Podcasts about jon how

Iddecidejt li nitfa din l-intervista fuq il-pagna tieghi ukoll. L-aktar ghax irnexxiela tislet minn fommi stejjer u hsibijiet li qatt ma stqarrejt fil-pubbliku…Din l-intervista hija parti mil-progett ZIGZAG.Inheggigkom issegwu ‘l dawn iz-zaghzagh ghal izjed kontenut…--------------- A pioneer in Maltese rap, writer, producer, host and ‘pursuer of ideas', Jon Mallia is the epitome of ZIGZAG. In this interview Jon tells all on career decisions, past projects, regrets, and beliefs, offering insight into the local industries and the way he's developed his career and personas along the years

In this podcast episode, host Jon interviews two guests from Australia, Darren Iselin and his daughter Beck, about the concept of wellbeing in schools. Beck, a teacher, discusses the increase in mental health issues among her students, such as anxiety and depression, as well as the rise in neurodivergent behaviors. She also shares her observations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student wellbeing. The conversation highlights the importance of relationships, trust, and cultural norms in fostering student wellbeing and flourishing. They conclude by expressing their hopes for the future of education, including a focus on connection and a joyful hope for student flourishing. To learn more, order Jon's book, Just Teaching: Feedback, Engagement, and Well-Being for Each Student.   The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.   Be encouraged.   Mentioned: Flourishing Together by Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe Novice Advantage by Jon Eckert Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership Baylor Doctorate in Education Jon Eckert: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl   Jon: Welcome back to Just Schools. Today we have two guests in from Australia. Darren Iselin is one of our only ever repeat people on this podcast, he was so good the first time we brought him back again. And this time he's also brought his daughter Beck. Beck is in her sixth year of teaching year four in Australia. And so today we are going to have a conversation where we make a case against wellbeing. So if you aren't intrigued already, hopefully you will be after we start to hear from some of our friends here. So let's start with Beck. So Beck, you're in your sixth year. So you've been teaching a little bit before Covid hit and then you've had almost half your time before and after Covid. How would you describe the wellbeing of your students in Australia now? And then we'll dig into why maybe that wellbeing is not the right term for our kids. Beck: Yeah, absolutely. Within my classroom context, in any given year post Covid, I generally have around 10 kids diagnosed anxiety. I've seen depression as well in addition to then neurodivergent behaviors, seeing a massive increase. Jon: Neuro divergent. I love the terms used. I mean five years ago, we never heard that but all right, so continue with neurodivergent. Sorry to interrupt. Beck: So that's an increase in that, in addition to what I was already seeing. I think there's been a lot of children coming in just not at their, we talk about battery packs and they're coming into that school day and their battery pack is just completely drained at the start of the school day. And I think Covid times are really interesting for me. I was still teaching grade one back then and in Australia we only had remote learning for a short time. But for my students, the students who attended school, their wellbeing if you want to call it that I guess, they just seemed happier and settled and then the students who were learning at home seemed the same. And so then coming back from Covid was really hard because the students at school that had had so much more attention had had a different school day, they then struggled with having everyone back together and then the students who were at home who had had Mom and Dad doting on them for the whole day and only having to do some hours. Jon: I want to be in that house. I don't think our kids felt like they were doted on our house. Beck: I know sitting in Mom and Dad's office chair, we saw Ugg boots with the school uniforms, so then they loved that time. And so what I found really interesting was the coming back to I guess what we had considered normal school. And I feel like we've kind of been struggling to still come back after that, if that makes sense. Jon: Yes. Well in the US some schools were out for long periods of time, so there's significant learning loss that's happened and they're not able to figure out ways to minimize that impact and then accelerate forward on top of all the shifts in the way kids have gone through schooling over the last four years. Darren, we had a conversation with a renowned education scholar and in that conversation we were talking about wellbeing and flourishing and some of the issues that Beck just alluded to because we're seeing that in college students, we're seeing in grad students, we're seeing it in K through 12 students for sure. He mentioned that he did not like the term wellbeing and he didn't like the term flourishing. From what you recall of that conversation, what was his beef with those two terms? To me those have been some of the most ubiquitous terms in schools and who's against wellbeing? And here I'm saying we're making a case against it. What was his problem with those terms? Darren: Yeah, I think it comes out of a sense that the way that we are orientating the whole educational process has become highly individualized, highly about the self, the atomized version of who we are, and we've lost sight of, I guess a larger understanding of community and understanding of relationship and understanding of how we do this educative process together as opposed to siloed and isolated. And I think his main concern was around that the notion of wellbeing has become more and more about an introspective subjective version of what that means as an outcome as opposed to something that is around a collective purpose and meaning making that can be shared in a journey together. Jon: So when you think about Aristotle's view of the purpose of education, it was to lead to a flourishing society, which is an individual component to that, but that also has a communal purpose, it's not just to flourish. That becomes an issue. So I think I agree that was one of his things that he was pushing back against. And then I felt like he was also pushing against the idea that if kids believe that when they go to school their wellbeing is going to be attended to, and educators see wellbeing as the end, that communicates to them a freedom from struggle. And in fact, in his view, and also I think in our shared view, education is struggle. It's not freedom from struggle, it's freedom to struggle well. So I know Beck, you were just in US schools, you were visiting and then you have your school context, and again, you just got to drop in on a US school. But do see kids struggling well in schools, do you think they think of wellbeing and flourishing including struggle? Is that something that your students in Australia... Or my perception is in the US that's not something that's expected as a part of wellbeing and that wellbeing is freedom from it. What do you see? Beck: I love that because I think some teachers can be so quick to put up the poster, the growth mindset poster of the struggle is healthy. And you might see it in a room in that sense physically, but I like to talk about it almost like this sense of accomplishment. And so at one point a school that I was in had a model where if students experienced struggle, the classroom was then no longer a safe space. And it was like, okay, we need to remove them from the struggle. We don't really know what we'll do with them at that point. We might have calm down strategies, we might do all sorts of things, but then what was happening was that these students never got to experience the sense of accomplishment that came from doing a task that they thought they couldn't do and then actually succeeding in that. And I've even heard students say to me like, "Oh, I had no idea I was able to do that," or "Oh, that was actually really fun." Or to the point where I had one student discover just a love of reading, had never wanted to touch a book or pick up a book before that. And then just with that I guess a sense of going, you can do it and being careful with the language that I used around her, she's now the student that literally walks around with her head in a book and that's just unlocked a whole new world for her as well. And so I think I'm cautious to never rob my students of that and to embrace that struggle. Jon: I love the idea of not robbing your students of it. And you mentioned in a conversation we had earlier about the space in a classroom you can go if you feel like you need a time to take a break and you just need to disengage and then not participate. And obviously there are times when kids are unregulated and they just need a space to calm down and that's real, but it becomes a crutch. And so then you've taken away the chance for a kid to struggle well. So how do you balance that? The kid who needs some time to regulate versus the kid who needs to be stretched, the cognitive endurance needs to be challenged, the push has to be there. How have you figured out how to balance that? I know you've figured out all the answers because in your sixth year of teaching, so how do you do that? Beck: I think I couldn't not mention relationship. So much comes down to the trust that is built. But I guess if I could say practically aside from that, I have had spaces like that in my classroom. In my grade one classroom we had the cool down couch. Jon: I want to go to the cool down couch. Beck: It was great. It was this bright green vinyl. I had kids asleep on that thing. It was great. But one thing I loved was having a space, I've seen tents, I've seen all sorts of things, having a space where the student was still in close proximity to their peers. They were still part of our discussions, but they just perhaps weren't sitting at their desk in a scratchy chair. Maybe it was a little bit quieter where they were, but there was always a sense of I feel that it's best for you to be in this room. We want you here. This is community, this is belonging. And what pathway is built if when they begin to struggle, I send them out. And so yeah, I guess what I saw then was children who maybe don't look like they're listening the way that we might expect. I've heard crisscross applesauce. That's a big thing here. Jon: Yes, it's a big thing here. Yes. Beck: Yeah. But then still being able to engage in discussion just might not look the way that I expect it to look. Jon: No, that's good. So Darren, when you look up the word flourish, so we've picked on wellbeing for a little bit, and again, I want to make it clear we're all for wellbeing. We know you can't do any of the work that we do in schools without wellbeing. But if we're communicating to kids that the definition of wellbeing or flourishing, if you look up in Merriam Webster's, the dictionary, it says flourish means to grow luxuriantly. I don't think anyone would read that and think, oh, that means I need to struggle. And so how do we as leaders of schools and catalysts for other school leaders, how do we help our educators communicate to students what it means to struggle well? Especially as Christians because I think we have a better view of what it means to flourish as human beings knowing that we're made in the image of God. So how do we do that? Have you had any success in Australia doing this? Do you have any hope for us? Darren: Look, I think there is hope, and I think it's very much around how we're framing that conversation, John. To talk about this notion of flourishing as though it's the removal of all of those mechanisms that will imply risk, that will imply struggle, that will imply a wrestling through actually goes against the very grain of what we're really after with genuine wellbeing and genuine flourishing which we want in our school communities. I think something that comes back to our training as educators is always around that Vygotskian term around the zone of proximal development. And of course what we can do together can be exponentially better than what we can do on our own. And I think that notion of proximal development, we could apply to very different frames. We can do that pedagogically, what that pedagogical zone of proximal development looks like. What does relational proximal development look like? Going back to Beck's couch and the safe spaces that we create within our classrooms, what does cultural proximal development look like? Where we're actually together working on solutions that will expand and what we end up with through struggle, through risk, through uncertainty is actually better rounded and better formed students, better formed teachers, better formed communities within our schools. Jon: I love that ZPD applied to relational development. So my question then for Beck is you're now in that sweet spot I feel like in the teaching profession. The first year you're just trying to figure it out. The second year you're trying to pick up what you muddled through the first year. And by the third year you hit a, if you've gotten to teach the same grade level subject, you kind of like, okay, I get this. And you can look around and see what colleagues do I pull into this? How can I be more intentional about things other than just being survival mode? So your zone of proximal development for relational development as a leader in your classroom and beyond, you have more capacity for that now. So how have you seen your capacity for struggle increase? Because now you have the ability to not constantly be thinking about what am I saying? What am I doing? What's the lesson plan? You have this bandwidth, how have you seen yourself grow in that relational ZPD? Beck: I think there's definitely been, as with probably comes with any job, just an easing into it. And so there is a sense of it just being a lot of second nature and also just coming back every day and just having eyes that would see beyond the behaviors and having eyes that would see beyond maybe the meltdowns and the language used not just from my students but from within the whole school community. I think that obviously with then success and going, oh, I've done this before. I remember when I did this for this student before, this really worked quite well. And it never is the same for two students, but there's definitely a confidence that grows. And whilst I am in my sixth year, I don't feel like I'm in my sixth year. I feel like I have so much more to learn. But I think teaching is just like that. I think that the point where you just say, no, I've learned everything there is to learn, that's a dangerous place to be in. And I think there's so much to learn from our students as well. They teach me so much every day. And one of my greatest joys is when I see them begin to celebrate each other's successes and interact with each other in the same way that I guess I'm trying to create that culture. Darren: And becomes a very cultural dimension, John, where there is that capacity for trust, for engagement, for that sense of that we are in this together. And because we're in it together both within the students but within our classroom, there are these cultural norms that are created that are so powerful. And as someone who, obviously I'm very biased going into my daughter's own classroom, but when I see classrooms that are actually reflecting a culture where that proximal development is taking place culturally, relationally, pedagogically, it really is a transformative space. It's a safe space, but it's not without risk. And so it's not safetyism, as Jonathan Haight would say, it's actually a place where people are entrusted to be able to be who they are, to be real and authentic in that space and allow for that image bearing capacity to find its fullness. Jon: Yeah. So when you say that, I go back to the, obviously we need schools to be safe, we need classrooms to be safe, but I think if we tell kids that they're going to wait until they feel safe to share, marginalized kids will never share. And so in fact, they need to be respectful spaces that celebrate the risk taking what you described about seeing kids and celebrating that. And I think what you also described was gritty optimism. It isn't the naive optimism of a beginner. So my first book I wrote was called The Novice Advantage, and I talk about the shift that happens when you go from naive optimism to gritty optimism where you're optimistic based on things you've seen kids grow and do that you didn't think they could do. And when you can take that from the classroom and make that be a school-wide value, that's when it gets fun. Because when we say struggle, nobody wants to struggle. I don't want to struggle. I know sanctification is a process of being stretched. I want to be stretched without having been stretched. I don't want to go through the process of it. I want the benefit of it on the back end. And so I think what I want to see as a profession or people like you Beck and you Darren, leading other educators in this struggle where we celebrate the growth that we see, when we do more than we thought we can do and that it be fun. I don't think that the way I'm conceiving of wellbeing, that includes freedom to struggle well as being something that's onerous and compliance driven. I see it as something that, no, I could do this in August. I can do this now in December. Beck, I could do this as a first year teacher. I can do this now in my sixth year and I can point to how I've grown. So if you were to think back over the six years, how are you fundamentally different as a teacher because of some of the hard things that you've gone through in your first six years? Beck: I think to throw another buzzword in, I would say resilient. Darren: Oh yes. Jon: Yes. Beck: I think there's been so many micro moments. It's very hard to pinpoint and say this class or this child or this parent or this moment, but it's just the micro moments every day. Teachers make thousands upon thousands of decisions daily. And I think there's almost a sense of empowerment in going, when I speak from my own successes, I then can call that out in someone else. I think every teacher starts their career one of two ways, very bright-eyed. I was like, I've got the rainbow- Jon: Idealistic. Beck: ... rainbow decor, I've got the cool down couch, everything's alliterated. And I think I was very blessed to actually have taught the two cohorts that I taught in first grade again in fourth grade. And that was very significant for me because one, I got to enjoy all of the great things I saw in grade one, but they was so much more independent. But also it was in some ways a second chance to go, Hey, that thing that I really didn't do well when I was fumbling around in grade one, let's do that again and let's do it together. You know that I was there and I know that I was there, but we're both on this journey together. And that then created stronger community and this sense of identity to the point where I had one of my students create a hashtag on Cecil, which is a platform that students can upload to. And one of the photos he goes, hashtag 4B for life. And I was like, "What did you mean, Luke? What is this?" And he was like, "Oh, it just means we've got each other's backs," and all these things that, I mean, I could have put signs up and said, we're a family and we have this and these are our class rules and whatever. But I would much rather that come from their mouth and just knowing that they felt it was safe, I didn't have to prove that something... I didn't have to prove that I was a safe person. I didn't have to prove that my classroom was a safe space. It just became that. And yeah, looking back, I think it just makes me more excited, I think for the years ahead. Jon: Well, they owned the culture. It wasn't you forcing the culture. They owned it and you have the evidence of it. So Darren, you've been in education a little bit longer than Beck. Darren: Just one or two more years. Jon: How do you see your growth or the growth of educators like Beck? Where are you encouraged by growth that you've seen in yourself or growth just in the profession and what you've seen in Australia or you've been all over the world seeing this, where do you see optimism for this growth? Darren: I think the optimism comes John, when you see the capacity for that transformative interaction between student and teacher. That sacred moment on day one, which for many of our schools in Australia are going back within one or two weeks for that day one. And we start afresh. We start afresh with the newness of a new year, a new class, new minds, new hearts, new relationships to engage with and to see the transformative impact that that has. And year after year, we come back to that core element of what it means to actually be about this ancient task of teaching. To be able to engage this space well through struggle, yes, through risk, through uncertainty, through all the things that will be thrown at us in this year. And yet there is something about being a part of a community, a network, a culture that is established within a classroom that truly is a microcosm of what that school should look like right through as you talked about those norms and values that flow, and then indeed what a wider community would look like. And that notion of flourishing of what shalom might look like in its holistic sense, I think is the responsibility that every teacher has. And I get excited at this time of the year, this beginning phase that every teacher goes in, whether they've been teaching for 30 years or this is their first year of teaching, when they stand before that class for the first day, that first hour when they're establishing those norms, those expectations, we are filled with hope. We are filled with expectation, we are filled that we want to be part of 4B forever- Jon: That's right. Darren: ... because of what we are endeavoring to achieve here with purpose and meaning and something that goes far beyond just a transactional arrangement. Jon: I mean, teaching is one of the most human things we do and it's what keeps us coming back to it. And I'm excited about the tools that are out there from AI to ChatGPT to whatever, but anything that takes the human out of it is a problem. And so in just teaching, I define wellbeing as purpose-driven, flourishing, and then feedback is purpose-driven wisdom for growth. There's this huge component. And that only comes from humans. Because AI is consensus, it's scraping whatever the web has said on a certain topic and says, Hey, here's what consensus is. That's not wisdom. And so we gain wisdom from struggle. We're much more able to help and have empathy for people once we've been through something hard. We become much less judgmental. And I think that's grounded in two Corinthians four, seven through 10. And I think as educators we get to live that out all the time. And so I was sharing with you before we jumped on, I memorized these verses as a kid, but I didn't memorize verse 10, which is the most important one. So if you remember Paul's writing to the Corinthians and they were known for pottery that would be cracked and you could put a light in it and the light would shine through it. So it makes this passage even more powerful. And it comes from our friend Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe's book Flourishing Together. And they use this as their paradigm for what this means. And it's super encouraging in this way. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the all surpassing power is from God, not from us. We're hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. So those are the ones that are there and those are daunting if you put in educators instead of we. Educators are hard-pressed on every side. Darren: Sums up our profession. Jon: It's felt like that, right? But that gives us the opportunity to show Christ. And so that's where verse 10 comes in. We always carry around in our bodies the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also may be revealed in our bodies. So our creator had to come, suffer, die and we carry that around so that we can then reflect his glory to others because he's at work in us. So as we do this work, that's the hope, that's the joy. Darren: Absolutely. Jon: Right. And so we're going to wrap up our time with a lightning round. And so I always like to ask, I have five or six kind of go-to questions here. And so I'm curious and feel free to build on anything that we've talked about so far, but this is a word, phrase or sentence. I'm terrible at this. I always would go too long if I were asked this. But if you were to think back on this past year and what we've just talked about, what real wellbeing is, really that's what we're talking about. What is real wellbeing? What's one word that sums up for you how you've approached your own wellbeing in this past year? What would be a word that comes into mind? And in this one, I really do want the first word that pops in your head. Beck: Fulfillment for me. Jon: Great word, Beck. That was quick. She's younger than we are. Her mind works faster. So Darren, go for it. Darren: I'll tell you something quite random, gaming. Now I'm not a gamer, but I love games and Beck shares that passion. We often don't get to play them as much as we should, but we have room full of games that we can pick at any given time. But there is something that is dynamic about gaming. There's something about when you enter into play into that space of actually struggle, of risk, of uncertainty, of joy. And I think in all of that, that to me has been something that has really resonated with me as I've looked at this whole notion of wellbeing is we need to play more, we need to have more fun, John. We get to far too serious about too many things. Jon: That's right. Darren's a lightning round guy like I am. Beck had literally one word. Beck: I'm obedient. Follow the instructions. Jon: So I wasn't planning to ask this one, but in the last year, what has been your favorite game that you have played? One of your top five? Beck: I have to say Ticket to Ride for me. Jon: Oh, I love Ticket to Ride. Beck: And all the expansion packs. Jon: I've not done the expansion packs. All right. Ticket to Ride. Great. Darren: We just love our trivial games. So anything that's got trivia in it. And there are some really awful games of that, there are some really fantastic games that we play with that. Beck: Lots of eighties trivia. Darren: Lots of eighties and nineties trivia. Just to boost the points for- Beck: That's not my sweet spot. Darren: ... Mom and Dad. Jon: Yes. Well my kids love the Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit because I sit and listen to them and I am both proud and cringing that they know Harry Potter that well. Darren: My children are like that with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Beck: Or any sport. Jon: Oh well that's okay. Sport is all clear. All good. Okay. So what's the best book you've read in the last year? And it doesn't have to be education related, but it could be. Beck: Mine is a Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. Jon: Okay. Beck: Yeah. Fantastic book. It's an allegory, follows the story of a character called Much Afraid, who is on her way to the high places and has to walk in the hinds' feet of the shepherd leading her. Powerful. Jon: That sounds powerful. All right, Darren? Darren: Mine was a book by Andy Crouch called The Life We're Looking For, really about reclaiming relationships in a technological age. And I just found that such a riveting read. I read it almost in one sitting. It was that engaging. Jon: Wow. I love Andy Crouch. That's great. So two great recommendations there. All right. Worst piece of advice you've ever received as an educator? Either one of you. Beck: As an educator, that's tricky. Jon: Or you can just go, worst piece of advice that could be fun too. Darren: Well, the classic that is often rolled out is don't smile till Easter, right. Now it might have a different terminology in the US . Jon: It's Thanksgiving. Don't smile till Thanksgiving. Darren: From my day one of teaching John, I refused to even go to that space. It was just so against everything that I believed as far as the relational heart of teaching. Jon: That's great. Beck: I would've said the same. Non-educator worst advice, just add caramel syrup to American coffee and it tastes better. That's terrible advice. Nothing will save it. Jon: Nothing will save American coffee. Hey, it's a struggle. It's part of the struggle. There you go. It's not contributing to your wellbeing. Darren: The joy in the journey. Jon: That's good. All right. So I will say about 70% of the people on this give the worst piece of advice that they've ever received that don't smile till the thing. And so we get that every time. Beck: Original. Jon: It's so sad that- Darren: Tragic. Jon: ...that is so pervasive. Best piece of advice you've ever received? And this could be in general or as an educator. Darren: I will go with education again, John, that at the heart of education is the education of the heart. And so just keep it real and keep it relational. And it's all about relationships. Beck: As an educator, best advice I've received, I don't know if you could call it advice, but the quote "The kids who need love the most are the hardest to love." That's my favorite. Jon: That's good. Last question, last word for the listeners. What do you hope in the years ahead as an educator will best define what it means to flourish as a student? So word, phrase, or sentence. What would flourishing really look like for a kid moving forward? Beck: I would say a word, connection. And I would love to see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs starting at the bottom not always at the top in our classrooms. Jon: Love it. Darren: Yeah. I think for me the word that constantly comes to mind is joyful hope, is a joyful hope in what we do, that what we've been entrusted with every year within our classrooms. That there's a joyful hope that awaits. Jon: Well, thank you for being with us today. It's been a huge blessing for me.  

Jon joins Jason to discuss what went into his transformative 100lb weight loss Jon's moment Jon's why Having time vs making time Simple starter steps The role alcohol played before, during, and at present for Jon How being a dad helped shape his journey Making change a family affair Leading from the front Tacos and working out Why Coach David is one of the best humans and coaches alive Jon's top tips for beginners with a long ways to go --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/falconfnc/support

Moon Tea Links: Email us: moonteapodcast@gmail.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3iZ4EAq... Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=... Anchor: https://anchor.fm/moon-tea Moon Tea Links: Email us: moonteapodcast@gmail.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3iZ4EAq... Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=... Anchor: https://anchor.fm/moon-tea - 00:15 Welcome Jessie! - 00:30 Jon and Lisha make friends with Jessie and Neil at a Pottery Class and now Jessie is our guest! Rad. - 1:15 Jon introduces Jessie to Hugh - 1:14 Easy question to start, how was your day, Jessie?! Cardamom Bun, New York suggestion - 1:17 Jessie introduces herself to Hugh. Jessie is a web accessibility engineer at Google! - 3:57 Hugh: What kind of art do you like? - 4:25 Hugh: Did you grow up painting or drawing? - 5:10 Jessie: Do you think it was harder for you to get into art because your sister was so good, Hugh? - 6:19 Hugh: How’d you get started on your path as a developer? - 7:30 Hugh: Did you start at google as your first job after graduating? - 7:45 Hugh: Is the work culture good at google? - 8:30 Hugh: If you could choose 3-5 adjectives to describe your experience as part of the team? Collaborative yet individualistic. - 9:45 Hugh: Is there an average team size for healthy number of direct reports on a team? - 10:45 Jon: How do you feel about working in the tech industry, and is it something you want to keep doing for the next decade? - 12:00 Jessie expands upon what it’s like working in tech over time - 15:01 Jessie: What do you all think too? Jon expands what working in tech is like and the questions he wrestles with. - 16:19 Jon: What do you think, Hugh? Hugh talks about his 5 core pieces, Family, Friends, Health, Work, Hobbies/Side Projects. - 18:07 Hugh’s fun fact / live update to Jon! - 20:18 Jon: Are you going to become a ceramicist? Jessie shares her dream future. - 20:00 Jon shares his dream future too. - 22:09 Hugh: Have you two heard about Slo-mo at San Diego beach? - 24:00 Hugh: What are some larger problems in life that you think might be issues in this world that can be improved upon? Healthcare, Education, and Infrastructure - 26:55 Hugh: Jon, if could pick one of the three topics (Healthcare, Education, and Infrastructure), which would you choose we talk about? - 27:34 Jessie expands on some education discussions / issues happening in New York at present. - 29:11 Jon adds his perspective to the convo - 31:00 Jon: Is there a better way to run this schooling process? - 32:11 Jon: How much would you care on behalf of your future children? - Jon questions what other possible paths could be taken if one doesn’t go down the route of higher education. - 35:40 Jessie: Do either you feel like you were afforded the opportunity to go a direction that’s not the normal path? - 37:00 Hugh talks about his experiential learning style experience - 39:30 Hugh: How do you create and craft an education system that’s more curated to the individual with a quality learning system that gets them excited for the classroom to be proactively learning experientially, and not just suited for one type of people, rote learners? - 42:50 Jon shares his childhood learning experience and his thoughts on parents as guide-rails - 44:44 Jessie: If your kid is struggling to find meaning in the education system, what would you do? - Jon and Hugh agree that people should seek therapy if needed. It’s not taboo - 47:11 Jon: Any words of wisdom and/or parting thoughts? Jessie: Give yourself time to just take it easy, rest is good. Don’t feel guilty about rest. - Thanks for tuning in!

Moon Tea Links: Email us: moonteapodcast@gmail.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3iZ4EAqK6TM4olrpjAeVq1?si=xO-AlKidSUiGIWtoTxQHIQ&dl_branch=1 Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy82NTlkMTJlMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw== Anchor: https://anchor.fm/moon-tea - 00:35 Hugh introduces Matt - 2:33 Matt introduces himself - 6:13 Jon: Do you still live in New York City? - 8:26 Jon: How long has Matt been recording his podcast? He's recording his 18th episode! - 9:20 Matt: What's the journey of Moon Tea Podcast been like? - 10:20 Matt: Do we have a specific person we curate Moon Tea Podcast for? - 11:30 If you want a Lunchclub invite, email us at MoonTeaPodcast@gmail.com! - 12:40 Matt: Have you ever done any networking groups before? - 14:20 Matt: Is this podcast G-rated? - 16:00 Matt: Is Lunchclub really AI driven? - 16:30 Matt: What's the difference between Machine Learning and AI? - 18:40 Matt shows his incredible telescope, astrophotography setup - 21:30 Matt shows a photo he took of the Orion Nebula - 21:50 Jon: Is this one of those projects where you buy small then keep buying bigger and bigger camera gear? - 22:45 Matt shows the Veil Nebula → it's an exploded star!! - 25:10 Jon: How did you get started in the astro photography world? - 26:00 Matt breaks down his thought process on how he learns quickly in new topics - example: his Archery rabbit-hole story - 28:50 Jon: So you're into bio-hacking and nootropics? - 30:00 Jon: What are the supplements you've found to have the most benefit? How did you approach this? - 31:15 Matt has run an Ironman! - 38:26 Jon: What changes have you noticed since you've started on this supplement journey? - 41:00 Matt: Red light therapy - 42:50 Matt: White light spectrum therapy for jet lag - 44:45 Jon: What's your travel stack? - 50:00 Matt: For the meditative Muse headband, did you see a corollary between the birds chirping and a meditative state? - 53:30 Matt: The best question is what can you get that gets you to use x more. Not, what's the best? - 57:20 Matt: Why does Dr. Mike swear by the Aura ring? - 59:55 Jon: Hugh mentioned you bought a domain name called, Headshop? - 1:01:50 Jon: Is your web / mobile design company an agency? - 1:02:30 Jon: Which side of the business is more interesting to you? - 1:05:40 Matt: Is it worth poisoning the world by selling an $8 battery instead of selling a rechargeable one? - 1:06:30 Jon: If you have any generic words of wisdom what would you say? - Matt: Ask seven (7) questions, it will change you life! - 1:10:20 Hugh thinks the seven question is better than the five whys - 1:11:20 Hugh: What's your podcast called? What's your astro portfolio called? - Matt: Irreverant health (will be released at the 20th episode recording). No photo portfolio yet, but will open source someday. - 1:12:23 Thanks for listening! Tune in next time, see ya!

The world of ecommerce is constantly changing — this last year being a prime example. How people shop in 2021 is radically different from how they shopped in early 2020, so forget about thinking about comparing today’s world to a decade ago. Although that is fun to see how much has changed. Now, it’s all about keeping up with your customers, which is why for our first official roundtable episode of Up Next in Commerce we wanted to bring on two people who have been on the cutting edge of the industry for years. Ashima Sehgal is a Software Development Manager at Amazon Music and Jon Feldman, a Senior Marketing Leader for Salesforce Commerce Cloud. These two go way back to their days working together on ecommerce implementation at Restoration Hardware, which was a journey in and of itself, and while they remain close friends, they sit on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to certain aspects of the future of ecommerce. We get into all of it in this episode, including discussing whether shopping at the edge is the future of the industry or just a passing fad, and how to get buy-in when selling a new implementation. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!Main Takeaways:Make It Easy: When pitching or selling an implementation, the key is to tell the right story and make it hard for the business to say no. Highlight the pain points that their business is facing, and play up how you will solve those problems from beginning to end and be a great partner throughout the process. But one thing to remember, don’t try to tackle everything from the start and be upfront about what is prioritized and what is put on the backburner. Edgy Opinions: There is a lot of debate on the future of shopping at the edge and whether or not it is a fad. Regardless of whether it sticks, businesses should be harnessing the power of meeting customers where they are and selling to them in those places, but the base ecommerce platform should not have to suffer as a result of those efforts. It’s All A Simulation: In the last year especially, there has been a lot of talk about the death of retail and the rise of an ecommerce-only economy. That is a myth. While 2020 and early 2021 undeniably changed the way people shopped, it was more of a blip in the timeline and not a true indicator of the future, which will more likely be a blend of in-person and online experiences.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:Welcome to Up Next In Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today's episode is going to be a really fun one. It's our very first official Roundtable and we have the two perfect guests joining us. First up, we have Ashima Seghal, the software development manager for Amazon and Jon Feldman, a senior manager of Product Marketing at Salesforce. Ashima, Jon, how's it going?Ashima:AwesomeJon:How's it going? Stephanie:Good. I'm glad to have you here. So I heard you guys have a little background, you've worked together in the past and I wanted to start there so people can know your relationship, like how do you all know each other? And maybe, Ashima, I'll let you start with that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like Jon and I have worked together forever now. 2008, I moved to the U.S. and I met Jon, the first company I joined. It was a consulting shop, we work together to help people build their ecommerce websites and features on it. And, he's mentored me through that period to help me understand better where my interest lies. And he's also helped me grow my management skills and given me opportunities as he grew in the ladder in those organizations, I saw some opportunities come my way as well. And then, we worked together recently in Restoration Hardware. As a director of engineering, he and I worked together in terms of prioritization of what should be done when and working closely with the business, in terms of understanding how to get to the customer, how to go get features quickly to market and so on and so forth. So, a lot of history there to explore.Stephanie:And that really talked Jon up. So Jon, is that your recollection as well?Jon:No doubt.Stephanie:And what was your favorite project that you all worked on together?Jon:My success in ecommerce is deeply intertwined with working with Ashima. I mean, we worked very closely, both at Access Group where we did a zillion implementations. And then, when we went to Restoration Hardware, we had a really beautiful relationship and so far, I had the crazy ideas and she had the practical skills to do those. And so, it worked really symbiotically. So I feel like we've seen a lot of stuff and built the systems so yeah, really delighted to be sharing this.Ashima:Yeah. One funny story, I can tell you was we work for Falabella in Chile, and it was a Spanish speaking Morgan, I didn't understand as much Spanish so I would speak my English louder thinking they would understand me and Jon would be like, why are you yelling at them? I'm like, I'm not yelling at them. They just don't understand me. I'm trying. So, that was some happy moments.Jon:I remember that. That's wonderful. That was back at the building of [inaudible] or whatever.Ashima:Exactly.Stephanie:My gosh, that's awesome. And Restoration Hardware, that seems like a really good company to work on, especially from an ecommerce perspective, because when I was looking through articles and whatnot, it was talking about how they were resisting moving to ecommerce for a while. So, were you guys working there when that was still undergoing, when they didn't really want to make that move or were you already past that hurdle, and already ready to start implementing things?Ashima:I can go first and then, Jon can add to that. But if Restoration Hardware wants, they don't want anything to do with digital, they would close their eyes and close that shop today. The reality for them is they want to be beautiful. They want customers to come and touch them and feel them. They want people to experience it and then, love it. And digital is a hindrance to that because digital is very removed. It's away from the customer, however beautiful an image you put on digital, the fabric is something you can't feel and that's what they're selling. They want you to experience it. Then, going into building restaurants in their business than going into hotels half that is an extension of that. But we were more of an idea shop. We were enablers for them, not that loved and given as much money but still help them run 90% of their business through auto management and so on. So, we were critical to their success, but didn't get as much love I would say. Jon?Jon:No, I totally echo that. I think that Restoration Hardware is at its core, a luxury business and they want that luxury, in person experience. And it's really interesting because it was fascinating to be there during a time when there was all this transition to digital and everybody's like, well of course you need these nine things and to have like a real hard no, the experience is fairly impersonal and manual. I think it was really frustrating at the time. But it's really impacted my thinking since that I challenged the ease shopping at the edge. It's definitely something we're seeing. There's huge growth in it, right? It's a big area, certainly, Salesforce can't stop talking about it. But, from a Restoration Hardware standpoint, it's growth, but is that the growth that's important for my brand, which really affected how I evaluate some of that stuff.Ashima:Right. Another important thing is that we were always asked to do one day in their store, and Jon did it and we did it like all of us employees did it. And it was fascinating, because you could see why that was important. You could see that they wanted customers to come every day, look at a cushion and buy that and keep the relationship going. That is what they thought the bread and butter was. I met this lady who comes in every two, three months and buys a new big thing for her house. She has lots of money.Ashima:And that's the 1% that they're targeting. And that's what's running their business. They don't care about the 99%. They don't want to be digital, because they don't want to be for the masses. They know who their customer is. And that's what I learned in Restoration Hardware, that they were so aware of who their customer was and they were very successful. Look at the stock price now, right? That's part because they understand their customer. And we were just like I said, enablers. So, we were a step removed from that painting and so embedded in engineering, but if you talk about business, they were geniuses, I would say.Jon:Yeah, no doubt. Gary, he has built an unbelievable business. Restoration Hardware was a very difficult place to be in IT but it is an unbelievable business.Stephanie:Were there any big projects that you remember that you felt really strongly about? You're like this could go through and you just got like, Nope, sorry. We are not doing that.Ashima:Many of those.Stephanie:Maybe your favorite memory?Ashima:Yeah, we brought in so many different awesome implementation options for [mobile] and people just didn't buy it. It's like my cat who knows I'm here but pretends I'm not here. It's like that. Restoration Hardware acknowledges mobile is important but just does not want to invest in our mobile experience. I still say our because I feel like I'm connected to the brand but it is still sucky. Right? So I feel like mobile was the big, big one and why it's painful is because we brought in so many different ways of getting it in, like let's do it incrementally. Let's get one page there. Let's just get on iOS like, no.Jon:One of the strongest members I have is one of the chief merchandising officers who I want to be really clear is a lovely person, I follow her on Instagram, we're still buddies, is super brave but sitting at one of those tables in the center of innovation and whatever it's like it's the big show building and Restoration Hardware is really designed, if you're a vendor to be like, yo, this is the place, holding up herself and being like, who's going to buy a couch on this? Right? And I was like, man, we got a long way to go. Technology is not the place these guys are hanging out so-Ashima:Right.Jon:Man. So, before I get into... I want to dive deep into implementation because I know you both had background in that. But before that, I would love it if Ashima, you can explain maybe your current role at Amazon and then, Jon will go over to you just so everyone knows who we're talking to.Ashima:Yeah. Like I said, I'm software development manager there. I manage teams that run the front page of music app. So my team is a full stack team, which translates into iOS, Android web engineers, as well as Silverstack engineers who come together to build features for browsing, how customers discover music more easily, and highlight the personalization capabilities that we have under the hood and make it more obvious for customer experience improvement.Stephanie:Pretty cool. All right and Jon.Jon:That's awesome, probably the highest performing team at Amazon Music, I assume.Stephanie:I would think so too.Jon:[crosstalk] Ashima took the technology path after leaving Restoration Hardware and I was like, I can't do another project or I'll be dead. So I went into marketing and now, I do event content and I do all the flashy video stuff for Salesforce. It's a ton of fun. Ashima, your worst nightmare, I am paid for thought leadership. People pay to listen to the crazy stuff I say.Stephanie:I do want to dive into the implementation piece. I want to hear a bit about, we haven't actually dove that deep into that side of things on the podcast. Usually, I have brands on big and small, but we don't go into the weeds there and because you both have seen a lot of implementations in your career, I was hoping you can go through what makes a successful ecommerce implementation, like what does that look like, any case studies, I want to know how someone can make sure to put their best foot forward when thinking about that?Ashima:Yeah, in my experience, the best way to sell an implementation to a business stakeholder is to highlight their top three pain points, what is it that you're struggling with the most like in case of Restoration Hardware, or even my current company, we would ask them, what are the features you wanted to get in in 2019 and still haven't been able to get out of the door? And how can we increase velocity? Velocity is a word business loves. They want their things out the door, in front of the customers as soon as possible. That's one. Two, I feel really strongly about instrumentation and collecting metrics. If you don't know where your customer is and how they're using your site and what they're thinking as they're using your site, it just is pointless in many ways, because you can't make progress in any specific area, if you don't know how well or bad it's doing.Ashima:So those two avenues of velocity and instrumentation connect with business a lot. And then, also giving our business a sense that we're not boiling the ocean, we're going to go slow, start at point A and take you through to point B and won't abandon you midway and here's how it's going to go and give them an early peek into what an implementation would look like, is again, something that just strikes under with business and I feel like they understand our side of the problem.Stephanie:Okay.Jon:I couldn't agree more with agreeing on a language from an IT standpoint with the business and how you can evaluate the success of it. So ahead of time, you know that the business values this and IT values this and is the project to achieving that yes or no, rather than some... because the worst situation is where people start pulling metrics that no one's ever measured out of the air. And it's like, in the last week, our average card size is down 82 cents, you can chase that rabbit pretty deep.Stephanie:I was just going to ask that about metrics. It seems like at least back in my Google days, everyone was always operating in different metrics. I worked with product teams and [inaudible] teams and they didn't really see eye to eye with what was important. So, how would you present that to leadership in a way that connects with everyone who's your manager or manager's manager, and not just presenting business metrics that don't make sense to an engineering team who's like, well, wait, this is actually the bigger infrastructure problem while business is like, but what about my average order size? How do you think about that good balance without overwhelming them with hundreds of metrics?Ashima:Right. I feel like I agree with Jon that metrics and exclusivity don't make sense but if you connect the funnel that, here's where the customer started, we can see that we have so much value in this detail page and this is the button they're clicking the most. And if I improve this experience and reduce the number of clicks, it's going to get us this much left in the final revenue number. I feel like starting and ending, creating a story out of it has the best impact.Ashima:If you throw out a caught value number from the middle, maybe that won't resonate as much but creating a story, creating here's where we start, here's where we see most value. And this is where it's going to end, might have a better-Jon:No, totally. And I can think of two reasons why that's important. One is that it provides a north star for the project as it's going. These projects are multi month projects with different stakeholders and a lot of movement in them. And so being able to touch back to here are the use cases that we all agreed on that we're doing I think, is really critical. The other is it's interesting because it's table stakes to the level you're talking about is to have a broad agreement with the business and IT about what it is you're building full stop and while you're building it. I can think of implementation we did in Emeryville, which was, super lovely people but they were ultimately trying to save the business by replacing their ecommerce engine and as the business degraded, the energy around like we're going to get this new site out and all of a sudden the boat's going to float again. It just doesn't bear out that way. If you don't know why you're building and how that's building your business, technology alone is not going to do it. [AD READ]Stephanie:Yeah. And I love the idea to around having to have a story for it. I don't think I've heard of many, especially, engineering managers speak that language before, which I think is awesome. But I mean, we talk about that in our company all the time about, every podcast needs to be told and the hero's journey type format, even our show notes, everything needs to be told in the story, it needs to open up loops. I'd be interested to hear how you structure that to connect with other people. How do you think about building a story in a way that's going to sell leadership and excite them for something that they might not be able to see like the changes that are happening after a year or so?Ashima:Yeah, and I might be preaching to the choir. You guys are much better than me in this business but I feel like you have to know your audience. If you're going into a VP discussion, your story is going to be totally different and if I'm selling it to my senior manager, he's going to look for what is my [inaudible] AWS. What story are you telling? So knowing your audience, and creating the story based on it is super important. We pay a lot of attention to documentation and story writing. That is why all engineering managers are, well, could have been all of them, rounded part of just knowing what will resonate with that particular team member is super important so that you can bring out just those facts in that conversation and sell that specific point. Jon, I don't know if you have any-Jon:In marketing, we call those personas.Ashima:Personas.Stephanie:Tell me one more thing, Jon, how do we approach that?Jon:How do we approach aligning the stories with a persona? Yeah, I totally agree with Ashima, you have to know your audience, you have to really be able to know what the people want... like any big project like this, it's only going to be successful when it's a mutual success. So understanding how you can talk to somebody and say, we're going to do this and it's going to help you this way, and we're going to need your involvement this way, right? Knowing how to have those conversations is the way to, I think, introduce people to these big projects and get them excited about it. But then, also really being focused on, here are the problems that this project solves for you, constituent of this project, because if people don't have any skin in the game and there's no clear connection between their participation and some better outcome, they're not going to want to do it.Jon:A lot of it is people have some sort of vision, we came in at the point where people already had a vision that they were going to do something at the ecommerce thing and we filled in the blanks of here's what your store would actually look like and here's how your use cases actually match into a finished product. And so, I think she's really right, that you really have to know what the people who are consuming the information about the project need to hear to feel great about it to feel like it's a solution to their problems.Ashima:The other important thing to remember is the the reviews that go well are the ones where you're not tackling 10 problems. I feel like you should look at your story again and find the two problems that you're trying to solve, don't talk about 20, 10. The ones that are successful are the ones that are saying, here are my two problems, working backwards from it, here's where we need to start and here are the big milestones we're going to touch as we work towards it. So working backwards, shortening your storyline to one to two problems that you will solve and never say you will solve everything because you will never be solving everything. There's just too many things that you could fix.Ashima:As an engineer, I could find 1001 things to fix on a particular implementation, on a system. But are you trying to save cost? If cost is your end goal, your story should be just focused on cost. If getting customers specific feature is your goal, that's what you should be focusing on. If you try to do too many things, the audience gets confused. And then, you don't get consensus with it. Because they're like you're asking too much of me. I can't make all these decisions today. So, you don't get good outcomes of this conversation.Jon:Totally. I think that that's a really good insight all the way around when you do an engineering project because it's... particularly one of the sides, right? You live and die on the success of it. And in a very real way, it sucks but a lot of it is also politics and the visioning or how the perception of your project is in the company, and projects that are incrementally spinning off benefits, even if they're not huge, but reliably doing it in my experience, get a lot more love and attention than the, there's going to be this unbelievable bang on Thursday and everything's going to change, right?Jon:Those big bang projects, I think, can be very traumatic for everybody involved. And so, I think the idea that you start with something that works, and then build on top of that, rather than, I got to get all 10 of these perfect at the same time, it's a much harder climb.Ashima:Yeah. The last thing I would say about this is, be honest and upfront about what the trade offs are because you're not going to make everybody happy out of an implementation. Never have I seen that in my career making everybody happy.Jon:Of course.Ashima:So, the prioritization is key to success, like I was saying, picking through problems and solving them. But even within that, you're not going to be able to fix everything, right? If you set the right expectation as a consultant, as an STM or whoever you are in that meeting, and say, this is what I'm going to be able to do in this timeline. And, this is what I'm not going to be able to deliver up front, that might make you lose some customers, but you'll probably gain more customers out of that and I feel like that's a more honest conversation, you earn trust.Stephanie:Yeah, I was thinking-Jon:Yeah, total radical transparency, being upfront. We had a mentor Ashima and I, who would say, hold your client's feet to the fire. Every time he'll be like, are you holding their feet to the fire? And that idea that all of these are partnerships and that a strong vendor relationship is not a vendor who is complacent and like, I'll do whatever you want but is actually holding your feet to the fire and being like, if you don't do these two things, these outcomes are going to happen. And I'm not going to be injured the same way you are, but you got to get on it.Stephanie:Now I know where you got that line from Jon, you pulled that on me last week.Jon:Some inside baseball, Stephanie is outstanding at holding her clients feet to the fire. It's really great, because long ago, I learned that people in business negotiations very rarely say stuff, just to say it, right? There's always something that happens. And I was like, this is the third time I've heard this. It's consistent every time.Stephanie:Yeah. So how has the landscape changed when it comes to maybe either re-platforming or moving to digital for the first time? What were the maybe the two to three biggest problems that were being solved back when you were at Restoration Hardware or before then to now where before maybe people were focused on costs or just simple things? What's the focus now that people are trying to achieve when going through any kind of digital transformation or re-platforming? What are they looking for now?Ashima:I feel like business and engineering are looking for different goals. Engineering is looking to break down the architecture. When Jon and I did initial projects, most of the systems were monolithic. And there was this one giant deployment doing everything and when it broke, everybody cried. We've moved on from that world into the new brave world of Azure and AWS, and every other small or big company trying to get into the buzzword cloud but what that really means is that the implementation goal from engineering side has changed. We've felt more empowered to make small changes. I don't want to boil the ocean. I don't want to switch all of my implementation but I'm going to change this part of this page and just live with it and then, see how it goes.Ashima:And that's a big empowerment factor because then, I'm not stressed about changing everything at once. Right? I can go make micro changes. From business point of view, I feel like the challenge is about understanding younger customers and that's a totally different challenge from engineering because you have to run more user surveys. When we were doing implementations, I barely saw anybody doing user surveys, and coming back to me with a product doc saying, here's what I found. This is what people want, and it's going to be awesome. It was like, I have some intuition. I want to implement incrementality and this is what we should try and do and we'll see what happens. I feel like business is smarter now. I see many more people doing user research, user deep dives, experience deep dives ahead of time to know why they're building something, what would resonate, how do I get that 12 year old into my service so they will stay with us until 40 and I have a continuous revenue stream. So, I feel like the business landscape is changing from that point of view. Jon?Jon:Yeah, it's really interesting that you say that. It reminds me of a million years ago, like 2000, 2001. I was at ATG, which became Oracle commerce. And we were at some crazy Swedish auction bidding site and in Stockholm, I remember the CTO comes in and he's like, are there any features of ATG we haven't turned on yet because we should turn them on and I was like, that's bananas. And so, I think that initial like, I just need to be online. I don't really care what it is because I just need to hold the hill like just to physically be there I think is less important than to Ashima's point. There's a lot more intentionality about like, I want to produce this experience for my customers, and it's tied into a larger journey rather than like, if I'm not selling online.Jon:Although, actually, you said two things I was really interested and the first is that, just to say it out loud, right? At Salesforce, it's not a monolithic, kind of is monolith, right? Like we have micro services or APIs but it's all behind the curtain. It's not pure micro services in the way that someone else would but provides it all API stuff. I hear what you're saying about engineering teams having more ability to make small changes and being able to just get in and do stuff, because stuff is more easily manipulated, because there are more places, I don't know, from access. But, I think that also comes with a lot more ownership. I mean, you need an engineering team that's capable of doing those things, or more maintenance in that scenario.Ashima:Yeah, absolutely. You can't microservice the heck out of the system. You have to be intentional about it. But I feel like in the last five years, our overall engineering pool of people have learned this and it's no longer an anomaly. More people are doing this, it doesn't matter what language you're using, you could be on C, C++, or you could be on Golang. I feel like there's lots of people who have experienced it, learnt it. The bigger companies are now doing it, the Walmarts are all microservice based so we're no longer in the world where people were just experimenting with this and created hundreds of them. I feel like we're more intentional now, we've learned from our experiences.Ashima:The pool of engineers we have now are more experienced. This is not a new thing for them so, I feel like I have seen... maturity is the word I was looking for, that people are becoming mature in their implementation and more intentional about it. It's no longer monkeying with this new concept like-Jon:No, totally. Not only their robust skills in the marketplace, but their design patterns as well that people can fall back on. It's not like I'm now writing the very first of these ever on the internet.Ashima:Right.Jon:Awesome. That's really interesting. I've already answered the question.Ashima:The other thing I would mention from business side, which I really appreciate is people are trying to do one thing and one thing really well. You could go to the play shoe store, and you see kids shoes, they do that awesome. I love those shoes or the furniture I recently bought. These companies who are doing small things less inventory, trying to make the business profitable but doing those really, really well. I feel like that's a huge switch from ecommerce that Jon and I are used to where I am this shop that is going to sell everything under the sun and tell me how to sell it and that was hard because every product is different and categorization is different. The search has complexity and those were really hard problems that we were solving. I feel like businesses are becoming smarter in deciding where they're good at and what they should be doing.Stephanie:Yeah. [crosstalk]Jon:Shopping at the edge is this big idea, right? That all of a sudden, you can't keep people within your website, that all of a sudden, those four walls of your website are gone and now people are going to be shopping in marketplaces or on Amazon Music or at the Hertz checkout thing, or you're renting your car, you can buy whatever, right? And I think it's a compelling idea and I think it really speaks, Ashima, to what you're talking about in terms of little engineering things to make it easier. Like all of a sudden, you're like, now I can really easily ingest orders from the Hertz kiosk. It's not a big lift to do something like that.Jon:And we're seeing crazy growth and I think it speaks a lot to that engineering crowd into the marketing idea that you'll have a lot of control agility to be able to do this stuff. So I mean, as a Salesforce employee legitimately, it is something that we're investing in making happening, but I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how brands navigate it. Because certainly, it's a different model than I'm used to putting on the internet, certainly different than I'm used to using personally, but then, Ashima's point was like, kids today, right? Stephanie:I was going to say exactly what you just said, Ashima about how now, it used to be kind of chaotic, because businesses were trying to do everything. But now to think about, it seems like businesses have to be everywhere to sell, consumers want to shop everywhere. I mean, I know Jon mentioned shopping on the edge, that term which we've brought up a few times in the show and I want to hear how you guys think about that. Because I talked to quite a few brands who say that consumers are on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, they're over a walmart.com, they're on Amazon, how do we keep up? We need to be selling everywhere quickly. And maybe Jon, I'll let you start because I know you have a strong opinion that maybe doesn't go well with what Ashima thinks?Jon:I think Ashima and I naturally falls in different sides of this. I think in addition to brands now not necessarily needing to have a gigantic... you can have a very focused set of skus that are easy to merchandise and understand. You also don't need to own all the software and stuff that you once did. It's much easier for a brand to be like, I'm going to exist to sell beanies. They're going be the greatest beanies in the world and assemble, it's the software stack for the brand stack, getting back to that, assemble the software in a way that, frankly, a physical brand that has a lot of legacy stuff is going to have a much harder time following you along. Ashima:I'm not opposed, or I don't think it's something that's not happening, it is happening. Shopping on the edge is happening. My point is that, as an engineer, as an engineering team, it doesn't preclude me from building a strong ecommerce site that's going to be my core platform. I still have to do everything in my power to make that as a strong space, that it can be stable enough to take regular orders. So the engineering effort to chase 50 different places is hard. But I feel like all teams probably first need to focus on making their core platform strong, right? It has to be.Ashima:And the second point I would make is only small... only X5 of your customers are coming from the edge shopping and that is why it's harder to understand exactly how to show your features and what will work for them and that's where my point about user case studies might work. But the bigger bulk of customers still going to come back into your site to explore other things that you have. So if you have X number of dollars, where would you get the most value out of them? Would it be just a shiny poster on Instagram, and bringing them back to your site or putting in your engineering dollars and making that one click work from Instagram? So that's where I struggle what would give you the best bang for your buck? Jon.Jon:Yeah, no, it's, I think, a great point, right? When you're talking, I'm like, man, I definitely want that core platform that's like robust and could do anything.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:I think what you're saying about user stories is ultimately the right answer, though, because when we think about core platform, I think you and I, Ashima, generally, we think about big robust servers sitting in a box somewhere, able to handle any trade, but that's not what every brand's priority is particularly something you want so-Ashima:Yeah.Stephanie:Yeah. Essentially say, they didn't even know they needed a website. They were just like, if you... I am trying to think, who we had on who is... a more recent episode where they're like, well, if we're selling on Instagram or Facebook or wherever it may be, no, it was a bot within Facebook Messenger. And you go on there, it's a personalized bot and then, they can say, this shirt would fit you perfectly and you can buy within Facebook Messenger. And she was making the point of like, why would you even need a website, if you can sell within Messengers or through Dms which is where the world is moving right now? Who cares what your website looks like [crosstalk]Jon:I guess, right back to this Ashima's point about user stories, right? Which is that ultimately, it doesn't matter if you have... pure in the server box of ecommerce definition, if your users are all on TikTok and they're going to buy through some crazy thing, you'd be bananas to invest in the giant server solution or in a traditional ecommerce solution. You want something that can flexibly follow wherever your customers are and knowing that if you don't own the store they're in, that they're probably going to move around a lot, right? It's not going to be TikTok forever. And so, you need the ability to service that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit biased being in Amazon, just the pink hat makes me think that I'm not just selling to TikTok customers, I'm thinking big. I have my customers everywhere. So it might be that for your brand, that might work. But for the [inaudible] of the world, they have to have strong presence on their own platform, and TikTok might help. I recently made a big purchase of couches I bought from article.com and I didn't do the shopping on the edge but what was super helpful was to look at Instagram photos of people using that furniture in their house and how it's set up.Ashima:It enabled me to buy it. So again, I was thinking one of the investment people are making is an AI and augmented reality and so on and I don't know if it's worth it because you the Warby Parkers of the world which are sending you the thing at home or the Instagram approach where you're showing people how your product looks in someone else's home. I feel like that's so much more effective to me as a customer that, making this guess of where my dollars should be spent is a hard problem. And I just am not fully convinced that shopping at the edge should be your end goal if you're a big hump.Jon:No, I think even in the most robust Salesforce marketing, we're definitely not suggesting, turn off your channels, shopping at the edge is the only way. 104% [crosstalk]. don't even need it anymore. it's going to be really interesting Ashima because my kids have Amazon accounts, I think. I don't think they've ever bought anything but turns out, all this management of your kids accounts trying to keep them affiliated like Apple , not doing a great job, Amazon, not doing a great job. Anyway, that's not where they go to shop for stuff. It's all social. I'm like, I need a cable, I go immediately to Amazon. They will not do that.Ashima:That's a really great point because I feel like there's a generational gap that I am starting to understand better as my kids are growing up, living my life through them a little bit and that's a great educational experience for all of us learning, how are people adapting to these new things? What are they connecting with? What are they not connecting with? And so on and so forth. My kids don't even read books, it's all audible. I'm like, I'm going to listen to story that I pick so the life is very different than... why I call shopping at the edge, a fad is it's working really well for this generation but for how many years? The next thing is going to replace it is my opinion and that's why having a core strong platform will get you over this hump into the next one.Stephanie:What do you think could be the next thing now? It's piqued my interest of like, what do you see coming after shopping at the edge just dies? No one does that anymore. What are they going to be doing next then?Ashima:You know-Ashima:I have started to see people use Airbnb experiences and Amazon explorer experiences a lot. Just yesterday, a friend of mine said they've gifted their friend or their wife a Valentine's gift of our tour in [inaudible] somewhere in Korea. I'm not saying name right.Jon:Korea?Ashima:It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Lik this person walked through the markets, who then, they could show them the product. It was a very personalized tour so, I thought that's like the next big thing. And even an ecommerce opportunity like if you're buying from here in a shop in Korea and they can ship it to you.How unique is that? I think there's lots of potential and then, doing online experiences. I'm going to do a cooking class with you and then, I'm going to buy all of these pots and pans and ice from you because it looks awesome. I feel like that could be the next big thing.Jon:No doubt because we've got this live shopping demo that we do which is that it's like we have... it's funny because I thought of you when I narrated. I was like Ashima is going to be like this is never going to happen but it's that, there's an Influencer, you can buy stuff on the side so it's interesting to hear the facts.Stephanie:I think that's the way to go. Yeah, I mean, I think about we had someone saying that they... Andrew from Ideoclick, he teaches or does something with Harvard Business School on ecommerce and stuff. And, she was mentioning they had an influencer from China come in and show what shopping looks like and what her fans do and it was within three minutes, she'd racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales of a Harvard sticker. And they're like, that's power.Jon:Totally.Stephanie:It was new to me. I mean, I get it. I buy shirts and clothes and all this stuff on Instagram just by seeing people I follow I'm like, they remind me of myself and that shirt's cute. So I guess maybe not top level.Ashima:Yeah. Well, I use Airbnb a lot. We go out a lot and one of the things that I really enjoy is that something that that person is using in their house, I sometimes come back and buy it because I've experienced it. I've worked with it for two, three days and I loved it and I'm like, I should have this fixture or I should have this knife or I should have this other thing that I've experienced now, lived with it and I feel like that's such an awesome way to promote product, where you can touch and feel it and experience at no extra cost, but then, also buy it if you really like it. So, if Airbnb uses it, they should give me some money. But-Stephanie:We've got affiliate Airbnb, come on.Jon:Right? I think you're really, right and I also think about Twitch because I do some deejaying stuff so I am on Twitch a lot and there's not only crosssection between product buying but also, in terms of rewarding the influencer directly with cash, that your experience where you're like, this is great. I love being here and they're also selling stuff.Stephanie:How are you guys thinking of retail then, you talked about touching, feeling things and experiencing that, obviously, retail hasn't been at the profile lately. How are you guys thinking about that?Jon:That's why all these predictions, they are really a little tricky because this physical digital thing is all screwed up, well, not screwed up but vastly affected by the pandemic and that's incredibly changed everybody shopping habits. I mean, I bought stuff online, I never buy again and so, if I'm really honest, I am not sure the Twitch DJ stream outlives clubs opening. I'll talk about how Twitch is going to change the world and it's all great but I don't know if people are going to hang out online all day if they can go out once a week.Stephanie:Yeah. [inaudible] I am ready to get out.Jon:Yeah. Like everybody-Stephanie:[crosstalk].Ashima:Absolutely.Jon:For me, in person is going to be a big trouble. The camera's not going to get it done anymore.Ashima:Yeah. I feel like this is a blip, I feel like retail and in person shopping is going to come back with vengeance once things open up, we all get vaccinated and be safe. I generally think this is a blip. I feel like retail's going nowhere. It's going to be back. Restoration Hardware is all ready for it, I'm sure.Jon:[crosstalk] Do you think that they'll shift...yeah, totally. Do you think it'll shift the market place, right because I agree, I think we are going back to in person something but the Best Buy down the street has evolved so many times. During the pandemic, they were a fulfillment center then, they were a store , then, they were like outside only and now... I just don't know that it makes sense for Best Buy to have that big retail store and not have a [inaudible]. I agree they'll come back but, I don't know if it's going to be the same.Ashima:Yeah. With Fry's stores closing last week which was a sad event in my household. My husband loves Fry's.Jon:That was really sad. Bad day.Ashima:Yeah. You are absolutely, right that it's going to look different. It's going to be more personalized as, I think, we discussed before, it will look different. There's also going to be a disparity, the big guys are going to have money, they're going to come back the same way, the Targets, the Walmarts, they are going to be the same. The little guy or the medium guy has to make some sense of what will get them through this hump and keep them going. I don't see a [inaudible] store coming up near me, even if they were planning to, I think those plans will be delayed but I feel like some of it is going to back the same way it was, earlier.Stephanie:Yeah. The one thing we keep hearing is more about curation when it comes to stores, that people want to go there for an experience, you go to a pottery ban, you go to West Elm, whatever it maybe and you're lik, this is my space, this is my style, I come here because I don't want to think but then, I also think about me and I'm like, I go to a T.J.Maxx and it's just, all over the place and I thrive there. I'm like, this is my spot. Find something fun and I don't know what to expect so, I think it just depends on the shopper.Ashima:I love that comment because it's very hard to create emotions online. Pe`ople don't have the patience of going through things and things online. This feeling of hunting and finding gold in that aisle, that's going to stay with us, again, there's a demographic that loves it and that demographic is waiting for being vaccinated to get out there.Jon:And you think that digital needle in haystack experience doesn't exist in the same way it does, I mean, like T.J.Maxx, I found this unbelievable bargain.Ashima:It does in some cases, where you guys talk about Instagram and finding something you didn't even know existed. Sure, it does but not in the same way. Finding the $5 t-shirt that you didn't know exist in T.J.Maxx is like, that's new.Stephanie:It's my day. Walking out of T.J.Maxx store snapping, maybe Jon, he looks very confused about our conversation.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:No, it's cool. There's a Ross up here. I know what's up.Stephanie:Ross-Jon:Ross is like the... you could get, Ross is a second store, right? It's just lost inventory so anything can be there.Stephanie:Extra lost. No one goes in and doesn't get lost. All right. Well, Ashima and Jon, this has been an amazing round table. So fun having you guys on. We definitely have to do it again, where can people maybe find out more about your work. Ashima, we'll start with you. Where can people find more about you?Ashima:You can find me on LinkedIn, a lot about me, things I write or things that are relevant to me so LinkedIn is the right place.Stephanie:LinkedIn. All right. Jon, what about you? Where can people find out more about your work?Jon:Yeah, totally. LinkedIn is a good place or just search for Salesforce and my name. I write a lot of Salesforce stuff, number one blog ever. Number one performing blog.Stephanie:Yup and you have an amazing stay conversation for it. Everyone should check it out, methodical trans in there. We've referenced it a few times in our newsletter and it is very helpful for anyone who's either trying to start an ecommerce shop or trying to transform into a big brand. So, thank you guys so much for doing this show and we will see you next time.Ashima:Thank you very muchJon:Thank you.Ashima:Take care, Stephanie.

There are seven different types of people that you're going to find coming to your site. And if you can understand who these people are in each one of their buckets, you're going to be able to help each one of them convert because they're all going to look at your site a little bit differently. So how do we understand who they are? And what do we need want to know how do we convert these people? Jon's got the answers! TRANSCRIPT: Announcer: You're listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine, with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. Ryan: Well, Jon, welcome to the Drive and Convert podcast. You've done a lot of writing, to say the least. You've got some phenomenal content out there on the internet and as somebody that reads most of your content and speaks to you often, it's always good to read. So if you're listening to this, go find Jon and all of his content on his website. I highly recommend it. You will come away as a smarter human. But one of the fascinating concepts that at least for me seems fairly unique to your brain and at least the content you're putting out is the idea of there are seven different types of people that you're going to find coming to your site. And if you can understand who these people are in each one of their buckets, you're going to be able to help each one of them convert because they're all going to look at your site a little bit differently or want to do slightly different things. But I guess step one is just, how do we understand who they are? And then we want to know how do we convert these people? We've got them to the site. We know who they are, now how do we convert them? So I'm excited to hear about this because I can never get enough insight into how to make my businesses and my clients' businesses work better. But can you kick us off just by telling us who are the seven personas that you're seeing on the internet coming to websites? Jon: Well, thank you, first of all, for the kind of compliments on the content. I'm blushing over here if you can't see that. Yes, there are seven and a lot of people think, seven that's a lot. But the reality here is there might be some overlap in these as well, right? And these are all different types of people that you really need to address on your site. And so many people don't do that, that it really led me to write this content. So the first set of folks coming to your site are what I call lookers, right? These are people who are just looking. They're browsers, if you will, right? They're not after any one thing in particular, they're having fun just looking around. They want to see what you offer that maybe will catch your attention. Honestly, they may even have been just searching around Google for different types of products and ended up at your site, not necessarily by mistake, but they ended up there and now they're just looking at what you have to offer. Really you just need to understand that not everybody who approaches your site's going to buy. Most e-comm sites know that, right? Because their conversion rate's not a hundred percent or else we wouldn't exist. But the reality here is that you still need to address this audience. A second one to be thinking about is bargain hunters. These are people who are only at your site because you're having a sale or some type of offer. Ryan: Hopefully, it's not a discount. Jon: Exactly. That would be my point of view. But that's what they're looking for there. They're trained, as we have said, several times, they're trained to look for that sale. And so there are people, and there is a segment of folks who will only buy if something's at a perceived bargain, right? And they really want to see if they can find the bargain. Sometimes it's the thrill of finding the bargain that really gets to them. The third you really want to think about it as the buyers. Now, it seems pretty obvious, but some people are really on a mission. They know exactly what they want and they're there to get it. So they searched for the model number, they found your site, and they are ready to buy. And so you really want to facilitate that. A fourth is researchers. Some folks are just researching. They have a general idea of what they're after, but they want to compare those options and the prices. So, a lot of people will go to Amazon for this, but now, a lot of people are doing that on brand sites as well. They go to Amazon and they find the product they want but then they end up on your brand site after they've done that research. They find the model number on Amazon, they Google it to find more details about the brand behind the product. Amazon isn't always the best at having product details, right? So a lot of times you'll end up on a brand site trying to do that and that's what these folks are. Ryan: Now, what would be the big differentiator on the researchers and the lookers? Because a lot of similarities between the two, but what would be the key differentiators in your mind? Jon: The key differentiator is the researcher knows what they want. They know what they're looking for. The lookers are ... It's kind of like wandering around a mall versus going right into the Apple store. You're at the mall but you beeline it for one shop because you know that you need something from that shop. Where you might just go to the mall to hang out, right? If that's even a thing, post-COVID one day, we'll see. Ryan: Someday we'll get back to a mall, maybe. Jon: New customers is another one. People don't really think about that often. And this is really where some visitors are just going to be new customers. They enjoyed their last visit. Maybe they were a looker on their last visit and now they're there to find out more and potentially become a new customer. Perhaps these are people who you should really be thinking about post-purchase, like they just purchased. What happens at that point, right? So these could be people who are buying from you the first time. And it's an audience you really need to be thinking about because you need to make them feel welcomed and appreciated. One that a lot of people don't think about is dissatisfied customers. Everybody has them. I don't care if your net promoter scores is perfect or you don't hear about these complaints. Everybody has a dissatisfied customer or more. And that's okay. These people are there for a number of reasons and it might not always be that bad. Maybe they're just dissatisfied because it didn't fit the way they thought it would, but they still like the product, they're there to return or exchange. For some reason, a previous purchase didn't suit them and now they want customer service. And the goal here is to make it easy for them to get that and perhaps even do self-service where possible. And the last one, seven of seven, we blew right through these, but we'll dive into each in a second, but this is loyal customers. So some of these are your best customers. They come back, they love shopping with you. They love your product and then they're going to be repeat customers. So, that's the seven. To run them real quick, it's lookers, bargain hunters, buyers, researchers, new customers, dissatisfied customers, and loyal customers. Ryan: Got it. So we know what personas people are in, generally. And then are there ways outside of the types of traffic that you help decide who this one is on the site to do that, or is it, I just want to make sure the site works for all of them? Jon: You really want to make sure the site works for all of them. And I think that there's many ways to group people into these different types. As I said earlier, they could be multiple types. But I heard you say the word persona, and I think I really want to make clear that it's easy to get dragged into things like personas, or where people are in the sales funnel, or warm, hot, and cold leads and visitors, or any of those things that can really just take you down the rabbit hole if you will, right? And I see this all the time where we ask people, who's your ideal customer, and they give us an avatar of somebody that has flowcharts, and photos of Charlie, the avid runner, and his demographics, and preferences, and what soda he drinks, or what bottled water he prefers, and all of that stuff doesn't really matter. It's never really put to good use, especially when it comes to optimizing a website, because that guy, Charlie, the runner, he was generated in the mind of the brand. He's not an actual consumer, right? So what you really want to do here is just keep it simple. Really you just want to focus on better serving each of these. And by doing that, you're likely to increase your conversions for each of these. Additionally, if you go any deeper than that, you're unlikely to get started because you'll end up in this, as I said earlier, rabbit hole of trying to figure out who Charlie is. Well, Charlie, isn't going to be all seven of these, right? So don't worry about Charlie and don't worry about going so deep. Ryan: Because you might have your ... If you've done the persona thing as a brand, you could have your same persona being all of these types. And so at the same time, keep this very top level when you're looking at your site and trying to guide traffic and just do what Jon says at the end of the day. Jon: If the world only worked that way. I'll have you call my wife after this and tell her that too. Ryan: Yeah, you do the same for me when we're talking about driving traffic. Okay. But we've got to tell people how do we take these groups of traffic and these people and get them to take the action we want them to take on the site. Because I'm guessing to a degree, not all of them are the same conversion either. Jon: Very accurate. That's true. Ryan: So we've got to think about that as well. Like a disgruntled customer is probably different than a looker at the end of the day, as far as action. So guide our listeners and viewers around what that looks like and how you're seeing converting those people. Jon: Well, let's break them down one by one, shall we? So start with lookers, really is what I would recommend here. And I think the thing to be thinking about here is with lookers is you're going to catch your attention and get them to stop that just shopping and not browsing long enough to consider some type of offer or something that gets their attention, right? So if you know your customers well enough, which most brands listening to this will, they'll know what will entice their customers. And I'm not just talking about an offer or a special or deal or anything of that sense, I'm also saying what's that one feature that makes you unique and makes you stand out? What's the benefit of the product that's really going to hit home for these people? They're at your site because they had a pain or a problem they're trying to solve. And they think your products can help them solve that problem. So you really want to make sure that you're putting that right upfront to get these people's attention early. But know also, it could take a few sales to get these people in there, right? So don't be discouraged when you see the bounce rate up there because people are just looking and leaving. That's what they do. That's why I call them lookers. Ryan: I hate when people talk to me about bounce rate. Take your bounce rate to the bank. Have them tell you what that's worth. Jon: Yeah, it doesn't help, right? Ryan: No. Jon: And it's a metric so many people chase, I think, thinking, oh, I can get my bounce rate down. Okay, this one goes in with time on-site with me as well. So many people track time on-site and I think it's a false metric because if you think about it, I'm there to get my tasks done. I'm there because I want to buy this product, or even if I'm just looking around, I generally have an idea of what I'm doing at your site. I might just still be browsing, but I have an idea of why I'm there. The problem with this is if I'm there for 10 minutes, you've made my life really complicated. I'm there because I need something, I'm looking around, and then the problem is I can't find that or I got sucked into something and I'm there for 10 minutes. As opposed to, I would much rather have customers who are at my site for three minutes and buy, right? And then I have their information. I can continue to market to them at another opportunity. But if somebody is spending 10, 20 minutes on your site, we probably have some type of usability problem. Ryan: Well, and also I laughed when you started talking about catching their attention because I know you're going to tell people it is not a pop-up telling them to join your email list for 10% off your first order, especially if you're a looker. Jon: Yep. I agree with that. Ryan: That is not going to be a quality email. Jon: Not at all. But you do want to encourage them to get on your mailing list but not through a discount, not through a pop-up, really encourage them in other ways so that you can then follow up with them later. Maybe that's something like an upcoming new release that they might be interested in, right? You should be thinking about it in that way. Once you've kind of got their attention, then how are you going to continue to keep that attention and continue to market to them? This is where I hear you say all the time, you're happy to pay for ads and break-even knowing you're building your customer roster. And I think that this is a good opportunity to be thinking about that without actually converting for a sale, right? This is what we would call a micro-conversion, where they're doing something that's not actually an exchange of money. Ryan: Now I would venture a guess and you can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but lookers probably make up the largest portion of traffic to most e-comm sites. Jon: Yes. There's a reason that I put them first on the list. It's because it's going to be the vast majority. Ryan: So it's a vast majority. You've worked with some pretty large brands with the ability to test measure lots of different things. Top of mind, obviously on the fly because we didn't talk about this beforehand, but what's a good implementation of this catch your attention that you've seen implemented that caused the brand to continue to be able to grow and push these lookers further down the funnel? Jon: Yeah. So this is where things like we were just looking at a company that sells a bunch of different pants. The price point was like $128 for a pair of pants. And I was like, man, that's, that's kind of expensive. I'm just looking at these pants. I don't really need a pair of pants right now. But the reality is what caught my attention was that they are five times stronger than jeans and I can do a lot of different activities in them. And that caught my attention because now I'm thinking, "Wow, they're going to last a lot longer than jeans and I probably spent $100 on a pair of jeans." So what's 28 more dollars to have them last five times as long as jeans, right? So just something like that, the benefit is really going to hit that. And I'm the target audience for that site I was looking at. So, these lookers, they're likely, the vast majority of them should be your target audience. If you're working with Ryan in Logical Position, then you're driving qualified traffic. And so assuming you're driving qualified traffic and these lookers end up there, they're going to be within your demographic of who is your ideal customer, so then really it's all about connecting with them on the benefit. Ryan: Got it. Okay. I think that's a great thing. It's easy to execute for most brands, I think. Jon: Yeah, for sure. So we can also talk about for each of these how I would recommend converting these. And I think for the lookers, I would want to really just make sure the e-commerce site is easy to navigate and search because really that's what they're here to do, is just walk around the store, right? So make it easy. Don't put barriers in their way, help them get where they want to go, and give them a really excellent reason to give them that email address that we talked about or other contact information, and so you can build a relationship with a nurturing campaign. That site I was just talking about, they had a bi-weekly $150 gift card that they would give to somebody who signed up. So you're entered to win a $150 gift card every other week, which is great because of $128 pair of jeans, I might get those for free. So if I'm seriously interested and I want to continue to stay in touch with this brand, I might've given them my email address there, right? And then another way really here is cart abandonment because a lot of lookers will add stuff to cart as a way of holding it to compare and look at when they're done browsing your store. It's kind of like if you go shopping and you might pick up a couple of different pairs of clothing or something off the rack when you're walking around the store because, "Oh, I like this. I might like it. Let me see what else they have too." And then you end up with three or four things, right? It's the same thing browsers are doing on your website. They're throwing it in their cart and then they want to just take a look at that and evaluate after. So having some type of cart abandonment there can be a great way to captivate their interest. Ryan: Awesome. Jon: So next would be bargain hunters. With bargain hunters, it's really not about discounting, right? That's not conversion optimization. I think you know my stance on discounting. People who listened to this show will know I'm fervent about not discounting, right? But instead, really look to offers like free shipping, or gift with purchase, BOGO. We did a whole episode on this. People really want to know the alternatives, they exist. And really here, you just want to be thinking about things like current offers on your website. Don't make your customer's desert at the checkout and then go elsewhere to find that bargain or that special code. If they have to go to any of those sites, they're not coming back. And so we really don't want to drive them there. And you might also highlight, last chance or clearance items instead of making shoppers really go find those on your site. It could be really good on every category to have a little tout or badge or flag on each product that says something about how it's last chance, or low inventory, or something that's on clearance. Ryan: Now, do you advocate for having a clearance or an outlet navigation button on brand sites for this type of thing? Jon: Generally not. Where I want to see that as within the category because, yes, having a clearance item ... A lot of brands will put that in the main navigation. The problem is you're wasting a really critical main navigation slot. You only want five to six navigation items to begin with. And if you're taking clearance as one of those or something of that sort, a sale, I see a lot of people have sale in main navigation, what's going to happen is people are going to go there first and they're not going to get a total view of your products. Usually, the products that are in that clearance are in clearance for a reason. They weren't really popular. So why do you want the first impression of what your product should be, for a person coming into your site to see, is only the products that other people normally wouldn't buy and they're on clearance, right? So instead, mix clearance in with your other products. That way you're not promoting only your worst sellers if you will. Ryan: A couple interesting points that deviate a little bit from what we're talking about, but it's applicable in that I can afford most things on the sites I go to, but I am cheap by default so I always go to the clearance button first. Because I'm like if I can find what I'm looking for on clearance first, I'm going to get it. Even though if I didn't see clearance, I would have gone to the product and probably bought a higher price one by default because that's just how I operate on a site. But also, when you are throwing discounted products on your site, and there's a clearance section that they are in, if your Google shopping is not set up properly, all of those products would have been going into the clearance section and you can be stuck in the clearance section of the site and you're going to be staying in there most of the time. And because products are discounted price, generally get to show more often in Google shopping because they're lower price point or there's a discounted price, you will, unfortunately, be sending a lot of discounted traffic to your site when that maybe is not the focus of your brand. So some brands I advocate for having an outlet site that's completely separate. Jon: That's a great point. Ryan: Kind of like Gap Outlet, their stores, they sell all their old stuff and they'll have a separate site, and then having the people going to gap.com on that. Jon: That's a great point. And that probably makes Kanye very happy as well. Next up is buyers. Buyers should be buying from you in a way that's hassle-free, right? These people want to buy. They're there to buy. They have a job. That's one job that they're there to do and that's to buy, so let them buy. Clear these obstacles, make it easy and simple to buy, really be thinking here about the bottlenecks in the path to purchase that people must take, right? What are the hurdles you're asking them to jump over? Let's get rid of those. A really great way to look at this is to do user testing, get people who fit your ideal customer profiles, and have them run through your site while you record it and talk about the challenges they're having. Again, the whole goal here is to get outside the jar, read the label from outside the jar. And it's really hard to do that when you're too close to it. So really be focusing on just eliminating every single possible barrier, too many fields on checkout, making people create an account before they buy, all of those things that would be extra steps or what we're looking to eliminate with these. Ryan: And be clear on your shipping rates. That's the one that makes me so mad lately, is people not telling me what I'm going to pay for shipping, so it'll increase your cart abandonment too. Jon: Yeah, Exactly. I mean, these people are ready to buy until they saw you were going to charge them 20 bucks to ship, right? And so, there you go. Perfect case study. Announcer: You're listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers, and Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, a digital marketing agency offering pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you. Jon: All right. Should we move on to researchers? Ryan: Yes. Jon: Really, researchers, my point of view on these is these folks need to just make sure that they feel like they've considered their options and they're making the right decision. And your job, your only job is to help them do that. So what does this look like? Well, provide all the info you can think of, dimensions, instructions, details, data, data, data. That's what these people want, right? They're comparing. They came to your site because as I mentioned earlier, they were on Amazon, the Amazon didn't have the details, so they're relying on your site to have them. And you want to help them just make an informed decision. This could be everything from product reviews from other consumers to video. Researchers love video because they can see the products in motion and in use. Somebody even just holding the product and walking them through it. Specialized Bicycles does an amazing job of this. They actually have employees of Specialized, not models or anything else. It's employees hold the bike and then walk a consumer through it on video. And it's really, really well done. It does not have to be ... They shoot it in a studio, but it doesn't feel like it's a super well-polished and professional video on purpose, right? It's not some high production quality. You're aiming for your local news versus the national morning show, right, in level of quality here. Ryan: Got it. Jon: So the other thing is, really help these people understand things like sizing and photography. Video, I mentioned. So those are the things you just really want to help people dive into are all these different decision points. All right, new customers. These folks, they really want to feel like they've made a wise decision or that you want them to feel like they can make a wise decision, understand your warranties, helping people stand behind their products. You want to make sure that you're glad that they are your customer and make them know that. So this is where you think about retail source. Like your wife's retail store, right? She's there to answer questions. She can help out with returns. She'll generally just express gratitude when these people are shopping, right? It's hard to do that online, but this is where it becomes really, really important that you're doing things like building relationships with nurturing campaigns. And that can start with, as I mentioned earlier, a post-purchase campaign. What happens after this new customer becomes a new customer, right? They're no longer a visitor, they're now a customer. What do you need to do there? Loyalty campaigns, a huge way to engage these folks, right? You get them in and say, "Thank you so much for your first purchase. Here is points for your next purchase," or, "Two more purchases and your fourth one is free." Something of that sort, right? Where you're helping these loyal people become loyal customers. That's really what this is all about. Ryan: And these people just purchased, so maybe they haven't even gotten the product yet or maybe they just got it. Jon: Exactly. Ryan: Even just user videos on how to use the product you're getting can be valuable. I do that with Joyful Dirt. Jon: That's a great point, right? So what can you send as that follow-up email flow while the people are waiting for their package to make sure they know that you have their back, right? So if I bought Joyful Dirt, what do I need to prep for? Is there a season I should be doing this in? How much water do I need to apply? All these other types of things that I probably don't really think about, but are really key to somebody getting the most out of the product and buying again, right? If I follow your instructions for Joyful Dirt, I am more likely to have a good experience and then buy again, then if I just use the product without reading the instructions, which is more likely for me than not so. Ryan: What I appreciate on it too, on that first email after I purchase, usually the next day, it builds the anticipation because often I forget what I bought yesterday and I get surprised by Amazon in two days, who are the site I purchased it on. And so you're like, "Oh, yeah, I do have that coming in a day." I'm excited to get it now because I was excited yesterday when I bought it, and I forgot today, and then tomorrow when it arrives, I get excited. So it's a good way to continue that kind of that high from my purchase that I just paid. Jon: How is there not a phrase like the Amazon phenomenon or something, where everybody forgets what they ordered at Amazon at midnight the night before and then it shows up two days later and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I was looking for that. That was great. I'm a genius." Ryan: I know. I was like, well, I knew I wanted one of these and like, oh, I did want one and then I bought it. It was great. In college, it would have been, "Man, what did I do at 2:00 AM?" and talk about, "Oh, I had a bean burrito." Now, it's just transaction fatigue or something. And I'm just [crosstalk 00:25:48]. Jon: That was much lower key than I thought you were going there, Ryan. 2:00 AM in college. But this happened to me recently where I was working out with a trainer and we do an outdoor workout in my garage now. And it was really funny because he didn't bring his TRX bands. If you know about these TRX straps, they're a way to do workouts. And the reality is that I went on and I just ordered a pair from Amazon. I was like, "Well if you ever forget them again, I'll have some here." And totally forgot about it. And then the next workout came by and the Amazon guy literally showed up two days later while we were working out. So it had been like two days to the hour and the guy shows up and I'm like, "Oh, I wonder what that is." And you could read the outside of the box. It said TRX. And my trainer is like, "Did you get something from TRX?" I was like, "Oh, yeah. Last time you were here. Yeah, remember?" Yeah, so that's was pretty funny. I was like, Amazon wins again. Ryan: Yep. Jon: All right. Dissatisfied customers. We have two left. So let's talk about the dissatisfied customers. Everybody has them, right? And they exist. And that's okay. These folks often can just be made satisfied by helping them understand that you're trying to fix their challenge and improve the experience for everyone else. Often, it's like if I come across a problem on our website, okay, let's just say, I just bought a bed. I'm not going to name names, but I bought a bed online and it has a whole bunch of technology in it. Love it. But, I'm a tall gentleman, right? And I bought a king, and it comes, and I was like, "This is a lot smaller than a king." It turns out, I measured it, it's two inches less than a king. And I was like, that's really weird. It's not a queen. So what's going on here? And so I contacted the brand and said, "Hey, this bed is two inches smaller than a king." And they said, "Oh, yeah. Because of some of the technology, blah, blah, blah, we have to make it a little bit smaller." And I was like, "That would have been nice to have known up on your site. You need to tell people that it says king, but it's actually two inches smaller. Because you're advertising all these NBA players use this bed and things like that, and I'm thinking great, right? But then it's two inches smaller." And the founder actually emailed me and said, "Hey, I got this feedback. I heard this. Well, we're going to add this to the website and make sure people know." And I was like, okay, well, I still have the bed, now I'm satisfied. And I was like, at least other people won't have that problem, right>. So I felt vindicated in some way. And so I think I made this point to say that complaining customers are an excellent source of feedback. And that's how you need to look at these, right? It's not about just having dissatisfied customers, it's about understanding what their problems are and fixing them. They tell you what the problems with your website and your consumer experience are, and so you could fix those problems. So really just want to be quick to listen to things like bad reviews, understand the complaint before responding, and understand that you can turn dissatisfied customers into loyal ones. It is possible. Ryan: I think too often brands hear or get bad feedback or just dissatisfied customers, and it's just for them, it's almost scary confronting it, or they're really excited and passionate about their brand, and somebody doesn't like it, they're like, "They just don't know what they're doing." I've done this myself with brands, and I'm like, "They just don't know what they're doing." And then I'm like, okay, it happened again. I'm like, okay, fine, we need to adjust the product. And my baby may be ugly, so let's fix it and not make it so ugly to some of these people. You can't be scared of dissatisfied customers, or you're going to lose your brand. At the end of the day, it's going to be just terrible. Jon: That's a good point. Yeah. All right. Last one, loyal customers. So, look, the 80/20 rule says that 20% of your customers will be responsible for 80% of your business. So the way I like to look at this and it's hilarious, I was just saying this to somebody else, but loyal customers are your bread and the rest are your butter, right? So really want to be thinking about what are you doing for these loyal people? So look at loyalty programs. I like to use airlines as examples because they are so good at gamifying, right? I'm platinum on Delta. I mean, I haven't flown them in nine months and I just got another letter from them yesterday with baggage tags for platinum level. And they said, "Hey, we're going to keep you a platinum level for another year. Don't worry about it. All the miles you've accumulated will count towards next year. So you don't have to start over. We understand." And they're gamifying it and in a way that's, okay, now, next year, when I start flying again or whenever that is, I'm going to go right back to Delta because I'm still platinum there. If they had removed, I'd just figure out, I'd be like, hey, well maybe Alaska or whoever else flies more on the West Coast where I'm all the time going, I would probably switch. But now I'll stick with Delta, right? They've done a great job with that through what's no doubt a challenging time for them. So really want to be thinking about a way to keep customers coming back and how you can take care of your most loyal customers. As I say, gamifying works very, very well. Every customer is special, but you really want to treat these folks with even more kid gloves, if you will. And then find ways to reward and recognize these people, you can give them special amenities. Baggage tags aren't really going to be much for me. I don't really care about that, but I'll take the free upgrades and the free alcohol and everything else that comes with being platinum with Delta. And then really just treat them like a VIP and they'll continue to be loyal. That's really my key point here. Ryan: And this is really probably the one area that I advocate for companies looking at competitors and taking note because a lot of times when you look at competitors and they have this widget on their side, or they do this thing in their ads, they probably have no idea what they're doing. At the end of the day, they're testing something. But when it comes to loyalty and what they're doing with their customers to try to keep them loyal, often, this is where a lot of research goes and especially in the airlines. If I was running an airline, I would go to all of the other airlines' loyalty program, find a list somehow and say, "Look, if you are platinum with Delta, I will automatically make you platinum or whatever my highest thing is with Alaska, give me a shot." And just automatically, because you're losing nothing. I'm not getting Jon's business right now. Jon: Right. It's funny you say that because Alaska does just that. They'll do a status match, where if you're platinum on Delta, they will status match you and give you that for a year on Alaska. Sadly, you can only do it once in your lifetime. And I did it right before the pandemic, so that's not a good situation for me. But yeah, at any rate [crosstalk] travel. Ryan: Join your competitor's loyalty program. I highly recommend everybody do that because it's going to give you some ideas of what they're seeing in the data or how they're gamifying it. Just jog your brainstorming ideas. Jon: Yeah. Status matches is a great idea, right? That's wonderful. Yeah. Where do you think you want to go from here? Ryan: Well, we're about out of time. So, I guess, I've got a lot to chew on too because I'm sure we're going to come out with some other ideas on this after digesting most of your data. But there's a lot of things you can do on a site to target a lot of people. And so what would your suggestion be to somebody that's just taken this fire hose to the face for their site and they're like, oh, my gosh, seven different groups of people? Where do you start and how do you start taking some actions so you're not a paralysis-analysis scenario? Jon: Yeah, great point. I would say here, start by asking questions about each of these groups and taking a good look at your site from their perspectives, right? So do each of these customer types get their needs met or are you just leaving some out in the cold? And how do you identify and engage the most loyal customers, or how do you flag and recognize new customers? And are you providing enough information to researchers? So really there's a key question in each of these if you go down and just ask yourself, am I meeting the needs of these people? And you'll come up with tons and tons of optimizations that you can do to your site on your own pretty easily. Ryan: Got it. And I would probably just broad stroke saying if you move up through the list in reverse order, you're taking care of some of the easiest or most important things. Like keeping your loyal customers loyal to you, you can't lose lifetime value customers, otherwise, your top-funnel marketing is just wasted. So keep those and move up. If you have to make a choice on where you're taking actions, I'm guessing that's where I would start. Jon: There you go. Awesome. Well, thank you, Ryan. I really enjoyed the conversation today. Ryan: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for bringing your brain and letting me pick it and add some value to our listeners. I appreciate that. Jon: All right. Well, have a great afternoon. Ryan: You too. Thanks, Jon. Announcer: Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

Jon Thornton worked at some small companies in NYC before he ended up at Squarespace. He’s been able to build a new product and new team—their email marketing product. He launched that and has since been supporting other products. Throughout his career, he’s learned how to manage technical debt. What is the difference between technical debt and good technical debt? What is a framework for using technical debt? Listen to this episode of Simple Leadership for Jon’s advice on managing technical debt.  Jon has been solving problems with software for over 20 years and leading engineering teams for 10. Along the way, he's parked millions of cars, improved textbooks with AI, reduced the price of prescription medication, and sent billions of emails. Currently, he's an engineering director at Squarespace in New York City. Though Jon's day job is mostly meetings and documents, he still gets his coding kicks in by maintaining a mildly popular jQuery plugin in his free time.  Outline of This Episode [1:26] Jon’s history in programming [4:43] Mistakes Jon made early on [6:22] What would he have done differently? [7:32] Teamwork isn’t about individual output [8:25] Financial debt and technical debt [10:53] Why time is currency [14:32] Good technical debt is intentional [17:14] A framework for using technical debt [21:24] Why building trust with your team is important [22:37] Jon’s book + podcast recommendations  [24:54] How to connect with Jon  How technical debt compares to financial debt The common definition of technical debt is that it’s code that you don’t like and you’ll need to fix or change later. But Jon applies a more narrow definition: It’s work that he expects to have to do in the future. It’s not necessarily code that he doesn’t like.  Jon points out that financial debt is a commonly accepted occurrence. Someone that takes out a mortgage to buy a house and is congratulated. It’s a “responsible” use of debt. You can use technical debt to get value now and then you can pay it down over time. It’s a tool. It allows you to reorder when they value and the payment happens—you just have to use it responsibly.  People want to have perfect code from the moment of conception, but it isn’t always worthwhile from an ROI standpoint. If it doesn’t make more money or provide more value, it can be shelved for later.  How to manage technical debt When you think about starting a new engineering project, it starts with estimates: “How much is this project going to cost us?” It typically refers to man-hours or engineering week. The cost of the project is how long the team will spend building it. If you’re following the financial debt analogy, you are taking out a tech debt mortgage. You’re borrowing time that will be paid back later. You’re doing it in a way that creates more value now. The main reason engineers exist is to provide value—to shareholders, your company, and the users of your product. If a manager takes over a team from another company, they’re immediately taking on technical debt or risk that has accumulated. How do you walk through that? How do you evaluate that? According to Jon, you can talk to people or read commit history to understand how you ended up with the system you have. The next step is to assess the kind of technical debt you’re dealing with. What technical debt is actively accruing interest? Are you spending time on it with bug fixes? Is it growing larger?  There may be an API with design issues. If you keep building on top of it, it will be harder to evolve later. Other kinds of debt may be a scaling issue where performance is okay now, but your database can’t support it later. You have more time to put that technical debt aside and address it later. Assess and establish urgency. Good technical debt is intentional During his initial Squarespace project, Jon used an access control list where only certain people had access to certain features. The right way to build it is to have a database table and management UI that makes it easy to add people. But the list didn’t change frequently. It would be easier to have a hard-coded list of IDs in their code-base. To give someone access, they’d make a new commit and deploy it. It was fine for the first two years of the project. They’d instead spend their time on things that immediately impacted the project they were working on. They could go in and make the list more dynamic down the road. Jon recommends that you do the riskiest parts of your project first. Reordering the way you build things enables you to tackle risk first. With any project, there's usually going to be some problems that you have to solve that are going to make or break the success of that project. You want to figure out those things as soon as possible so you have time to deal with any consequences. Managing a list wasn’t going to make or break their project. But the email editor they were building was going to make or break it, so they spent time on that first.  A framework for using technical debt Jon’s techniques for managing technical debt (scaffolding, hard-coding, edge cases, etc.) are all based around the idea of accepting that it’s okay to build something twice. That can help you reorder the way in which you build things. Scaffolding is inspired by physical buildings. Sometimes while you’re building one structure, you need to build a temporary structure (scaffolding) to support what you’re building. You’ll eventually take it down and replace it with something more permanent.  They knew they needed the capability to send billions of emails, but they didn’t need that capability to test the email editor that they were building. They needed to build the editor before building the sending capabilities. There was less innovation to solve there. So they built something unscalable that allowed them to test the editor first. They knew they would build the delivery pipeline twice. It had value. How do you show that technical debt is deliberate? How do you get stakeholders on board with the technical debt? Why is trust so important? Listen to the whole episode for the whole story on technical debt.  Resources & People Mentioned BOOK: Nonviolent Communication BOOK: Borrow Your Way to Wealth BLOG: https://noidea.dog/ BLOG: https://blog.danielna.com/ Connect with Jon Thornton Jon’s Website Connect on LinkedIn Connect With Christian McCarrick and SimpleLeadership http://simpleleadership.io/ Christian on LinkedIn Christian on Twitter: @CMcCarrick Subscribe to SIMPLELEADERHIP onApple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeart Radio

Jon Kaslow joins the podcast to discuss how you can tackle your goal events with low volume training, why fueling your workouts and proper nutrition is important for performance, plus Jon’s tips for athletes new to TrainerRoad and more in Episode 18 of The Successful Athletes Podcast.  Jon Kaslow on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/23207350 Jon Kaslow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kashmoneyhomey/ Jon’s TrainerRoad Career: https://www.trainerroad.com/app/career/jkaslow   Continue the discussion with Jon on the TrainerRoad Forum: https://bit.ly/2ZLmGd9   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   ABOUT TRAINERROAD — CYCLING’S MOST EFFECTIVE TRAINING SYSTEM   TrainerRoad makes cyclists faster. Athletes get structured indoor workouts, science-backed training plans, and easy-to-use performance analysis tools to reach their goals   Build Your Custom Plan: https://bit.ly/3cc0VrS Train Together with Group Workouts: https://bit.ly/362hLsn Get Started: https://bit.ly/33HINCj   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   ATHLETE INTERVIEWS THAT MAKE YOU FASTER   The Successful Athletes Podcast dissects the preparation and execution of outstanding performances by TrainerRoad athletes. From world record performances to personal records and life changing health improvements, get an inside look at what it takes to get faster.   Subscribe to the Successful Athletes Podcast on iTunes: https://apple.co/2X0KEj2   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   TOPICS COVERED IN THIS EPISODE:   Why structured training appealed to Jon How to make training a priority Why proper fuel will help you train and get faster Using a B-Race as prep for your A-Race Managing obstacles in your training Setting new goals to keep yourself motivated   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   FOLLOW TRAINERROAD   Facebook: bit.ly/3dussVQ  Instagram: www.instagram.com/trainerroad/ Twitter: twitter.com/TrainerRoad Strava Club: www.strava.com/clubs/trainerroad

Jon Boles is the Founder and CEO of Avintiv Media Avintiv Media, an award-winning boutique digital marketing agency that focuses on branding, web design, and digital marketing content creation, syndication, and search engine optimization. Starting as a full service agency 4 years ago, running ads, Facebook ads, and working with celebrities and influencers in the influencer marketing niche. The agency withdrew from advertising and social media when they determined the uncontrollable volatility compromised the value add of those services. What that left was what they were passionate about anyway: branding, web design, and digital marketing – key pieces of every brand's lifecycle. Avintiv serves a wide variety of industries, but one “ideal client” is a well-funded, very-much-at-the-beginning startup with business experience. The process begins with a deep-level discovery consultation to determine the “end goal.” This usually progresses to a half-day brand workshop, which involves the brand's/company's stakeholders and the entire Avintiv strategy team. The product of that workshop is a 40-50+ business plan/investor pitch deck that covers SWOT analysis, and includes buyer personas, a mission statement, and a competitive analysis, what Jon refers to as a company's  “Bible for your business over the next 10 years.” Jon explains his company's criteria for finding startups to work with . . . relationships where the end result is win-win-win . . . the company, its customers, and Avintiv all gain. In branding, Avintiv may provide a company name, logos, icons, SKUs, a style guide, typography, colors, and with e-commerce or product-based businesses, product development and design. The in-house development/creative team builds out a custom WordPress or Shopify website. The SEO team takes over at that point, providing keywords, creating a 6- to 12-month SEO campaign, and writing the content. The second “ideal client” is one that has grown in the past and wants to grow today, but can't seem to “move the needle” in today's business climate. Avintiv takes these companies through the entire buyer's journey to clarify who their customers really are . . . and why they buy. Working off data, Avintiv identifies the buyers and price points companies need to target, redesigns the website to fit buyer needs. Jon has found that working with investors and investor firms can be very effective, because investors appreciate that working with Avintiv increases the odds of recouping their investments. In this interview, Jon talks about the impact of corona virus . . . that he believes it will probably change a lot of the way we do business, that brands will need to pay closer attention to detail, that a “less trusting” population will research more, judge organizations' actions more during these hard times, and look for good people and good companies with which to do business. Jon says that he has found that, people in quarantine have become more engaged and more focused on providing good to the community. People whose work typically comes with a high price tag are jumping in and offering their services for free. In the same vein, Jon says he has no passion for building something for himself: his passion is for changing other people's lives. He expects the coming year to be one of unprecedented growth. Jon's company can be reached on its website at: www.avintivmedia.com or through Instagram t @AvintivMedia. Jon is best reached on Instagram @JonBoles.   ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Jon Boles. Jon is the Founder and CEO at Avintiv Media based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Welcome to the podcast, Jon. JON: How's it going, my man? ROB: It's going great. You? JON: No complaints this week as of yet. It's pretty crazy what's going on in the world, but we're prepared for it. ROB: Sure. We're dead in mid-late March, right in the thick of the coronavirus, and everybody is sheltering in place. But we are sheltering on a podcast. Why don't you start off, Jon, by telling us about Avintiv Media and where Avintiv excels? JON: Avintiv Media is an award-winning boutique digital marketing agency in Scottsdale, Arizona, and we specialize in three solutions for our clients: branding, web design, and digital marketing. With digital marketing, what we hone in on is content creation and syndication and SEO. Essentially, we launched Avintiv 4 years ago. We were a full service agency. We ran ads, we did Facebook ads, we did influencer marketing, we worked with a lot of celebrities and influencers. We just realized what we weren't passionate about anymore. We realized what we were passionate about, and that is building brands, and that's only offering services that we truly believe in. With how volatile and how up-and-down advertising is, social media channels are, we didn't feel that we had enough control over them to have them be fully valuable for a client. So we focus on those three services. ROB: Perfect. Those three services seem like a natural lifecycle that any brand is going to go through. JON: Exactly. ROB: The need for a brand refresh, the need to speak that into the world, and then the need to continue sustaining that. Do people often come to you at the branding end of things, or is it really they enter into that virtuous cycle at every point but still go through that cycle? JON: That's such a great question. I'm glad you asked that. The reason why we offer those three services – my background is consulting, so I've been building brands for close to 11 years now, probably built and scaled over 250 or 300 brands in the past 10 years so far. I found a common element on what it takes to start a brand, grow a brand, and keep growing it with trust and redoing the branding and redoing landing pages, websites, and that is why we offer those services that we do. To answer your question, we have two really ideal customers that come to us. We have a plethora of different industries that we serve, but our ideal customers that we know are going to be grand slams, it's going to be a win-win for both parties, is startups that haven't gotten started yet and they have funding behind them, whether it's an angel investor or they have family money behind them. They are already seasoned with business. They either have a good job or they've started companies in the past, and they realize that the statistics are against starting a small business or starting a business. The odds are against you. People come to Avintiv or to myself and they want it done right the first way. We start with the discovery; that goes into a small consultation to get to know them. What are their goals? What are their dreams? We dive inside their head, deeper than they've even gone, and figure out what they really wanting to start this company for. Is it an exit? Is it this is their lifelong dream that they've dreamt of since they were a child? What is their end goal? What happens is after that consultation, 9 times out of 10 it goes into a brand workshop. A brand workshop is a half-day consultation with our entire strategy team and whatever stakeholders are in that brand or that company. Then that dives into 40-50+ pages that we create for them. It's a new aged business plan/investor pitch deck, if you would. It goes over SWOT analysis, we create buyer personas, we create a mission statement, we go over your competition. It's the Bible for your business over the next 10 years. Clients really love that because it gives them, their team, their investors, or anyone involved the playbook of who they are, why they're doing what they're doing, and it creates validity to them starting this company. It gives them hope that this can be successful. After that, we help brand with naming, coming up with the name – or if they already have the name that they want, it goes into logo, icons, it goes into style guide, typography, colors, the whole nine yards. If it's an ecommerce or a product-based business, we then go into the product development and design. We were big in 2019 in the CBD industry. We had multiple clients that did the brand workshop. We then created 20 different SKUs for them, whether it was gummies, tinctures, bottles – you name it and we created – the bottles, the SKUs. We did a CBD water company in 1,200 or 2,400 Circle Ks, so we had to do different line item SKUs for them. Once it's in the product design phase and the packaging design phase, then we start building out the website. Once the website is fully built out, we do custom WordPress or Shopify, depending on what the client's needs are. We have in-house devs, in-house creative team, so it's not outsourced to Asia or India or anything like that. Once the website is getting ready to launch, our SEO team hops in and redoes all the on-page SEO. We build out their keyword analysis and basically create their 6- to 12-month SEO campaign, and we start writing the content. That's how we launch a lot of the companies. And we do consult with them what they should be doing on social media, what they should be doing on the ground with their team, and vice versa. So that's a 20,000-foot approach of a new brand that would hire us. Then we have a lot of companies that are 2 to 20 years old that have hit plateaus. They scaled up really quickly or they bought their family's business from them or they've bought a company or they just don't know how to grow in 2020. They come to us, and it's almost the same process. It's just a company that's doing a couple million in revenue and that's not good enough for them. They want to hire more employees. They want to scale up to more cities. They go through the exact same process that I just mentioned to you. ROB: Very interesting. One thing that's interesting there is that I think with an established brand, you as the agency have the advantage of they have customers; they may just not fully understand them. They may not fully understand why they are customers. It seems like you would be able to come in as Avintiv and pull on that thread and understand the deeper customer road and innovations. One thing that is hard in the startup world and the raising money world is that sometimes the ideal customer for them is a little bit more hypothetical. How do you walk through that process of helping them discover what is real versus what is an imagined fiction that they've been pushed towards – sometimes just in order to raise money? JON: I'll start with the first question and follow back with the startups. The first question you asked – yeah, I think it's vital for an already-successful company that's hit a plateau to come to us because they think they know their customers, but they've had so many employee changeovers, their team is much larger than it used to be. The owner thinks they know who their customers are because when they started it 2 to 10 years ago and they were the sales guy, they were on the frontlines – as the business grows, the CEO or the founder is not on the frontlines anymore. As time goes on – I've even been at fault for this in the past with other ecommerce companies – you start to lose who your customers are and what is making them purchase from you. We go through an entire customer buyer journey with them, and we even interview some of their customers and some of their clients and go through the whole process. “What is your buying process? Why do you buy from them? What makes you light up about working with this company?” The findings of that is it's almost like an out-of-body experience for business owners that have been in business for so long because it's completely different than anything they would've thought. The reasons why these customers shop with them or go to them are things they don't even focus on. That allows us to go back and figure out the three differentiators. Why do people shop with them? Why do people go to them for business? That allows us to help redesign the website and focus on why people go there, and use that as the language. That helps big time. Now, on the second question, for startups, you have a lot of people that are trying to raise money. Yeah, they put different types of Baby Boomers or millennials or this or that because they think that's the cool thing to talk about or they read a press release on Forbes or Entrepreneur.com and they're adding personas in there. What we do is go on data. We're not just throwing crap against the wall and hoping it sticks. Our team of analysts and our team of strategists, including myself, we've been researching for 10 years, so we know exactly what materials and resources to use, how to dive in, dive deep. We're able to find other business plans and other things that are already out there and basically pull together a web of different resources and show the entrepreneurs, “Hey, this is why your personas are a little bit off. Really, it's this person who's going to be buying from you. The price point needs to be XYZ, not what you had in your pitch deck.” You might grow a little bit slower, you might grow a little bit faster, but we go off data. That's why investors and investor firms – we partner with a couple investment firms – they love working with us because when you work with Avintiv, the investor has higher odds of getting their return back, and at a quicker pace. But if you're working with an entrepreneur and this is their second or third business and there's really no direction, it's just going off of them, it's a lot riskier doing that because the investor is thinking, “What if something happens? What if they get burnout? What if this happens?” When you have an agency that knows what they're doing, we have as many case studies as we do, we have as much experience in the industry as we do, investors feel very safe working with us because our team acts as if we're the owners of the company as well. The past two weeks of coronavirus, I think I worked with our whole team till 9:30 at night. I've never worked that late with my team. I usually work that late, but my team goes above and beyond for the brands that we work with, especially in times of emergency like this. We're adding so many more hours to projects and not charging for them. We're just trying to provide as much value as possible right now. ROB: Absolutely. A lot of that value in this season is going to be probably going back to some of the diagnosis you've already done on customers, and some of it's going to be figuring out almost testing new ways of doing business. What are you seeing with maybe a customer or two that is finding a new way that they have to do business and actually learning about their customers in the process? JON: The good thing is our clients right now have been affected a little bit by what's going on, but I think that every one of our clients is understanding that they need to pay a lot more attention to marketing, to the words that they use, to every detail of everything that they publish. When people hire us, I'm very OCD. Our team is very OCD. We don't agree with us doing a Rolls-Royce style brand, logo, and packaging, but your social media looks like crap or your website looks like crap. I think clients are now understanding that the world is evolving to a place that isn't really trusting right now. The American people, or people around the world, aren't really trusting the government. They don't know what's real, they don't know what's fake. They're not really trusting banks. So I think 2020, people are going to be taking a step back and they're going to be thinking about their purchases a little bit more. They're going to be doing a little bit more research. They're going to be going from your website to your social media handles to see how you talk. People are wanting to invest in companies that stand for something, that are good people. I hate to say it, but a lot of businesses right now aren't being positive on social media and they're not being the light at the end of a dark tunnel. Customers are judging you. They're looking at you on what emails you're sending about the coronavirus, how you're acting in this type of emergency, because they're not going to come back and shop with you – if you can't handle yourself in an emergency, why do you deserve them when times are good? I think the biggest thing for brands right now is they have to pay attention to the details. I think for the agency world, the marketing agency industry and world is going to skyrocket over the next couple of months. We're looking at our sales forecasting, and it's not even about revenue for us. It's about the lives of our clients that we can change, and every client that we work with, they have hundreds if not thousands or millions of customers. So when we provide value to our one client, it's almost like we just impacted 10 million people. ROB: It's a good point you make that we're moving into a slightly longer buyer journey, in some cases because of trust and I think in other cases because we just can't get things as fast as we're used to and we don't need them as fast as we're used to. You order from Amazon Prime and it's not two days anymore sometimes. Sometimes it's four. You order from Instacart, sometimes you can't get an appointment for over a week. We're not as impulsive and the economy is not as booming, so people are going to think, and it's great that they're going to be able to think about and trust you. If we rewind that journey a little bit, how did you come to start Avintiv Media in the first place? What led you to the beginning of this journey? JON: Great question. I think most agency owners that would listen to this can agree – I kind of fell into it. I didn't plan on starting an agency. At the time, my background was consulting. I was in the bar and restaurant industry for a number of years, owned different establishments, was in event planning and event marketing. I owned a consulting firm. Then I got into ecommerce for a little bit. When I started Avintiv, I had an ecommerce clothing company that was booming at the time, and I kept hiring web developers and I kept hiring agencies to do Facebook ads and work on our marketing for us because even though I'm self-taught, being the CEO of a startup, you can't manage all aspects of everything. So I kept outsourcing it to different agencies, different people. Every developer I hired fell short of what I wanted, and then they wanted more money, they wanted more money. Then they took my website and threatened to not give the website back if we didn't pay an absurd fee. I just got sick and tired of being screwed over. The agencies that we were hiring – and I'm sure anyone that ran Facebook ads a couple years ago – there's a couple different settings on the Facebook ad ROIs you can click. One of them shows, “if this many people go to this landing page or add to cart, that's what the total would be.” Our agencies were acting as if those were our revenue numbers, and I didn't catch on for a couple of months because I was running at the speed of light. My accountant told me, “Dude, you're not doing as much revenue as this agency is making it seem, and you're not even profitable working with these guys.” I used two agencies, and both of them were not as truthful as I would've liked them to be. I kept having people reach out to me about a year after that like, “Hey, who did your logo? Who did your website? Who's running your social media?” I was doing everything. I taught myself web development. I taught myself videography. My background was social media, so I had that on lockdown. People kept reaching out to me, and I said, wow, there must be a need in the marketplace for offering these types of services that everyone keeps contacting me for. So I started building a couple websites for a couple local brands, and it evolved into I couldn't take on any more clients because I was at capacity. We were profitable the first week we launched the agency, and it evolved into being what it is today with having a full team and phenomenal clients. We're hitting our 4 years in April next month, and it's kind of like an out-of-body experience. I realized in this journey, I don't have a passion for building my own brands and selling my own products and launching – I owned a couple CBD brands last year. I don't have a passion for building my own thing. I have a passion for changing other people's lives. I've been a coach and consultant; I love changing an entrepreneur's life. I love giving them a phenomenal experience. That's why I love Avintiv so much, because we are so passionate about building other people's brands that change the world. We're working with a local health and wellness clinic in Scottsdale that's actually a very big clinic, and he is one of the most talented doctors I've ever met in 31 years of my life, doing holistic type of medicine, IV drips, Botox – a variety of different things. He has a new, modern way of doing medicine, and the amount of lives this guy is going to change just by us being able to redo his branding, his website, and sending him in a different direction – that's what gives me fuel to keep growing the agency. But if it was me just selling my own products and trying to get rich and things like that, I don't have a passion for that. ROB: It's hard to come across as genuine with a passion for that because it seems like you're serving yourself maybe more than your clients. How did you come to find this particular resonance with startups? Were you tapped into a vein locally? Is there a regional connection? Or do you think it's just a natural resonance with who you are and that brand building connection? JON: When I started my clothing company before I sold it, I posted my whole journey on Instagram, on social media. I'm talking about our first initial designs 6-7 years ago, and then our first warehouse, and people saw me use my living room as my warehouse, and then we got a bigger warehouse. So I've been sharing my journey for a number of years. But not only that, any industry I've been in, I'm blessed to be I guess you could say a social butterfly. No matter what city I live in or where I'm at, I'm able to meet the who's who that runs that city, become friends with them. I'm a likeable guy. I'm someone that doesn't screw anyone over. I have a lot of friends. I think that has helped me build a good amount of following and people that pay attention to me, along with press releases or certain things. I think it's just a combination of who I am and the journey of me sharing my journey. People have seen how many startups I've built or have consulted, or people ask around town, “Hey, I have this new company idea. Who's the best person in town I could ask?”, and 9 times out of 10, people send them my way. ROB: As a social butterfly, I'm sure there's a certain extent to which you have also engaged with other social butterflies. How are you finding to connect and scratch that itch in this season we're in, where you're probably not getting together with people you don't know? JON: To be honest, if you look on my Instagram page or any public stuff that's out there of me, it probably looks like I'm the life of networking, going out – not partying, but being out and about and socializing. I am such an introvert. I'm standing, as I'm talking to you, at my bookshelf right now. Being locked in, reading books and working, I don't think I could be happier right now. Yeah, it's a little weird not going out, but I honestly think it's a little bit easier to connect with people right now. I have a lot of “celebrity influencer” friends that are in LA that it might take them a week or two weeks to text back or to get back. I'm talking to people I haven't talked to in years or months. I'm talking to my family more than ever. So I think what's going on with us all being locked in, I think people are more accessible. I'm hopping on so many free consultation calls and discovery calls that I would usually charge a pretty high rate for just because I have extra time on my hands. I'm not traveling to the office, I'm not traveling to the gym, so why not provide more value? I know a lot of friends or people of that nature, influencers in LA, New York, Miami, they're doing the same thing. And these are guys who charge a couple thousand dollars an hour, and they're hopping on tons of free webinars, they're hopping on free Zoom calls. I think it's a really cool thing, what's going on right now. All of us are trying to just be there for people that are scared and don't know where to turn. ROB: That's perfect. It's such a great time to give and to build trust – not that it isn't always time to build trust. Jon, as you look back, what are a couple things you've learned from building Avintiv in these 4 years that you would do differently if you were starting from scratch? JON: A couple of different things. Before I started Avintiv, I wish I would've understood the accounting and financial realm a little bit better. I always thought that having the best accountants, they would fix everything. I ran into a bad experience about 5 or 6 years ago when one of my accountants was going through chemo and had cancer and actually dropped the ball with a couple of things, and I didn't notice it because I didn't know it as well as I should have. So understanding the fundamentals of business – not per industry or what type of business, but just understanding accounting and business from a financial aspect. That's one of the things. Two, from an agency standpoint, I probably would've niched down immediately. Although I did, but the niche I chose was more fitness and fitness product realm, and there's not a lot of money in the fitness industry, as much as people might portray that. So I would've definitely niched down in the beginning, and I might've only launched one service. If I had to start over or if Avintiv sells down the road one day and I had to redo the agency realm, I would probably launch three individual brands. I would start with SEO. I would build a multiple 6-figure per month MRR SEO agency. I would then build a web design agency, and then I would build a branding agency. All three have different managers that run the businesses, all internal team members, and we outsource in between the companies. I would run each individual solely. When you're running your advertising and your lead gen for each of those businesses, you don't have to talk about web design or branding. You talk about SEO. It's simply SEO and content. So I would have three individual brands that basically live in the same ecosystem, but to the general public, they don't. ROB: Right, so to the general public, it wouldn't be a white label pass through. It would be a partnership to the world? JON: Exactly. ROB: Got it. What's next for Avintiv? What are you looking forward to? What do you think we should be looking to in the marketing world as we're looking ahead? JON: Oh man. What's next for Avintiv is, now seeing how busy everything is going to be, I definitely think that we're able to double in size and double in revenue this year. We might be going remote for the next couple of months just because it doesn't make sense having expensive office space when our city isn't even letting us operate out of our office. So we might be going remote for a couple of months. But I would like to scale the team up to about 15 in-house employees, a little bit bigger office space this year, and be the go-to for building startups and rebuilding brands that are hitting a plateau. 2020 is the first year that Avintiv has been my only company and my only focus. I had a lot of different fires out there in 2019. I owned a couple CBD brands, I was in the credit card processing space, and the opportunity cost that hit me – I was so passionate about helping these other brands grow that I got equity plays and equity pieces. It took my eye off the ball. So 2020 is honestly the first year since we've launched Avintiv where it is my only and sole focus. If we've grown this far in 4 years and it's only been 25% or 30% of what I do day to day, I'm pretty excited to see what 100% looks like. ROB: Wow. A lot of times when we have our hand in too many things, it becomes very difficult to find that margin and time to reflect and really gather the confidence that you've got to do something else, you have to change how you're doing things. How did you find that margin to realize the things you needed to cut out of your own world, the things you were more passionate and less passionate about, and focus solely on Avintiv? JON: I go through phases of cycles of what books I read and what coaches I hire. I had an out-of-body experience towards the end of 2019 and towards the beginning of 2020, and I just found out that I had too much – and I never usually have anxiety or stress. I live in a stressful environment doing what I do, but I never usually let it get to me. It started to get to me a little bit, and I said, what the heck is going on in my life that I can't really control – all of a sudden I'm having anxiety on a Monday or a Tuesday? I started to realize I was waking up and I was consulting for a financial client, and then I was running a CBD company, and then I was an agency owner, and then I was consulting on SEO and content. I was too many people in a given day where I'd come home – at the time I was in a relationship, and then I had to play boyfriend, or son. There was no time for me to sit back and just be Jon. I was 15 or 20 different people to so many different people, and I was filling so many other people's cups versus my own. I was taking care of everyone's needs but my own. ROB: Sometimes we do need that sort of break. If I look back to your ideal customers, I think one challenge people often find themselves in is when you're looking at startups, how do you qualify the ones who are good clients, and how do you qualify the ones that are going to have you do a bunch of work and not pay you? How do you think about discernment when it comes to the startup world? JON: Great question. We've run into some payment issues with the CBD industry, but now, going through that – and it pays to have a great collections agency and a great legal team behind your back. We're pretty protected when it comes to that. But we have a pretty good and robust discovery and consultation process where we can smell bull from a mile away. I've been doing this for so long where I trained my team to ask certain questions. And it's not that we don't want to help startups that don't have the funding or don't have the money, but we will be doing a disservice to you if you don't pay for what our services are worth because our team is going to resent working for you, we're not going to be able to profit or be able to pay for things. So at the end of the day, we don't usually work with people that don't have funding or they can't cope with money just because, even though it's not a business transaction, it has to be a win-win scenario. It can't be a win-lose scenario where we feel so bad for the startup and this entrepreneur because he or she is such a good person that we're going to discount our services 50% so they win. That is going to be a loss for us. It always has to be a win-win. We always tell our clients we want it to be a win-win-win scenario. All of our clients that we help are B2C, the majority of them. So if we help our clients succeed and we make our customers happy, those are two wins. And if those two people are happy, that equals a win for Avintiv. So we are in the win-win-win type of business. We just brought on a startup a month ago, and he's a very successful pilot. We can see that if someone has already had a career for 25 years or 20 years and they make a really good living, that shows us that there's probably capital that backs them. They went through schooling. Being a pilot is a rigorous checks and balances. They have a crazy amount of processes. So that would fit in line with how we run our agency. Now, if someone hasn't been employed for 10 or 15 years and they've had a couple startups that have failed, this is a new great idea that's going to take over the world, but they talk about crazy things like “This is the next billion dollar idea! I want to create this and sell it in two years for $5 million!”, like half the CBD startups out there right now, we won't work with them. The expectations that they've fed into their head are not real, and I don't want to be the bearer of bad news to tell them that there's no Santa Claus. Everyone thinks “because this company sold for X” or “Elon Musk created this,” that it's possible for anyone. I'm never the guy that's going to kill someone's dreams or say you can't do anything; I'm actually the guy that thinks anyone can do anything if they believe in themselves. But we're not going to go along on the ride if you're going to be dragging us through the mud with you because we're just not at that place anymore. Maybe 4-5 years ago, we would've tested the waters. But we have a big enough clientele and portfolio and case studies now where we are very choosy with who we work with. We can pick and choose very easily, and we turn down clients left and right. If it's not going to be a win-win-win, we're not going to work with you because you're going to be mad at us, we're going to be mad at you, and it's just going to create resentment. ROB: It almost sounds like a hiring decision. JON: Oh, one hundred percent. It's funny when clients are on a discovery call or consultation call and they think that they're interviewing us, and when the roles get reversed and we start interviewing them, they're like, “Wait a second. What's going on here?” It's like, we only take on X amount of clients per quarter, projects of this size. We want to make sure that our whole team would enjoy working on your project. It's not about revenue or profit for us. If our creative team is going to be bored out of their mind working on this project, we're not going to do it because that is going to stunt their growth for every other project they work on. So we are so careful with who we work with. ROB: Perfect. Jon, when people want to find you and want to find Avintiv Media, where should they go? JON: You can go to www.avintivmedia.com. Otherwise, our Instagram handle is @AvintivMedia. Otherwise, I am mainly on Instagram @JonBoles. It's got a little verified checkmark next to it, so it's pretty easy to find. ROB: That's a solid move there. Jon, thank you for coming on the podcast. Looking forward to that doubling growth here in 2020. JON: Thank you so much for having me. Hopefully I was able to provide a little bit of value to you guys. ROB: I definitely think so. Take care. Thank you for listening. 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Do you have a coach to help guide you to grow your property management business? If you want to excel at what you're doing, you must have somebody who's playing a bigger game than you. Today, Jason Hull and Jon Ray of DoorGrow continue their discussion on premature expansion in property management. Besides putting planning and process documentation systems into place to be more efficient, they focus on the third system: Communication (internal and external).  You’ll Learn... [01:33] Interruptions and Inefficiency: Every interruption costs 18 minutes of productivity.  [02:13] Pay to Play: Learn from coaches how to protect and guard against interruptions. [02:40] Cut the Slack: Chat tool that creates interruptions and crushes team productivity.  [03:15] Under-Communication: Creates interruptions that prevent momentum and flow. [04:07] Communication System: Only involve those internally that need to know, and find ways to improve external client communication. [06:01] Organizational Structure: Clear line of communication for delegation. [08:15] Who does what? Pair effective visionary with brilliant operator to get things done. [18:18] Sales solves all problems—not always true. Growth feeds business. [19:25] Get things in place, and then it's not premature. [21:00] Jack of All Trades, Master of None: Entrepreneurs find opportunity everywhere.  [25:34] DoorGrow OS: Consolidate systems, processes, professionals to be successful. [31:10] Three Currencies: Growth involves time, money, and effort. Tweetables Every interruption costs about 18 minutes of productivity for one team member.  Under-Communication: Creates as many interruptions that prevent momentum and flow. Every team member you add lowers your pressure and noise. Every team member you add makes your job and life easier.  Get things in place, and then it's not premature. Resources Intercom Help Scout Voxer Process Street Jason Fried of Basecamp Warren Buffett Slack Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)/Traction Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm HireSmartVAs Anequim with Mexican VAs DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive DoorGrow Website Score Quiz DoorGrow Cold Leads Calculator Transcript Jon: I have worked with coaches for the past 20 years. I believe in them wholeheartedly. If you're going to excel at what you're doing, you have to have somebody who's playing a bigger game than you. Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers, to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. I’m hanging out here with someone else from DoorGrow, Jon Ray. Jon: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Jason: The third system that's necessary so that you can avoid premature expansion is you need an internal communication system. If you're still operating on sneakernet, or constant interruptions like sneakernet as they walk into your office all the time and interrupt you, then you're operating really inefficiently. Every interruption costs you about 18 minutes of productivity for one team member. If one team member interrupts another team member that's 18 minutes times 2. I don't know what that is, but it's more than a half-hour. Jon: Thirty-six minutes. Jason: Too many minutes, like 40 minutes down the drain because two people decided to talk to each other, or one person interrupted somebody else. You have to protect and guard against interruptions. All of this stuff is stuff that has to be learned. It's stuff that I've had to pay lots of money to learn from different coaches.  I had met with Jason Freed, the creator of Basecamp, and hung out with me on a call like this for 90 minutes. He cut my staffing costs in half overnight. We're high tech. We were using all kinds of technology. He pointed out how we are using this chat tool that had group rings. It was causing everybody to interrupt everybody all the time. Everybody feels like they had to read everything. It made our entire business completely inefficient. The software was Slack for those of you that are big Slack fans. Slack was absolutely killing and crushing our productivity as a team. It is basically an endless diarrhea without context or stream of information for every single project. Everyone on the team felt like they had to read every single thing. Jon: One of the things that entrepreneurs are aware of is that when a team is under communicated, that's not a good thing. But there's this idea that maybe over-communication is the way to go. That's actually just as bad, if not as bad, because it creates so many interruptions that then prevent people from finding the momentum and flow that allows them to be most efficient. Jason: The reason it costs you 18 minutes of productivity is because that's about how long after somebody that causes interruption, regardless of how much time they're spending with you. They might spend 15 minutes with you, and then it's 18 minutes. It takes time to get back into the flow. What was I doing? How do I rebuild this house of cards that I was building before Steve came in from finance and interrupted everything? There needs to be an internal communication system that works effectively for the team that only involves the people that need to know or deal with a certain thing at a certain given time, rather than everybody needing to see everything. If you're a control freak as an entrepreneur, and you need to know everything, and see everything, you're probably the biggest bottleneck in the company. You need a planning system, you need a process and documentation system, you need an internal communication system. The other system that you need is you need an external communication system. You need a client communication system that makes it easy. We use Intercom. Some people will use HubScout. You also might use your property management software in some ways for this. You might have phones, but you have to clearly have an effective client communication system. That's something we're always working on improving is client communication. We use Voxer internally as a team, and some of my coaching clients will use that as well. We've got a lot of tools that we use to increase communication, but most of it is one-on-one. It's not causing big group interruptions or situations like that. Jon: An important thing to reference here—when it comes to creating the right communication systems—is that there has to be clear lines for delegation. Part of your process documentation needs to be letting each employee at each level and in each role understand what type of tasks are appropriate to delegate up to you and what needs to be delegated down. Jason: All that comes with the process documentation, but planning helps with that a lot at that system, and then you need an internal communication system. As part of that, that's kind of the organizational structure. There needs to be a clear line of communication where somebody reports to somebody. I was talking with a property manager the other day. They had their part of another business. What she said is that this other business that she's a part of—outside of a property management business—that there are three bosses. Over one department there's two managers. I said, “Well, how did the team members know which one to go to?” I said, “Are they very different personality-wise? Do they get different answers?” She's like, “Absolutely.” So then, how do they know which one to go to? There's so much confusion in this entity. She could see it. Me hearing about it just made my skin crawl because I was like, “I would feel so crazy and uncomfortable because it sounds like a nightmare.” There's all this infighting and politics and all the stuff going on because nobody has any clarity. People don't even know. She said somebody got promoted in this business and everybody said, “Hey, congratulations.” There was a celebration. Jon: I’m going to take this time and just pause you. I know that there are people out there that are saying, “This sounds like a lot of work. I'm already too stressed out.” There's so much resistance to putting in this work. What we're talking about is do you want to win at a new level of the maze? Do you want to be a high achiever? Because if you're satisfied with being in this mediocre average zone of success, then maybe you don't need all of this. If you ever want to get to a level where you're dominating your local marketplace, and you're running a business that isn't just growing but is growing comfortably, these things are mandatory, right? Jason: Yeah. I can empathize with that strongly. The little story—just to wrap it—was everybody was congratulating this person. They were asking him, “Cool. What are you going to do now?” He said, “I don't know. I’ll figure it out as I go, I guess.”  Anyway, let's go back to the question. What was the question again? Sorry, I have to finish the thread. Jon: There's so much resistance around showing up and having to actually do all of this stuff. Maybe you can talk about why it's important to push through that resistance, or how to do that? Then why ultimately, the short term resistance and discomfort leads to a more comfortable, more profitable, and more fun business down the line? Jason: I just would rather kill the resistance. Here's what I realized. I had a ton of resistance. When I started working with some of the best operational companies, ­­I was working with probably the best operational coach that might exist in the business world. I had already studied traction, and EoS (end of sale), and I'd heard of the Rockefeller Habits, and scaling up, and I went to this thing called warrior. There are other systems out there similar to the 90-day year. All these planning systems have some commonalities between them, which I sort of outlined when we discussed the planning system. I felt a ton of anxiety when I was going and learning this stuff. You want to know why? Because I'm not the person that should be doing that stuff. That kind of stuff is stuff that operationally minded people love. I can geek out on a system like I could see the genius in it, but me doing it, and me implementing it, me running meetings, I'm not the person to do that. Most CEOs and entrepreneurs are the worst to run team meetings, to manage their team, to manage operations, to manage operational processes. That's why you'll see almost any visionary—that's really effective—paired up with some sort of person that's operationally brilliant. It gives them the freedom to create ideas, create a vision. The operator helps them make that stuff come true and happen. Jon: If I'm a property manager and I'm still in that first sandtrap, and maybe I'm not even doing more than a quarter-million a year in revenue, and I don't really have the budget to bring these people on. Can you talk about what it would look like to start thinking about a hiring trajectory and mapping out some of the milestones of how I can get to this place? Jason: This is a learned process to know clearly where your time is going, how you're the biggest bottleneck in the business, what needs to happen next? This is stuff that we teach, but it's a process. There's a system for knowing exactly what you need next to take the business to the next level. It's part of the stuff that we teach clients.  Ultimately, for those that maybe they’re the lower level like, “I can't hire a COO. I can't hire an operational manager. I can't even hire an operations assistant yet.” Maybe they just get a personal assistant, executive assistant, somebody that loves planning. They love process. They love documenting things. They love systems. They geek out on these things. They like calendars and spreadsheets. They'd love to color coordinate sock drawers. Their closet is organized. Their desk is spotless. These are not typical visionary entrepreneur personality types that are high-driven types of people. If you are not that personality type—now on property management, you do get some operationally-minded people, but they might not also be the driver. They may need to get a BDM (business development manager) in the business. Somebody that's out there crushing it, and closing deals, and aggressive because maybe they're that operationally-minded person. That's why I think every business needs to be built around you, the entrepreneur, but if you're hearing this and you're getting anxious. You're like, “All these systems, all this stuff,” and you're overwhelmed. That probably means you're not the operations-minded person. The operations person, they probably have some of these, and they get excited about that. Those property managers are the ones that are like, “I can't grow yet. We're working on all of our systems and processes first,” and they have 10 doors. They're documenting everything and getting everything dialed in and then you have the opposite. You have to figure out which type are you? The other thing to point out is this stuff doesn't make your life crazier, and it doesn't make your life more chaotic, and it doesn't feel it's not more work. Because when you start to get these things implemented, and you're offloading, and you're systemizing, and you have planning, and you have vision, your team can actually help you do all of this. Every team member you add actually lowers your pressure and noise. Every team member I've added to the team has made my job and life easier. I'm doing less. Every day I'm doing less. Every new person—I brought you on—I’m doing less. What that allows me to do is to do more of the things that I really should be doing, the things that I'd really love, the things that really make me feel alive. I'm to the point now that I enjoy doing sales, but you've taken that off my plate, and you're taking some of the marketing stuff off my plate. I enjoy doing marketing, but there are things that I now want to do more than those things. As you build out your team—the very first person you need usually is an assistant, very first person. Hopefully, that's a person that you can grow into the role of being an operations assistant, an operations manager, maybe a COO of your company at some point if they’re brilliant and effective enough. Because that's going to lower your pressure significantly, and they're going to help you get all of this stuff dialed in and implemented. Jon: I know a lot of people have hired somebody at $10 an hour to be a personal assistant. They've had a bad experience, or that person just didn't really do what they were supposed to do. Is there some way to think about bringing on a personal assistant where that's actually going to be a successful relationship? Jason: Oh man. We've had people in the show like HireSmartVAs and Anequim with the Mexican VAs. If you're not an expert, and you don't know how to answer that question, and you want to just get a virtual assistant like those, or a great assistant we've had on the show—if you want a US-based assistant, you need help. Because you don't know how to identify these people. The mistake we make as entrepreneurs is we tend to hire people we like or that are like us. That's not the person you usually need. You usually need a person that's somewhat your opposite that can balance you out, and handle the things, and take things off your plate that gives you more pressure noise. We have a process we take people through to identify that so that you can build up the ultimate job description for your dream team member. The silliest thing I ever hear—and I mentioned this in some of the system shows—is when an entrepreneur starts asking around, “What do you have your assistant do?” That's like walking around the grocery store asking people, “Hey, what do you eat? What are you having for dinner?” Because they have no clarity. You're not ready to hire. It's not what they can do, it's what do you need? You have to get really clear on what do you not enjoy? What drains you? What's sapping your energy? What is that has alignment with you personally? That's one of the things we get people really strong clarity on is who they are, what they should and shouldn't be doing, so the business can be built around the entrepreneur instead of built around somebody else's system, or somebody else's process. This is my major problem with traction and some of these other systems. It’s building according to somebody's ideal system, which ironically is a system that requires some special coach that's super expensive that you have to do it that one exact way. You need this thing called an integrator that is only one that can do it. Jon: I was going to say I think the people that I see who are the worst at delegation are really nice people. Because really nice people hate asking other people to do stuff that they don't want to do themselves. The misconception there is that other people like the same type of work that you like. You can always find somebody who loves to do the things that you hate to do. That's how you should be thinking about hiring. Let me find somebody that I can bring on as an assistant who can start to help me offload all the things I don't want to do, but they love doing those things. Jason: The biggest mistake we can make as an entrepreneur in our business—when it comes to team members—is to assume that our team members think the way we do. Almost none of them do. They're very different. Otherwise, they'd be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are just different. My team members love being told what to do each day and having clear ideas of what to do. Me, I want freedom and I want autonomy. There are huge differences. You need to recognize that the stuff that you hate doing, somebody loves doing that. I don't like calendars. I don't like staring at spreadsheets all day. I don't like doing graphic design in front of a computer all day. Can I do these? Can I enjoy them sometimes? Yes, but that doesn't mean that that's my best use in the business or in life and that I want to do that. My team members that love those things, they love those things. They could do that every day. That's just fun for them. I don't ever have to motivate them. That's how I know I've gotten somebody in the right position because they love doing what they're doing. Without getting too far off-track—because we could do a whole episode just on hiring, planning, whatever. Jon: How does all this tie back into premature expansion and whether or not I as a property manager am ready to expand? Jason: The one other system we didn't mention is you need a sales process and system. You need some growth system that's feeding the business. This might be the most important. Some say sales solves all problems. Not totally true, but without sales, you don't have a business. There's no revenue. You can't pay your team members. Things get scary. You can't pay your mortgage, or rent, or whatever you’re doing, you can't pay the lease on your building. Sales have to be happening. Bit growth has to be happening in the business. All of these things go together. You need all these different systems in order to work. If you have all these systems, then you almost have a franchise model in which you can open up another office, or a new location, expand into a new market. Ultimately, you're going to want to keep as much as possible—probably centralized—to lower operational costs, to reduce redundancies, and get what you need to support that new location. Then you know, all right, this is not premature. We've thought this out. The baby is ready to be born. This is all set up. The reason I call premature expansion because there's nothing premature that is usually considered positive. Anything that's premature—whatever you can think of—is usually a bad thing. I wanted people to understand it's too early, it's too early. You don't have things in place. Get the things in place, and then it's not premature. Does that mean you're going to learn? Yeah, you're still going to learn. Are there going to be mistakes? Absolutely. Is it going to be messy sometimes? Sure, but that's running a business. Perfect businesses don't exist. That's part of just what's going to happen. If you're dealing with that, the idea of starting this new location expanding everything else and everything else is already a mess, you're just pouring gasoline on a fire that's already there and it's just getting worse. Jon: These processes and systems really give you a leverage that allows you to be really successful in a lot of different styles of expansion. Whether that's opening another office, or acquiring something. The best investors in the world—like Warren Buffett—are essentially people who are really good at systems and processes. When they go and acquire a business that's in chaos, they know that they can immediately implement the right systems, processes, and management team, and that business will become profitable very quickly. It puts you in a position where you have a huge competitive advantage over anybody who's just bootstrapping it or shooting from the hip. Jason: Another form of premature expansion is death by opportunity. Entrepreneurs, we see opportunities everywhere. You know you're the opportunist type of property manager or entrepreneur business owner if you are like, “We can start a roofing company. Let's start a maintenance company and we could serve these other companies. Let's do roofing. Let's get a house cleaning business. Let's do carpet cleaning.” I know business owners that they have new property management, and they have seven or eight other businesses. Jon: It's like the jack of all trades, master of none. Jason: Some of them can be good. They can build out teams, they can have things really well dialed in. If you learn to do it for one—like you we're saying—you can do this for all of these businesses and make sure that it's going well. But if one's a mess, you're just adding more problems and making it more challenging. What it does is it dilutes focus. Focus is one of the key ingredients for making money. If you want to make a certain amount of money, and you're like, “Well, let's add more services.” You would think that would add more money. What it usually does for most entrepreneurs is it just dilutes what they can already do. It just divides that up and it becomes more and more challenging. It's a lot easier to make a million dollars in one company than a million dollars to 10 annually. That's another form of premature expansion. That all comes back to the planning system. The planning system, and our vision, and goals as a company give me constraints as an entrepreneur and as a visionary. I'm like, “We could do this and we could do that.” My team is like, “We can't. We've got all these goals that we’re working towards. We've got this, we got this. Maybe we can make room for that next quarter or next year.” This protects them from the grenade when I come back from the conference and I have all these ideas and want to change everything. They'll say, “I can see that I don't want to lose sight of what we have going already and destroy that momentum. I want to achieve these objectives. It's going to get us money. It's going to get us making a difference. All these things that I want. We need to keep that going. Then we can figure out where that can fit in.” It just allows us to not just go through the buffet line, throw a ton of stuff on a plate, and then end up not being able to utilize even half of it. Jon: Once everything that you're talking about—the communication systems, the processes, the systems—once all that's in place, it also gives your staff and your employees a mechanism for delivering feedback to you, even if that's uncomfortable feedback. Almost always—maybe not almost always, but at least in the businesses that I've run as a high-level manager—the employees who are actually doing the operations a lot of the time have really solid ideas on how to make things more efficient, but they feel afraid of communicating those up. By opening up those channels of communication and making it so that it's not uncomfortable for a lower-level employee to give a great idea and have that idea be received, you can actually empower your team to fix a lot of the inefficiencies. Jason: Here's a real simple thing that I thought of that you can recognize if you're ready for premature expansion. If you are the one running all your team meetings, and you're the first to speak in all those meetings, you're already losing. Have you noticed that I'm not running the meetings, and everyone asks me what I think less? “Hey, are you stuck on anything?” I'm the last one to go. Because it's so easy for us as entrepreneurs to say, “Hey, here's my idea. Everyone should do this.” Then when you ask your team members they're going to go, “Yeah, what the boss says. He pays me. That sounds like a good idea. I'll go with what he says. That's the safest answer.” Jon: Growth in all levels—personally and it when it's directly related to revenue—means that there has to be an integration of discomfort sometimes. The proper communication levels mitigate and buffer the discomfort that employees have for communicating good ideas. Oftentimes, the people on the ground level are the ones most capable of finding the thing that's going to work for your current team dynamic. Jason: This is something we've been thinking about a while. We run our business using a system that we called DoorGrow OS that I feel like is one of the most brilliant planning systems out there. It's a consolidation of several different planning systems, operational coaches I've worked with, having brilliant operators on my team. It's something I built out even software-wise that we use internally as a team. You've just started to get a taste of this. There's clarity. There's communication. Everyone knows what they're doing. We're hitting targets, and goals, and objectives each week. The momentum is strong. This is how we grew 300% in a year. Jon: It's a really interesting way of running a team. I've run a lot of teams that have a lot of branches underneath the management. This just provides a level of efficiency and oversight that still makes upward and downward communication very feasible and very easy. Maybe at some point, I'll convince you to share that system with the rest of the world, but right now, it's been really interesting for me to understand some of those principles and see how the years and years of working with all these coaches have been baked into some of these ideas and the things that you're identifying as the ways to know whether what you're doing is premature expansion or actually profitable growth. I don't know if you have anything else on your list, but I know that we're starting to get a little bit long. Maybe we could just recap what we’ve talked about. I'll turn it over to you for any final words of how somebody can take what we spoke about in this podcast and make it actionable. For somebody who has nodded their head to at least one or two of the things that you said during this podcast, what should be their next step for starting to figure out how they can start to tweak the knobs and levers of their business in order to be more in line with what will actually make them successful? Jason: Every business owner is doing the best they can with what they know. Every person on the planet really is doing the best they can with the limited access to knowledge and resources they currently possess. If you knew better, you would do better. There's a lot of things I don't know. There's a lot of things that I can't see. My best feedback is—you've probably heard a lot of ideas on this recording. Maybe you were nodding your head, but ultimately, if you feel stuck, or you don't feel like you're going as fast as you want, or you don't feel like your company's in momentum, then you need help. You need to reach out. That's one of the scariest things for us to do as entrepreneurs, but I do it. I have coaches that I pay. I go and I get help. If I don't know something, I hire a coach. I've got an event I’m planning on going to in March to learn something that I feel like I'm weak at in the business. Normally I would hand up to other team members but something I've avoided that I need to know more about. You need to have enough vulnerability to recognize that you can't do it all on your own. You're not Atlas holding the entire globe on your back. You need to get support.  If you don't feel like you have support, if you don't feel like you have somebody in your corner, if you feel like you're the smartest person in the room in your company, and everybody's just going to say yes to whatever you throw at them, there's a big problem. You've got big blind spots. You need to reach out. You need to get help. That could be us at DoorGrow. Set up a call with us, reach out. We can help you identify some of the blind spots, some of the leaks, some of the inefficiencies, and get you into a high state of momentum. We start in those five core functions at the very beginning. Jon: I want to just mention—because I can feel that somebody just had some resistance to, “You can't do it on your own. You need a coach.” That almost sounds too salesy. Maybe we could alter that statement and soften it for that person who feels resistance to that because you could do it on your own. You could go to the bookstore. You could buy all the books. You could read through them all. You could slowly implement things, and see what works, and what doesn't work, and it would take you forever, or you can work with a coach and collapse time. For people who are looking to collapse time, that's when it becomes incredibly valuable to work with somebody who's already done all of that research and extracted the best practices, split testing all the ideas and figured out what works. Now, you can have a roadmap for how to get to success in the quickest way possible instead of having to trial and error your way down the road. Jason: I am a big fan of trial and error, but I do also like collapsing time. My coaches have helped me collapse time dramatically. I was that guy. I was for many years. I was the guy that thought I could watch another Youtube video, or read another book, and I could figure out on my own. It took a ton of time. You have to recognize there are at least three currencies. If you want growth, it involves time, it's going to involve money, and it's going to involve focus, or energy, or work, or effort, whatever you want to call it. Those could probably be broken up even further, but you've got these three currencies. If you use all three and invest all three you can grow faster. If you decide, “I'm not going to invest money. I don’t want to go hire a coach. I don't want to pay DoorGrow. I don’t want to go spend money on this.” Then you can go buy cheap things like books, and watch free YouTube videos, and get a lot of some good stuff. Some stuff that's leading you the wrong way but you don't know. They're experts so maybe they'll be telling the truth. You try it out. Then what ends up happening is it's just going to take infinitely more time. That was my challenge. I spent a massive amount of time. It was painful. When I finally started to invest serious money towards the best that I could afford at the time, I collapsed time dramatically, and I always made that money back. Not even just made it back. I made it back monthly. I was making more than I paid the coach. That's almost been my experience with every coach. I've got so many coaches that I paid $5000 a month. It gets ridiculous, but do I make more of that in a month? Absolutely. Jon: One of the things that I hear on the calls is if someone isn't seriously setting goals for their business, it feels to me like it's because they're afraid that they're not going to hit them. If they don't say them out loud then they don't have to suffer the defeat of not hitting it. One of the reasons to work with a coach is to have the accountability and the hand-holding required to get you over that resistance and that hump so that you can actually start hitting those numbers. The first time that you hit one of the goals that you set, you get addicted to it. You want to keep hitting goals, but because people have set so many goals in the past and then failed at hitting them, they don't set goals anymore. Jason: They don’t trust themselves. Jon: One of the things that a good coach can do is get you back in alignment with your goals so that you recognize that that vision is possible to hit. That's part of that collapsing time. There's a ton of great business books out there, there's a ton of great niche courses out there. You can throw money into a million different ways to “grow your business,” but if you're not looking at your business holistically, and you're just looking to fix the symptom with some kind of a band-aid, you're never going to be an A-player in anything that you're doing. There's an opportunity to level up by working with a coach—whether that's DoorGrow or somebody else. I have worked with coaches for the past 20 years. I believe in them wholeheartedly. If you're going to excel at what you're doing, you have to have somebody who's playing a bigger game than you. Jason: That's very true. I agree. Let's end on that note. Jon, I appreciate you and hanging out with you again. Those that are watching, make sure to—if you're watching this on Youtube—subscribe, like us. If you're hearing this in iTunes, please, be sure to leave us some feedback. We want to hear your real feedback there. Leave us a review. That helps us out. Jon: I’m also going to say before this goes out. Join us in the Facebook group because this can be an ongoing conversation that we have in the Facebook group. We have so many stellar examples of property managers who are doing all the right things there. You can interface with them, you can interface with the people on our team, and you can tell us what's working, not working in your business. Then if you disagree with everything that we just said, we invite you to come and have that conversation as well. Because any type of conversation whether you're praising what we're doing or trying to chip it down with an ax is going to allow us to grow, and iterate, and become better. We want to have you in that group. Jason: Well said. Until next time, everybody. To our mutual growth. Bye, everyone. You just listened to the DoorGrow Show. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet, in the DoorGrow Club. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead, content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow. At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge in getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today’s episode on our blog at doorgrow.com. To get notified of future events and news, subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow hacking your business and your life.

Breakthrough ideas with Jon: How can a church stay relevant to their culture? How can a church stay relational to the communities in which God has placed them? How can a church remain resolute to their DNA and their calling? If you will create physical space, you allow conversations to begin to happen, that are … Read More Read More

On today's episode of Gritty Founder, Kreig Kent talks with Jon Sebastiani about how he built KRAVE and Sonoma Brands. Jon shares advice on brand marketing, building a team, and trusting your instincts as an entrepreneur. Jon Sebastiani founded Sonoma Brands, a specialist growth equity firm, in January 2016 and currently leads all aspects of the Firm's investment strategy and portfolio management. Prior to starting Sonoma Brands, Jon founded KRAVE Pure Foods, which he sold to the Hershey Company in 2015. Some Questions Kreig asks Jon: - How did you decide to start a beef jerky company? (13:10) - How long did it take you to see traction? (23:45) - What are some gritty things you did in the early days to get the KRAVE brand off the ground? (26:17) - How did you hire your first employee? (32:48) - What was the transition from running and operating KRAVE to Sonoma Brands? (43:34) - How do you view entrepreneurship? (49:29) - What do you look for when you meet an entrepreneur for the first time? (51:57) - What advice would you give your younger self? (56:31) In This Episode, You Will Learn: - About Jon's background and how he became an entrepreneur (4:28) - How Jon built KRAVE Jerky (17:04) - Tips for brand marketing (26:32) - Jon's thoughts on equity (38:07) - Only the paranoid survive (50:42) - Enjoy the journey of entrepreneurship (53:45) - The importance of true authenticity, charisma, and the ability to sell your vision (55:02) - Trust your instincts (58:51) Connect with Jon Sebastiani: Twitter Sonoma Brands KRAVE Also Mentioned on This Show... Jon's favorite quote: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ―Martin Luther King, Jr. Jon's book recommendation: Different by Youngme Moon

Happy Lunar New Year! Though it is a Dog year, the Kitties at the LongKang will still sharpen our claws upon the fabrics of politics and current affairs! In this episode, we dissect the recent explosion of sexual harassment allegations and the politics of it. Why are some women believed and others are not? Can we separate the sexual predator from their works? Is the casting couch a moral problem in Singapore? How did Anna Farris trigger Jon? How do I win a copy of "The Phantom of Oxley Castle"? Find out more in this episode of LongKangKitties!

LIZ Jon let it on board. Jon let it grow inside the turkey. Jon blew the warning signal. LYMAN Why. LIZ Special Order 937. IRMA What's that. LIZ That's what I want to know. Jon's head is placed on the table. His eyes flicker into consciousness. LIZ What is Special Order 937. JON You know I can't tell you that. LIZ Then there's not point in talking to you. Pull the plug. JON Special Order 937 in essence asked me to direct the ship to the planet, investigate a life form, possibly hostile and bring it back for observation. With discretion, of course. LIZ Why. Why not tell us. JON Would you have gone. IRMA It wasn't in the contract. JON My very point. LIZ They wanted to investigate the Garfield. No matter what happened to us. JON That's unfair. Actually, you weren't mentioned in the order. LYMAN Those bastards. JON See it from their point of view. They didn't know what the Garfield is. LIZ How do we kill it. JON I don't think you can. Not in this ship, given its life support systems. But I might be able to. LIZ How. JON I don't know quite yet. I'm not exactly at my best at the moment. If you would reconnect... LIZ No way. JON Don't be so hasty. You'll never kill it without my help. LIZ We've had enough of your help. JON You've barely got any oxygen left. If you don't go into hypersleep, you'll die with or without the Garfield. LIZ Nice try, Jon. JON I will do whatever I can to help you. I swear it. IRMA Pull the plug. LYMAN I agree. JON You idiots. You still don't realize what you're dealing with. The Garfield is a perfect organism. Superbly structured, cunning, quintessentially violent. With your limited capabilities you have no chance against it. LYMAN You admire it. JON How can one not admire perfection. I will kill it because I am programmed to protect human life as you know. LIZ Even if you have contempt for it. JON Even then. Today's strip

Episode 173: Jon Levy - The Science Of Adventure (The 2 AM Principle) Jon Levy is a behavior scientist, consultant, writer and keynote speaker best known for his work in the fields of Influence and Social Experience. He created The “Influencers”, a private community and dining experience for tastemakers and industry leaders. Members range across all industries from well-known actors and Olympians, to executives at major companies and royalty. Influencers has received a fair share of media including stories in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, The Observer, to name a few. Combining years of experience running Influencers and research, Jon has developed a deep understanding in designing social experiences and creating influencer programs for brands. After years of studying what has become known as “The Science of Adventure”, Jon was able to discern that every adventurous experience follows a predictable four stage processes. Each stage has specific characteristics that, when applied, make the experience exciting. His newest book is titled The 2 Am Principle: Discover The Science of Adventure. Episode 173: Jon Levy - The Science Of Adventure (The 2 AM Principle) Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “Your brain responds to novelty. If you want to have an exciting life, you need to get outside of your comfort zone." In This Episode, You Will Learn: Update on "The Influencers" -- In 8 cities, 2 countries, over 800 people hosted Why Jon visited every continent in 2015 Novelty - Your brain responds to it. How to create it... Why it's great to travel alone Travel - Do something remarkable with a level of perceived risk. It will bring growth How to live this lifestyle if you are married with kids... An example of an introvert traveling to Europe for the first time -- A "How To" guide to have a great time The Ben Franklin Effect... Stacking Favors The "IKEA" effect -- What it means and how it impacts all of us The "science of optimal anxiety" -- AKA Productive Discomfort.  Say yes to a lot of things to have a wealth of experiences E.P.I.C. Model of Adventure Establish - Put the right people and elements in place Push Boundaries - Growth, talk to strangers Increase - More Continue - End in style... Close the keynote with something memorable. Humans remember the peak and how it ends New ways to introduce yourself at conference - "I convince people to cook me dinner" George Lowenstein and his impact on Jon How to travel the world with little money "Routine is the enemy of excitement." - Jon Levy Continue Learning: Read Jon's new book: The 2 AM Principle  Follow Jon on Twitter: @JonLevyTLB To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL Episode 073: Jay Bilas - World Class ESPN Basketball Broadcaster, Toughness, Fixing The NCAA Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Jon Levy on the show, please don’t hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell The Learning Leader Show is supported by  Mizzen and Main: Performance fabric menswear. The most comfortable/durable dress shirts you will find on the market. I personally own 22 of them. To get free shipping, use the code "ryanhawk" -- To get $50 off when you purchase three shirts, use the code "ryanhawk3" -- Thank you for your support!

Here's what you'll learn from Jon: How he attracts new clients by being a member of other gyms around the area How he retains clients, and keeps them coming back for more The two key factors he looks for in his trainers before hiring them And so much more...