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Discover how Andy Novins turns business challenges into big wins! Andy shares with host Andrew Stotz how he uses Deming strategies to outsmart competitors, watch for market shifts, and win loyal clients in one of the toughest industries around. TRANSCRIPT Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm here with featured guest Andy Novins. Andy, are you ready to join and share your Deming journey?   Andy Novins: I sure am. Yep.   Andrew Stotz: We've done a lot of prep for this, had some good conversations, and I'm looking forward to it. Let me introduce you to the audience. Andy first got introduced to the teachings of Dr. Deming more than 30 years ago and has been hooked ever since. He attended Dr. Deming's four-day seminar in August of 1993, only four months before the passing of Dr. Deming on December 20th of 1993 at the age of 93. Andy was a co-owner of a women's athletic apparel company, which was eventually purchased by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. For the past 23 years, he's been applying Dr. Deming's philosophy to his work in real estate, which traditionally has operated in what could be described as in opposition to the teachings of Dr. Deming. Andy, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're doing right now and maybe a little bit about how you got into what you're doing now, and then later we're going to talk a little bit about your experience with Dr. Deming and all that. But just let us know, where are you at? What are you doing?   Andy Novins: Okay. Well, I am in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., and after my partners and I sold the company that Andrew just referred to, I had to decide what I was going to do. And I had about six months to do that because part of the contract required me to help the purchaser, which originally was Russell Corporation, a big athletic, they made all the Major League Baseball uniforms and everything. We had to transfer my company's systems to their systems, and that was one of the worst six months of my career, watching everything we had done, which was really all Deming-based, being sort of dismantled and worked into another Fortune 500 company at the time. It was, somewhat, actually it was a few years later that Berkshire Hathaway bought it, and it was because Russell was not doing very well. It was a rescue-type purchase by Berkshire Hathaway, which sort of had some satisfaction in mind that their systems weren't all that good. So that's where I got into Deming, and I've taken a lot of what I learned from the apparel company into real estate, which, as Andrew just mentioned, is very volume-centric, volume-focused, and focusing on processes as opposed to systems.   Andrew Stotz: And in the real estate world, for those people that don't know, let's say real estate, what position are you in? For instance, my sister is a mortgage broker in Maine, and that's a different place within the whole sphere of it, but maybe you can explain exactly where you are in the value chain.   Andy Novins: Okay. We focus on residential real estate. What we call in real estate farm, okay? I send out 5,000 newsletters a month that show to eight different areas, really, but they're all within, believe it or not, two miles of my house. And those news, I've been doing that for over 20 years. I've never made a cold call. I will never call anybody and say, are you thinking of selling or anything like that. Yet, using this process, which is all really Deming-based, I've done about 10 times the volume of any other realtor in the 5,000 homes that I service. It's the process... I don't want to use process. The system we used is based on Michael Porter, his concept of competitive advantage. And it's a system that's focused on a value chain, things that we do that other people can't do. For example, there are close to 300 sales a year in my 5,000 home market. I see every one of them. And when you see a house that's on the market, you know a lot more than anybody else does by looking at pictures. If you've ever been to an open house and after seeing it on the internet, it's a lot different than what you saw in the pictures. No other agent can do that because most agents in my area focus on Northern Virginia, which would be about 20,000 transactions a year, not 300. So they can't even try to compete with me in my area. So that's the whole concept of it is doing things. As Michael Porter would say, you have a value proposition. That's my expertise in my local area.   Andrew Stotz: Porter talks about different strategies. One, he says, is the low-cost leader. Another is the differentiation. And the third one he talks about is focus and where you're focused on a niche in the market. And then I guess I always kind of think that really he's talking about two, because with focus, you're picking a niche, but then you're going to either be a low-cost leader or probably a differentiator in that focused area. But when you talk about Porter and what he's teaching, can you explain a little bit more for those people that don't know what he talked about?   Andy Novins: Sure. Yes. Basically, yes. I mean, I'll never forget. My partner and I were at a breakfast, realtor breakfast at one point, and there was an agent sitting across the table from us and he said, I just got this listing. And he said, but I had to go down to 1%. And he's, you know, for commission. And at that time, commissions were pretty much 3%. And he kind of looked at us and said, that's better than nothing, right? And that's the low-cost. Low-cost producers will never win. It'll always be somebody else. And Porter says, you can't be the best either. Okay. There's no such thing as the best realtor. There's always going to be somebody else. So the concept for real estate is picking a niche, that for me, it was farming. I'm a pretty good writer. So I write a newsletter, and people call me when they're ready to sell their house. And it's worked beautifully for... I started that in 2003. Okay. But there's people that focus on luxury, the luxury market or people that focus on first time buyers, or people that focus on... There's all kinds of different niches downsizing or upsizing. And so you can become an expert in anything. And that's how you differentiate yourself in real estate.   Andrew Stotz: And that concept of not competing to be best that Porter talks about is great because it also forces you to think. You're focused on the wrong thing if you're focusing on how to beat the competitor. And I always enjoyed the fact that Deming was so focused on the customer.   Andy Novins: Yes.   Andrew Stotz: And that, I think with Porter, I like that. But with Deming, I just really love the idea that he saw quality in the eyes of the customer. He saw innovation and continuous improvement in relation to the customer as primary over trying to benchmark off of some competitor.   Andy Novins: Exactly. And if I go back to my apparel business, the name of our company was Moving Comfort, and we just made women's apparel. Nobody else ever stuck to just that. We were the only company. Just, everybody broadened out to try to get more. So again, it's the same concept of a niche. Okay. But one of the policies, I guess, we've developed, it was a Deming related policy, which was fun, okay, was when we made a mistake, which we often did, whether we shipped somebody the wrong thing or we did other things, our objective was to make the, delight the customer, as he would say, make them happy we made the mistake. And that didn't matter what that cost to do that, sending them free stuff, doing whatever. And I think that's a Deming concept that we used in the apparel business aside from many, many others. Back to real estate, that's, I don't know anybody else in the Washington area that does what we do, because nobody's willing, that's the so-called trade-offs. Nobody's willing to say, I'm just going to focus on 5,000 houses.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah. It's scary.   Andy Novins: They can pick whatever they get.   Andrew Stotz: Yep. Yep. And maybe why don't we now go back to August of 1993. How did you find yourself in a four-day seminar? And I'm kind of jealous because what... My seminars I went to in '90 and '92 were two-day seminars.   Andy Novins: Really? Okay.   Andrew Stotz: And I had thought that he... I had thought by that time, maybe he was only doing two days, but then I learned that he was still doing four days. But what got you to that seminar? Where was it, and what got you there?   Andy Novins: Okay, I was going on vacation. Okay, this was in 1990. We were going to go to Cancun. And there's this, I guess they're still around, but there was a bookstore in DC on K Street called Reiter's. And it was all business and science. And I used to go there because pre-Amazon or anything like that. I think it was even pre-Borders. But I used to go there and spend an afternoon looking at books. And I found Out of the Crisis. And I brought it home and I said to my wife, by perusing through it, I didn't know anything about Deming at that point. But perusing through it, it just struck me as something I really wanted to read. And I went home and I said, I'm taking this book to Cancun, and I'm going to sit on the beach and read it. Well, I actually didn't read it till got home. But I got completely enthralled with it.   Andy Novins: And being in suburban DC, we're like eight miles from the White House. The Deming Study Group was very active in DC. Dr. Deming lived in DC. And there were just a lot of very well-known, famous speakers that would be part of our group, including Deming at one point, but I wasn't. But I think it was before I joined the group. So I read the book, joined the group, and after about three years, I had heard enough about the seminar that I wanted to go. And I went to that in Chicago. It was the first or second week of August of '93. And one of the things that I never really understood that Dr. Deming would say a lot was talking about being transformed, or the transformation that you get when you're studying his philosophies. And I always kind of said, well, that's not going to happen to me. It just was foreign to me. That third day of the seminar, I was transformed. I don't know how to describe it, but ever since then, I look at the world through his eyes and see things and think in systems and variability. And you get all that when you first get exposed to them, but you're not transformed. Somehow it all comes together. I couldn't describe it, I never thought it was, but that happened during that seminar.   Andrew Stotz: And what Dr. Deming talked about was the idea is that the person who's leading the organization has got to go through a transformation in order to truly implement this.   Andy Novins: Exactly.   Andrew Stotz: What was it like there? How many people were in the room? And what was your... You walked in knowing a bit. I walked in knowing nothing, basically. And it was just like, whoa. But I'm just curious, what were your first impressions? For those people that have never and never will have a chance to go in, give us a feeling about how it went.   Andy Novins: I don't know if I mentioned it was in Chicago.   Andrew Stotz: Yep.   Andy Novins: Okay. Which is a great city, and it was in the summer, which is often hot. But I was amazed because at that point, and I may be wrong, but I think it cost $1,000 to go. Okay. And he had 500, and I'm pretty sure that's about what it cost. And do you remember what yours was?   Andrew Stotz: Mine was about 500 people, for sure. I didn't pay for it, so Pepsi paid for it but I would think it was even more than that. But who knows? But maybe mine was a two-day, so it was less, I don't know.   Andy Novins: But it was 500 people. That's what I remember, because being a numbers person, I translate that to 500,000 for the four days. And so that kind of stuck in my mind. And he did a lot of them. And one of the things, too, that he did a lot of them, and I think, geez, he's making a lot of money doing this. He lived in a little tiny house on a street in Washington, and he worked in the basement. One of the things that happened to me after that, again, with the Deming Study Group, was his son-in-law, Bill Ratcliff, okay? Somewhere shortly after the four-day seminar, he called me and he said, I'm getting a lot of feedback, you guys at Moving Comfort are doing a lot of using Deming's theories and everything. Could I come and visit the company and you show me what you're doing? And I said, sure. I mean, any more exposure to any of the people interested in Deming at that point was fascinating to me. And so he came and he spent a good part of the day at the company. And then I'm not even sure if at the time I knew that he was Deming's son-in-law, but then we went out, his wife was Linda Deming Ratcliff, okay? And so he and Linda and my wife went out to dinner a couple of times after that. And it was fascinating to hear both of their stories about Dr. Deming. What I remember is Bill would say, we used to go over there on Sunday mornings and read the newspaper, and Dr. Deming would be down in the basement working. And he'd come up periodically and say, how are you doing, Bill? In his voice, and then go back down and work. And he constantly was focused on his work. And so those relationships just tied me into Deming forever, especially after the four-day seminar.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah. I think it was a discussion with Bill Scherkenbach when I asked him about what it was like in the basement. And Bill was telling me, I don't think we got this recorded, but Bill was telling me that somebody asked him why you have all of this stuff around you and in your office. And he said, I'm desperate. I'm absolutely desperate. And with the idea that he was on such a mission. And I just feel like when I went to the seminar, the first one was in Washington, and then the second one was in Los Angeles. I didn't know how significant he would be in my life at the time, and I didn't understand the transformation I was going through. But what I did later really come to understand is that he inspired me to have a mission. And like, why am I doing what I'm doing? It's one thing for all of us to be busy, working really hard, doing all kinds of stuff and bringing value to our clients. But for what? What's the mission? And was a huge, that's a much bigger takeaway for me now than it was then. But what I witnessed was this man who is very old, just conveying an incredible message. So, yeah.   Andy Novins: Yeah, it was, and he was... Well, DemingNEXT, if anybody is involved in that and can see a lot of the videos with Dr. Deming, especially during the years that I was interested in watching and everything else, he just had a unique way of presentation, but he did have a sense of humor. And it was a dry sense of humor, I guess, maybe going with his dry martinis.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah, tell us that story about Deming Martini.   Andy Novins: Yes. As one of the sessions at the four-day seminar ended, apparently this Deming Martini is famous or was pretty well-known at that point. So he described how he loved martinis and he acted out the process of making one. And again, he's 93 and just you could tell this is just part of his life he loved. And he, so he kept his vermouth in the freezer, okay? And it was, and so he demonstrated how he poured the gin, and then he acted out like he went into the refrigerator freezer and took out the vermouth. And then he would not open the bottle, but he would wave the bottle around the glass and then he'd put it back in the freezer, and he'd say, this is the best martini you can make. And he had a lot of stories that added a lot of spice to it.   Andrew Stotz: So when you left that seminar, what changed in the way that you were operating? And obviously you had already had awareness of the teachings, but did that inspire you to go to a different level or what did it cause?   Andy Novins: Yes, and I'm not sure at what point the so-called transformation took place in the four-day seminar. You knew that that's how you were going to think for the rest of your life. That wasn't, you were going to think in systems and variation and predicting from the system and all those things. But so I can't really remember what years we did it, but as an apparel, our company basically, we designed, manufactured through separate factories and sold women's athletic apparel to specially sporting goods stores around the country. Nordstrom's was a client, one of the bigger ones, L.L. Bean and those kinds of things. And so one of the things we implemented that was really a Deming concept was improving our shipping, the picking process, which is filling an order. And we automated that with a carousel, which brought the product right to the picker, the warehouse person, and barcodes and scanned the order, and it brought the thing right to them. It incredibly reduced our error rate in shipping. And at the time, this would have been like 19, this was '91 or somewhere early on that. And at the time, we were way ahead of other companies.   Andy Novins: Even Nike, they would get an order, they'd walk around and pick their orders. And so that was a Deming-inspired process or way of improving our system. With apparel and you're designing 100 different styles or sizes and styles and everything else, the design development group, the functional silos that, I don't know if Dr. Deming used that term, but the system that every department has to hand off is working for the next department. In apparel, it's really complicated. And that was the biggest Deming issue we would focus on. It never went away. You really had to always, because our designers would put bells and whistles into a garment. We were very high-end and it either wasn't practical price-wise or it wasn't practical in the factory or we didn't have a good source for where we were going to put it, where, what factory we were going to put it in, that type of thing. So that's where really the Caribbean Basin Trade Initiative at that point came out. That's where we had factory, up until about 1990, all our production was in the United States.   Andy Novins: After that, it got too expensive, labor, sewing labor in the United States. That's when most companies started going offshore. We did a lot in the Caribbean. And when you're manufacturing apparel, back at the beginning, you would ship, we would buy the fabric and we would ship it to the Caribbean factory that we were using and they would sew it, and put it together. And then trade agreements came out where the factories could buy the material. And essentially, instead of they being just a sewer, they would be making a finished product for us. That had huge implications on simplifying the system and transferring responsibility to the people that really needed it. But now maybe I'm getting too much into apparel, but...they haven't been doing it for 23 years.   Andrew Stotz: So let's talk about what you're doing about your application of Dr. Deming's teaching in real estate. And I know you've also brought something along to share and go through, but maybe you can just talk a little bit about how you're applying that in the real estate business.   Andy Novins: Yeah, and that's the control chart concept. And all real estate statistics are lagging indicators, whether we're talking median prices or active listings, or I guess active listings are the only one that's not a lagging indicator, but almost virtually every month's supply of inventory, all those things are lagging indicators. So they tell us as realtors what happened. And in my market here, it bottomed out after the 2008 recession in March of 2009. And until this year, it's gone straight up for 16 years. So most realtors, virtually no realtors... Well, most realtors haven't experienced a shift in the market, which is what we're going through now, where the market goes from being a buyer's or seller's market for all those years. And I'm talking about a strong seller's market. A seller's market is defined by the National Association of Realtors as any market where the months' supply is less than six months. And our supply was hovering around two to three weeks. And it's now almost two months, but the market has shifted and it's incredible how many people don't realize that.   Andy Novins: Everybody knows there's something going on, but the media takes care of that. But all the statistics we get are, again, median prices are still very high, okay? But using control charts, you can plot, for example, a couple of months of live inventory. That started going down in April, okay? I mean, that went out of the control limits in April, okay? That's telling us that something's happened. It tells us directly that the market shifted, okay? The other thing that I watch is price drops, okay? How many price drops? That went out of the control limits in, I think, June, they started out, okay? And we're looking at that weekly, and that's showing us every week, the number of price, it's so far out of the control limit right now, it's amazing. There's no... You can't... You can look at price drops, and you can look at months' supply on a graph, okay? But it doesn't tell you that the system's now out of control. But control charts do tell you that, so...   Andrew Stotz: Should we look at your control chart? Maybe that's a good time to do that.   Andy Novins: Sure, yeah. And before we do that, one of the things in real estate is seasonality, okay? And that hides a lot of problems because prices go up in the spring, down in the summer, down in the fall, up a little bit, then down. But let me bring those up and talk about them. Okay, you can see this?   Andrew Stotz: Yep, and for the listeners out there, I'll just describe. You've got a line chart up here, and a line that's going up and down, and then recently is going up a lot. And it starts in July of 2023, and it goes to June of 2025. And so why don't you take that away and help us understand what you've got here?   Andy Novins: Okay. So the control limits, the upper and lower control limit are the red lines on this. And going back to July of '23, everything was stable. And if we went back long before that, it would also have been stable.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and by the way, just to make it clear, it's monthly supply, or month supply, sorry, of housing.   Andy Novins: I'm sorry.   Andrew Stotz: Can you explain what it means, month supply?   Andy Novins: Yeah, month supply is the number of active listings at the end of a month divided by the average monthly sales for 12 months, the 12-month average. So it's basically saying if you've got 10 active listings and the average is two a month, that you've got a five-month supply of listings. Okay?   Andrew Stotz: And the average on this is one month supply.   Andy Novins: The average, right. And you can see where during the pandemic, we've had times where it went down to just a number of weeks, which is pretty incredible, but that's our market. So again, this chart is telling us that... Well, there's another thing, other ways that Dr. Deming would look at this. We've got several months where it's going, the month supply is just going up. So starting in December '24, you can see that the supply keeps going up. And then it went out and broke the upper control limit. So what he would say in this, looking at this chart is that up until really of March 2025, the system was in control, it was predictable, okay? And then starting in March or April 2025, it was out of control, it was not a stable market, and the market is a system.   Andrew Stotz: And it went up above the upper control limit of 1.6 roughly or 1.55. And now the highest it went up in May was about one point, almost, yeah, 1.8.   Andy Novins: 1.8, okay. And so Dr. Deming would say that number one, it's a shift in the market, number two, the market is no longer predictable. Okay? Clients don't like to hear that, but using these charts and explaining it to them, they do understand it. And in real estate, one of the most important things when markets are changing, or always actually for that matter, is managing client expectations, okay? And using Deming's theories and control charts, it makes it... And I'll get into that a little bit more in a minute, but managing their expectations becomes more of a science than scripts, which is what...   Andrew Stotz: One of the things I learned from Dr. Deming was be skeptical of data,  and I know I've spent my career as a financial analyst manipulating tons of data. And every time I see something out of control like we see here, the first question I ask is, is there an error in the data? And then the next question is, okay, so what's going on out there that the chart is one thing, but can you just talk briefly about what's going on? What do you think is behind this? What's causing it? What is that shift that you're seeing?   Andy Novins: Well, if you were asking me this in 2008, I could have told you. The irresponsible lending and all kinds of other things. Today, the market is in our market more than others is impacted by uncertainty. Okay. Uncertainty surrounding the impact of tariffs. Okay. But especially in our area, the impact on federal workers job security. Okay. In our area, which is an expensive area, almost any couple that is buying a house is buying it on two incomes. And if one of those, one of the members of the couple is, works for the federal government or is a government or works for a government contractor or is affected by any, in any company that may be impacted by government cutbacks, they're not buying a house right now. They're waiting. So they don't want to buy on one income. And so they pulled out of the market. And that's, that's the biggest reason for the increase in the supply. The other is,  people do want to move. People want to downsize and upsize. Well, most people have a 3% interest rate or better or slightly around there. So with the impact of low, you know, of rising interest rates and everything else, there's people that want to downsize. And if they move, they'd be paying more for their smaller house than they were for their house they're staying in. So they stay.   Andrew Stotz: What are, what are mortgage rates right now? Roughly.   Andy Novins: That's  675, 6.75. 30 year. But what's interesting on that, and I haven't done it, but it would be an interesting exercise is when I began my career as a CPA in New York, I moved down here in 1982 to be part of the company that I talked about before, the apparel company. I, when I said to her, when I had that opportunity, I said to my wife, what do you think about moving down to Washington? We lived in Westchester County, New York, and she said, well, sure, but, and at that point, I was treasurer of a bank in the New York metropolitan area, and she was willing to take the risk. It was a risky move, but she said not, but not, we can't sell our house. We have an eight and a half percent mortgage. We'll rent it, and if it doesn't work in Washington, we can always come back to it. So that eight and a half percent mortgage back in '82 was not something you got rid of, and people don't realize that the average mortgage rate in the past 50 years is eight percent. So at 6.75, it's not that bad, but it's relative to the three percent interest rates we had. It's making it tough for people to move.   Andrew Stotz: So just talking now, I just want to wrap up on the chart by saying, so once you use, you're demonstrating using a control chart in the industry of real estate, and you're discussing the fact that right now, you've got three points that have breaking out of the upper control limit, which now tells us, as you said, it's unpredictable at this point. What else, what do you take from that, and how does that drive your actions when you see this chart? How does that impact you, and in other words, how are you applying Deming's teachings once you've now done this?   Andy Novins: Great question. When you price a house to sell it, you use what we call comparable sales. When a market is going up or stable, comparable sales are a good indication of what you're probably going to price it at if it's going to go on the market soon. What realtors do is what we call a comparative market analysis, and that's comparing at least three homes to their home. There's all different ways of doing that, which is part of a Deming system too. But when you go to somebody and say, well, we got these three homes and they sold it at 800, but if you're going to put your house on the market next month, we're probably looking more like at 750. And most people would say, well, I'm not going to use that guy. This other realtor says 800 is the way to go. And using the control chart showing that the market has shifted and that those comps are no longer valid is one of the most valuable uses of control charts in real estate because, again, it's evidence that the comps aren't valid anymore.   Andy Novins: The other thing is comps represent, even if it closed yesterday, it went under contract a month ago. So the comps are just not necessarily good if the market is shifting, and this is pretty powerful evidence to a potential client that pricing is really important and you can't just use past comps. I'll go to the next chart, which is price drops. And this is something, again, our market really just shifted recently, so this is something I'm actually doing actively right now looking at. But you can see that this is weekly price drops. Okay, it started off monthly because I can't go back and get that data. But if I go back to a stable year, last year is the base. You can see that price drops were pretty stable process in the pricing system. They were...   Andrew Stotz: So what does that mean? Just so we understand, let's say the average is 25% projected monthly price drop. What does that actually mean?   Andy Novins: That's saying that every month that of the active listings on the market, 25% of them are reducing their price. That month.   Andrew Stotz: So in other words, 75% are either keeping it the same or raising it.   Andy Novins: Say that. Yes, right.   Andrew Stotz: The opposite of that. Okay.   Andy Novins: Right. And that's each month. That doesn't mean somebody didn't lower their price on that same house the month before. But it's registering the number of drops that homes on the market are doing.   Andrew Stotz: And that would mean it's like a pretty good seller's market again when only a quarter of listings need to drop their price in order to get the sale.   Andy Novins: Yes, exactly. Yep. Exactly. And you can see this...   Andrew Stotz: And let's just talk about the January 2024 to December of 2024. So for the year of 2024, what's your observation of the data?   Andy Novins: It was stable. It's not a change in the market.   Andrew Stotz: Yep. Okay. Normal variation.   Andy Novins: Yeah, normal variation. Okay. But when it starts to go up like it has, and it's even worse because what I'm using is an average for these weeks. The next week starting tomorrow will have the four-week average. They're actually quite a bit higher, the last two, than what they show here because they were averaged down. But when you see rampant price dropping, that's out of control, so to speak.   Andrew Stotz: Right. So it's gone from a mean of 25 up to 60-plus percent of monthly price drop. I'm just curious. It says on your y-axis, it says projected monthly price drop. Does that mean somebody's making some estimate on that, or what does that mean?   Andy Novins: That's because right now I'm doing it by the week.   Andrew Stotz: Okay. Ah, okay.   Andy Novins: Okay. And I'm averaging the week. And then when I get the month, it'll be like the earlier ones.   Andrew Stotz: So the most recent ones are the projected, and the other ones are the actual month.   Andy Novins: Yeah.   Andrew Stotz: Okay.   Andy Novins: And right, I'm using, I'm multiplying them times four the week. So it's right now I'm projecting what July will be, basically, the total, but it'll be up around 60%.   Andrew Stotz: And this chart corroborates the conclusions that you made in the prior chart, or are there any other additional...   Andy Novins: Yeah. And the month supply chart is more of a leading indicator of a market shift, because this is the reaction of sellers and realtors to a market they didn't anticipate properly. And so this is a much more now type of thing. And again, if I go back to a client and say, you know, all the comps are 800, but we're going to recommend 750, this is pretty convincing evidence that basically almost everybody in the market is reducing their prices.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   Andy Novins: And in a falling market, the worst thing you can do is chase the prices, chase it down.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And what this doesn't show, it shows that 60% are dropping their price. It doesn't show what the remaining 40% are. And that composition of that could just be, there could be no price increases. We don't know from this data whether that's holding the price the same or increasing it.   Andy Novins: Right. But it doesn't mean that there aren't homes in those active listings that didn't reduce their price, that reduced their price. They may have reduced their price last month. Okay. So it's really just showing the panic that's out there.   Andrew Stotz: Okay. Got it.   Andy Novins: But it's a great leading indicator from that standpoint.   Andrew Stotz: Okay. So two charts that show us the application of control charts and Deming's teachings there in real estate and making a note of the fact that these are now out of control. Interesting.   Andy Novins: Yes. And again, the most important thing you can do, I think, in real estate is accurately manage your client's expectations. Yeah. Because, and I'm going to back up for a second, that's another real benefit of having a niche practice. And again, like the competitive advantage Michael Porter concept. And for me, writing a newsletter, which gives them what we hope to be useful information for the 5,000 homes that get it. When they're ready to sell, again, I don't call them, they call me. And they call me because they trust me. They believe I know what I'm doing. And so part of a system that would be outside of what Dr. Deming talked about, but part of the system is your clients, the quality of your system is going to depend on the quality of your clients. And so having a niche, again, what I'm doing in terms of that so-called farming and the newsletter is I'm attracting clients that will trust me. Okay. That's so much a Deming concept in terms of the overall system and how it affects it. We see all the time when buyers that are buying one of our listings and they have all these problems and the other real estate agents, their buyer's agent says, I know they're crazy. I can't wait till this is over because their buyer clients aren't listening to them and they're asking for unreasonable things or whatever. So a critical part of the system in real estate is getting clients that will listen to you because theoretically we know what we're doing.   Andrew Stotz: And if we look at this chart, one of the things that some people may ask is what about forecasts? And I know I spent my career as a financial analyst in the stock market forecasting earnings. And then when I worked on my PhD for my dissertation, I decided to calculate the accuracy of analysts in earnings forecasts. And as I said, the title of my dissertation was analysts were only 25% wrong. And in other words, here is the highest qualified people to forecast the earnings of these companies and they get it wrong by 25% on average. And so for those people that say, well, what about your forecast and all that? I always say, I live on the cutting edge of history. Don't try to go too far out in the future. Just make sure you understand. And that's where this chart shows July 19th to July 25th that you could say that's pretty much, and if you get the data out the next day, that's the cutting edge of history.   Andy Novins: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in the past, people say, well, should I wait?  At this time of the year, they might say, should I wait and put the house on the market next spring? Or should we do it after Labor Day? And in the past, I would have said, wait till next spring because things were going to be better. You could... Everything was stable and rising. What these charts show, and they do require some explanation, is that the market is out of control right now. You can't predict it. And then if so,  then it becomes a decision that a client makes based on what they really need. Do they want to move yet? Do they want to wait? Do they... But these control charts are showing that you can't predict. Whereas in the past, you could be pretty safe.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And the point of that, too, is that a control chart can't solve every problem. It tells you where things are, so you understand things a lot better. But then, how you're going to actually use that information, well, somebody may use it to say, I need to sell my house now. Somebody else may say, I'm going to wait because I think this is bad and it's going to get better later. And somebody's going to say, I'm going to sell now desperately because I think this is going to get much worse, right? That's the hard part.   Andy Novins: Yeah.   Andrew Stotz: But if you don't know what's actually happening, which the control chart gives you that information, then there's none of that.  It's just, there's no basis in fact of what you're doing.   Andy Novins: Exactly. Right. They provide a window into the market that I have never seen anybody use this or talk about it.   Andrew Stotz: And do you have any more charts? Was that it?   Andy Novins: No. Yeah, I got more.   Andy Novins: Okay. Whoops. Oh, but before we get to that, okay, so this is a concept, and if I'm going too long, cut me off.   Andrew Stotz: No, no. Go ahead.   Andy Novins: So in a falling or stable market like we're in, okay, in a rising market, you pick a price, and if you're good, you're going to do well. If you do it right, they're going to bid it up. That's the way it's been for five years since COVID. Okay. Now the market is not rising. It's falling or even in a stable market. So the PDSA cycle that Deming talked about is absolutely so on target for what we're going through right now. So I'll just briefly go through this. The plan part is you price using comps or adjusted comps based on what the control charts are showing where the market is going rather than where it was. Okay. And then you put the listing on the market in the MLS. And then what we do, okay, is we study what's happening, okay? And again, the market is not in control. It's not a stable system. So we monitor and we subscribe to special services that most agents don't get. They cost money, but they give us a lot of information. We can see the number of views all over the internet that a house is getting that's on the market. And we can subscribe to another service that shows all the showings that are comparable houses in our zip code or any way we want to do it are getting. And then we use the control charts and we look at feedback and everything else.   Andrew Stotz: So do you have more charts, Andy?   Andy : I sure do. This isn't actually a chart. It's one of the core tools that Dr. Deming used. And it's what he called the PDSA cycle. And that is the most important tool that we use with the data we get from the control charts. So I'm going through an example here of pricing. And so the PDSA is plan, do, study, act. And the planning section of this process is we price using comps, like I've described. But we also use the control charts to let us adjust the comps for what's happening in the market right up to today, basically. And the do is just in real estate is just simply putting the listing in the real estate market, MLS, and listing it so people can see it. The study, though, is what's really important. And that's where a lot more data comes in. We subscribe to services where we can monitor all the views all over the Internet of our listings. And we can monitor showings that our listings are getting, which we know, but other listings. We can monitor what they're getting in terms of competitive listings, similar prices, and that type of thing.   Andy : And we also monitor what houses, if any, are going under contract since our property went on the market. And that provides what we talk. So we have to act on that data. And that's the A of the PDSA cycle. And so we use feedback loops. So just as an example, I won't necessarily go through all these. If we have a lot of views, high views, and high showings, we know the price is right. We're going to get offers. On the other hand, if we have high views and low showings, we know buyers are interested in it, they like it, but they're not ready to come and look at it. They're waiting for that price to go down, which in this market, it probably will. So we advise our clients based on the data we're getting, and then we either reprice or we don't. There's also some other things we use to monitor, but I won't go into those at this point.   Andrew Stotz: What's interesting about that is it's like every single listing is a test.   Andy : Exactly.   Andrew Stotz: That's cool.   Andy : Yeah. And that data is so important. And when you tell a client, you're getting all kinds of... You're getting... And we compare it to the other listings. We give them charts, which shows the other houses. And we say, look, you're getting twice the views of these other houses, but nobody's coming to your house, or very few are coming. And the other listings are getting less views and more showings. People think you're overpriced. And it's very convincing to a client.   Andrew Stotz: Is there one of these that you're aiming for? And if you are close to that in your listings, you're hitting the right spot? Or what are you aiming for?   Andy : High views and high showings. That's the best. Everybody's looking at it. People are coming. Okay. There's other tests down the road because traditionally if you get 16 to 18 showings and nobody makes an offer, you're still probably overpriced, but that's very unlikely. Okay.   Andrew Stotz: And is price the only factor that you can adjust here, let's say high views, high showings could be just the type of house, the location, but you don't necessarily control those things?   Andy : No, the one down near the bottom. Low views, high showings. It's ikely a niche piece of property. Not many people are looking at it, but the people that want that niche, whatever may be different, it's a unique piece of property, they'll get a lot of showings relative to their views, because most people aren't interested. But there isn't much else we can do because we spend... We pay for staging. We don't pay for it. We do it. We have our own inventory and staging. We have contractors that we've used for years to help get a house ready. So the product itself, the house, and the presentation, there's never much more we can do to make that better.   Andrew Stotz: And quality in the eyes of the customer is the best price sold quickly, I guess.   Andy : Yes. Yeah. That's right. There's a saying which not everybody agrees with in the real estate industry, but you want to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time with the least amount of hassle.   Andrew Stotz: I think that's everywhere.   Andy : That's true.   Andrew Stotz: Yes. I want that. Great.   Andy : That's what everybody wants, but some people say, well, if it's too fast, you didn't... But that's usually not true. Fast is usually good as long as it's priced right. The next chart I have is a whole other way we use control charts, and that's to evaluate our own performance, which is what this is doing. And it's using sales-to-list price ratios. In other words, what percentage of the list price was the sales? And here we're using a long base period, and I'm just going to back up for a second. In some of the two recent, the ones I did on price drops and supply of inventory, we only had a year worth of, for the base line. And normally it's better to use more than that, but those two years I used were stable, and we didn't go back further because the Fed had been raising interest rates, and that created a... That was not a stable market when they did that, so we didn't want to use that as a history.   Andy : So this is showing our performance, and you can see starting with the pandemic, we went way above the control limits a lot of times. But what you do when you're looking at or using a chart like this for your own improvement is you want to narrow the upper and lower control limits, the two red lines. The closer they get together, the less variation you have, the smaller your standard deviation. And for us, it's 0.2. And our range between what... That's normal is between 95% and 107% of the sales price. And just to how we use it and how we get better at it is we focus on pricing. We focus on improving negotiation, which is a big deal, especially in the last few years. We are always looking to improve our client base. We're always looking to improve our preparation and presentation. We think we got that pretty well down pat. And the other thing is to stay within your area of expertise, because when you go out of that, okay, if I was to work on a house out of my market, okay, I wouldn't get this kind of performance. So that's going to lead me to the next and really the final chart. And that's another group, okay? And I'm using this group because... Just to...   Andrew Stotz: Sorry, when you say another group, what do you mean?   Andy : It's not my team, no offense industry...   Andrew Stotz: So it's a competitor or it's...   Andy : This is a well-known group. It's led by two Ivy League graduates. And it's a much bigger team than ours. Their standard... And it's the same base period, 2017 to '19. Their standard deviation is three times what ours is. Their range of what they do within the control limits is 78% to 114%. And that... Why do we do this? Why do we care? It's always nice to benchmark yourself. But most of all, with groups or agents that we compete with, if these guys put a house on the market, okay, and we thought it was overpriced, or let's say we thought it was underpriced, okay, and it was competing with one of ours, we wouldn't tell our client to reduce their price to match their price, okay, because we know they probably are underpricing. In this case, we'd say let it go. Likewise, if we're working with a buyer who's buying one of their houses and we think it's overpriced, what their listing is overpriced, then we will probably make a lower offer knowing that they also know that their pricing can be way off. So understanding your clients and where they fit on these control charts is useful information.   Andrew Stotz: And I can imagine that some people, let's say, at another firm, as an example, may say, oh, I don't care about this variability because one side of the mean is more favorable than the other, so I'm just trying to get to that other side. Whereas what you're saying is I'm trying to reduce variation around the mean.   Andy : Yes, and that'll take me to this last section I have here. If we compare the two groups, what are the major differences? Number one, if it was a million-dollar listing, okay, we would probably get $43,000 more than they would based on these control charts. Most of all, the biggest difference...   Andrew Stotz: The selling price of your customer would be $43,500 more?   Andy : Well, our average selling price is a little over 100%. Their average selling price is 96%. So on average, they're getting $43,000 less on $1 million house than we are. But the most important thing in this is the consistency and the predictability of when you lower those control chart limits, you're making your performance much more predictable, and it's an important part to all of our clients. I mean, Deming had a... One of the things he used to say is quality is in the customer's eyes, not your eyes. So I can say we do all this great stuff and all that. It all boils down to what does the customer think. And when a group's working on volume, which is pretty typical in our industry, that's what we're taught, how to get more volume, how to get more volume, that's... The customer doesn't care. The client doesn't care about what kind of volume they do. What the customer cares about is service. And you can see some of the other things, consistency over time, process control and all that. I'll get out of here now and say that that's really what control charts and Deming's philosophy and the PDSA, it all focuses on quality in the customer's eyes, consistent performance, better service, and not a lot of guesswork. We're using data that other agents don't even know exists. And that's unfortunately not an exaggeration, really. I've never talked to anybody that knew about this.   Andrew Stotz: When Deming talked about quality, he often referenced the idea that you could have a quality system in place and still go out of business if you weren't looking at quality in the eyes of the customer and being completely connected to the customer. And I have a little story on this from my coffee business. Many years ago, we had a restaurant chain in Thailand that's a global chain come to us and we won the bid. And they said, we chose you over all these other suppliers for coffee and we're going to come to your factory and when we do, we're going to do an audit, we're going to ask 600 questions and if you get below 75% or whatever, you're fired. But, hey, I knew Deming and I knew all of this stuff and we cared about quality and we never had quality problems, so we thought we're in good shape. And they came out and they said, your score was 68, you're fired. You have six weeks to fix it or you won't be our supplier. Well, we learned something very quickly there, which was to them, paperwork was quality.   Andrew Stotz: And that was a quality system to them that meant that we had quality. And so we had a passion for quality, but we didn't have the paperwork system that they wanted. So luckily, when you have passion for quality, it's pretty easy to overlay a paperwork system on it, if that's what the customer required. I would hate to be in the opposite situation where you go and do like many people when they go and get certified or ISO or whatever and they build a paperwork system without that commitment to quality. Now, that's a disaster. But the point is that we had to realize that in order for us to satisfy that customer's needs, we had to appeal to quality as they saw it. And so we've got to always keep the customer in mind as we're working on our quality.   Andy : I got another story. My wife reminded me today that sometimes in probably early '80s, maybe mid '80s at the latest, I looked up in the... I wanted to find a statistician and I looked him up in the yellow pages, which a lot of the listeners may not know what that is. And I wanted to... What I wanted to do was find a way to improve, optimize our inventory and try to approach just-in-time inventory because we had factories all over the place and we were getting stuff in. And we never did it. And I imagine with Dr. Deming, we could have done it, but we never did it because exactly the quality's in the customer's eyes. We were shipping to specialty restock stores primarily, and if we couldn't stock their shelves, okay, they went somewhere else. Didn't matter how much they liked us, they had to have those shelves full. So we decided it wasn't worth the risk of just-in-time and optimizing our inventory at the expense of having maybe too much inventory, but satisfying our customers. And it's just so true.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Yeah. In the story that I told, that particular chain never ran out of product and certainly never ran out of coffee. And I know myself, being a customer of that chain, never in my life did I walk in there and they ran out of a particular product. And they made that very clear. That's quality to us is that our supply chains are never broken. And for 16 years, we never broke their supply chains. It was never the case. So in the eyes of the customer, well, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussions and for listeners, remember to go to Deming.org to continue your journey. But I thought I would leave the closing comments to you to maybe wrap up and give the audience what you think should be their main takeaway from this discussion.   Andy : I think probably the main takeaway would be that Dr. Deming's philosophy, the Profound Knowledge, everything he taught is as relevant to real estate, okay, pricing, probably most markets as it is to a factory or production or anything like that. I think that it took me a while, after I became a realtor, it took me a while to realize, wow, all these things we can use. And we have more data to play with than anybody. So that's a good takeaway for anybody, especially realtors.   Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I think, and I'll just add on, I enjoyed the conversation because I love Michael Porter's stuff and talking about figuring out where's your niche and trying to bring a differentiated offering to the market. And that differentiated offering could be based on what I like to say from my study and teaching of corporate strategy is there's kind of two main corporate strategies. One I would say is the type that engineers build, which is an operational corporate strategy. And another one is a differentiating strategy that a sales type of person would build, which is about the interaction with sales, with the product and all of that. And so with Dr. Deming, one of the benefits we get is the process part of our business can just be improved forever. And then we can overlay that with whatever we want from what we bring to the market. And I think you've given us an example of how you can apply Deming's principles to the process of your business and do that in a niche area or an area that you've defined and dominate. And so I love that.   Andy : Yeah, and one of the things, just a last thought, is something you and I had talked about, is you don't have to have a PhD in physics or you don't have to get a doctorate in something to understand Deming. And he even says it in his book. You don't have to be an expert in any of it. You just have to understand it. And that's the beauty of it. Anybody can do what I'm doing with just nowhere near the effort you'd have to do if you were going to be a physicist or something else like that. And that's something people can take away.   Andrew Stotz: And on that hopeful note, this is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. I always repeat it because it's such a great quote, and that is, "people are entitled to joy in work."      

Moving into the DTC space after operating only in retail is a tricky tightrope to walk. You have already-established partnerships that you don’t want to jeopardize and a consumer base that you don’t want to cannibalize. But you also want to bring innovation and new products to your loyal customers, and you want to build more personal relationships with them along the way. So how do you win in all areas? Or can you win in all these areas?Andy Judd is the CMO at Yasso, Inc., and finding the answer to that question is currently at the top of his todos. . Yasso sells frozen yogurt bars, which side note, are the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Yasso just recently began its journey into the world of DTC. Ultimately, Andy knows that building a profitable DTC arm of the business is one of the toughest challenges in the ecommerce industry today, especially when shipping frozen goods, but he’s done it before, and his tapping into all his knowledge he’s built up from prior roles at companies like ONE brands and Campbell's soup!On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Andy tells us what the move to DTC has been like so far, including the added challenges to logistics when it comes to shipping frozen novelties, what strategies he’s been using to ensure transparency with retail and third-party partners, and why he wants everyone listening to understand that ROAS is not the same thing as ROI. Enjoy this episode … and maybe also a Yasso bar!Main Takeaways:Deep Freeze: The logistics of shipping frozen foods are still being fully fleshed out. For certain products, such as frozen fruit, or even cartons of ice cream, you have a bit more leeway in temperature states and the risk of thawing and refreezing. With something like a frozen yogurt bar, you have absolutely no wiggle room, which means that there has to be multiple layers of pressure testing, route optimization, and quality control in order to ensure that customers are getting the product they expect instead of a puddle of froyo. It is only after you have optimized every step of that process that you can feel comfortable moving more to a DTC space.ROAS Does Not Equal ROI: In ecommerce, ROAS is one of the metrics you hear about often. And while it’s important, it’s also critical to note that ROAS does not equate to ROI, because ROAS often does not account for incrementality. So be very careful when you are measuring your success and be sure to take into account all of the other activities that bring in revenue and returns. Doubling Down: As Andy put it best, “I have a general principle of double and double and double and double until it breaks. You double until that ROAS really starts to decay at a rate, and then you know where your ceilings are.” A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: When you are selling DTC on a third-party platform, it is important to be upfront and transparent with your retail partners. Talking through who you’re targeting, how you’re pricing and why bringing incremental customers into the business helps all parties — more brand-loyal customers will buy across all platforms, including in retail — will make for a much more productive relationship.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder and CEO at mission.org. Today on the show, we have Andy Judd, the Chief Marketing Officer at Yasso. Andy, welcome.Andy:Thank you, Stephanie. Great to be here and look forward to today's discussion.Stephanie:Excited to have you here. Like I said, I am getting hungry now thinking about this conversation. My stomach actually just rumbled. I don't know if anyone heard that, but that's how I feel about this conversation today. It's going to be a good one.Andy:Yeah, no, I'm excited. I think we've got a lot of exciting things happening on the business that I think we can offer some interesting perspective to the community.Stephanie:Cool. So, I saw that you have been in the CPG space for over a decade, starting all the way back at good old Campbell's Soup, which I'm like, that's a good history there of really knowing what you're talking about.Andy:Yeah. I've been extremely blessed and fortunate to work with some great companies along the road, those large blue chip companies like Campbell's, down to smaller emerging businesses like Yasso today. Each of them is definitely different culturally, business model, go to market, marketing approaches, not only from the size of the businesses, but also what's taken place over time. I appreciate you said one decade. In that lead up, it is a bit longer than that, but-Stephanie:I think I said over, but I didn't put numbers.Andy:Over, yes. I appreciate you not going all the way to, but yeah, I've been very blessed to work at great companies, great, amazing teams and leaders that have shaped a lot of my thinking. And now I'm happy to hopefully give back some of whatever wisdom I've collected back to your community too.Stephanie:Cool. Well, to start, I want to hear, from a very high level, how do you view the food and beverage industry today compared to maybe even just a couple years ago? How has it changed and how did that lead you to creating Yasso?Andy:Yeah. The speed of change is definitely picking up pace, and I'm not even talking about the realities of the past year, because that's a whole different kind of situational change, but the speed of change has definitely changed a lot. When I started my career, there was a very set number of customers, and we had a lot of customer consolidation happening, but then really, the marketing landscape started to evolve. Obviously, around 2008, 2010, Facebook came on and just rewrote the playbook dramatically. It took a while to internalize that, particularly in the food space, I think we were a little slower to adaptation.Andy:Analytically, I don't think we were quite ready for that moment. But once we kind of got our feet underneath us as a space, it really took off, and now it's how fast can you run to the newest platform to get the most efficiency before the system goes, particularly as an emerging brand, finding those places where I can flank, get the most bang for my limited dollar set versus some of the larger spenders is really important. And I think it's bred a new capability set for today's marketing leaders, that is constant evolution. While, yes, I run, to some varying degrees, the same purchase funnel, the activity that's happened within it, wildly different.Andy:I gave a speech to my alma mater and some marketing students and walked them through like, "When I started my career, here's what we did. We ran TV commercials and a newspaper based FSI. Waited 18 months to see if it worked, and then probably made a decision before we even got the results to do it again, and it's just wildly different from how we activate today."Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. So, you have all this experience, I'm guessing you're starting to see opportunities. What led you to Yasso and what did that process look like?Andy:Sure. So, I joined the Yasso team a little over a year ago and had known the founders for a bit, and known our CEO for even longer. And like many moments where they recognize the step change from kind of the what got you here won't get you there, brought in a new management team to implement a double down on the growth strategy. So, great product. I won't talk too much about the product because you are hungry, but it is a fantastic product. Super creamy, super delicious, great nutritional, clean label, it really does have all the components. But really, it was a bit landlocked on the East Coast, founded and formed in Boston. And this team is rapidly building out that distribution footprint, investing and building the brand.Stephanie:Yeah. Also, how can you go wrong when the founders are kindergarten friends? I mean, that sold me right away.Andy:Absolutely. Yeah, Drew and Amanda, I will say this, have been just fantastic to work with, both in the principles they've set as an organization from a company culture perspective, and how we value employees, and what benefits we give them, to how we make an impact in our community. We do have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Game On! Foundation. That's a big part of it. And then just this amazing product. As a marketer, I love that moment where it's like, "Build a brand. Here's this amazing foundation."Stephanie:Yep. So, what did your first 90 days look like? Of course, you always come in and kind of study things, see how things are working, but then what did your first 90 days look like? What did your playbook look like to start solving some problems there?Andy:Sure. It was a busy first 90 days. I had just come off of another transaction and was one of the last management members to join the organization. And so marketing, to some extent, needed to catch up. We were also moving the company from Boston to Boulder in that moment, and so there was definitely a team rebuild that happened there. So, first 90 days was establishment of strategy, getting the structure identified and a lot of recruiting, whilst simultaneously starting to build the components of activation to get us to ice cream season in 2020, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about, the sheer pivot that took place. Andy:So, strategy, put the playbook in place, get the key components, the critical components lined up, get the right team. Stephanie:Cool. So, you were just mentioning old school close tactics. What are you talking about [crosstalk] for anyone [crosstalk]?Andy:Yeah. Literally, couponing. I mean, I'm not kidding. Now, that evolution of incentive based activation has changed, right? The platform in which you may do that today looks a lot different than the platforms that we used to do that a while ago on. But yeah, I think there's reality to finding consumers and giving them incentives into trial and activating that personal truth in retail. It is not our largest investment, but it's an important one as we think through that funnel, particular in a category like this where taste is so critical that if I can get someone to push past that by giving them a little bit of an incentive and then know that my product is just lights out, is a great way to do it.Stephanie:Yeah. And are these coupons digital? Are they emailing coupons out? How are you doing that?Andy:Yeah. It's a number of different... So, we definitely operate that on owned basis through CRM. So, we definitely give incentives through kind of consumers that we've got into our ecosystem. That is, by far, the most valuable ones, which is keeping those people moving. Then there is outreach programs like Ibotta, that we've used, Shipt, Instacart, which also have, obviously, a shopping mechanism to them to drive trial. I'm sure we'll get into that at some detail as we talk about our omnichannel applications.Andy:And then some in-store placements, tried and true, IRCs, at shelf, to draw the consumer our way. This is definitely a very open trial based category where y'all want to try new things, and I'm looking for options, and if I can grab a millisecond of that scan at shelf by violating that with a save, definitely can do that. So yeah, it's definitely all components digitally, organic and owned, as well as in retail.Stephanie:So, let's dive into omnichannel, which you mentioned a little bit ago. Tell me a bit about how you guys had to potentially pivot post COVID, how you worked with your retail partners. I mean, I know that we're talking about how it can get kind of tricky too when you're, I guess, overly heavy on retail, and then all of a sudden, you're maybe trying to shift to DTC, and you don't want to make your retail partner sad. How did you guys think about that and explore that, especially over the past year?Andy:Sure. So, this brand was, I don't want to say 100% retail when I joined, but for this purposes, let's say it was 100% retail. Very limited investment, even on concierge based programs like Instacart, or even no investment on your platforms like Fresh, or walmart.com, it was very limited in that regard, and there was no DTC at that moment. Some of that is driven by frozen temperature state, right? I don't think... no third party platform has fully figured out that last mile in full temperature state. Retailers are definitely getting their closer and closer, Fresh is definitely pushing the boundaries there and building out an incredible footprint now. And I think COVID has exacerbated or built a lot of momentum to figuring out that for refrigerated and frozen temperature state products.Andy:We already had that in our plan. I think that all indicators of the consumer behavior was headed that way. COVID just made that evolution go faster. So, per my earlier point on change is just getting faster, COVID made this change faster. And so the dramatic shift that we saw, we knew we had to run pretty quickly. So, we were already strategically aligned to what that would look like, and for us that is four primary components of omnichannel. One is obviously DTC, and we'll talk about the intricacies there. Two is the concierge based programming and making sure that we're actively engaged there. Three is third party, and four is partnership with retail, primarily through online pickup and delivery.Andy:And so when we think about DTC, that's one component, but given that we're frozen temperature state, we really have to think broadly because of logistical challenges of working through shipping individual frozen Greek yogurt bars to a consumer's home and making sure that it gets there and it's not a puddle of Froyo is really challenging, particularly in an environment where FedEx is flushed with volume, logistics providers still haven't fully come to terms with the incremental volume in the system. So, it's definitely not without its operational, logistical challenges, but four components for us as we thought through that strategy, and we're diligently building each of them up, some of them simultaneously, and some of them we've kind of said, "Hey, we'll come to that one in a bit because these are more critical to success in the short term."Stephanie:Yeah. So, before we get more into the four pillars and the omnichannel piece, I do want to maybe jump into the operations aspect of how did you figure out this frozen shipping in a way that maybe others haven't so far?Andy:Yeah. So, let's start with our product DNA first. We make frozen novelties in a bar shape, so there's no forgiveness in that delivery, and we have to be pretty flawless against that, unlike, let's say, frozen fruit or even frozen ice cream pints, right? That can have a little bit of give, and the pint carton will hold its shape and kind of refreeze, no different than when you come home from the store. Novelties does not have that. If I have a little bit of give, that's not going to refreeze in what I believe our brand lives up to from a taste and sensorial experience.Andy:So, first and foremost was, we did a ton of pressure testing through a pretty in-depth thermal testing program. We vetted a number of different logistics partners, different packaging constructs, weights of dry ice, amounts of dry ice, what happens in delays, because we saw a lot of delays on ground shipping, hey, should we ship in air freight and taking discounts until the volume's figured out. We did a ton of pressure testing. And each of our products is also different. We make frozen yogurt bars, we also make frozen yogurt ice cream sandwiches. So, we've got a lot of different forms, even within our portfolio, that require a lot of diligence.Andy:So, a ton of diligence upfront, because at the end of the day, when we're asking consumers to buy our product, it is not a small price point for us to get over the hurdle, the cost of that seamless experience, it's not small. So, our goal is definitely very, very low fail rates through that. So, a lot of operational diligence upfront, a lot of understanding of routes and what geographies we do. We have a retail sales rep that was in Phoenix, and he got a lot of product in those early days, because we use that as our... that's the worst case scenario. If we can survive to Phoenix in August, I think we'll be okay. So, a lot of upfront thermal testing.Andy:And then engineering on the actual platform was also a good amount of diligence, and we're still evolving that as you always should be. Your selling platform, in my opinion, should be a living platform, for lack of a better word. It should never get complacent with the architecture that devils in the details on winning the SEM game, winning how consumers work through your sites, winning on how you keep them in the fold and get to repeat levels. We have a really high repeat level. That's really important to us. So yes, diligence upfront operationally, diligence on making sure the platform works right. And then once you start activating, the worst case scenario would be having someone have an experience that's anything less than superb.Stephanie:Cool. So, what does, from a high level, that back end look like? We settled on dry ice, or we didn't. We settled on a really good cooler. I'm thinking about this one cooler that shipped breast milk, it stayed frozen for four days for me. I was like, "Wow, this cooler is like a Yeti," but sadly, there was nothing you could do with it afterwards. So, what did you guys land on and what does that behind the scenes process look like now?Andy:Yeah. And also sustainability was an important factor for us and making sure that whatever format we were delivering in, we didn't want to deliver a format that would have a negative footprint on the earth either. So yeah, we had that extra variable, both the products, sustainability, surviving... like what happens if there's a day delay, right? If there's a day delay on an ambient product, if there's a day delay, most consumers don't get terribly upset by that. If there's a day to lay on a frozen Greek yogurt bar, that is a melted product, because that dry ice won't last forever.Andy:So, for us, it was a lot of diligence. We settled in on a really good package. We do use that insulated foam that put water on it, and it will dissolve. And so it was important for us to get that right. But we're talking about nuances of a half of an inch of that insulation, nuances of two to three incremental pounds of extra dry ice to ensure that. It really was fairly detailed, and I hope if our third party partner is listening or ever does listen to this, they know, one, I'm appreciative, and two, we definitely put it through the ringer on getting those details right.Stephanie:Yeah. Awesome. Let's move over to the four pillars, because I think that's a really tricky balance where you were talking about DTC, third party, retail, concierge, and I want to hear how you balance all four of those in a way that keeps everyone, including you guys, happy.Andy:Yeah. And we think about them a little bit about who we want activating through each of those. For us, incremental reach and incremental consumers into the Yasso franchise is really important. I mean, each of them plays a little bit of a different role in who we're targeting. Our DTC business is primarily pretty deep loyals because it's a pretty big price point, as well as our current baseline standard pack is an eight count. It takes up a little bit of room in your freezer too, so you got to love Yasso bars, which as we launch, we found that wasn't a problem. We definitely found some people that love Yasso bars and could take that volume on. So, that was a deep loyalty pool. It enabled us to get long... some of our tail skews and smart fan favorites available to people, get innovation in their hands early, those things.Andy:Concierge, to us, was a big win, particularly in 2020 when a lot of consumers ran, and we were able to pivot some of our investment and marketing dollars over there quickly. We had played around on the platform, and then back to your 90 days question, I had brought on someone on our team that was able to get in there, get into the self service side of things, had experience with that on other platforms, able to work in partnership with partners like Instacart and Shipt and really build that up, and we started running dollars to that. I have a general principle of double and double and double and double until it breaks, right? You double until that ROAS really starts to decay at a rate, and then you know where your ceilings are.Andy:And so for us, that was a really important one, particularly in the present temperature state. We knew consumer behavior is rapidly changing, we knew we could activate because we have the structure and the people in place to do so, and really win, particularly on buy it again. We knew that as new consumers were coming to that platform... I don't remember the stat I heard. It was something like they'd anticipated 30 million new households for the year of 2020, and they achieved that by April. And so it was definitely a double down on those types of platforms.Andy:And then we had had some initial discussions with Fresh, but it really was at a pretty good standstill. And so we knew we weren't operating on that platform relative to how we operate a retail, and brought in a new partner to help us [inaudible] on the platform, begin doing some more focused work on our side for advertising and in building out detail pages, etc, and really getting to a much better landing place there. And that has been a really nice win for us.Andy:And then the last pillar is that retail piece. And that one I think is evolving, because I think customers... there were definitely some customers that were ahead of that curve more in general merchandising, though, than anything, and definitely in some food categories, but definitely not in frozen and refrigerated food. And we've seen a definite increase from the prioritization of customers wanting to ensure that their platforms are in a good place. And we've seen a lot more requests for dollars flowing to help them build those platforms out. And so right now what we're trying to balance is, how do I see each of those platforms or pillars working together, and how do I spend the dollars accordingly? A lot of analytical rigor to that.Andy:But it's important to be really ready and flexible and flow those dollars to where you can get to the lowest CPCs, the highest ROAS, highest incrementality of households. We have third party analytic partner that helps us to look at ROIs, because ROAS does not mean ROI. If I could impart any wisdom to marketers out there that haven't lived that yet. ROAS doesn't take into account incrementality. So, it is a complement of different analytical approaches to help us flex those dollars across each of those pillars.Stephanie:Yep, I completely agree. So, are there any good lessons or learnings from going onto all those platforms, figuring it out, trying to pull them together eventually, are there any good lessons from that that other people can take away and hopefully avoid?Andy:Sure. I'll give you an example, not necessarily from my Yasso days, but some prior learnings that I had at a previous company. It is a gray space. As much as we're operating in these environments, whether it's DTC or third party platforms, retailers are also operating in these, and a lot of the questions we get is like, "Are you going to be sourcing volume from my retail in order to sell on these platforms directly?" And I think having those conversations with particularly important retailer partners upfront is important to help them understand how you're targeting, why it's good to bring net incremental people into the total business, and that helps all boats rise, how you're going to work with them through pricing strategy, in particular, how you're going to work through them with promotional and merchandising that doesn't create overlap.Andy:I have an example on Black Friday from a couple of years ago. There was a retail partner that was a very important retail partner, it was protein bars, and they operated heavily on Amazon, we operated heavily on Amazon. They were going to have their Amazon push for Black Friday, we were going to have our Amazon push for Black Friday. And we didn't get far enough ahead with them to decide who's doing what and how that may collide at the buy box. And thankfully, we decided to start our promotion early on Tuesday, because if we'd started one day later, that collision would have happened and no one would have been in the office to try and rectify it.Andy:And so what happened is they ran kind of a site-wide promotion across a number of the different brands that they sell as a broad retailer, and that discount stole the buy box and eroded a lot of your media metrics, we had obviously, some inventory challenges lined up in that. But thankfully, we were able to work through that and get it cleaned up. It had some implication with Google Shopping as well, so it was a multifaceted problem. It also gave us the opportunity to use that case as a way to talk through that with that retailer in the future, about lining up merchandising collectively, not independently. And that's not to suggest that we were comparing pricing, it was just more about talking through our approaches and what the implications on their platforms would be, our platforms, Amazon as a platform overall. I thought it led to a really collaborative place overall, but it is sticky, right? It's a bit of a frenemy reality, right? They are competing, but they're also your partners in retail.Andy:And so establishing guardrails and being transparent we found has been very helpful. Because, again, I operate from positive intent, we're all here to do the same thing, which is to drive growth and to give the consumer the right product that they want at the right time.Stephanie:Yeah. So, how do you go about talking to your retail partner to explain the incrementality piece, and this is good for me everyone type thing. How would you go about doing that in a way that makes sense to everyone?Andy:Yeah. Luckily, in the last few years, I've worked on some great brands that do have great stories about bringing in higher value consumers into the fold and figuring out ways to create total value that they may not get. And some of that is, "Hey, you don't have this portion of the portfolio on your catalog for whatever site you may be selling to, that's something that we can have...": I talked earlier about innovation as a way to get ahead. If a retailer doesn't opt into that innovation, that's okay. We definitely want you to sell our core business and operate there, but we want to give our most loyal consumers our innovation. It's also use of proof cases that we can then go back to the retailer and say, like, "Hey, this is a platform that's a little more vetted and has been cleared by our consumer," that, "hey, it's got proof here. This is an opportunity now for you to take that set to new consumers.Andy:It's also important for us to draw clean mapping to that consumer persona. Who's shopping online, and who shopping and retail, what they're looking for. And we've been very diligent about keeping that cleans. And here's who this is on my platform, here's who this is on third parties, here's who this is in your store. And collectively, that is a really nice store. And that's, I think, why we've had some success recently on outpaced growth relative to the marketplace.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, it seems like it'd be really tricky keeping track of those consumers, seeing the online versus offline, and where are they originating from, and who's attributing to what sale? How do you go about managing all that data and keeping track of it, especially since you're on so many platforms?Andy:Yeah. I mentioned it a bit earlier, but we do have a partner that does regression based marketing, real-time marketing mix analyses for us, and we use them as a way to delineate the incrementality. That gives us a broad view to our mix, but that also helps us to understand which platforms to bet on, one from the other. I think we're at 18 different variables in that modeling, and some of those variables are literally platform level variables, and some of those are different types of campaign level variables. And so it is not without a lot of rigor, but building the model upfront... and I apologize if I'm using some of those key words, but take the diligence to really think about what the data sets are that are going to come at you and establish what they really tell you, back to my comment ROAS is not ROI. It doesn't mean it's not important, but it's not. And having a data system, and a dashboarding approach, and an operational cadence by which you analyze those and bringing all partners into that for transparency, it clears the air.Andy:I think I worked with partners before that have given us feedback that, "Nobody ever tells us this," right? "And our objectives are never your objectives. They're always different." Right? And so getting alignment upfront and clarity of data flow I think is one of those pieces, no different than the diligence we talked about earlier on frozen fulfillment. A lot of diligence upfront pays off down the road, and actually enables a ton of flexibility. It's just really painful. If I could offer any guidance to winning in omnichannel, it's details, focus on details, because the more detailed oriented you are, the better your system will be and the better you'll understand implications of changes.Stephanie:Yeah. I could see partnerships being lost because of you guys maybe coming in there and being like, "Here's the data points we need. Here's kind of how things work," which maybe needs to be lost if someone doesn't want to do that. But what are the most important data points that you asked from a partner that maybe they weren't comfortable sharing at one point, but now many are on board with doing that? What do you go in saying like, "This is the requirements, here's what we need," and which ones were they maybe more hesitant to share?Andy:Yeah. The propensity or the default position of the retailers is not necessarily to share, and that's not, I don't think, in the spirit of not being a partner, it's in the spirit of, obviously, their goal is to build a category, not necessarily an individual brand, and they're trying to optimize the total pool of brands to elevate their entire category. And so obviously, they don't want to do anything that could be detrimental to the totality of that category growth or detrimental to other brand partners that they may have. Some of that is opting in, some of that is dollars and cents.Andy:There are a number of retailers that have really great platforms for data, and some of that is opting in to those. We've made it a purpose to be data centric in how we approach, not just our retail business or our ecommerce business, all of it. And that may lead to a little bit of a higher non-working/working ratio for what it may be. But that makes us a lot more efficient with all the working dollars in that. And so some of it is dollars and cents and opting into their platforms.Andy:Some of it is having a clarity of that strategy that I mentioned earlier, like, "Here's who I serve by platform," and almost drawing a line that says, "Here's how I view the world. How do you view the world?" And soliciting that. But sometimes it means going in with a point of view. And they may not share that point of view, but at least they'll declare, "I don't share this point of view." And so opt in, have a point of view, and then you'll share results. Also, I think it has to be a two-way street. If I'm unwilling to tell them, "Here's how I'm operating in a direct model," why would I ask them to then tell me what it looks like in an online pickup or delivery model? So, I think there has to be some reciprocity that comes along to that. So, don't be scared to buy data and be more data centric, be clear about your point of view, and then you'll have a partnership, and be okay with some transparency that you otherwise may be not wanting to do in the first place.Stephanie:Yeah, I love that. So, let's talk a little bit about customer acquisition. How are you guys acquiring customers and what are your most successful channels right now, or what are some big bets that you're making in new platforms or maybe you're like, "We weren't on TikTok before, but now we are"? What are you exploring right now?Andy:Yeah. Yes is the answer always. Our team has got a great, I think, pulse for that and a great flexibility for adapting to that. And sometimes it's not just new platforms, sometimes it's new activations on current platforms. I think Reels taught us all a good lesson this year. Obviously, TikTok was a great piece of the puzzle over the last couple of years. So yeah, organically, yeah, definitely continuing to build that out. I think from a paid perspective on new platforms for us, I would say the retail environment is definitely pretty evolving. Andy:Other retailers are pushing their platforms more and bringing on new media partners. Target had their big push. I think it was two years ago when they made their media change. So, yeah, I think retail is an ever evolving world because they're recognizing different to sundry, the Amazons of the world that they're both, yes, retailer, but they're also media marketplace. And if I can get a little more down funnel awareness, consideration and purchase, they're operating in that consideration bucket, because I'm already actively involved in food buying behavior. And so I think that's a really interesting place to be playing.Andy:Yasso in particular at this life stage, though, we are moving significantly in that top of funnel place. And so it isn't necessarily new platforms, but it's new to us because we're reaching growth levels, which is such an exciting moment for any brand, where we have the opportunity to make investments in larger platforms. And so this past year, we did a lot of betting on awareness based platforms that otherwise we wouldn't have probably bet on. But streaming audio was a big win for us in this past year. I think COVID definitely helped consumers even more so get into that space.Stephanie:Like podcasts, you mean?Andy:Yeah, like podcasts. Well done. Yes, like podcasts, and even just music as well. But I think those platforms have become a bigger play, which for traditional food, probably hasn't been top box consideration for media plays, but have done really well for us. And then OTT, I think, continues to build. And so those are not necessarily new platforms, but new to us. And when we think about where we are in our life stage, that gives us opportunities to rethink our total funnel, and that's really exciting, right? So, it's, hey, we have the availability to anchor to spending dollars that are scalable on some of these platforms that we otherwise probably wouldn't have been able to afford originally, and now really evolving our down funnel work with retailers in a different way. So, it's evolving, but it's pretty exciting, actually.Andy:I think that is one of the benefits I've seen from this past year, is it's moved our industry forward and our retailer partners forward. Obviously, it's not to suggest that they were at zero state by any means, but I think it's definitely built a lot of momentum.Stephanie:Yep. And when you're thinking about creating good creatives for these new platforms that you're on, how do you go about making something that really differentiates you guys? I mean, it feels like your space is pretty competitive now. How do you stand out? How do you make ads and audio content that really sets you apart from everyone else?Andy:Yeah. Since we came on, we've thought diligently about the balance of internal external creative capabilities, where we need a differential expertise, where we need flexibility internally, and again, diligence upfront, right? So, that declaration of your brand, what it stands for, what it looks like, being very clear with that, so that as you disseminate across the internal and external content creators, whether that's influencer based or UGC, or whatever it is, you know this is it and this is what it looks like so that your brand identity is well done.Andy:And then I think voice is an interesting place, and voice in two ways. One, is having perspective. I think brands that are able to separate themselves, to your point on the competitive environment, have a really clear voice and perspective on things, and they're willing to take a stand and say, "Here's what we believe." Because consumers, from an engagement perspective, are much more likely to go there. It could bring polarization components to it, definitely, that's a possibility, but it won't bring engagement, right? So, if you don't have voice, if you don't have a perspective, you won't have engagement. So, it's kind of one of those. So, perspective is one.Andy:And then, for us in particular, in our category, I think having a definitive sense of humor. It's a joyful snacking experience, right? I typically don't see a lot of people eating our food without the intention of elevating their mood.Stephanie:Yeah. You can't eat it with a sad face.Andy:No. I mean, you can. I mean, there's the old adage of the breakup with the ice cream-Stephanie:Okay. That's more ice cream.Andy:... but you're doing it to elevate yourself, right? So, most people don't enter that space without the intention of enjoying the experience. And so I think it's important for us to bring that levity and humor to our voice. So, having perspective, having a good sense of humor that's definitive and unique, and having clear sense of art direction is really important. And the last piece I would just say is contextual, right? So, not all creative is the same across. Our organic content team I think does a great job with, "Here's what works in Twitter, and here's what works in TikTok, and here's what works on stories, versus reels, versus feed," and bringing that to the game as well.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree based on some of the things I've seen. All right, let's move over to the Lightning Round. Lightning Round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Andy?Andy:Yes, I'm ready.Stephanie:I wish my knuckles cracked so I could do it.Andy:I can't do that either, but I'm ready.Stephanie:We tried. All right.Andy:Yes.Stephanie:First, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Andy:What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce? I would say, for me, last mile. I think the last mile is going to take a big step forward this next year. I think a lot of companies got caught flat footed on it. They spent the better part of last year figuring it out, and I think you're going to see more retail platforms figuring out last mile and betting big on it.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. That's a good one. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Andy:I love the two words, to of my favorite words. Thank you. So, I will always take a thank you and I always try and give them just because everybody's working really hard right now, personally and professionally, and I just think the smallest thing you can do is just to say thank you. So, thank you for having me, Stephanie.Stephanie:Okay. Thank you for coming on the show, Andy. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Andy:What one thing do I not understand today that I wish I did? There's so many things that I don't understand. I think the biggest one I had a better feel for honestly was how to get ahead on new organic platforms. That's definitely one of the tougher ones. I think we've built a good flexible ability to adapt to evolutions within platforms, but which ones to bet on just because there's so many, I think that's one I wish I had a better gut feel for it, to be able to jump there faster. As an emerging brand, I feel like that's one of our core competencies, is the flank approach and not getting trapped in the big game. And I wish I had a better feel for emerging organic platforms.Stephanie:Yeah, that does seem tricky to stay on top of, to be the first one on there and to be the one that can organically grow, because it does always say there's a lot arbitrage to be had on platforms in the beginning, especially when they're trying to figure out their maybe advertising programs. I know TikTok for a while there, you can get really good maybe ROIs because the platform was so new, they're figuring out their program. Maybe that's gone now, but that's a good one.Andy:And that's the exact point, is that it does happen quickly too. And I have seen brands be very successful in getting there first and grabbing that attention.Stephanie:Yeah. What's up next on your reading list?Andy:Right now, what is next on my... I'm looking over at my books. It is... and I'll show it to you, here. It is Hello Darkness, My Old Friend, by Sandy Greenberg. This is a book recommended by my father-in-law about the story of Art Garfunkel's college friend who went blind in college and his journey. He's a lawyer, and it's just an incredible story. So, that is next on my reading list.Stephanie:Wow. I'm writing that down. So, what was it? Hello...Andy:Hello Darkness, My Old Friend by Sanford Greenberg, or Sandy Greenberg.Stephanie:All right. I'll get it [crosstalk].Andy:Foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by the way.Stephanie:Oh, sweet. Okay, now, I'm definitely checking it out.Andy:Yes.Stephanie:All right. And then the last one. What ecommerce tool or piece of tech are you experimenting or most bullish on right now?Andy:Yeah. I'm going to go back to our logistics because I'm bullish that there's going to be a lot of progress on sustainable packaging over the next coming years, and as I mentioned earlier, having sustainable frozen packaging is just fantastic. It makes us feel way better about continuing to grow in this space. But I think there's going to be a lot of technology in the packaging constructs. There's a ton of waste in this space. I think brands are getting way more savvy around designing their first rather than trying to re-architect the other retail packs and then doing the best they can. So, I'm excited to see what comes in kind of more the the operational side as much as anything. That's a personal passion for me, but I'm excited to see how that continues to evolve.Stephanie:Awesome. That's a good one. All right, Andy. Well, thank you for coming on our show and sharing your insights. Where can people learn more about you and Yasso?Andy:Yeah. So, you can find us at yasso.com, for sure. Instagram @Yasso, are the best places, and you can find me on LinkedIn, for sure.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much for joining us.Andy:Absolutely. Thank you, Stephanie.

My guest today is Andy Polaine. Andy is a service designer, consultant, educator, author, and podcaster. He's co-author of the book Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and host of the Power of Ten podcast. In this conversation, we discuss service design, and how it helps organizations think more holistically about the experiences they enable. Listen to the full conversation   Show notes Andy Polaine Andy Polaine on Twitter Andy Polaine on LinkedIn Power of Ten podcast Service Design: From Insight to Implementation by Andy Polaine, Lavrans Lovlie, and Ben Reason Adobe Director (aka Macromedia Director, or Video Works) Antirom School of the Arts & Media, University of New South Wales Ben Reason Livework Lavrans Løvlie (in Norwegian) Chris Downs on LinkedIn Fjord Powers of Ten (film) by Charles and Ray Eames The Guide to Self-sufficiency by John Seymour Service blueprint Design for the Long Term by Andy Polaine UK Government Digital Service (GDS) This is HCD network Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the full transcript Jorge: So, Andy, welcome to the show. Andy: Thanks for having me. It's pleasure to be here. It's very nice to be the other side of the mic, as they say. Jorge: Well, it's a pleasure having you here. For folks who might not know you, how do you introduce yourself? Andy's background Andy: So, my name is Andy Polaine. I am a service designer, consultant, trainer, coach, writer, and podcaster. And so, it's never really very easy. I've got one of those kinds of “hyphen” professions where I just kind of add bits to it all the time. My background is… so I actually studied film and when I did my undergraduate, I wanted to be a film director. And, initially I wanted to do visual effects actually from a very early age. And then, got interested in film and filmmaking. And when I started my degree, which was photography, film, video, and digital media, that just came in – this was early nineties, like 1990 – as I knew there was this thing called multimedia where you could… with Macromedia, or it wasn't even that, it was called Video Works, I think it was before it even became Director. And I'd always noodled about with computers; I'd had a personal computer as a younger kid, played games a lot and stuff. So, it was always kind of fascinated with interactivity. And I had those kinds of dual tracks all the way through. There was a sort of bit of competition in my head between the world of filmmaking and this new thing. And I chose this new thing, “new media,” as it was at the time, because I was kind of interested in it as a form. What does it mean to be able to interact with stuff? What are the affordances of this new thing? And so that's where I started. So, I started kind of doing interaction design before it had that name. And sort of discovering some things about interactivity, with a group called Antirom. And then, I started teaching it quite a lot and I'd always done a lot of teaching, even when I was a student, I used to of teach my peers quite a lot. And that's always been a… The secret thing about teaching is you hoover up a lot of knowledge. I think you gain more knowledge from teaching than you do give out actually. And then I was heading the School of Media Arts at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. And we were having a kind of faculty restructure, and I'd started getting interested in the idea of organizational design. And in these meetings about the restructure, the faculty – mostly designers and artists, who were the faculty – were having a meeting where they read out pages of A4 to each other, and then had long conversations and I thought, well, this is a design process. Why aren't we up at the whiteboard, you know, designing this organization? And then when I went back to the UK to visit a friend of mine, Ben Reason, in his newly minted studio of Livework, he started talking about service design. And he said, we're doing this thing called service design and I met Lavrans and Chris Downs as well and suddenly there's, “oh right! There's a whole way of thinking about this stuff.” And sort of language. And so I started kind of making the shift into that and then co- wrote the book with them, and then started teaching it. And I actually, you know what? [It was] the other way around, I started teaching it and needed the book that I wanted to teach from. So, there wasn't one, so I wrote it with them, and that's sort of been my journey. Then I went to Fjord for a while where I was, again in a kind of teaching role, as well as design director role. And I've just recently – with brilliant timing, on the 1st of March – went independent again, as a design leadership coach and also training, clients and client teams. Powers of Ten Jorge: Your podcast is called Powers of Ten, and that's named after the very famous film by Charles and Ray Eames. Why Powers of Ten? What is it about “Powers of Ten” that is so powerful? Andy: There are, there are two books that – I realized that only recently – that had seemed to have had a massive influence on me when I was a kid. My dad is an artist and was a designer too. And he had a book version of Powers of Ten that's where I first saw it. I saw, you know, a book with the frames in it. And there was another book called the Guide To Self-Sufficiency by a guy called John Seymour. Now I can talk about later and it talks about the, kind of, how to be self-sufficient, grow your own stuff, but it talks about the four seasons of the garden. And the Powers of Ten thing, just stuck with me, cause this guy actually called Andreas Elba (?) who was a friend of mine, and we were having a conversation about how to explain service design to people. Because that ability to zoom in and out and zoom out from big picture to detail and back again, and understand how they affect each other is really, really important, right? And we've really seen it recently with the coronavirus stuff, but small things can make a massive difference, particularly when they sort of aggregate up. But at the same time, a shift in policy or something can ripple – or a shift in business model ripples across all the details. And so, I'm talking about it and I had this kind of model of these different layers. And I think Andreas said, “Oh, do you know that film ‘Powers of Ten'?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, yeah, no, I love that!” And then I started using that as the way of explaining it to people. And so the thing about “Powers of Ten” is this idea of… One, it's an exponential thing, which now everyone understands, thanks to the coronavirus. But this idea of… To those that don't know, it starts with a camera above a guy on a picnic blanket, one meter above him and then 10 meters and then a hundred meters, the powers of 10 each time. So, one of the things is how quickly you're out into the universe, right? How quickly that multiplies up. And then it goes back down into the subatomic level. But the other thing is this kind of rhythm that there is, where there are moments of density: there's lots of matter, there's lots of planets, or there's lots of whatever, and then space. And as you know, good chunks of it in both the subatomic level and the kind of universe level where there's just lots of space and then suddenly there's a lot of density again. And I just found it, that sort of fractal thing where these patterns kept repeating themselves, I found it really, really fascinating, and it really stuck with me as a kind of way of thinking. I don't know if it has anything to do with my kind of film background. Maybe there's a bit of it there. You know, and when you've got like a line and a scene and kind of an act and so forth, or, maybe. But I just find it a really useful way of thinking about everything. Consulting Jorge: I'm wondering, in consulting work – because I take it from what you've been describing that most of your career has been as a consultant, in advisory roles to organizations… Andy: A mix. So, I've had… I switch in and out of kind of academic life and consulting. And so, I've had periods where I've been doing likes of 10-15% consulting every so often and doing talks and stuff and mostly teaching. And then I've had periods of the other way around. Jorge: So, these subjects, I think, fit in very nicely with what I would expect to be an academic perspective on the work, right? Where it's more introspective and you're… you were talking about this notion of zooming up and down the levels. And in my experience, folks in the business world are more focused on the nearer term, perhaps more actionable or kind of like… I've even noticed a resistance to ideas that they might consider more philosophical. Andy: Yeah. Jorge: And I'm wondering, first of all, if that somehow corresponds with your experience, and if so, how do you deal with that? Andy: It does correspond to my experience. So, service design in particular… You know, fundamentally it deals with ecosystems and services are kind of multiple touch points, they're multiple kind of channels. If you can think in terms of ecosystems and actually try and pull the parts of those ecosystems together to understand that you're actually all involved in delivering the same thing. You know, there's I think a bit in the book where we say a service is designed in silos, or created in silos, or experienced in bits. And it has a reputation, service design does, of boiling the ocean. Right? So, it's… Laddering up is a great thing, but you can very quickly get into a point… And I see it with students a lot, where it's like, “I want to do something about sustainability. And that means we have to change the use of plastics. But in order to do that, we have to change this…” And then all of a sudden, they're like, “Oh, we have to change the entirety of capitalism,” which is absolutely true. We do. But it's very, very hard to tackle it at that level. And so, I think one of the things that, in that sort of consulting world is to work out, what's the level of influence of… First, there are two things. One is, what's the level that we're actually trying to achieve, change at, and having a conversation at? Because often I think clients will state will want – or stakeholders will want – to be making change to what's essentially a structural change to the business, but sort of hoping that they can do it through some sort of customer experience mapping or something. So getting that right, getting everyone understanding that this is the level that we're tackling at, or working at, is important. And then making sure when you're having those conversations, you don't get kind of out of whack, you don't get kind of misaligned. Because I've seen, you know, plenty of times people having a really long discussion or debate or argument about some detail and yet the bigger picture thing is actually in fact the thing we need to be talking about at that time. And vice versa, right? In my head, I've got those different kinds of zoom levels and I'm trying to kind of work out where people are at and where the project is at and try and bring everyone aligned on that or move them up and down as well, you know? Jorge: Yeah. And I'm guessing that also understanding what level of role you're dealing with in the organization itself might be important, no? Andy: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's what, I guess what I meant by that kind of, someone who's jurisdiction is quite… it doesn't have to be smaller, like it could be they're the head of customer experience or something, but if they are then in competition for budget or whatever it is with the head of marketing and the CEO has another idea and whatever, they're all essentially part of the same ecosystem if they're fighting with each other. Or they feel like, “Well, that's not my kind of role and that's not my jurisdiction.” It makes it very, very hard for them to operate. So a lot of that job is facilitating the conversations between them. And I guess a lot of my frustration is… I've come away from the idea of kind of breaking down the silos. I think silos are actually… they're often for good reasons and you need some kind of containers, but sort of bridging them or making them a bit more porous, I think is really crucial. I think that you really need to make sure that you know how you fit into the other part of whatever else is going on. Jorge: One thing that I've experienced in consulting engagements is that sometimes these design projects serve as the excuse for people in those silos to work together collaboratively, perhaps for the first time. And they become more aware of the… more tangibly aware of their differing objectives, incentives, and communication styles, perhaps. And just that knowledge is a powerful catalyst to changing the conversation, somehow. Andy: Yeah. So one of the things… this is a service design thing, but it doesn't necessarily have to be this… but one of the things in service design is a service blueprint, where you're mapping out the front stage and backstage, all the sort of bits of the enterprise that actually deliver or support the delivery of that service or that experience. And I think it's often seen as… we're going to design this thing and then we're going to fix it, you know? And blueprints are actually a kind of terrible name. Because it's, it's not really a blueprint, what it is is a map really. And in that it's often its main value is actually, for the first time, different parts of the organization, see how well their stuff fits together, you know? And it's one of those things of, our tools, you know, shape our thinking. And if you sit in PowerPoint decks and Excel sheets the whole time, you don't ever really see the connectedness between all of those different things. And so, whether it's synchronously, everyone's in the room together, asynchronicity of people coming in and out, I think that's a really kind of useful tool for that. What is service design? Jorge: Some folks listening in might not be familiar with service design. Andy: Hmm. Jorge: What is the introductory spiel? What is the “101” to service design? Andy: There's a, there's a big debate about this. So, one of the ways of thinking about it is, it's the design of all the different touch points that go into delivering a service or a customer experience, plus the kind of backstage, behind the scenes things, and that's kind of IT. Could be man-in-a-van delivery, it could be all sorts of things that go into actually delivering that service and making sure that they are coherent across different channels. So when you move between say a website and an app or call center, you're speaking the same language, talking about the same things and so forth. And also, that there are kind of seamless transitions between steps, so as people move through the journey. And so, with that, that means someone can take a journey through your service ecosystem in whichever way they like and it's always coherent. And service design is basically about doing that the way I usually explain it to kind of, you know, my mother, is this idea of… if you've ever had an experience with an organization, often with government, but often with things like telcos and insurance companies and so forth, where if you've got a problem and it feels like every time you phone up or have some kind of contact or, you know, use a touch point, it feels like you're dealing with five or six different companies instead of one. Our job is to make it feel like it's a seamless experience. Jorge: One thing that is coming to mind, hearing you describe that, is that it sounds comprehensive in nature and holistic, right? Andy: Yeah. Jorge: In that it's looking to embrace as much of the experience as possible for someone who is trying to accomplish something by interacting with either a system or organization. And that strikes me as a direction that might be in tension with another direction, which has to do with specializing more or wanting to compartmentalize design. And I'm thinking now of like professional self-identities, right? Like some people think of themselves as visual designers or, I don't know, industrial designers or, you know, in… Andy: UXers or whatever. Jorge: Right. And what strikes me here is that in all of those cases, the object of design is some kind of tangible artifact. Some are more tangible than others, but something that you can examine and point to and say, “I designed that.” Andy: Yes. Jorge: What is the object that's service design designs? I don't even know if that's a fair question. Andy: No, it's not really. I mean, it's, like I said, you're designing what you're doing is taking a zoom level up actually, or a couple of zoom levels up and trying to design, make sure that all those objects or those touch points – that can be people, incidentally, or systems – are working in cohort, that you can interact with each one and understand what's going on. That there's a kind of seamless sense to them. They feel like they're a whole. So, in some respects, what you're designing is a kind of ecosystem. But there's another bit to that also, which is the business model, right? So, you know, most service design teams have a business designer amongst them. Because they're the two halves of the same coin. If you're trying to design a service… and let's take an example where you say, “Well, we're going to change the business model from freemium to subscription.” Then the way the whole… all the touch points around that and the way you talk about that have to change, right? You know, to communicate it right. And often you'll see that a business model and the design of the different touch points in the service are slightly at odds to each other. The most… well, one of the ones I know of is a telco's name I won't mention. The call center, when you phoned the call center with a problem, they would tell you to go into the store in order to get some help. But the same company had created an app, a sort of self-help app, in order to try and get people not to go into the store. So, see you have two touch points that are kind of working against each other, with different messages, coming from the same company. Jorge: Yeah. And you talked about coherence earlier, right? Like there's this misalignment there that stepping up a level and looking at the entire – or as much of the picture as you can – exposes those points of incoherence. Andy: Yeah, and it breaks trust, right? You know, humans anthropomorphize everything, right? We give our cars names; we shout at our computers. We do it with our pets and everything else. And I'm pretty sure we're just basically hardwired to see the world narcissistically as kind of everything in the world is like another human being, right? And I think we also relate to companies like that too. And so we have these you know, things in this relationship, you go, “Oh, I thought we had this relationship and it turns out we have a different relationship,” and there's a little kind of ding in the trust there. And, and so that, that kind of happens all the time. If you imagine someone who you kind of know quite well, who you're spending a lot of time with – which is often the case with some services – and all of a sudden, they do something really out of character, you start to kind of wonder, “well, what's going on there?” And so that's, I think, what's going on when you get that destruction of trust, when those things aren't designed as a kind of coherent whole. Jorge: It feels to me that service design is kind of systemic design; it's design of the system. And perhaps calling it systemic design might lead people to assume that it really is about technology or something when it's meant that, “system” meaning in the broader sense, no? Andy: Yeah. And you know, I've been really interested in systems thinking in the last few years. I think I've always have been, but in the last couple of years, I've read more up on it and stuff. And you know, I think there's a lot of overlap there. And one of the reasons why I think there's a lot of overlap between that and say, circular economy and sustainability, is a lot of the way of thinking is around kind of ecosystems and human behavior and understanding how small changes can add up to a kind of big difference. And, do you need to kind of map out those big things, but also you also need to deal with the absolute details of how easy it is to find a recycling bin and stuff like that. All those things that are just the barriers to people changing their behavior don't have to be very high for them to not do anything at all. Projects and governance  Jorge: When thinking about design engagements, I often think of them as projects to be undertaken, especially as an independent consultant. Andy: Right. Jorge: You get called in because the organization has some kind of need, and you get brought in to help them design a solution that addresses that need, right? And one of the systemic aspects to any kind of situation that an organization might find itself in is that whatever caused it and whatever intervention you're designing is not something that is going to be fixed into a particular time. There are going to be ongoing changes happening, right? And I'm curious about the relationship between service design interventions and ongoing governance of the systems that are set up. Andy: Yeah. This is the kind of bane of agencies' lives actually. So, it's design agencies, I think because, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's lots of different parts to this. One is just a purely kind of… we talked about it before, is a sort of jurisdiction level of who is your stakeholder? Who is basically hiring you as an agency or as a consultant? And, what's likely to be their kind of budget, right? And they have a kind of certain amount of budget, and it seems to sort of pan out to be where you've got enough money for kind of three or maybe six months of work, which often means that you kind of get the discovery and the kind of ecosystem mapping and the concept of this sort of beginning of the kind of concepts done. And then basically the budget's used up of, what's probably at least a kind of two- or three-year process really. And so service design is slightly got a bad rep in that sense of being, you know, or you guys just come up with a load of kind of journey maps and blueprints and concepts, but never execute on them. And the reason why our book was actually called From Insight to Implementation is because you really need to be able to follow those things through and keep referring back. So, that is a real problem, actually. And the other bit is that jurisdictional thing, which is that person has started a process, which in fact affects the whole company or it needs to involve the whole company in order to maintain it and deliver it and so forth. And there does need to be governance there. And that governance is often set up sort of internally focused around well, you're in charge of IT, you're in charge of marketing and so forth, rather than thinking about the, how does this relate to the service and the delivery of the service? And so, who needs to be in the room, basically, having conversations about how this gets modified or changed and so on and so forth. And that is a real problem. I think there's a real problem with this idea of when again, you know, it comes back to, say, in a funding model, in an organization, the difference between funding a team versus funding a project. Projects, I think, are a natural way of people to think about things. And I'm guessing it probably comes from school. It's actually often a terrible way to think about services. I much prefer gardening and we talked about the such, I think, over email. That's why I gave this talk. I talked about that gardening book, right? And that there is no sense where you, you say, “we're done. We've shipped the garden!” Right? It's not, it's never finished. It's always changing you plant something. And some, it really does well. And then all of a sudden it does too well, because it's casting shade over all the other stuff. And then something else is withering in the corner and you either just chop it out and throw it in the compost deep or you move it somewhere else. And so, it's kind of ever going, changing thing. If you think of government services, like, I don't know, applying for a passport, or going to jail, or visiting people in jail – that's not a thing that's ever done; it's just always changing. Jorge: The idea of gardening brings up the element of time into the project, right? Andy: Yes. Jorge: And this notion that the intervention you're making now is going to have effects down the line. And in some ways, what I'm hearing you say is that ultimately the object of design might be the thing that makes the design as opposed to the intervention itself. Andy: It makes the design in what sense? Jorge: So, when you talk about funding teams versus funding a project, in some ways the project serves as a reason for a team to coalesce. But ultimately the thing that you want to do is ensure that the team is in place and that they have the resources necessary for whatever goal the thing is setting out to accomplish; to be an ongoing concern as time passes. Andy: I do think that as a… you know, if you're coming in it from a sort of consultancy/agency kind of angle to an existing organization… or an organization that isn't a design organization, like a bank or an insurance company or whatever, you only really can be successful if that company can take on some of the skills and work and become – you know, quite often, a lot of them do have internal service design or design teams internally. I don't think it's realistic for them to constantly rely on externals. I think those external consultants can bring knowledge from other spheres, which is really useful, and experience from other spheres, and see patterns where, if you've been stuck in the same organization for a long time, your field of vision narrows, and also can do some of the heavy lifting sometimes. But ultimately, and particularly for public services – it's why the GDS in the UK have been so successful, because they've really got a fantastic group of designers working on that stuff all the time and have become much more integrated into the sort of ongoing process. I don't know if I answered your question there, though. Jorge: Yeah. No, you touched on something that I was wondering as well, which is the relationship between internal design teams and people who come in from the outside. To bring it back to the Eames image… the very nature of the engagement, if you're external to the organization, you are by definition, less close to the situation, less close to the problem at hand, so to speak. And as you were pointing out, you have this broader perspective informed by projects, perhaps in a variety of different industries, even. Andy: Yeah, yeah. Jorge: So, you bring that perspective to bear on these projects and you have to work with people who are internal to the organization and, and much closer to the situation at hand. So, in some ways you have to develop this ability to very quickly move up and down those zoom levels, right? So, that's one thing that comes to mind. The other is that there are upsides to doing this kind of work that transcend the immediate project at hand, right? You might be hired to help solve for something that isn't working well or ease transitions between steps or what have you. And you might deliver on that, and that might be part of the value that you're bringing to the client, but you're also demonstrating a different way of working, right? Like one that does take in the bigger picture, perhaps.  Andy: Yeah. I think this is both a sort of beneficial thing that you bring in and is a cause of frustration too. You know we sort of talked about it a bit before, that zooming in and out lens is really useful in the sense that you're showing how… because particularly a department or a team inside a larger organization can get a little bit sort of stuck in their own bubble or their own kind of confinement, and they often get sort of learned helplessness, this, “and we would, we'd love to work that way, but we can't. Cause that's just the way things are done around here.” So sometimes that's true in which case, well then, your design problem isn't really the thing that you're trying to tackle, your design problem is the thing that's constraining around you in the organization. And you know, if you get the chance, then we have to deal with that in order to kind of make you be successful. That can be liberating because you're able to make that connection, you can create some change inside an organization. Or it can be deeply frustrating, because the answer to that is, “well, that's all very well, but we just have to fix this thing. You know, we just have to kind of deliver this thing for whoever by this impossible deadline and we don't have any chance to affect that other stuff.” And so, you are just kind of selling them a kind of a pipe dream. You know, a lot of the kind of training or coaching I've done is interestingly less around, “we're really struggling with this design problem. Can you help us?” Than it is around facing the other way, “we are struggling as a department inside our organization to kind of gain traction, to gain buy in, to… we can see that there's this thing, and we can see this connectedness, but we can't seem to kind of convince anyone else of it.” And then, you know, and so that's actually a lot of the work I do is kind of non… it's not really focused on the design object, actually. It is focused on the server ecosystem around those designers. Jorge: Again, hearkening back to “Powers of Ten,” right? Making the invisible, visible by zooming up and down the levels. Andy: Yeah, it is. And, and like I said, that can be, you know, it can be liberating and frustrating for people. And, you know, can also be a bit annoying if you're kind of… so, one of the things is when you come in as an external, it's just like any other kind of therapy or something it's much, much easier to see someone else's relationship problems from the outside than it is to see your own and your own patterns and stuff. And so, you know, the advantage of bringing someone in externally is they've got that kind of view. They can also probably say things that internal stakeholders can't say. So that's, that's kind of one of the roles I often play. But that said, it can very easily sort of come across as, you know, I can see this whole kind of picture and you guys can't. Or even if I paint it for you, then they're just going to feel frustrated that you're not just focusing on the task at hand. Closing Jorge: Well Andy, I feel like we have so much to talk about and we could keep going. I feel like I have like four or five different things that I want to ask you about, but we have to wind it down. Where can folks follow up with you? Andy: So, I have a website it's polaine.com, P O L A I N E, like my name. I'm on Twitter as @apolaine, you'll find me on LinkedIn. Those are sort of main three places and I don't really hang out on many other social media places anymore. I sort of cut down on it. Jorge: And the name of podcast is Powers of Ten, right? Andy: It's Power of Ten actually. Yeah, so I gave this talk about “design to the power of ten,” and so that was where it came from. And I didn't want to kind of too heavily steal the Eames's title. So, yeah, it's called Power of Ten it's on the, This is HCD network. Jorge: Well, fantastic. I will include links to all of those in the show notes. It's been a pleasure having you on the show Andy. Andy: Thanks very much for having me.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Steve: So do you go by Andrew, or is Andy OK?Andy: Ah, Andy, please.Steve: Can you tell us about the work you do with your website?Andy: Sure. I've made a website for people to study English using movie trailers. (OK) Movie commercials. (OK) On the site, you can see lots of different trailers, over 100, (Wow) and you can do various activities (Right) you can read a summary. You can do a cloze exercise (OK) you can read a script, you can pop, you can click on a vocabulary word and it will show you definitions, example sentences. (OK, OK) yeah, I added little quizzes and stuff. (OK) Yeah, it's pretty fun.Steve: So you have the subtitles on there?Andy: Ah, no subtitles. It's all English. (OK, yeah) English trailers with English voices only.Steve: OK, so do you have the transcripts in English? You have the English subtitles in there?Andy: Yes, yes, yes. The students can watch the trailers while they read.Steve: Right. OK.Andy: So, yes.Steve: And what kind of movies have you been able to put into use?Andy: Oh, gosh, recently we've added "War of the World's".Steve: Oh, the H.G. Wells classic.Andy: Yes, the new Speilberg version.Steve: Oh, OK. OK.Andy: Yes. Yes. Um, the new "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." is going to be up there shortly.Steve: Right. OK.Andy: It looks like a fun trailer.Steve: Excellent. Yeah.Andy: Ah, various genres, too, like computer animation or love stories or action (OK. OK) Yeah something for everybody.Steve: Yeah, and who, which type of people have been accessing the website, and who's getting the most from it?Andy: Ah, people from all over the world are going now. I've had people e-mail about this site from over 25 different countries, so it's very international.Steve: Excellent. Excellent. And how long have you had this website up?Andy: Almost three years now. (Yeah) I guess, yeah about three years.Steve: Wow. OK. It sounds extremely interesting. I'll be very much looking forward to having a look at it myself. How can I access this website?Andy: The URL is www.english-trailers.comSteve: OK, sounds great, Andy, Good luck with it.

How to Sell Millions on Amazon Using SEO and Marketing Tools Part 3 On this episode, we continue with Steve’s special guest Andy Arnott, Founder and CEO of SellerSEO. This is part three of a three-part series. Here are some amazing takeaways from today’s episode: The inspiring success story of Under Armour. Why being an entrepreneur is not an easy path and usually harder than having a regular job. How you can build a lifestyle that works for you in this day and age of the so-called digital nomads or the freedom lifestyle. Listen once again as we hear it from Andy’s experience and personal journey as an Awesomer entrepreneur. 01:15 (Steve talks about today’s episode and special guest, Andy Arnott of SellerSEO.) 02:34 (Andy shares the big lesson he has learned in his journey so far.) 16:32 (Andy on some of the tools he uses on his day to day life.) 22:37 (Andy shares his final words of wisdom to Awesomers listening.) Welcome to the Awesomers.com podcast. If you love to learn and if you're motivated to expand your mind and heck if you desire to break through those traditional paradigms and find your own version of success, you are in the right place. Awesomers around the world are on a journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We believe in paying it forward and we fundamentally try to live up to the great Zig Ziglar quote where he said, "You can have everything in your life you want if you help enough other people get what they want." It doesn't matter where you came from. It only matters where you're going. My name is Steve Simonson and I hope that you will join me on this Awesomer journey. SPONSOR ADVERTISEMENT If you're launching a new product manufactured in China, you will need professional high-resolution Amazon ready photographs. Because Symo Global has a team of professionals in China, you will oftentimes receive your listing photographs before your product even leaves the country. This streamlined process will save you the time money and energy needed to concentrate on marketing and other creative content strategies before your item is in stock and ready for sale. Visit SymoGlobal.com to learn more. Because a picture should be worth one thousand keywords. You're listening to the Awesomers podcast. 01:15 (Steve talks about today’s episode and special guest, Andy Arnott of SellerSEO.) Steve: It's happening right now. You are listening to episode number 85 of the Awesomers.com podcast series. And the secret is out just hop on over to Awesomers.com/85 and you'll be able to find all of today's show notes and relevant details. Now again Andy Arnott, not Ar-not, Arnott! We already covered this Canadian ground. Andy joins us again for three, part three of our three-part series where we've talked about his origin story and some of the evolutions that he's gone through in his very interesting career and kind of where he's landed at today. And I think you know, it's a really interesting thing too to be able to operate more than one company at a time and to be able to continue growing and responding to the marketplace at large. And so that's definitely what he's doing with his ongoing efforts to help entrepreneurs. Okay without further ado. Let's jump into today's episode right now. Okay, we're back again everybody. Steve Simonson joined today by Andy Arnott and we're talking a little bit about the kind of Andy's journey and some of the defining moments he's been through but I wonder Andy, I teased this before the break, was there a big lesson that you've learned on your journey so far that gosh you wish you had learned it earlier or you feel really compelled to share it today with other folks who haven't faced what you faced? 02:34 (Andy shares the big lesson he has learned in his journey so far.) Andy: Yes, that's I mean, that's one of the biggest things is you know always to never stop learning. I mean even though now I kind of

How to Sell Millions on Amazon Using SEO and Marketing Tools Part 2 On this episode, we continue with Steve’s special guest Andy Arnott, Founder and CEO of SellerSEO. This is part of two of a three-part series. Here are some amazing insights from today’s episode: How Andy started his Android app business and his brush with Google. The story behind Andy’s decision to focus all his energy selling in the Amazon Marketplace. How Andy’s wife helps him do the Amazon side of the business while he does the SEO side. So put on your headphones and join us to learn more about Andy’s journey and success in Amazon. 05:00 (Andy shifts from being an air traffic controller to starting his Android apps business.) 10:42 (Andy starts to sell on Amazon Marketplace.) 16:53 (One of Andy’s weaknesses is delegating.) Welcome to the Awesomers.com podcast. If you love to learn and if you're motivated to expand your mind and heck if you desire to break through those traditional paradigms and find your own version of success, you are in the right place. Awesomers around the world are on a journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We believe in paying it forward and we fundamentally try to live up to the great Zig Ziglar quote where he said, "You can have everything in your life you want if you help enough other people get what they want." It doesn't matter where you came from. It only matters where you're going. My name is Steve Simonson and I hope you will join me on this Awesomer journey. SPONSOR ADVERTISEMENT If you're launching a new product manufactured in China, you will need professional high-resolution Amazon ready photographs. Because Symo Global has a team of professionals in China, you will oftentimes receive your listing photographs before your product even leaves the country. This streamlined process will save you the time, money and energy needed to concentrate on marketing and other creative content strategies before your item is in stock and ready for sale. Visit SymoGlobal.com to learn more. Because a picture should be worth one thousand keywords. You're listening to the Awesomers podcast. Steve: You are listening to Episode Number 84 in the Awesomers podcast series and all you need to do is run out over to Awesomers.com/84 to find today's show notes and details. Now, our special guest again continuing is Andy Arnott and Andy is joining us for three-part series. This is part two of the three-part series by the way and he's an Amazon seller and a software builder and has really done an awful lot and we're going to dive more to those details about his journey in this episode that you're listening to right now. So, back to the air traffic control. Now, was that high stress and was that something that that you thrived on or did you – did it start to wear on you? What was your experience with that? Andy: I actually worked at a smaller kind of regional airport and it wasn't like – I mean we still did shift work, but we didn't have to work overnight. But yes it was stressful and it was – the funny thing is I equated a lot to if you were ever a server or a bartender you know it's at least at our airport it was very much the same way where you'd be sitting there twiddling your thumbs for an hour and then all of a sudden you'd get 30 airplanes that show up at one time. You got to figure out how to get them on you know two runways, so that was – yes that was interesting. I kind of thrived on it for the most part though. I did a lot of training of the new people coming in once I kind of got established and so that was kind of fun for the most part. Steve: Yes, it comes and goes I'm sure. Andy: Right. Steve: Now, would you say that air traffic control is kind of your first proper job out of school? Andy: Yes, it was, it was. Yes. I stuck with it for a long time, which is kind of crazy in this day and age. Most people don't, but you know it was a solid job and it kind of enabled me to be

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 今日话题：Should smoking be banned? 你同意全民禁烟吗？ 解题方案：Problem+ Solution Should smoking be banned? Andy: Yes, definitely. Why should it be banned? Andy: ‘cause not only does it pose threat to the smoker him or herself, but also it’s gonna be bad for others around. Can you give me an example? Andy: Well, you know, say you are at a bar, a cafe or a lounge and there are smokers around. You are to be exposed to（暴露于） lots of poisonous carcinogens（有毒致癌物） including carbon monoxide（一氧化碳）, tar （焦油）and so on, so overtime, you might develop some life-threatening diseases such as bronchitis（支气管炎）, tumor（肿瘤） or even lung cancer（肺癌）! Gosh, how scary it is, isn’t it? It’s not responsible for those smokers to do that. What are the solutions Andy: ...

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 今日话题：Do you think gay marriage should be legalized? 解题方案：Problem+ Solution Do you think gay marriage should be legalized? Andy: Yes, definitely. Why？ Andy: Coz if they are denied the right to get married, it’s a violation against human rights.（对人权的侵犯） Can you give us some examples? Andy: For example, if they are denied the rights to get married（被拒绝婚姻权）, they won’t have any chance of rearing children（抚养孩童）, sharing properties legally（合法分享财产） and even having a cozy home together（拥有温馨的家庭）. How do you think of this problem? Andy: I believe this is gonna be devastating（毁灭性的打击） for those couples. I cannot imagine how much pain and agony（痛苦） they are gonna go through（遭受）. So, should they be left there to rot and die （腐烂 死亡）without anyone to love or to be loved? What a...

We've got another MTI Top 10 episode up with great summer hits from Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Drake and so much more! Hosts: Tauben & Andy Yes summer might be over but hey, we're still have great line up of shows coming to you guys for the rest of this year! Whether you want to request songs or leave some feedback, you can always find all the cool stuff on our website at http://mymti.org/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/past-mti-countdowns/donations