one of his favorite questions: is the aggregator model broken, or was Andrew just a poor leader of it at 4x400?

Kelcey’s business is very much not broken, and that means there’s lots to explore about what makes it work and what others can learn from it.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

FOLLOW UP WITH KELCEY:

Follow Kelcey on Twitter: @kelceylehrich

Sell Kelcey your business: https://365-holdings.com

Go to HoldCo Conf: https://holdcoconf.com

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠⁠@andrewjfaris⁠⁠

Email Andrew: [email protected]

Work with Andrew: ⁠⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠⁠

EPISODE MUSIC

Music Intro: "⁠⁠Tell Me Mama⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

Music Outro: "⁠⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

It's the most obvious thing about selling products on the Internet. It's also one of the easiest things to forget. And being conscience of it is the bedrock of great digital communication.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about what I call the "digital gap" between your customers and your products. Put simply, it's the fact that your customers can't actually touch, smell, taste, or even REALLY see or hear your products. Just like a Zoom call can't fully replace an in-person conversation, an image or video can't fully replace a customer's experience of your product.

In this solo episode, I explain how learning to communicate in a way that bridges the digital gap is right at the center of great, profitable online marketing.

THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing

Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to ⁠www.morenow.co⁠ to get started.

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠@andrewjfaris⁠

Email Andrew: [email protected]

Work with Andrew: ⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠

EPISODE MUSIC

Music Intro: "⁠Tell Me Mama⁠" by The Devious Means

Music Outro: "⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠" by The Devious Means

SPONSORED EPISODE. Gregg Carey is the CEO of Section 119 and co-founder of More Staffing. More Staffing helps e-commerce businesses locate, hire, recruit, train, maximize the value of incredible talent in the Philippines, and they're also my current sponsor.

I don't usually offer sponsored episodes to my advertising partners, but I'm so compelled by how and why Gregg is working with ecom professionals in the Philippines that I wanted him to explain to my audience how and why they can do the same.

So today, we explore the benefits of hiring remote employees in the Philippines–for both your business and those employees.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

EPISODE SPONSOR:

Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing by vising www.morenow.co.

FOLLOW UP WITH GREGG/MORE STAFFING

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

MUSIC

Today's interview is with one of my very favorite people in ecommerce, Andrew Youderian. Andrew is the founder of E-commerce Fuel, an online community of 7-figure & higher ecommerce store owners.

Ecommerce Fuel is the best-run online community I've ever personally seen, so I started by asking Andrew what makes great online community. From there, the conversation shifted to his unique perspective (as the head of a community of over 1,000 ecom store owners) on the state of the ecommerce landscape, how hard or easy things are right now relative to the past, and ecom operators' current & ever-complicated relationship with Amazon.

We close by giving Andrew a taste of his own medicine: we ask him some lightning round questions, just like he does with his guest on The Ecommerce Fuel Podcast.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing

Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to www.morenow.co to get started.

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW YOUDERIAN

Join Ecommerce Fuel yourself.

Listen to the E-commerce Fuel Podcast.

Follow Youderian on Twitter: @youderian.

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW FARIS

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris.

Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com.

Email Andrew (including about advertising on The Andrew Faris Podcast): [email protected].

MUSIC

Intro Music: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means

Outro Music: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

You should be buying your Meta Ads with Cost Controls.

I've believed that for awhile now, but in the last six months my conviction on this point has solidified to where I now believe advertisers are costing themselves huge amounts of money in both efficiency AND scale when they refuse to implement this incredible tool.

In today's episode I'm explaining that belief with 6 arguments aimed at convincing you to see the light of Bid Caps, Cost Caps/Cost Per Result Goal, and Minimum ROAS bidding.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing

Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to www.morenow.co to get started.

FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris

Email Andrew: [email protected]

Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com

EPISODE MUSIC

Music Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means

Music Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

So your business is growing? That's great. But it also comes with complications. Every team member you add means another line of communication, another position description to right, another onboarding process to nail, and another person to loop into the systems & processes that make your business work.

Panagiota Hatzis has seen all of this, and she's helped multiple organizations navigate growth to set themselves up for successful scale. On this episode, we talk about how good process helps you stay lean (and saves you money), how to recruit & retain top tier talent, how to think about compensation, and how to actually get everyone to use your task management software.

Panagiota is a longtime human resources executive in the ecommerce space, including alongside me at Common Thread Collective, where she was the VP of Differentiation. Now she's the founder/CEO of Kati Kalo Consulting, where she's bringing deep insight into team dynamics, recruiting, onboarding, and process building to all kinds of growing organizations.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

Special thanks to this week's sponsor, More Staffing.

Add incredible talent from the Philippines to your team with More Staffing at www.morenow.co.

Work With Panagiota:

Follow Up With Andrew:

Music: