The Ecommerce Influence Podcast

We've all been saying it - the world is crazy right now. So - I'm sharing what's top of mind for me going into Q4 and 2022 including the very real energy crisis in China, opportunities to make 6+ figures flipping NFTs, and what the heck to do with paid social in Q4.

This episode is a solo cast. I wanted to check in and talk about what's been on my mind as we prepare for Q4 and ultimately start to make our 2022 business plans.

I'm thinking about how to optimize Facebook and Instagram for Q4 (after a crazy year). I've been doing daily journaling and it's given me a great perspective on where I'm at in my business and life. I'm also talking about how the energy crisis in China will likely impact business and why you should be paying attention now. Plus, I'll share some new exciting things to come on the podcast with an NFT series.

I'd love to hear from you on Twitter. What are you thinking about? What's exciting to you right now? Let me know what you'd like to hear more about on the podcast.

I hope you enjoy this solo episode - I always enjoy talking with you.

Episode Highlights:

• 2:30 Facebook and Instagram training for Q4
• 3:33 The Artists Way and the profound impact it's had on me
• 6:08 My predictions around the current energy crisis in China causing rolling blackouts
• 8:20 Managing the winter risk in the U.S.
• 9:18 What I'm doing to prepare
• 11:17 Flipping NFT's for over 6 figures
• 12:10 Opportunities for young people to acquire property from NFT sale profits

Resources:

• Coal Shortages Force Blackouts Across China: The Diplomat
• Don't Rule Out An Energy Crisis - Goldman Sachs: Yahoo
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

What could you do to make your website better, your ads stronger, and ultimately increase sales? Try one of these expert tips from an agency owner who's interviewed over 150 eCommerce founders and marketers.

Chase Clymer is the host of the Honest Ecommerce podcast and also co-founder of the Electric Eye Agency. In this episode, we're talking about mistakes that eCommerce owners make with their website and advertising and how to make simple improvements to avoid them.

Chase and I also discuss ideas for Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing, user testing your website, and how to actually run A/B tests.

Lastly, Chase shares his Brand Scaling Framework philosophy and the 3 KPI's he bases everything on.

This is a great practical episode with expert tips and takeaways to implement today.

Episode Highlights:

• 3:28 Why Chase started the Honest Ecommerce Podcast
• 4:53 Expert tips from 168 interviews with founders & marketers
• 10:02 How Chase went from punk rock band to eCommerce
• 11:44 The Brand Scaling Framework and how it works
• 14:27 3 KPIs the Brand Scaling Framework tracks
• 18:33 Simple, consistent improvements that lead to big improvements over time
• 19:23 Mistakes you're probably making on your website and expert tips on how to fix them
• 23:34 Why you need to be user testing your site
• 27:54 Reasonable testing windows for eComm brands based on volume
• 29:13 Exciting things that are working right now
• 29:52 Best features of Shopify online store 2.0
• 34:31 How to audit your Shopify apps purpose
• 37:19 Black Friday/ Cyber Monday expert tips

Resources:

• Honest Ecommerce Podcast
• Electric Eye Agency
• Riverside Podcast Recording
• User Testing
• Conversion Crimes
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

The pandemic forced many owners to shift from brick and mortar to eCommerce. Some succeeded, and some did not.

Today's guest was one of the successful -- she doubled her brick and mortar business revenue in 2020 by implementing Shopify, Klaviyo, and a seamless in-store and online rewards program.

Mandy Buterra began her journey as an entrepreneur at age 50 when she started Wren and Wild a brick and mortar business featuring clean beauty and aerial yoga, in Bend, Oregon. Her business evolved and she was building a good customer base, then COVID hit.

Instead of panicking, Mandy taught herself eCommerce and joined our Coalition membership. Listen to this episode to learn how she's now hitting sales highs and doubled her revenue in the last year by transitioning her brick and mortar to eCommerce.

If you're in the transition or considering turning your brick and mortar into an online store this episode is filled with good tips about how to integrate the two business models. If you're already running an eCommerce business Mandy also has tons of tips around how to build a rewards program and smart email marketing to build customer loyalty.

This is a well-rounded conversation and I know you'll walk away with at least one tip to implement in your business.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:54 How Mandy started as an entrepreneur
• 8:30 Taking time for clarity before launching a business
• 9:14 Restarting, again, after losing a lease
• 11:11 Mandy's brick and mortar and how COVID impacted it
• 13:57 How launching a Shopify site doubled business
• 15:28 Brick and mortar to eCommerce: the differences and advice for people transitioning
• 17:04 The importance of data and capturing email in store
• 18:13 Transitioning a rewards program from brick and mortar to eCommerce
• 19:38 Rewards program recommendations
• 20:20 What makes a good rewards program
• 23:04 Things that have moved the needle in Mandy's business
• 27:29 SKU management and how to narrow and focus offerings
• 30:30: Planning for Q4 and holiday
• 31:41 The importance of a network when you're growing a business
• 33:50 What brought Mandy's site from a 1.9% conversion rate to 3.9%
• 35:54 Advice for people growing and building a business

Resources:

• Wrenandwild.com
• @wrenandwild on Instagram
• Smile.io Rewards Program
• Klaviyo.com Email Marketing
• Conversion Crimes Website Testing
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Are you building to sell? You should be. Even if selling isn't your main priority it will make you a better business owner and it will make the value of your business higher. This episode has the details of how to do it.

Joe Valley is the author of The Exitpreneur's Playbook and a buyer and seller of many online businesses, both on his own and now as a broker with Quietlight.com.

Joe's book is designed to help you get maximum value for your online business and in this episode we go deep into his vast knowledge of building to sell. He answers a ton of questions you should be asking when you're thinking about selling your business, what multiples to look at for eCommerce, plus he shares mistakes you might be making now and how to prevent those BEFORE you're getting ready to sell.

It's an excellent interview and Joe is truly an expert in building to sell. If you're ever going to want to sell your business or have thought about buying a business in the future you're going to get a ton of value in this episode.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:03 Why Joe wrote his book
• 6:14 Who an Exitpreneur is and building to sell
• 7:11 The argument for building and selling a business
• 10:17 How Joe sets tangible goals with real data
• 11:41 Where to start when determining the value of your business
• 17:09 How to find a good bookkeeper
• 18:47 The multiple you should be looking for in eCommerce
• 22:13 Why you should separate inventory when looking at the value of a business
• 24:19 Joe's take on aggregators and the roll-ups of FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) and Shopify stores
• 29:50 Things to look out for in deal terms and the "stability payment"
• 32:19 Do roll-ups blow up or end up incredibly successful?
• 34:36 When you should start planning if you're building to sell your business
• 36:46 How to "exit without exiting"
• 39:06 Is there a sweet spot for time to sell a business?
• 42:09 Joe's first 3 actions to have success with your first acquisition
• 46:31 How deals are financed on Joe's site
• 50:32 What Joe's excited about right now

Resources:

• Quietlight.com
• Exitpreneur.io
• Book: The Exitpreneur's Playbook by Joe Valley
• Book: Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel
• Centurica.com Market Watch
• Boopos.fund
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Building a business is filled with amazing highs and big lows. Despite some tough blows in the early days, one eCommerce founder kept his commitment to his personal health and family and found success on the other side.

Jay Campbell is the owner of Aseir Custom, and in this episode he shares his wild journey of building a business. We go deep into what he's learned through major manufacturing issues and how he managed customer experience after that. We discuss how he unlocked massive growth working with influencers. We also talk about Jay's commitments to his family and personal health and how for the last 5 years he has taken a trip with his wife every 8 weeks.

Aseir Custom went from about $16k / month in sales in February 2021 to hitting $250k in August 2021. The journey has been anything but linear and there's a lot to learn from this story. Jay has a great mindset and he shares the raw truth of his experience going through incredibly challenging times while seeing rapid growth in the business simultaneously.

If you are an operator in the weeds, building a business, or experiencing rapid growth you will get a lot out of this discussion.

Episode Highlights

• 5:16 How Jay and his wife plan their "every eight weeks" travel adventures
• 8:01 Jay's transition to eCommerce
• 11:09 The beginning of Jay's hair regrowth business
• 17:07 Managing Black Friday with major manufacturing issues
• 19:54 How Jay and his business partner recovered their business from almost shutting down
• 25:47 The realities of running an eCommerce business and trying to scale
• 28:30 The benefits of getting help in the early stages of building a business
• 33:53 Learning from the first year and a half of Jay's business
• 39:43 How Jay manages work while he's traveling

Links And Resources

• Jay's Website
• Aseir Custom
• @jaycampbell333 on Twitter
• Jay's Podcast
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Is TikTok the new frontier for social advertising? How to get reliable Facebook ad performance data post iOS 14? These are some of the questions The Social Savannah is answering for us today.

This episode features Savannah Sanchez a media buyer and owner of The Social Savannah. Savannah started her advertising career at large agencies working on Facebook ad accounts. In 2019 she left to create her own boutique agency helping eCommerce brands with their paid social advertising.

She is a prolific creator of ads and creative as well as an optimization expert. She has cracked the code of TikTok ads and continues to be a top creator of winning Facebook creative.

In this episode Savannah and I discuss how to get started with TikTok ads, the key metrics to be tracking on Facebook post iOS 14, how creative strategies should vary between social channels, and some of the tools Savannah uses to track metrics across channels. Savannah also shares her vast knowledge working with TikTok influencers and what you can do to see success there.

If you are running a brand or doing digital marketing, you're gonna get a lot out of this episode!

Plus: if you're a member of the Coalition check out Savannah's recent training: Demystifying TikTok.

Episode Highlights

• 4:40 Savannah's community of media buyers
• 7:26 How Savannah got started in advertising
• 12:05 Takeaways from running media budgets of $100k+
• 15:03 The biggest difference between Facebook and TikTok ad account strategies
• 18:04 How to start from zero with TikTok advertising
• 21:05 Finding TikTok content creators
• 22:26 Going viral on TikTok
• 23:22 What a good hit rate is for TikTok
• 24:37 How KPI's differ by social channel
• 28:53 The biggest changes on post iOS 14 Facebook
• 32:31 MER (marketing efficiency ratio): Savannahs favorite KPI
• 35:35 How long does it take to set up cross channel reporting for a simple channel strategy
• 38:26 The technical set up for TikTok
• 39:14 Using TikTok influencers to run ads
• 42:06 What Savannah's daily life looks like
• 44:03 Savannahs favorite tools
• 1:01:52 Tips for success when breaking out on your own

Links And Resources

• Savannah's Website
• Ad Creatives Only Facebook Group
• Supermetrics
• @social_savannah on Twitter
• Savannah Sanchez on YouTube
• Superhuman for email
• Calendly
• Sunsama
• Monday
• Uber Conference
• Book: A World Without Email by Cal Newport
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

In this Greatest Hits episode we're revisiting a conversation about market disruption and big goals. JT Marino shares the story of his dream to build a company that would disrupt the mattress industry.

JT Marino was the co-founder of Tuft & Needle, and this is his story of bootstrapping his way from nothing to the largest online mattress retailer in the world.

JT, who is now the Chief Strategy Officer for SSB Phoenix, joins us to share his incredible story.

We talk about why customer-centricity was one of Tuft & Needle's core principles from the beginning, and the role it played in their eventual merger with Serta Simmons. JT shares his thoughts on the importance, as a founder, of having an intimate understanding of how every aspect of your business works, and why they decided not to take any outside investments when they first started out.

This is one of my favorite founder interviews we've done and I hope you enjoy it!

Episode Highlights

• 4:58 Introducing JT Marino
• 6:47 How the friendship and partnership started between the founders of Turf & Needle, JT and Daehee
• 11:13 How the Tuft & Needle co-founders maintain a strong friendship while running a business together
• 12:51 How JT's prior experience with heavily-funded, but unsuccessful, Silicon Valley start-ups influenced Tuft & Needle's decision to not take outside investments.
• 17:21 The importance of identifying "the problem" when you're building a business, and how this led to the creation of Tuft & Needle
• 19:28 Some of the other principles the Tuft & Needle founders committed to before starting their business
• 22:11 How JT and Daehee used a problem-solution approach to determine whether they had a product-market fit for Tuft & Needle
• 27:59 The benefits of being highly involved with and having an intimate understanding of every aspect of the business, from manufacturing to supply chain to marketing
• 31:30 How Tuft & Needle moved through the pit of sorrow and started to scale
• 35:12 How a Hacker News blog post contributed to explosive growth of Tuft & Needle
• 37:51 The importance of customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth to Tuft & Needle's success, especially when they had a limited advertising budget
• 39:40 The various channels that helped grow the business over time
• 42:45 JT's approach to tracking attribution across a variety of channels
• 45:55 How Tuft & Needle developed advertising techniques and targeting that span across digital and non-digital
• 50:34 The unconventional reason Tuft & Needle started selling on Amazon
• 53:39 The Net Promoter Score target T&F set before making the decision to list on Amazon
• 56:10 JT's advice if you're considering selling on Amazon and the importance of looking at the market picture as you start to grow
• 59:35 The role customer-centricity played in Tuft & Needle's decision to merge with Serta
• 1:06:46 The future of the mattress industry
• 1:09:48 JT shares his hobbies and what's in store for him in the next year

Links And Resources

• Tuft & Needle
• How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham
• Blog: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com
• Meet the Warby Parker of Mattresses
• JT on Twitter: @johnmarino
• [email protected]
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

We're bringing back this Greatest Hit with 6 quick wins you can execute today to grow your business immediately.

I get asked for my growth checklist for eCommerce businesses all the time so I'm bringing back this episode with Andrew Foxwell on how to grow your business with 6 tactical and quick wins you can implement today.

We're sharing the tried and true things we know work from Facebook ad set up to email segmentation, and website optimization to customer acquisition. I guarantee these tips will help you generate sales and you'll see results immediately.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 3:59 Quick Win #1: 4-6% Lookalikes based off pixel value.
• 5:21 Quick Win #2: Identify previous customers who are likely to spend again, but who are no longer on your email list, and hit them with remarketing.
• 6:57 Quick Win #3: Integrate your Klaviyo audiences with Facebook.
• 8:08 Quick Win #4: Turn great text reviews into video reviews.
• 10:48 Quick Win #5: Use bid caps to ensure your Facebook ads are being shown.
• 12:39 Quick Win #6: Get a fresh perspective on your website.

Links And Resources

• Klaviyo
• UserTesting
• Profit Summit
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @andrewfoxwell on Twitter
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Positioning your brand correctly is the most powerful thing you can do to attract and retain customers. Effective copywriting is how you do it.

My guest on this episode is none other than The Email Copywriter, Chris Orzechowski, and he's here to deliver massive value about copywriting, positioning, and marketing strategy.

We talk about how to think about copywriting, ways to improve your emails, and different styles of email campaigns and flows. We go deep into positioning and ways to unlock advertising angles for your brand that are probably already inside your own head if you're passionate about your business and products.

Chris is a member of the Coalition, our community of 250+ eComm founders, and recently did a training on How to Make Your Emails Irresistible. It's one of our most popular trainings so definitely check it out. If you're interested in joining the Coalition to access this training and more like it, sign up here.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:08 How Chris became The Email Copywriter
• 4:54 Why Chris chose to focus on eCommerce copywriting
• 9:01 Where Chris's advertising inspiration comes from
• 11:36 Debunking the biggest misconception about email marketing - sending too many emails
• 15:18 Long form copy - why you should test it
• 19:28 Writing about your product with dimensionalized benefits
• 21:07 Levels of market sophistication and how to position yourself in your industry
• 24:21 Appealing to your market identity
• 26:26 Chris's favorite email testing opportunities
• 28:15 The process Chris uses to test copy
• 32:08 Copywriting that shifts people's mindset
• 33:17 Using your product knowledge to write inspiring copy
• 39:09 How to talk to your customers to inform your copywriting
• 40:49 The future of email marketing - what you should be thinking about
• 46:11 What's working right now in email marketing - things to test today
• 52:28 The new marketing copy opportunity - SMS
• 58:59 How to hire a copywriter

Resources:

• Chris's Website
• Make Your Marketing Emails Irresistible Training
• Copychief.com
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

I have worked with hundreds of different companies at various stages of growth, from pre-launch to multi-million dollar acquisitions. In this Greatest Hits episode we're talking about scaling a brand and what it takes.

This is the first episode in our scaling series, where we'll talk about each stage of growth and the challenges you're going to face as you scale up your business from zero to 8-figures.

In this "zero to launch" episode where we'll address some of the questions you'll face when you're determining how to launch and going from an idea for a product to actually getting sales.

If you enjoy this episode be sure to go back and check out the other core episodes in our Scaling Series that will give you value whether you're at the beginning, already making 7-figures, or somewhere in the middle.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:04 Why we decided to do a scaling series.
• 9:12 The most important thing when you're just starting out? Feedback.
• 10:29 Knowing what your community looks like is critical for scaling.
• 13:45 Once you know your community, identify their buying power and your market potential.
• 15:43 A zero to launch case study.
• 18:21 Common missteps at this stage.
• 19:45 Creating a "talk trigger" product.

Links And Resources

• Launch To Traction: The Scaling Series, Part 2
• Traction to Scaling: The Scaling Series, Part 3
• Growth Mode: The Scaling Series, Part 4
• Case Studies: The Scaling Series, Part 5
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @andrewfoxwell on Twitter
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes