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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Abby Andrietsch, CEO of St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, in Milwaukee. They discuss the school's rapid growth since its founding in 2017 and its mission to serve a diverse student body with excellence. Andrietsch shares insights into how Aug Prep has become one of the top-rated schools in the state and the transformative impact it has had on the surrounding community, including a 43% reduction in crime. 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. Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/ Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership Jon Eckert LinkedIn Twitter: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl   Transcript: Jon: So today we have Abby with us. She is one of my favorite school leaders from one of my favorite schools in the country, St. Augustine Prep in Milwaukee. And so I want to start, before we jump into how you came to this, just tell the audience about Aug Prep, how it started and where it's at right now. Abby: Awesome. Thanks, Jon. So Aug Prep is not necessarily the typical story. We actually just started, we launched in 2017. So in a lot of ways we are a baby as an organization, but we have grown a lot since we launched. We serve today 2200 students on Milwaukee's South Side. We have the privilege of serving about 86% of our students would be considered low income, more than 95% students of color. And they just have all the potential in the world, same potential as my own kids who are actually also students here. But we started in 2017 with a vision of being part of bigger, something bigger in Milwaukee to serve students with excellence. Milwaukee does have a voucher program, which created a lot of opportunity for us and we chose, our founders chose as we launched to start as a Christian school very intentionally knowing we'd get about a thousand dollars less per people. But that Jesus being at the core of everything we do was really essential. And we started with four pillars, faith, family, excellence in academics, and athletics and arts. And I think a lot of schools do one or two of those really well, some even three. But it's rare that you see the four pieces coming together with excellence. And for us, I would say that's really the critical part of the fabric of who we are is serving our students with excellence, but serving the whole child with excellence. Jon: No, and I get to visit there and Erik Ellefsen, our Director of Networks and Improvement Communities has been talking about Aug Prep for years. I finally got to visit this past summer and it is a truly remarkable place. If I remember correctly, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, when your school started in the neighborhood that you were in, there was a dramatic reduction in crime in the neighborhood, literally transformed the neighborhood. In my mind it's like 42%. What's the actual number? Do you remember the actual number Abby? Abby: I do. It's 43, so you're really close We opened our doors, crime in our neighborhoods gone down by about 43%. Jon: Yeah, that's amazing. And that's what we want. We don't want just schools that are isolated things. We want schools that really serve their communities well and the communities that serve the school well. And so love that statistical evidence that this really has made a difference. Now you just purchased a college campus on the North Side of Milwaukee. So talk about that and where you're headed because again, that's a big play to make right now, especially with some of the buildings that I know may not even be usable. I don't even know all the details, but where are you at in that process, Abby? Abby: So I have a business background, we'll get to that later, but we weren't planning this. The candor is it was an opportunity that God created that we kind of jumped in fully for. On the North Side of Milwaukee, there is a college, it was Cardinal Stritch that closed about three months before our founders were there for an event. It was the first time they had been there and they walked around thinking this place was meant to be a school. And really long story short, the school was purchased. We are launching a second campus on Milwaukee's North Side. What I'm most excited about is actually the school is located in a place that bridges a lot of communities in Milwaukee from more affluent, whiter suburbs to some of the toughest zip codes in Milwaukee. And it's a really unique location. And actually the college that was there before, their history includes a deep history of faith and a deep history of diversity. And our vision for this campus is to create a campus that reflects the world we live in, where our kids are part of our diverse socioeconomic, cultural, racial student body, all grounded and unified and being in Christ, but seeing and valuing the differences in each other and learning and growing with each other through that. Jon: Love that vision, love the opportunity that wasn't even being sought out. I mean, it's so much of what Aug Prep's story is that you've just had your work multiplied in so many ways, which has been really meaningful. And now just another thing that stuck in my head. You're one of the, if not the top-rated school in Milwaukee. In what measure? How is that determined, Abby? Abby: So I mentioned earlier we're part of a voucher system in the state as such, and I'm a big believer in parent choice. And as we get public funds, being accountable to serving kids well. So I lead with the and academic excellence and serving the whole child Jesus, intertwined and grounding every piece of that. We are per the state's report card in the top 2% of growth of any schools in the state. We are the number one K to 12 school in Milwaukee, the number two in the state. We've gone back and forth between one and two. And that for me is a number. But numbers matter. I look at those numbers as necessary but not sufficient measures of, "Are we serving our students and our families well?" Jon: Love that example of excellence. And anytime you can measure growth and not just status proficiency, which can be based on the demographics of your school or the location and the educational attainment of parents, you actually are saying, "Here's where they come in and here's where they grow." And I love the point that it's necessary but not sufficient. And so in this conversation about choice and what that looks like, certainly in Texas, that's a really polarizing conversation right now. At the center, we want to serve leaders who are doing great work to serve each kid wherever they're called to serve. And so that's how we came across you. So tell us how you got into this role of CEO of this startup school that now was purchased a college campus. How do you get into that? You have a fairly non-traditional journey. So would you mind sharing that? Abby: I do have a non-traditional journey. My training and education is a lot more on the business side. It was actually when I was in graduate school that I stepped from a room full of business leaders talking about what I thought I wanted to go into totally disheartened because I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do and I stepped into a room with people with business backgrounds working in education, and it was a light moment for me, a light bulb moment. That in and of itself led me down working with some different national foundations. Gone back and forth in the corporate world a little bit, but I had the chance in Milwaukee almost 15 years ago to co-found an organization that worked with leaders from our local public schools, charter schools, and also private schools. And Aug Prep didn't exist at that point in time. And it was a group of leaders that came together around kids and quality and not politics of the adults really in the city. And I spent about eight years getting to work with that organization, helping great schools grow, schools that wanted to get better, get better. We had a whole team of coaches that walked and worked with school leaders. I actually personally stepped away from that after eight years, wanting a little bit more time with my kids and to be the mom that I wanted to be. I just realized that the balance, it was a stage in life where I needed to step back. And about a year later I found myself in the interim role at Aug Prep, vehemently planning to be interim. And five and a half years later, I couldn't be happier to be here. Both of my kids are here. That was actually part of the decision to go from interim to full-time was my family made a decision to move closer to the school and to have our kids here. And it has just been God's, I think, biggest blessing for us in the last five and a half years through it all. Jon: Well, great example of the fact that I don't really think work-life balance exists. I think it's something that we always strive to attain. I've yet to meet anyone who's achieved it. And so I think there's work-life rhythm. So knowing when your family needs more of you. And then if you can get healthy work-life integration, which I think is what you've done, that's a win. That's a win. Abby: I think of it as harmony. So I like your rhythm, but I don't believe in work-life balance. But I do think there's a harmony that comes together and it looks different at different times. Jon: Well, and to be clear, so I give attribution, I think it's Adam Grant's work-life rhythm he talks about. I really like that. I think that's useful. So when you think about the challenges ahead for Aug Prep specifically, you're in a particular context. I mean Milwaukee is a gigantic voucher experiment that's been going on for decades. So it's in a different kind of context than a lot of people. But what do you see as the biggest challenges to really being what you aspire to be at Aug Prep? That's one of the things I was impressed by this summer, you might be the number one or number two school in the state of Wisconsin for growth, but there definitely wasn't a sense that you had it all figured out. It felt like you all knew that there's places where you could get better and we're striving to do that. And that was what our work was together and how we do that joyfully. But in that joy there are challenges. And that joy doesn't mean it's the freedom from struggle. Joy is actually the fuel to struggle well, so when we lay these challenges out, that's not to depress the audience, but it's to be honest about, "Here are the challenges you see." So if you were to identify one, two, or three challenges ahead for Aug Prep, especially as you expand, what would you identify? Abby: Yeah. Well we've been a mixed expansion really since we started. In some ways we've added the equivalent of an additional school almost every year since we've opened. If I go big picture, I think the biggest challenge that we have as a community, but I would say this as a country as well, I just see it much more intensely as a community would be a lack of belief and a lack of hope. So for our kids, especially in certain parts of Milwaukee, we have far too many kids that are 12, 13, 14 years old that are being told that they're never going to live to be 18, 19, 20. So just do what you want. Our kids need to be believed in and they need a sense of hope. And what I love about what I get to do is that hope gets to be Jesus grounded every day. In my last role, I didn't get to. Who I was as a leader, was deeply grounded in faith, but it wasn't an overt part of my job. But as we think about the work we do that hope is eternal and earthly, but I think we have generations that have been failed, especially in our cities by our education system. And so how do we create a sense of hope where they don't see it from their past? And that's a big part. But along with that is a sense of belief in what's possible. And I would argue that any of the kids that walk through our doors here at Aug Prep are just as capable as my own kids. They're just as capable as kids from our suburbs. And there are far too many adults that see the challenges, which are real, that they step in and through our doors with and don't believe that they can succeed at high levels. And I think the difference in what we do here is we do believe in what's possible. We set the bar high for them, equip them with tools to fly. But that lack of hope is I think one of our biggest challenges because it's mindset change, not just for our kids but for our community. If I get tactical, we've been growing a lot and so we've always got to think about how do we hire great people? We're very intentional. We have a super rigorous process that people don't love going through, but when they're on the team, they love what it creates. Thinking about the growth that we've had in the last two years, we've hired more than 75 new staff each of the last two years. We've had more than 600 new students each of the last two years. That's a big deal. Both hiring enough great people, I would argue even more important is creating, keeping, and protecting the culture that we've worked so hard to build. And so being really intentional about finding, developing, onboarding really great team members and even more, how do we be really intentional as new kids, as new staff come onboard? Having that culture that isn't created by lack of intention, but instead is there from the get-go. And actually it's gotten stronger each of the last couple of years as a result. Jon: Well, two things on that. You certainly will be a case study in the next book that I'm working on, which is Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools. Because I think you're doing this in this powerful way where that optimism you have is grounded in the experience of what you've seen since 2017. You've seen kids become more of who they're created to be, and that becomes this virtuous cycle of improvement where you're not basing it on naive optimism where it's like, "I hope they'll be better or I think they could be better." You know they can be more of who they're created to be because you've seen it over and over again and then that becomes part of the culture. The second part of that I wanted to ask is could you just briefly run through what your interview process is because that scale of hiring is remarkable in schools and trying to maintain culture and even improve culture doing that, that's a tremendous feat. So can you just describe what your interview process is? Abby: Yeah, that could be its own podcast. Jon: I'm sure. Yeah. Abby: And you can ask more. A couple of key pieces are part of it. A few years ago as a senior team, we took time to step back and say, "What are the most important characteristics of any team member at Aug Prep?" Could be a teacher, it could be administrator, could be one of our facilities, team members, security guard. And we identified three key pieces. And for us, the first and foremost is an active and living faith walk with Jesus. The second is growth mindset and coachability. If you're an educator that's been in the work for 30 years, you don't think you have anything to grow and you want to coast, we're not the place to come. There are great places for educators that are there to go, but it's just not the right culture for us. And the third is actually belief and belief in our kids and our community and what's possible. Those three things are built into every step of the process. From phone interview to essays, we ask people to write as part of the process to in-person. In addition to the core capabilities of any role, it's how are we really intentional? And we have a really diverse staff. I mean just even racially and ethnically, about 45% of our staff is diverse and we're working to make sure that that's throughout our organization and everybody is unified in certain places, Jesus being first and foremost and a desire to grow and learn. And so that in and of itself creates a place that staff members want to be and stay. So our goal is every year to have at least 90% of our staff stay. We've been between 85 and 90% for the last several years, 85 and 95% for the last several years. Our best source of new staff is our current team. And so when people want to tell, we just had a team member whose sister and brother-in-law moved across the country from California. They were looking at Ohio and at Aug Prep. And when you have team members that love what they do and where they work every day, it's the best way for us to recruit new staff. And it's been a really big part of how we do what we do. At the end of the day, we try to make sure every decision we make is around kids first. We are not a place that makes adult first decisions, and we recognize that in order to best serve our kids, we have to have a strong and healthy team. So there's a tension and balance that goes there, but I also think it means that we recruit team members with a really high bar for themselves with belief for kids, and that want to be in a place that strives to serve kids well. And that in and of itself creates that culture I talked about. Jon: I've been able to see that. Again, I need to be at Aug Prep when there are kids there because that's when it's fun. Abby: Yeah, you do. Jon: But in the team that you have, we have four of them that are in our master's program at Baylor. So Aug Prep has becomes some kind of a strange pipeline for Milwaukee to Waco Texas. But I see that in your team, they are building other leaders all the time. We always say leaders are always building leaders. And so they're encouraging the next group of people from Aug Prep. And I hope that we always have a nice conduit work. With your growth, you're going to need to continue growing leadership hopefully indefinitely, and you need partners to do that. We want to be that kind of catalytic partner for you where we can connect Aug Prep leaders with other schools because so many times, especially in the Christian school world, there's a lot of navel-gazing about, "These are our problems and nobody else's and nobody understands our context and nobody understands these challenges." And what I've loved about the leaders that you've sent to us at Baylor is they're always looking to get more information and understand other contexts and figure out what they can take back to Aug Prep and then share out what is and isn't working at Aug Prep. And so that is a way to not only build culture, but actually accelerate that culture development. So really encouraged there. So we talked about the challenges, but you already kind of jumped into the opportunities you see, but what would be the thing you're most excited about for the year ahead for Aug Prep? And then we'll jump into a lightning round, but what are you most excited about for the year ahead and the opportunities you see? Abby: I'm most excited about, so this year ahead, we graduate our first group of college graduates. So I'm starting to see, I'll have finished my sixth year at the end of this school year. I'm just getting to see the ripple effects and I already see them. One of our graduates from just this last year is at Marquette. He's going on a service trip over Christmas this fall. He's talking about coming back and talking to our young men and women in chapel. And so just seeing the ripple effect of the leadership that's leaving. And he's actually a young man that would self-identify as lucky he didn't get kicked out in middle school, got in a lot of trouble. We do a lot around restorative practices. I know one of our fellows is doing a lot within the Baylor program around that. And it's so cool to watch our kids go from really struggling with themselves as much as it is with others and often with faith underneath to really flourishing and shining as young adults. And I can't wait to see what happens in the community. So big picture, I'm probably most excited about watching some of our first class of graduates stepping into that next step of the journey. I think sometimes, and Jon, we've got four fellows at Baylor. You didn't ask me to do this, but we're a learning organization. There's a lot of things we're doing well. There's a lot of things we're still learning how to do. We want to share what we're doing, but how do we learn from others? And our fellows are down at Baylor because they're in a place that seeks to do that too. I've watched you and I've watched the Baylor school leadership, the Center for School leadership. It's not about faith or academic excellence, faith or serving the whole child. You all lead with that and that I talked about being really important and you create space for our leaders to learn. And I think I often run into folks that say, "Well, you all are different. We can't do what Aug Prep is doing." I don't actually think we've done anything that's remarkably special or different. What we've done is pulled best practices from a lot of places and continued every year to think about how we get better, who do we need to learn from or what do we need to do differently? And we've been able to get bigger and better at the same time. We haven't arrived. I hope we never do because I think part of the culture of who we are is actually that constant mindset of what do we need to keep doing better to serve our kids and community? Jon: Love that attitude. Thank you. Thank you for that encouragement. And we just want to find more partners like you because they're out there. How do we connect other Aug Preps to this Aug Prep? People with a similar kind of mission and view and where can we learn together? And that's, I think as a Christian R1 University, that's our call is to help connect those pieces. So I'm grateful for the hard work you do or the work that the Lord does through you in the community because that's the evidence that it actually matters. Because we can talk about these things in platitudes all the time and sit down here at a university and say, "Hey, here's what we think people should do." What we need to see is what people are doing and where that's making a difference for kids. So let's jump to the lightning round. So I know you have pulled from a lot of great ideas, so I'm curious if in the last year there's a really good book you might recommend to me and to us that you're like, "This was a super helpful book", whether it's in education or not, just a good book that you've read the last year. Or listened to. It's fine. Audible counts too. Abby: I do listen to a lot of books. I love to read, but I often find myself falling asleep when I sit down or lie down to read a little bit. You know what? I am a big believer in reading a lot of different things and pulling the pieces that apply most to your circumstances. So you talked about Adam Grant. I love reading his books. Anything Patrick Lencioni, I've read multiple times. We've pulled pieces from Jim Collins, Good to Great and Built to Last. And so I would say any of those pieces. We read as a leadership group last year, Fierce Conversations, there's several takes of that, Radical Candor being one of them. But my probably biggest encouragement is be a reader. And for me it's been, those are all more leadership organizational books. When I'm really wrestling with a topic, I try to read the full spectrum of perspectives on it to then figure out where I'm at and finding those books. Just Teaching is one that I did just pick up in the last year, so I hadn't had a chance to see it before then, but it was one that I picked up and I'm not a teacher and so that's not my skill set, but there are pieces to learn and to then share with other people. Jon: Yeah, I love that. And it's really common, Abby, I hope you know that I am typically mentioned Lencioni, Adam Grant, Jim Collins, Jon Eckert. That's kind of the normal group that I'm mentioned. So that's comforting to know that. Abby: You know what actually what ties all of those people together, Jon, is you don't just think in theory. So when you write, you're not just thinking in theory. And I will own that that can be my struggle with higher ed is sometimes just being caught up in the theory. It's all of those leaders who are also authors think about how you take the theory and apply it in practice and how do you break it down in a way that is easy to digest. And so Lencioni writes in fables, Adam Grant tells his stuff in a lot of stories as well. And so that's, at least for me, usually I capture lessons learned by seeing things either I'm struggling with or trying to figure out how to put words into in stories that other people are talking about. Jon: Yeah. Well, and I love all those same authors for the same reason. And then is this Fierce Conversation because this the one by Susan Scott, is that who you? Abby: Yeah. Jon: So I have not read that one. It looks like another one I should read. So thank you for that. So let's start with this. Worst piece of advice you've ever given or received? Abby: Worst piece of advice? Jon: It could be a leadership piece. Abby: I had somebody tell me that I was taking somebody else's spot in business school because I wasn't sure if at some point I'd want some time to stop and be a mom. And so that was probably the worst piece of advice and my encouragement for anyone listening is that I think there's different phases of life. I also think that any education we get can be applied to lots of aspects of what we do. Jon: Yeah, no, that's good. I'm assuming that was because that was your degree at Stanford when you were getting question on that, right? I can't imagine. Abby: Right. And that was an awesome degree, but I actually had a whole conversation. It was someone in a generation that fought so that people like I can make the decisions that are best for me. But I think they fought for the choice, not for the decision themselves. And I appreciate being able to make it myself. Jon: That's well said. That's another podcast that we could do on how those choices get made. And so really grateful for that background you have because I think your curiosity and your ability to synthesize theory and apply it, I mean that comes great degree programs will do that. And obviously Stanford knows something about educating people, so that's good. Then best piece of advice you've ever given or received? Abby: Not to seek perfection, but always to strive to keep getting better. I think we get caught up in trying to be perfect and miss the opportunity to keep getting better. Jon: That's our favorite quote we use with our improvement communities. That your plan is possibly wrong and is definitely incomplete. So that should be empowering. There's places to grow. Then if you could in a word or a phrase, describe what Aug Prep will be in the next year, what would it be? So word or phrase for Aug Prep that would describe it in the next year? Abby: My hope is that it is a light on the hill. How do we be a light for the community, not just the kids in our building, but the whole community outside our building as well? Jon: Love that, beautiful sentiment. Well, Abby, thank you for being with us. Thanks for the work you do at Aug Prep. It's great to have partners like you because you make us all better. Abby: Thanks, Jon. Appreciate it.  

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Matt Northrop, the Associate Head of School at Oaks Christian School in Southern California. They discuss the school's decision to eliminate cell phone use during the school day and the positive effects this has had on student engagement and community building. Northrop shares insights into the implementation process and how students and parents have responded.  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. Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/ Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership Jon Eckert LinkedIn Twitter: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl   Transcription: Jon: Today, we're here with Matt Northrop, amazing leader in Southern California at Oaks Christian School. This conversation really started through a text exchange where I was asking how the year was going, and I got this great response from Matt. First of all, give us a little bit of a window into how the year started at Oaks and what you're doing is a little bit different than what you've done in the past. Matt Northrop: Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Jon, have the utmost respect for you and the show and all the things that you all are doing, but yeah, this year we, so a little bit about Oaks Christian. We are about 1,700 students, a little over 1,100 on the high school side. This year we made the jump in after reading Anxious Generation made the decision with leadership that we wanted to walk away from our students being able to use cell phones while on campus. We've had a number of different iterations with cell phones. We've used them in the classrooms, we've kind of jumped in on the tech side and really believing that that could be a tool. I think a lot of schools have gone that direction. We just really felt as we not only read it, but also as we saw a lot of the same conclusions that he was coming up with, we really felt like we needed to do something drastic on the phones. We had pretty early on made sure that our teachers were involved in this decision and that they were aware of it and communicated at the beginning of the summer for all of our students and parents. What we've done is we've made it where you can't have a cell phone on or in your possession throughout the school day from, and we start our first classes at 8:30, so 8:30 until 3:15. What we have found, and this is what we were texting back and forth, is it has absolutely ... Not that our culture wasn't for us. I think the culture was always there. What the cell phone was doing was interrupting what the culture had the potential of being. As we took away cell phones in these first few weeks of school, the noise level in the hallways has multiplied probably two or three fold in good ways. Kids are laughing, kids are playing games, they actually have board games in our spiritual life office that they're playing. Kids are in circles and they're having conversations. They're sharing stories where you might find the first few weeks when there were cell phones, and kids sitting on a couch or a chair somewhere just kind of minding their own business on the phone. I don't see kids by themselves anymore. Whether that's them having the courage of just wanting to go out and start talking with friends or meet new friends, or if that's people, kids on our campus who are seeing somebody who's all by themselves and sitting down and having that conversation. It has been a huge boost to our community, to the connection that takes place on campus. We've really look back at the teachers are saying, this is a game-changer for the school. Jon: It's powerful. We're hearing this, I mean, some states are banning phones, there are districts moving to this, they're public schools, independent schools. I'm curious to hear how your parents received this. You mentioned teachers starting to communicate this I think early in the summer. How did you go about communicating this shift and moved away from, this is something that I think sometimes kids feel like it's a punitive measure, like you're taking away something to, oh no, we're offering you something better. We've had an engaging culture in the past, we think this will be even better. How did you roll that out? Then what was the response that you got maybe initially versus where you're at right now? Matt Northrop: Sure. What was interesting is we communicated this via email to parents at the beginning of summer. We kept waiting, honestly, as administrators waiting for an angry mob to approach us. We did not receive a single email from a parent that was upset about this policy. In fact, at our new parent orientation a week before school started, it got a huge ovation, the fact that we were making this decision. This is one of those decisions for us that it has had the support of our parents from the get-go. Part of that is I think parents are starting to see this, and then part of that was probably the way that we communicated this out as far as, again, we're not trying to make their kids miserable. We're not trying to keep them from connecting to their kids. What we are trying to do is have academic conversations, increase community, allow their kids to be able to see each other face-to-face and develop empathy and develop courage and develop curiosity and all of those things that can be difficult to do with a cell phone on their hand. What's interesting too, Jon, is I've had a few kids walk up and they look to their left and they look to their right, make sure no friends are listening and they say, "Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for taking the cell phones away. Even the kids, to some degree, not all of them are happy about this for sure, but to some degree I believe that they're starting to see the difference on campus to have that connection. Jon: Did you get resistance from students at the beginning that's now reduced or did you have any of that pushback from them? Matt Northrop: Nothing serious. Kind of the adolescent eye roll, probably collective eye roll, but again, even as reminders on campus, the reminder is not, we don't have big cell phones with a red circle and red lines through it. We have the reason why, so we're emphasizing community. We're emphasizing contribution, and we're emphasizing celebration. If your head's not up and your eyes aren't open, you can't do any of those things, and so be available. See those things that you can celebrate on campus, find ways in which you can contribute and then be a part of this community. Jon: Love that, love the three Cs there, and it's a positive, not a negative. I think that's remarkable. I think more schools can lean into that in ways that I think would be increasingly life-giving. I was going to say, your school. I've been able to be on your campus several times, and it's one of the more engaging campuses I've ever been on because you have these institutes that connect kids, and you're now fifth through 12th grade or have, you've gone down to fourth? Matt Northrop: Fourth through 12th. Jon: Fourth through 12th. Fourth through 12th grade, you have this deeply engaged campus where you're moving all over, it feels like a college campus, and kids are entering into these different spaces and doing the work of professionals and they're connected to professionals. You're obviously in a talent-rich environment that you tap into well, so talk a little bit about the way you all think about engagement anyway, even removed from the smartphone conversation. How do you think about that in meaningful ways? Because I think, let me back that up with one other piece of context, because what you said earlier resonated from what Jonathan Haidt said about the students. He asks about the way technology interferes with their engagement. He asked them his classes, "Is anybody here upset that Netflix is a thing that they're streaming on Netflix?" Everybody's like, "Yeah," Netflix, they love Netflix. Netflix is a win. Then he's asked them, "Does anybody wish that we could go back from social media?" About half of them say they would like that to go away, which I think speaks to kind of the invasive nature of some of the technology where Netflix wants you to give it your attention because it wants you to be on, but it's not this constant clawing at you that I think we all feel even as adults. When we talk about kids not being able to handle phones, and I would argue most adults can't handle their phones either because it's a multi-billion dollar industry to try to keep our attention. I think you all have acknowledged that, have seen that, but I think better than most schools, you have already built a culture of engagement that already was focused on community, contribution, celebration. Talk a little bit about where you've built that culture and then maybe how this has added to it. Matt Northrop: Yeah. There's a couple things that come to mind as I think through community. One is we've, from the very get-go, been very Socratic, especially in our humanities. A normal thing is to walk to campus and you'll see the Socratic circles with a novel out, with scripture out, with a document that they're reading together, asking great questions. I think that has lended itself where the teacher is not the center of the classroom. The discussion is, or an idea is versus the teacher. The teacher typically will sit down with the students in a posture of learning together. I think from the very beginning, Oaks has been a place where scholarly conversation, it's a normal thing for kids who engage in that scholarly conversation. Jon: Let me interject there. I did get to see a conversation at your school where they were discussing the things they carry, and there were about 12 students gathered around with a teacher. It was really hard to tell where the teacher was and where the students were, but the conversation was one of my favorite conversations I've ever been able to listen into, so absolutely agree. That was now maybe four years ago? Matt Northrop: Five years ago, yeah. Jon: Yeah, four or five years. Amazing, so yeah, I can second that. That's a powerful thing that you all do at Oaks. Matt Northrop: A special part for sure. Then I think on the other side of things, we also genuinely believe that our students can be contributors to society, to culture now. They don't need to wait until they're 35. with these, we've started five institutes. These are institutes for students. We have about 25% of our kids that are part of one of these. It's for students who are thinking that they may want to be an engineer or they want to be a filmmaker. We have our Institute for Arts Innovation, Institute for Global Leadership, which is Finance and Law, Institute of Engineering, which has our idea lab. We just added Health Sciences Institute and a Bible and Discipleship Institute for kids who want to go deeper into those areas. It really becomes a highly engaging elective set of offerings. I think one of the things that I love, so maybe just as a story that might help bring this out as far as the engagement is concerned, we had an assignment that was given probably three years ago now to students, and it was just an open-ended develop a, and this was in our engineering institute, develop a water filtration device for an area, geographic area in the world that doesn't have readily access to clean water. That was the topic, and so they began to work on it, ended up putting together things that I don't completely understand as a history major, but ozone, sand filtration, heat, and there's one more element that they put together into one unit and then found out later that nobody had ever developed a filtration device like this. The next year, they wrote a journal article on it, they began to continue to test it. It was found to be 99.9% effective. That was the second year. Third year is they began to link arms with some of our other institutes of trying to find a way, how do we bring this now to an area of the world that would need this? We're sending a team in October to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we are bringing some of our global leadership students who are looking to come alongside young businesses that are happening there in ways that we can help and support that they're bringing the water device as well to be able to figure out what we can do there. Then all of it is being collected for a documentary for social change designed to help bring awareness to both, both to schools as far as things that we can do to help engage our students beyond just book knowledge, but practical knowledge as well. Also, to be able to showcase what kids can do today that can benefit the world when they're 17 years old versus when they're 37 years old. Something to help inspire this generation to be difference makers. It's an example of probably an abnormal one on our campus, but a normal conversation that's happening on our campus on a regular basis. Jon: No, and two things that that made me think of from what I've seen on campus, your idea lab, your innovation lab is in a former dog food factory. You've converted into this amazing space where the first time I was there, Jet Propulsion Labs had just been there the day before because they partner with you. I think at the time you were the only high school in the country they would partner with. They typically only partner with universities. There was a conversation going on in that lab about getting water to different parts of the world that were not getting water. It wasn't a filtration thing, it was just how to do a water project. They were white boarding all these things and generating ideas and these really creative problem solving ways with a teacher there that was super animated in what he was doing. It was also tied into, I think he was going over there some rocketry and telemetry things on one of the boards that I did not understand. Then we walked over to a machine that you have that you had a teacher and a student go get trained on it. It was like a four or five-day training, and he was going to Stanford, I think he was the head of your debate team, and he was trained on this. He talked us through, in detail, this unbelievably complex machine that you had invested time in him so that he could then invest time in students totally a transformational space on so many levels because of the human beings. It wasn't about the tools, it was the way the humans were using the tools. It was amazing. Then I think the next day they were filming a feature length film. There was a fight scene that was about to happen on campus that the booms were ... Matt Northrop: [inaudible 00:15:02]. Jon: Yes, then it was all staged. It wasn't a real fight but ... Matt Northrop: [inaudible 00:15:06]. Jon: ... It's just seeing all that come together in the documentary and the leadership pieces and in the lab and then taking it and using it globally. I mean, again, you don't want smartphones to get in the way and distract from that kind of deeper problem solving that changes students at your school as they seek to serve the world in ways that, I think, most high school students don't have a vision for what that could be because they don't necessarily have those same opportunities to think that way, because the institutes you've built bring in the kind of outside expertise that feeds Oaks and then Oaks can feed back out. Which, I mean, that's pretty powerful. I wish everybody had a chance to just walk around your campus and just see, because I was just there on random days, the times I've been there, it wasn't like anything special was going on that day, it was just, this is just what happens on campus, which was amazing. Matt Northrop: Yeah. I do think one of the elements there too is, and you've alluded to it, but finding people in your area, whether it's parents or community members that can help take the kids to the next level in those areas as well. We have advisory councils around each one have been kind of that Wayne Gretzky quote, "You don't just want to skate to where the puck is, but where it's going," and so looking at engineering of where is engineering going? Where is computer science going? Where's leadership going and preparing our kids for that? Jon: I love that, and any community can do that. Obviously, you're in a fairly unique place with some of the resources you have in your community, but every community has those resources and it doesn't really have to cost the school anything extra. In fact, it can bring resources with it where people get invested and they see what these high school kids are doing and they're like, "Oh yeah, here's some." I'm sure you have many examples of that. As the community engages your school, both sides benefit. A couple of questions. These are typically, I do like a lightning round or shorter answer questions, which I'm terrible at answering. I always like to see how well you can do this. Have there been any books that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Yeah, absolutely." Other educators, Anxious Generation, 100%, and you're like, "Yes, everybody needs to read that if you're a parent, educator." We had both of our two oldest children, we had them read it because we're like, "Hey, this is talking about you all," and it was super impactful for them. Any other books you've read that you would recommend to the people listening? Matt Northrop: I have loved, we've been walking through with one of our groups, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by Jon Mark Comer, The Importance of Solitude and Silence and Sabbath and Slowing Down. I think for all of us, that was challenging then one that I've always loved that we're reading as well as The Power of Moments by Dan or Chip and Dan Heath, that one's an eye-opener and so applicable to so many areas of school. Jon: Love both of those books. I also just read Jon Mark Comer's Practicing the Way this year. Super helpful. Good follow up to it. At least this one, he's not just taking Dallas Willard's quote and making it his book title, so that's a win. The Power Moments, the idea of the peak end rule, the idea that the promise of risk-taking is learning. It's not success. How do you do that? How do you build that into your system? Power Moments has been one of my favorite books since that came out in 2017, so hey, I would second both of those. As you look ahead at schools in general, what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids? You've removed smartphones, that's key. You've got these things going on, but what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids? Matt Northrop: That's a good question. I'd say one of the things that I am starting to see, and I guess it surrounds the AI conversation, and I think we're all trying to figure out as educators, where does AI fit? We've been taking a look at it as well. I think one of the things that we're trying to do is making sure that that is exaggerating the humanness of relationship and community where AI is. There was just that recent article of a UK school that is now teacherless and completely driven by AI. We're certainly not a school that runs away from technology, but I think that has a profound impact on education, on making sure that we're engaging our students. I hope we're not walking away from humanness altogether. I think as we look at AI to remember the impact that a teacher has in a classroom of kids of that face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, wrestling with big ideas, having those conversations that are all unique to each class period and not getting to the point where we're letting AI teach our kids. I think that's a dangerous spot. Nor do I really think that that really engages young people either. Jon: Everything you've talked about so far on this podcast could be potentially aided by artificial intelligence, but it could not be done with artificial intelligence. I love that exaggerating the humanness of school. If you've read any of Cal Newport's stuff, he wrote Deep Work and then he just came out with a book, Slow Productivity, his claim, and he's a computer science MIT grad professor at Georgetown. He makes a living in the world of artificial intelligence and computers. He said, "What will become increasingly valuable in the decades ahead, wherever the world goes, is the more human our contribution is, because that's where our value is in our humanness. What are you uniquely capable of offering the world if you're able to articulate that and obsess over quality, doing less things at a natural pace?" Ruthless Elimination of Hurry ties in nicely there. That's the value you have. How do we help kids see what they've been created to be and what they contribute? Obviously, tools can help with that, but they will not replace that because AI, I always say this, this is from Darren Speaksma, it's consensus. That's all it is. It's scraping large language models. It's consensus. It is not wisdom and it can't be wisdom. There are things like if you're writing a paper, there are things where AI is super helpful for checking and fixing, but if it's generating, I don't want to read something generated by AI. One of my worst nightmares is that AI-generated emails will begin to fill up my email box to the point where I feel like I need AI-generated responses and it's just AI talking to AI, and I'm just this third party looking on at this nightmare. To me, how do we keep, I totally agree on exaggerating the humanness of what we do because that's the joy in schools. All right, so then what do you see as your biggest hope for engaging students well? I mean, I think you all are doing a lot of this really well. What would you say your biggest hope is? Matt Northrop: I think my largest hope is in the things that I'm seeing, and I know you're seeing in different Christian schools and different schools around the world, I think that we're getting to a place, as I look around, there's just so much hope in so many schools with amazing educators and leaders that are doing phenomenal things. Both with the hand in who we have been and who we've been as teachers and mentors for centuries. Yet also ,a hand in where is the world going and how do we continue to prepare our kids for a future that we don't know? I think I'm hopeful for these types of conversations. I'm hopeful for us as schools to become less siloed, maybe less competitive at times, and to be able to learn from one another and those unique things that we all bring to a conversation. There's still yet a school to visit where I haven't learned something from that school that I can pretty much immediately take back to Oaks. I think that's where the hope is, I guess, collaboration with one another and learning from one another. Jon: That's the whole reason why the Baylor Center for School Leadership exists. We try to bring schools together to do this work of improvement because we can always get better and it's a lot more fun to get better with each other. If you get a chance to visit Oaks Christian, you have to do it. The good thing is we have nothing to be afraid of in the future because we serve a sovereign God and He's not worried about the future and that victory is already done. When your eternity is all set, what happens between now and when we get to heaven, that's all just an adventure that we get to enjoy and create powers of moments and ruthlessly eliminate hurry and practice following Christ in ways that make us more like Him. It's a pretty good work that we get to do. Matt, thanks for all you do. Thanks for being on today. Matt Northrop: Thanks, Jon.  

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Joel Satterly, head of school at Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The discussion covers Joel's diverse career journey, from teaching in an inner-city middle school in Lexington, Kentucky, to leading various Christian schools across the United States. Joel emphasizes the importance of integrating academic rigor with faith formation, highlighting Westminster Academy's commitment to this philosophy since its founding. Additionally, the conversation explores the unique cultural diversity of Fort Lauderdale and how Westminster Academy reflects and benefits from this diversity. Joel notes the school's commitment to maintaining a size that allows for individualized attention and the significance of understanding and supporting each student as an individual. 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. Books Mentioned: Leadership by Henry Kissinger Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership Jon Eckert LinkedIn Twitter: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl       Transcript: Jon: Welcome back to Just Schools. Today we're here with Joel Satterly, head of school at Westminster Academy in Florida. Joel, great to have you with us. Joel Satterly: Thanks, Jon. Great to be here. Jon: Now, you've had quite an interesting career, so if you could just give us a quick travel through your career that got you to Westminster, that'd be a great place for us to start. Joel Satterly: Sure. Maybe I'm a little unique in there's some guys and women in this industry that have military background, which I do, but also have an MBA. Which is kind of interesting, and a theological doctorate of ministry. That from an educational side, it's kind of an interesting mix. My professional journey, I started like a lot of people teaching in a public school. I was in an inner city middle school in my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. My job was to convince seventh graders who were poverty-stricken, that ancient world history mattered to their life, which was a great learning lab and I learned a ton. And through a whole series of events, wound up leaving that position and going to a growing Christian school, Lexington Christian Academy, where I taught and then moved into administration both at the junior high and high school level. And in 1999, I took my first head of school position in Rock Hill, South Carolina. I journeyed from Rock Hill to rural central Florida, a little place called Crystal River where the manatees live- Jon: Wow, nice. Joel Satterly: ...at a PCA church school there. A short stint outside Atlanta for a couple of years in another PCA church setting, and then up to Chicago where actually I think we met, Jon. Jon: That's right. Joel Satterly: When you were up there at Chicago Christian, a very old CSI Christian reform school system. And we have some mutual friends that are connected through that place. And then back down to Florida here, finishing my eighth year at Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale. Jon: Hey, well, you're definitely winning on the winters there. Joel Satterly: No doubt. Losing on the pizza though. Jon: Oh you are, but your body is grateful for that. I always say leaving Chicago was sad for me from what we get to eat, but it's probably added four or five years to life because everything I loved in Chicago was probably killing me. But the Chicago pizza is top on that list. So love the journey you have and I think the shaping of your military background, the MBA, teaching in public school and leading in so many different contexts in independent schools, that certainly enriches you. But I want to talk a little bit about Westminster Academy because I was able to be there a few months ago and meet a lot of your team and do some work there. But I'm really curious about the thread that you see going through Westminster Academy since its founding to where you are now and what makes it distinctive in the climate that you're in, there in Florida right now? Joel Satterly: Fort Lauderdale, I think, was made famous by the movie Where The Boys Are, which captured the whole idea of Florida spring break. Jon: Yeah, that's a thing. Joel Satterly: And for a long time, Fort Lauderdale was the place and then it moved I think other places. So people have an image of Fort Lauderdale through that in a lot of ways. And it's not too far from being wrong. It tends to be a very secular place, a place of some international flavor. It's a very mixed, culturally diverse part of the United States. It can be very affluent, but they're wide ranges of affluence and poverty in this area. Very transient. So it's kind of interesting. Westminster Academy was founded in 1971, birthed out of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which was one of the largest and first founders in the PCA. But one of the first very famous for the Coral Ridge hour back in the eighties that people might recall. And so Westminster was formed out of that. I like to joke, sometimes I say there are several great ironies that are true here. One is a Calvinist started evangelism explosion. D. James Kennedy, founding pastor at Coral Ridge started Evangelism explosion, which has had a huge influence in the world. One of the other great ironies is the school that he helped get started, and I think in those days they were pretty fundamentalist and pretty conservative, started at a horse track because there weren't permanent space anywhere. So it used to be a place where you don't dance because it could lead to card playing and awful things like that. Yet the school starts in a horse track. So God has a sense of humor about that, I think. But through all of that, I think there are a couple of things about Westminster that have been through puts for it that have guided it. One is a commitment to recognizing that academic rigor and faith formation are one in the same. And Christians should not settle for anything less than that. And a commitment to being excellent in how it goes about that. The other it would follow. And that was working to legitimize the Evangelical Christian Day School. Because I think Westminster, its founding was distinct from some of the other foundings of similar schools in the South in that it was founded away from desegregation and some of those other issues that may have fueled some of that. South Florida was kind of a different time in a different place, a different set of variables. So it's been a place that's cared about being legitimate, it's cared about advancing the kingdom and been very committed to putting deep roots in the community. Jon: Now you mentioned the diversity and the international flavor Lauderdale and the amazing group of community resources you have there. How do you see Westminster reflecting and benefiting from that? I think earlier you talked about it being kind of an organic process. Can you talk a little bit about that? Joel Satterly: Yeah, so this part of the country's interesting. There's an organic diversity that... I believe I recently read where Broward County is the most diverse county in the state of Florida now, which would make it one of the more diverse counties in areas in the United States. But it's a happy diversity. One that is complimentary. So it is not to say that there aren't some tensions from time to time, but generally speaking it's transient nature helps with that as well. But you just have, the entire world is here. You go to the beach and you can hear multiple languages being spoken on any given day, for example. So it means our student body is fairly diverse, particularly by Christian Day school standards, mainly because we admit the families that live in our local area. And even on the geographical part of Fort Lauderdale, all of it is diverse. So we don't have to work very hard at it. The challenge for us though is, like a lot of other people, is on the faculty and staff side. Figuring that part of the equation out. One of the other things that's kind of funny when people come to visit, when we talk about cultural diversity too, it's very localized. So we kind of joke that Spanish speaking folks, that's not diverse here. Jon: Right. Yeah, I totally understand that. I was just in South Carolina and I was in schools that were 95% African American. And we would call those diverse schools, but you're not seeing a ton of diversity in the same way you're saying for Spanish speakers in Florida, that's probably not going to be outside the norm. Joel Satterly: Right. It is interesting though. I haven't been here long enough yet to differentiate among the Caribbean Islands, but there are people that can. And so I don't want to downplay the cultural distinction because I do think that there are some deeply held... Like anywhere else human beings are what we are. So there are some deeply held pressures, but generally speaking, it's really a cool place to do this work because of that. Jon: Well, and that's where I think the diversity conversation sometimes gets derailed because we get into group and identity politics. And really each individual I described, I just mentioned the South Carolina schools that were 95% African-American. Within that, there are so many differences ethnically within those groups. Joel Satterly: Right. Jon: And the food, I always love the food culture. So I love going to places like Fort Lauderdale and I love Chicago for that and I love a lot of other cities because you can find so many variations on things. And I think we really lose out on the richness of what we do in education when we lose the trees for the forest. Joel Satterly: That's right. Jon: Even if I have three or four groups at my school, we're missing all the individuals there. So how do we make sure we see the tree that's inside that forest because there's so much richness there. So when we reduce diversity to groups, we're just missing the fact that you're not seeing the individual. And if we believe that our job as educators is to walk alongside kids to help them to become more of who they were created to be, you don't do that as a group. Joel Satterly: Right. Jon: You do that individually within a group and all of that is part of a relationship that you build, but it is with individuals. So I appreciate you saying that. What do you think Westminster does well in that regard to see, know and love each student? I mean, how many students do you have first of all? And then how do you ensure that each kid is seen, known and loved well, in a way that honors the calling that the school has? Joel Satterly: So we're a little over a thousand students, preschool through 12th grade. And one of the things that we're committed to is a size culture. Westminster really sees itself as between 1100 and 1200 student school maximum, complete maximum capacity, if every single kid fit exactly in the right grade that we needed them. You know how that works. Jon: Right. Joel Satterly: But we're about where we want to be size-wise, because at a certain size it's very difficult for students to be known and loved. There are realities of size. So that's a commitment that the school has had more recently. I think when it's founded, it was on a growth curve like everybody else. But I mean, I think over time it's learned that the value in having a very distinctive size culture. So that would be one. I wonder too, if COVID taught us something. I was just thinking when you're talking about being individual focused for a minute, for us at least, that COVID experience gave us a chance to figure out what is it we're supposed to be doing. And one of the takeaways we came out with is education is fundamentally a life on life endeavor. And because it is, that means there's certain things that we need to be in the same space with each other to accomplish. At least most effectively. So there's a commitment to that. There's a commitment to seeing students that way. A lot of schools talk about differentiating instruction and that sort of thing, and we take our hand at that. I think one of the reasons we had you come here and help us, talk to us, and Lynn Swanner and some others, is we want to get better at that and recognize that. But I think it's more of a posture of our faculty that they just do kids. They just get into their lives. And I was with a family last night, we were talking about taking a leadership role, a voluntary leadership role in our school. A very high level executive in South Florida. And the dad just got teary talking about what the different people in the school had meant for their family. And he started asking, tell me about that. And it's really just the gift of time. It's just really being intentional and saying, your child matters and we're going to figure it out. Jon: One of the things I liked about what you said earlier was that formation and excellence go hand in hand. So many times Christian schools have been maligned or fundamentalist schools of being anti-learning when in the end, at the end of the day, we're called to maximize the gifts we're given. Joel Satterly: Right. Jon: In studying the world, our place in the world, how things work, we're actually getting a better glimpse of God and how the world was put in this created order. So I really appreciate that perspective that you bring. And when you then couple that with seeing the individual and making sure that the goal is to not just get bigger, but it's to go deeper with each student so that he or she can go deeper in their formation and the excellence, and maximizing the gifts that they've been given. Not for self-actualization or a humanistic reason, but because they're created beings who we get the privilege of walking and helping them become more of that. That's the true blessing. And when you see that, that's what makes parents like the one you described tear up, because what a gift that is to families. Joel Satterly: And I think another part of that, with that, you're talking about the individual image bearer, is our commitment to worldview, jon. I mean, I think it bears out of our theological grounding and founding. But this idea of in worldview is such a trite word today, I realize and hate to even use it. But it is really significant in this particularly becoming more and more critical. So we actually talked with our students and our faculty about that topic around three questions that we try to frame. Who is God? What is the nature of man? And what do you do with freedom? And you can talk about what is the nature of man? You can talk around, well, what is the student like? What is the teacher? How do we deal with dignity? What do we do with the fallenness? And how do we figure all that out? And the issue of freedom might be the most pressing issue facing our high school age kids today. And helping them understand freedom in the context of how they were created and made is the ultimate freedom. And that's what gives us this fuel to have an of individual focus. Jon: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. We always wrap up with the lightning round. So I'm going to go through three or four questions here. And I'm curious about this first one. So these are always a word, phrase, or sentence. The first question is, what's the best book or one of the most memorable books you've read this past year? Joel Satterly: I think I would say Kissinger's book on leadership. Jon: Interesting. Joel Satterly: Simply it's a bunch of chapters around individual world leaders in the mid to late 20th century that some of them are a bit more obscure than others. Just fascinating. Jon: Love it. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing education currently in the US? Joel Satterly: How we define success. How do we think through, what does all that look like? Jon: So if that's the biggest challenge, what's your best piece of advice to school leaders as they think about defining success? Joel Satterly: Everybody can't get a trophy. Jon: Okay. Very good. All right. We don't celebrate mediocrity. Joel Satterly: Right. Jon: It's one of my favorite parts of the Incredibles when they lay into that. So, all right, good. And as you look ahead, what's your best hope for education in the US as you look ahead in the year ahead? Joel Satterly: It feels to me like we're on the precipice of some sort of spiritual revival in certain places. And so at least I see a renewed... And one of the things, I think that the culture swinging in certain directions for different times helps the people of God refocus and it just smells that way to me. I could be wrong, but it feels like there's a movement happening. I realize Aslan never sleeps, right? But it just feels different to me than it did say five or six years ago. Jon: Well, I hope you're right. And again, as we get to lead for joy through truth and love, that's the kind of movement that we want to see- Joel Satterly: Right. Jon: ... as we hopefully become more of who we're created to be so that we can be better conduits of that and not get in the way of what the Lord wants to do through us. So Joel, I appreciate your time and the work you do at Westminster. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today. Joel Satterly: My pleasure, jon. Thanks so much.  

durée : 00:56:10 - Jon Itçaina, musika eta poesia, Baionako Bilxokon, Apirilaren 20an - .

durée : 00:56:10 - Jon Itçaina, musika eta poesia, Baionako Bilxokon, Apirilaren 20an - .

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.  

Why you've got to check out today's episode:Find out why doing your copywriting doesn't actually save you any moneyUnderstand how you can get your ideal buyers to say yes to anything you offerLearn more about the sales-changing roadmap that will get your copywriting game up on the boardsResources/Links:Want to get the Buyers' Roadmap? Click here: https://www.jonbenson.com/roadmapSummary:Do you really think doing your own copywriting can save you tons of money? Spend your time and effort on something else, and let someone do your copywriting for you. Or even now, in our techno-centric world, try incorporating AI into your sales copy. Words are just as vital as anything else, especially when you're trying to sell. Say the best words, secure your ideal clients, and sell more with the right sales copy.Jon Benson is one of the top copywriters alive, plus is the Founder of BNSN.AI, the “magic button” app for sales copy.Listen in to Jon's magical words on how you can persuade your ideal buyers to always say “YES” to you through the power of the right words and excellent copywriting magic.Check out these episode highlights:01:39 - Jon's ideal client: Small business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs.01:56 - The problem he helps solve: We give them words that sell. These words are used in everything! I mean, this is the one thing that I'm talking about. 03:17 - The symptoms of the problem: They have an offer or an idea for an offer, and they have no idea how to sell it, or they have no idea why it isn't selling04:41 - Clients' common mistakes before consulting Jon: It's like trying to fix your car by yourself without being a mechanic. It's not a good idea. Unless you're broken down on the side of the road, you should call a mechanic. 06:19 - Jon's Valuable Free Action (VFA): I can send them to free training that I have that's something they would start. And what that training does is help people understand what I'm talking about when I say understanding the words that their ideal buyer needs to know. 07:05 - Jon's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to get the Buyers' Roadmap? Click here: https://www.jonbenson.com/roadmap08:54 - Q: Why are words more important than say a video or something else? Why are words so vitally important? A: Everything is centered on words. And the ultimate form of persuasion is when people hear something, and they see it.Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:“Copywriters are both scientists and artists combined in a sense. We understand persuasion, so there's a psychology to it.” - Jon Benson

Li:Welcome Jon Kaufman and El Sawyer to Future Memory. Jon:Thank you for having us.El:Thank you, cool name. Li:So what's your origin story? How did Jon and El become Ming Media? Jon:It's an interesting story and there's not really one particular magical spark, but it definitely was an organic process from my perspective, right? El his own journey and perspective with it, but I never really considered filmmaking as a career at all when I was younger, I never wanted to be like a Hollywood person, never wanted to direct or anything like that, but I was always interested in storytelling and especially advocacy and just trying to combat the narratives that I knew were false. I didn't know how to do that. And then it wasn't until I went to Temple and took a class, which was, I forget the name of, it's something around community media, which was a film class. I wasn't a film major at all, didn't study a film at Temple, but this class took me to the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philly where El was teaching video production to neighborhood youth.And that was my first real exposure to filmmaking was this model that was completely outside of the traditional structure of what we consider to be like mass media and filmmaking in Hollywood storytelling, and just kind of fell in love with it. The idea that it was probably 2007 and cameras were just starting to get a little more accessible. Editing software was just starting to get a little bit more accessible to people. And so it was really this moment where I felt like, "Oh wow, this is something I could do." And I saw the power of it with what El was doing with kids in the neighborhood and just to be able to tell their own stories. Then I graduated Temple, El hired me to take over his position, actually The Village as the video instructor there and started teaching there, and I taught there for many, many years.And then we started doing our different projects together. At the time, I was just hustling music videos and whatever I could do to pay the bills with video. And I think our work really kind of solidified around 2010 or so when we started working with the Department of Justice in the US Attorney's office here in Philly to make Pull of Gravity. And that's what really kind of solidified our work and sort of joined us as a partnership and took our work to the next level. And we started Ming shortly after that. But that's a short version of it, and El has a different story for sure of how he got to The Village. Li:Right? There's always two sides to first encounter.El:There's three sides actually. Yeah, that's a good rendition. I think from that perspective, from my perspective, as you would see in "Pull of Gravity", I was introduced to film while I was in prison, and I had never wanted to be a filmmaker either. I was stabbed while I was in prison, and I didn't think I was going to go home. And there was an internal video crew inside the institution, and my plan was to kind of work my way onto the video crew in an event I didn't go home to basically make videos to send home to my son at the time.Not to be dramatic about it, but just like- Li:Like the archive of, yeah. El:... or a suicide note. I mean, it could be a lot of different things that way in event that I wasn't going to be there, it was something I would leave to him and I would sneak it out of the prison. And I did. I did about 10 videos. In that process, I was on the video crew just to get access to the cameras, and I had a chance meeting with Glenn Holsten, who was a Philadelphia filmmaker that came into the institution. And at no point, like I said, I was only on the video crew for that access to the cameras. And then he was accompanying Lily Yeh, who's the founder of the Village of Arts and Humanities into the institution, and he was documenting her work. She started a program at Graterford Prison, and in that he was allowed to come document her and her work there, but he wasn't allowed to bring camera crew or equipment.So they asked the camera crew internally, did anybody want to assist with him and nobody wanted to, and I volunteered to do that and it changed my life. So that was my sort of coming into film and even knowing that that was even an alternative that way. And in the process of doing that, I felt like there's this interesting quote, John Hendrick Clark, this author, and he said this quote, he says, "It's your duty to fashion your lived experience as a tool for liberation." And I feel like that's ... My elders used to say [inaudible 00:04:21] used to say that all the time to me. And I felt like in a lot of ways when I came home, that was my thought is how can I use my lived experience and who I am and my skillset to actually give other people the opportunity that I didn't have?So coming home, doing film with Glenn was really just like interning and trying to figure it out, navigate like that. And I had a job at the Village, and Lily Yeh gave me the opportunity to basically provide training and support to youth there at the organization and folks in the community teaching them what I knew about film. And I was kind of learning it as I go. And I did, so for a number of years and then in comes Jon, and this partnership I had with Temple and the professor at the time, Jon's professor, to bring that class. They had to learn along with the class that I was teaching at the Village. And it was love at first sight. I love him like a little brother or like a brother, honestly. And that's been our relationship ever since.Li:Well, that's a perfect segue to this next question about your relationship as working collaborators. What's your collaborative style like and would you say you've developed any kind of shorthand or secret language to get more effective with your process?El:Yes, and yes in every way, but I'll let Jon jump in on that. What you got, Jon?Jon:Yeah, there's a lot to that honestly, because I think neither one of us is really trained in any sort of traditional way. El, like he said, his first exposure was in Graterford, in prison using equipment that was probably way outdated and with very limited sort of technical training. But obviously Glenn was super helpful to him. And then for myself, I didn't study film in any traditional way. At the time I probably couldn't have named one director in the world besides Spielberg or whatever. I didn't know anything about that film world. I think just the fact that we don't come from the traditional filmmaking world has always been our thing where we're humans first. We just engage with people as humans and want to always take that approach where it's not about extracting a story or like, "Oh, how can we make the most exciting or dramatic stuff?"It's more about connecting with folks on a really human level and less about telling their stories, but really giving them a platform to tell their own stories and assisting people telling their own stories. We sort of see ourselves as a vehicle and as a tool for folks to leverage their own storytelling. So our process is super collaborative and sometimes to our detriment, it can be hard. It's not linear. None of this stuff is linear. And I think traditional production is like, oh, you write a script, you shoot it, you edit it. But we work with real people with real stories and a lot of our stuff, most of it is around trauma and very traumatic stuff and very heavy stuff and dealing with equity and violence and poverty and racism and it's really, really heavy stuff. So it's really important for us to connect with people on a really natural level first before doing any filming.We come from different backgrounds. I grew up in Germantown in the 90s, but I didn't grow up in poverty, but I experienced a lot of violence in my neighborhood and violence in the home and all kinds of stuff. And in college I tried to look at that experience through lens of urban studies and sociology, and I was like, "This is bullshit, putting people into categories, just labeling people." I was like, "This is bullshit." The academic approach to looking at what I was trying to understand about my experience growing up was not working for me. And then I think the sort of community filmmaking was just a way of like, "Oh wow, this is it. This is a way for real people to tell their own stories with some assistance from their own perspective," I think. So it was really just powerful to realize the power and the gap that community storytelling and community media could fill, not just in my own understanding of the world, but I feel just missing from the conversations that are happening in the newspapers and in mainstream media, so yeah.Li:Exactly. And are there additional folks that are working with you? Do you have an expanded team?Jon:We used to have a larger team. Covid kind of had us downsize a bit, but our main producer is Gabe Wiener. He's an amazing producer, filmmaker. He's been in Philly for about 15 years now, so he's our primary producer. But we work with a lot of folks all over Philadelphia and around the country and around the world too. But yeah, mostly we staff up as needed for different projects, but we could run down a huge list of names that are Philadelphia folks. But no, it's a collaborative effort, right? We work with so many different people and we're super grateful. It's not a solo sport. There's so many people. We've been talking about our film Music Vets, which we'll get to later, but when the credits roll in one of our films, there's like a hundred names or something of people. So yeah, that's the short answer.El:And to the point of just like you're saying secret language or how we operate together, a lot of it's nonverbal, like I say when I say Jon and I are like brothers, that's not an exaggeration at all. A lot of times it's so nonverbal. And then to bridge that to our team, a lot of our team either learned from us or learned with us, and I always look at it as like a Philly style. I don't know why. I associate it as a Philadelphia style. Philadelphia style has been for us as a sort of Guerilla style. We do it all. If somebody calls us to do, "Yep, we can do it," whatever, and we'll figure it out. And we're super resourceful and nothing is beyond us in the sense of we're not too good for a thing. If I'm a director, if we're directors, we go to a scene, I'll be cleaning up the block.It's like nothing's beyond you to do. But with that said, with respect to the team that we're working with, again, like Jon said, we staff up accordingly because sometimes we document in sometimes very compromising or very complex environments. So we're super conscious of the human there in their environment and everything. And our crew has to make sense and comprehend in which the environment we're going to be filming in. And we take that very serious and we're really honored when people give us interviews and just basically allow us into their world and we really caretake that. And again, like Jon said earlier too, our detriment a lot of times because we're just uber sensitive, because we uber understand how media can be hurtful and has been weaponized, and we control that in that way on behalf of the people that we work with.Jon:And our crews are really small. Like I was saying, we're filming super sensitive situations a lot of the times. We'll be in a city that we've never been to in the Deep South on a block that has an active situation going on. And we've been granted access to film there in the middle of the night and it's very active. And it's just El and myself, and we're trusting our host and they're trusting us and it is what it is, but we can't come in there with lights and boom mics and big crew. And sometimes we have to bring in a crew from New York and it's like they show up with a truck and lights and 15 dudes, and it's like, that's not our approach at all. We just can't operate like that at all.Li:You have to shape-shift to your environment and the communities you're in.Jon:Yeah, and I think we kind of start from that shape, right? Our shape is the sort of that community aspect and we scale up when we have to. But I think our style and what makes our work, you know, gives us so much of that access and that power is that we try to do it with as little as possible and just meet people where they are and not try to be invasive at all. And that can be in a lot of ways through the questions we ask or don't ask, but also how we come into someone's home or how we come into someone's neighborhood.El:And represent those things too. Very conscious that we're not going to ask certain questions. And again, our team and our staff has to understand that as well. And we can't have folks on our team just randomly, you know what I mean? So we do a lot of pre-prep and a lot of pre-production and around even information, around the topics that we're working on. If it's foreign to us, we source folks that know or we engage that particular community. We recognize that we're not of that community in a lot of times, so we respect that and we operate accordingly and empower from there and staff from there and everything like that. Again, that's why it's difficult to just say, "Oh, we're a production company. We just kind of write the script and just go do it." It's not the case at all. Our process is as important as the product that we create.Li:Now you mentioned "Pull of Gravity" as your breakout project and probably the first film where you got to flex your muscles as a team working together. Now in hindsight, almost a decade later, how has "Pull of Gravity" impacted MING's trajectory in the industry and where you are today as a team?Jon:That's a great question.El:I mean, it impacted us like crazy, and I can speak just personally. "Pull of Gravity" was never meant to be, ultimately what it was or have, even the reach that it had, that was never even on the forefront of that thought. It was originally seated in a thought I had years ago when I was in prison, when I first was introduced to film is I knew that once I started to be introduced to that world and started to think now, "Wow, I may go home and then how am I going to be successful going home?" I seen from the position I had being in prison that I seen people that were smarter than me, older than me. I went to prison at 17.I had just did two years in juvenile prior to that, hadn't graduated high school, never had a job. I had no source of foundation to come home and actually activate and become anything that I was imagining at the time. So I was conscious of that. So I was scared that if I go home, what do I have in my access that shows me where I'm coming home to so I can then tool up or position myself at least mentally to actually be effective and come home in an appropriate way? So that's what "Pull of Gravity" was sort of rooted in, is in that. How do we show people inside institution, how do we show lawmakers and whatever this world, there was a gap in the communications right across the board. That's how we seen it. So documenting "Pull of gravity" originally was meant to be what it was, but also it caught on fire that way. It really-Li:It did. I mean, as a witness, someone who got to see you all working on the film when you were in production and some of the folks that you interviewed and then to see it. I remember you had a screening, where was it? It was like-Jon:Constitution Center.Li:The Constitution Center.Jon:Yeah, I think that was our very first screening. Yeah.Li:Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was powerful because there were some special people in the room, powerful people I think it was on everyone's minds that, "Oh wow, this film is making an impact, and this is just the beginning." We could tell the film was going to go places and that you were going with it.El:Yeah, there was buses of folks that got turned away that there was just not a capacity for it. So that was important, and then in that, that was shock to us. And then it just spoke to the need of the disconnection that existed, and it taught us a lot. I mean, that exposure of traveling around to areas that I just would never, and Jon either I'm speaking for Jon, but we would've never thought that that was going to take off like that, and that need existed there, but it did, and it still does. And like you say, 10 years later, I don't know another film that's come out that matches in that genuine state that it was created in at all.Jon:Yeah, and the conversation around reentries and returning citizens, and it's huge now. There's so many programs, there's so many ways in the organizations. 10, 12 years ago, it was not the same situation. So at the time it was the film was made under a mandate from Eric Holder, the Attorney General at the time, and it was to ask local US attorney's offices to start thinking of different ways to do community engagement, but specifically talking about reentry, and that's the power of film. There's a way for people to come together in a room that would normally never have a conversation, never be in the same room at the same time. And the film provided a way that people are going to come see a film for entertainment, for education, for an experience. And that's just the power of what it can do is it can bring, you know, we had federal prosecutors in the room, we had former incarcerated people, we had community members. Mayor Nutter requested tickets [inaudible 00:16:29] was like, "I have to be there." It was a huge thing.Li:It was a huge thing.Jon:Yeah. And at the time there was very little resources in this space, especially resources created by someone who had been in prison that told the experience from an authentic way. And we toured the film around the country for probably three or four years. And like I was saying earlier, we thought we would have a little bit of interest in, oh, New York, la, Chicago. We found ourselves in Pensacola, Florida, Minnesota, Western Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, all over the country. California screening in federal probation in Northern California, we're like, "Wow, we had no idea," because there was such a lack of resources and education and knowledge in this space at that time. Li:Here's a clip from the trailer of “Pull of Gravity”. [ clip plays ] Jon:At the time we were comparing our film to reentry programs in prison, and the contrast is just absurd. The stuff they were making that was meant to prepare people to come home was probably still in use. It's literally a joke. And maybe El could speak to more to it, but once we found out about what was actually being used in prison at the time to prepare people to come home, we're like, "Oh, wow, this is not going to work."Li:This is not going to work.Jon:This is not going to work. And this film is not just a supplement, but almost an antidote to those terrible programs. And the film is used as a training program, not just for correctional officers, for social workers, for probation, parole officers, it's also used for people in prison all over the country as a tool to prepare them to come home. So it's really manifested in the vision that El had for it at the very beginning to help people prepare themselves because it's real out there.Li:Well, yeah, and as an educator too, one of the things that I recognized from the film when I saw it was how much I learned not just about reentry, but about this big word recidivism, which I didn't know much about. And understanding that it's not just about preparing folks for reentry into their community, but also preparing them to make sure they don't return to prison.Jon:I think also it's about preparing society to better accept people and know what to do, right? Because I think that was the biggest thing. It's like everybody is like, "How do we prepare people to return home? How do we help people succeed?" It's about the individual and their success or their failure or their path. But one of our goals was just educating society about back to trauma, the trauma, the lack of resources, and just how hard it is. So it's about helping people return, but also helping society better prepare itself and prepare all of us to better understand these experiences. Li:And even more intimately the families. Because one of the things I remembered so clearly is that even the families of these individuals had to make adjustments, had to have a deeper understanding of what these individuals were going through and how to be ready to accept them and make sure that they had the tools for themselves to deal because it wasn't an easy road for anyone. El:That's a really good point, and I would add to that too is like you were saying about the education of the recidivism rate in which people go back to prison. I think one is that what struck me the most and which is probably still at the cornerstone of why I need to exist, is the fact of, it was like an introduction to people, to real conditions in which people live in, the environment. We look at it as three what we call subjects, in this case, myself as one or folks that we documented in the film that were sort of main subjects in the film. And the fourth was the community, the built environment. And that built environment is as toxic and quartered off from grander society as one could imagine. And again, even the most well-meaning folks just have no earthly idea how toxic it can be when you're quartered off.And these [inaudible 00:22:00], and again, this is literally happening in a vacuum, but the decisions that are being made or even the thought around gun violence and all these different things, they're not made with the comprehension of cause and effect. They're not made with respect to understanding the true conditions in which people are under. So I can go on and on, but I'm just saying it's like that was the main sort of meat of it, was looking and how do we inform people? One thing is about the programs, other is like where's people coming back home to and those conditions and how do you expect them to actually survive and/or thrive based off of this information?Li:So what's your lifeline? Where do you find hope and what keeps you doing this work?Jon:Context. One of the things we've learned a lot in the past two years with “Pull of Gravity” and a lot of our other work, our work has always been around trauma in a lot of ways, but we didn't have the language and the vocabulary and the full understanding to have a full understanding of all that, right? In the past few years, we've learned this word vicarious trauma, and we've both experienced firsthand traumas in different ways, but then our work has been this collective experience of receiving so many other people's stories of trauma. And that takes a toll in itself, and especially hear stories of the first responders, therapists, all kinds of people have that do this work that is sort of parallel. It's a lot to take in these stories over years and years and years and years. All that to say, I would never take it back.It's an honor and a privilege to do this work. We've sat with people in just the most trying situations in some of the hardest moments and the hardest situations. And it's an honor and a privilege to be trusted to do this work and to tell these stories and tell stories with people. I think like a lifeline, I think it's just the resilience of folks. And we've talked a lot about this word resilience, and it's a lot of times it's framed as this magical thing and it's like this positive thing, but resilience is a response to survival. Resilience is a response to horrible conditions. Resilience is a necessity. So yeah, resilience is great, but it's not really by choice. It's because you're placed into a situation, you have to adapt to it. So I think a lot of our work now, especially with Music Vets, is moving this direction of just breaking down these labels like that. And you can talk to the Bruce Perry analogy, but I'll pass it over to El for a minute and then we'll come back to maybe Music Vets, if that works.El:That's interesting. I think, yeah, definitely agree with Jon. I think it has been traumatic, and I always talk about how it's actually in a lot of ways as for me, has been a sort of, it kind of kept me out of my own internalizing my own traumas too, or dealing with my own personal stuff until just recently. So yeah, so I feel like for a lot of times we looked at it as, and we see it as a sort of calling in a lot of ways and artistry that way, and just being with people and feeling like we're being a service. And I think that's whatever, but lifeline personally is my family, my babies. And I think that's huge. And that is a grounding, very regulating element in my life.So like it or not, they're present and you can't get away from that. So it's like at the end of the day, and there's this doctor, Sandy Bloom, says trauma is the inability to be in the present. And I think as much as my mind wanders and I get into a zone, my daughter's looking at me and just putting this sticker on my forehead and just like I'm like, "That happened." So it really is grounding at a time and I feel like it's being with, so being with my family and getting healthy I think is the sort of lifeline that I find myself in now. And I think Covid had its own effects and the work on top of that, but I feel like that's my personal sort of lifeline that way.Jon:Yeah. For me, it's similar. My daughter especially is just my life and just being with her and just seeing her grow and seeing her learn about the world and having her challenge me and push me and check me all the time is just, it's the most beautiful thing in the world and it's extremely grounding. And I think aside from that, we're going to talk about Music Vets eventually, but music has been a huge lifeline for me. Music and nature and somatic work, working with my body and just getting trauma out through physical stuff has been a huge lifeline for me.Li:And here's a clip from “Music Vets”. [ clip plays ] Li:I want to talk about Music Vets. Can you share a little bit about that project and any connections that you might have seen or felt that you made with this community of survivors that might have connected to say, the communities in Pull of Gravity or other projects that you've done?Jon:It's really interesting. We were approached by the board chair of a music school in Westchester, New York, the Music Conservatory of Westchester, who had heard of "Pull of Gravity", maybe I think had seen it. And he immediately saw the connection of people returning home from prison and people returning home from war. And they had a music therapy program and he was like, "Wow." Rodd Berro is his name, amazing, amazing guy, executive producer of our film Music Vets. And he said, "Wow, could we make a film that follows veterans coming back to society like Pull of Gravity through the lens of music and music therapy as their treatment?" Obviously different because in Pull of gravity, it wasn't really about treatment or recovery in that way or healing, it was more about stating the problem and getting a really interesting deep firsthand exposure to the environment and the human stories.But with Music Vets, it was really interesting because we had this sort of solutions based avenue as well, this solutions based lens, which is, here's an issue, but here's how people are using music to deal with this issue and to heal. So the parallels were really interesting. For me, I was immediately drawn to the music aspect. I think El was more drawn to the veterans aspect, but together it's been a magical experience to just dive into the world of neither one of us are veterans, and that's very different from Pull of Gravity, obviously, because that was about El's own personal experience. Neither one of us are vets, so we just take a few steps back and humble ourselves and really do a lot of listening, a lot of learning, a lot of unlearning and reading and just spending time with people. We spent about a year, maybe a year and a half just meeting with people and getting to know them before we did any kind of filming, a lot of research before we started filming that project. And we started in 2017, and it's 2023, and it's just starting to have light. It's a hell of a process.Li:Quite a process, right?Jon:Yeah.Li:You have to have stamina to be a filmmaker, right?El:I mean, yeah, stamina and a lot of other things I think. And then especially something like that. And again, we always emphasize the point of just in these days, anyone with a camera is a filmmaker apparently. And that's cool and empowering for people to tell their story and all about that. At the same time, just understanding media and understanding unbridled approaches is really hurtful, could be hurtful and damaging to individuals. And again, our approach, and again, up until the point of doing Music Vets, we've done a lot of work. We do work all over the world all the time, and we've made mistakes and we learn from mistakes. And again, we do our best to learn and grow and be iterative in our process. So that's why we took that time during that. I mean, just for common sense, we don't know much about that topic as much at the time, so we just took that time to actually learn and grow.And this is part of our process overall. And a lot of people may not necessarily do that. And I think even with that, just to be respectful to where someone is and the sort of knee-jerk reaction in creating content is the sensational whatever kind of approach. And our work is the opposite of that. And not necessarily intentionally anti-sensational, maybe it is, but just telling the human story is again, understanding media and understanding that how hurtful it could be. This is a permanent record. When people are documented, their kids are going to see this, forever. So you get somebody to talk about certain things that's really super personal, maybe that's not necessarily something that you want to live forever. And we try to encourage against or try to use our human approach to actually make sure people are aware of what we're doing and the impact. So not just from us, in the future, if somebody comes up and films them, like, understand the power of that too.Jon:You see all these films and media and stories around veterans and PTSD, and it's usually there's this sort of style where it's like hyper-masculine, in your face showing explosions or people with injuries on camera. And we really try to take a different approach. And really, one thing about Pull of Gravity, we never asked or focused on in the film what led people to go to prison in the first place, because that was like the knee-jerk reaction. And with Music Vets, we never asked people, how did you get injured or how did you get PTSD or whatever. But things came out in the film in the process, but that was never the intention of creating this linear story of this happened and then this happened and this happened.Because it's not like that. Healing is not linear. Healing is very non-linear in a lot of different ways. And it was just very important for us to not take that sort of knee-jerk approach, if you look at a lot of veterans films or issues around military, there's a style to it, and it's like the combat footage and things like that. And we had chose to use animations in the film instead of really showing any sort of footage like that. And it was a very intentional process. And then the music in the film too is also follows a very sort of soothing pathway, right? Li:I saw a clip. It does come across that way, very much so, yeah.Jon:Cool, cool, and so it was important for us to take the music that was played in the film by the veterans, and our composer Jesse Koolhaas from Amsterdam took the music and was able to integrate a score that basically blended their music with natural music that he was creating, so it flows, right? And it's intentionally not really any in your face, shocking stuff. There's some serious moments for sure. But we didn't want to have the film sort of lean into that direction of that sort of dramatic, overly dramatized sort of military culture kind of vibe at all.Li:No, you're right. There is kind of a standard way of dealing with that material. And it's great to see that you have found a way, again, bringing it back to that, just trying to have a human connection with the folks and the stories that you're telling. So with the work that MING does, how do you decide you want to tell a particular story? What kind of things have to be in place for you to pursue a project?Jon:That's an ever evolving thing?. I think there's a project we've done years ago that we wouldn't do now for sure because our standards have changed and our experiences have led us to not want to do certain sort of work that we've done a lot of work with philanthropy and foundations, and there's certain types of that work that we would not do anymore just because of the ethics involved and the power dynamic.Li:That's growth, right?Jon:It is, it is.Li:Learning and growth.Jon:Yeah, yeah, and it's not easy. It's like people think filmmaking can be lucrative and the way we do it, it's not always the case, right? It's very, very hard. It's like a six-year project, right? Music Vets. So we've turned down a lot of projects in the past few years that would've been maybe financially lucrative, but it didn't fit with our morals. There was a project last summer involving a big network that approached us about doing a project around juveniles in the system in Philly. And we turned it down because we've seen their work, it's a large network that everybody knows. I'm not going to state the name. And we knew that it was going to be sensational no matter what we did if we're handing off footage to a large network and it's about juveniles, we don't trust that relationship. So we turned that down.And there's a lot of other examples like that where we just feel, you know, we've learned the hard way. And years ago, we would probably do things that we wouldn't do now, but we've definitely grown. It makes it hard sometimes. It's hard to sustain in this sort of pocket of filmmaking. We don't really do a lot of commercial stuff. There's not really any big checks for commercials at all, which are kind of quick and shorter term projects.El:We do stuff for work in the sense of just, there's stuff that was just like, all right, it's a paycheck and it's a way to sort of pay some bills, but it's still ethical. And from our perspective, it's not hurtful. And if we're involved, we're just going to insist that certain things are done that way either way and push that boundary. And we feel like we can be a sort of [inaudible 00:35:12] that way. But I think even outside of that, despite the project and the contract kind of basis is it's standing the gap for the subjects and who would be documented or the people that in the subject matter and generally speaking.So it's really negotiating and making sure that we have creative decision a lot of times and making sure that we have that sort of, so a lot of times it's less about just doing the work. A lot of times we've at a place where people bring us in as a partner on a project. So as opposed to just being a sort of point and shoot kind of situation. [inaudible 00:35:46] I think if we can look at this as this, as a partnership. That way, it gives us enough leeway to push back and say, "We're not going to," you know what I mean? We're going to have some curatorial sort of control that way.Jon:And is it going to help? Is it push the needle? Is it going to help individuals? Is it going to benefit people in some way? Especially people that have maybe not had the opportunity to tell their story in this way. So, with Music Vets, I think one of the biggest successes for us is that the three main subjects of the film all love the film and embrace it.Li:That's important.Jon:And their families, that's the most important right thing for us because they've given us their stories, not just given their service to us in this country, but given their stories, which is, that's priceless. So I think that most importantly is do our subjects see a benefit for themselves or for a cause that they believe in? That's most important to us.El:And building that relationship and maintaining those relationships even at all costs too, right? Sometimes there's a huge success in that too. I think those relationships are really important to us and our clients are important too. A lot of times we're really, to me, it speaks a lot of a partnership with a client that sees our value of what we bring and even our being standing firm on the side of the topic and the subjects or subject matter that they're willing to work with us and understand that we may have a position that be a better vantage point or a different vantage point than what they have too, to have the better outcome and can support or amplify, help amplify the voices of the subject.Li:And what was it about Monument Lab projects that appealed to you? What were the ideas and the intentions that aligned between MING and Monument Lab that made that collaboration possible?Jon:Yeah, great question. I think that's like El was just saying. I think when the values are there and they're aligned, we've been following their work for a number of years and paying attention and we loved what we saw and the opportunity came up to start working with them, I believe maybe end of 2020 on a small project with the state of New Jersey. And it was just very clear from the beginning that our values are aligned. We all know we're living a big lie in this country. A lot of big lies. There's a lot of myths and a lot of histories that have just been created and set in stone. And we know that those aren't true. There's so many different sides to this story of this country and the histories here that are just forgotten and intentionally not recorded in history. So I think a lot of our work is already naturally aligned with flipping this script and trying to tell real truths and alternative histories that are actually the real histories.So I guess it was 2020, we started working daily. We had a small project and it involved three groups of artists in New Jersey that were retelling stories of the American Revolution through the lens of people of color. And there were three artists of color that did these short projects. And we made three short films with them. And right away, Monument Lab was just super receptive to our approach, and we were able to step outside the box. We were able to have creative freedom and it was just really impactful. And this felt like a natural connection, but when the values are aligned, it's very, very clear.And then we've been doing some great work since on the Regeneration project and now Beyond Granite in the National Mall in Washington DC. So, I think it's just about knowing that the accepted mainstream history that we're all living and being told is not true, or there's a lot of forgotten or intentionally left out stories and that's why we're here. That's why we've been doing what we're doing, and it's great to just be aligned like that. Yeah, their work is incredible. It's amazing to see where it's come from and where it's at now and where it's going. Li:If you could document any project or tell any story, what would it be? And think a little bit outside the box, maybe a departure from some of the projects that you've done in the past. This could be absolutely anything. Jon:It's a hard question. I think for years I've been wanting to do something that doesn't involve something traumatic, right? Something that's just happy and fun- Li:I can imagine that might be where you're leaning. Jon:No, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, honestly. Just that I would love to be able to, you know, I think art and music and healing, healing through art and music and creative arts therapies. "Music Vets" opened up all these avenues for us of just getting to be on military bases and see veterans using music and getting to go to places where people were making masks and painting and all these different creative therapies and dance therapy and different sorts of alternative therapies. And it's just opened up all these doors of there's a million ways to heal. And in Western medicine, we really only look at a few as being legitimate.But the truth is, society and all around the world, we've been using these ancient traditions to heal forever, right? And it's only in the past a hundred or 200 years we've been like, "Oh, take this pill or talk to this therapist or do this," and this is how you get better through this Western medicine framework. So I think personally, I'm really interested in looking at just different models of healing that are outside of the traditional Western medicine framework, but especially through music and dance and sound, I think. So really, really interested in doing more stories in that.Li:In the arts.Jon:Yeah. Li:How about you, El?El:Yeah, I don't know about a specific project. I think it's more about different processes. I think again, just the process of filmmaking sometimes can be really patriarchal and just very boiled down almost too much for my liking. And I feel like I really love telling a whole story or hearing a whole story as opposed to making a one-minute clip out of a one-hour conversation. And it's like the many people that we've documented over the years that's just not here anymore. I mean, just in "Pull of Gravity" alone, I think there's shame on me for not knowing, but I think there's 11 people I think maybe that we've documented in "Pull of Gravity" alone that's not here anymore, all to my knowledge by gun violence. And those were very personal relationships and very, very, very personal. So, seeing a short clip of something to me is just like, "Ugh."I think figuring out a way to document or work on something that is more well-rounded. I think there's a power and actually story arc narrative of filmmaking, but actually encompassing more sort of experimental aspects of installations or something that actually helps tell a bigger story and engulf someone in a reality for a time to give justice to the story. But specifically, there was this interesting story I seen recently, Glenn Holsten, who came in and taught me film in prison. He worked on this film called "Wyeth" about Andrew Wyeth, the painter, and I live now in the Westchester area and out that way.And I went to the museum finally the other day as a Brandywine River Museum. Very fascinating. And long story short, in the exhibition, they have this one thing about this artist who is also local named Horace Pippin. And it just blew me away to hear the story about Horace Pippin in the sense that Horace Pippin was just really quick not to bastardize his story or edit his story, but was in the self-taught artist, was in the army, was injured in the army, lost use of his right arm, which he was right armed.Li:I didn't know that.El:And he painted. How did he paint with his right arm? He learned painting as a therapy and he used his left arm to move his right arm to paint all the paintings that he painted.Li:Wow. Jon:Never knew that.Li:Me neither.El:I didn't know that either and he lived not far from where I live. And I'm just blown away by stories like that. And again, we're talking about resilience, but you're also talking about experiences and we're talking about in the 30s or 40s we're talking about folks that did it on that level, given all of the odds against them in that context of time and all of the dynamics that was happening then. So, I think that's a very fascinating story. Stories like that, that basically emphasize people's, again, resilience, but adding social sort of context to give another perspective of the environment in which they actually had to evolve and in a way they used art to do that. I think there's something fascinating in that for me.Li:That is a fascinating story. And like I said, I work in the arts, I didn't know that about Horace Pippin, so thank you for educating me on that bit there. So, what's next for MING Media?El:Evolution. No, it is always evolving. I think post Covid, a lot of things changed for everybody, and they gave us a lot of reasons to change and evolve, and that's where we are now. Even to work with Monument Lab, I think a lot of that is rooted in some of the evolution too, looking at, and it gives us the opportunity to spend time with stories from everybody, from indigenous experiences on a lot of levels, to being omnipresent with things that we've been bombarded with every day without knowing. So, all of our work basically evolves us in a way that would just, it gives us a moment to sort of pause and then decide and determine where we can apply that. So we have a number of cool projects on the horizon for clients coming to us now and stuff. So we're just growing and evolving. That's how I would say it. What'd you say, Jon?Jon:Yeah, and just seeing how it's all so connected too. The more and more we grow and the work with Monument Lab has been just so beautiful and an amazing experience. Just for talking about some overlap, so I had the opportunity to travel to South Dakota in October for a Monument Lab project with Re:Gen and got to work with an amazing group there, the Rapid City Indian Boarding School project with Amy Sazue and her team. And I was welcomed with open arms as an outsider, and they told me right away, "We don't really trust people with cameras too much." And by the time I left, we were family and getting hugs and hanging out with people's families and kids and-Li:Oh, that's beautiful.Jon:... It was beautiful. And just, it's such an honor and a privilege to be in that position, and it's humbling. It's really humbling. But one beautiful experience there, I went to the Black Hills pow wow when I was there, and the first 30 minutes of the entire pow wow, 30 minutes straight, maybe even an hour, the opening ceremony was honoring Native American veterans with music and dance. And then the connections just, wow, between "Music Vets" and Monument Lab and the work we've been doing and the amount, oh man, just the amount of connections.Li:So many connections.Jon:The statistics around Native American folks and indigenous folks in terms of incarceration. The numbers are out of control and they're high representation, the armed forces too. So, there's a lot of interesting connections and it's all starting to connect for us, all this different work. And there's an amazing story there, another one real quick is around this elder I met, Faith Spotted Eagle. She's incredible. She was one of the leaders of the Standing Rock protest in the Dakota Access Pipeline, and she was the first and only indigenous person to receive an electoral vote for president. And it's a whole story to look up. She's incredible.She works with veterans at the VA in South Dakota and uses traditional ceremony music to work with native vets within the VA.Li:Incredible.Jon:And so just the overlap here of just the work we're doing is just, it's monumental.Li:It's monumental.Jon:And it's beautiful. And again, it's an honor and a privilege and just so we're excited to see how these connections keep growing and the work keeps evolving between our personal experiences and our work history and where the future has taken us.Li:Well, it has definitely been an honor and a privilege to sit here with you all. I just want to thank you for the awareness that you're bringing to all of these issues. It's super important, and I can't wait to see what comes next for MING Media. Thank you, Jon Kaufman and El Sawyer. It's been a pleasure. Jon:Thank you. El:Thank you, Li.

Hello My Curious Colleagues—-It's SOCAP Sweeps Weeks...! Last week my guest was SOCAP member Stephanie Fritz of Callzilla (Ep82). And this week --As a thanks to SOCAP member Jon Cox 's leadership as CHAIRPERSON of SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professional), I've decided to post a [REPLAY] of his episode with me re: A Recall 101... of Sorts. (REPLAY is Ep 83]. ************************************

About JonA husband, father of 3 wonderful kids who turned Podcaster during the pandemic. If you told me in early 2020 I would be making content or doing a podcast, I probably would have said "Nah, I couldn't see myself making YouTube videos". In fact, I told my kids, no way am I going to make videos for YouTube. Well, a year later I'm over 100 uploads and my subscriber count is growing.Links Referenced: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-myer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_JonMyer jonmyer.com: https://jonmyer.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate. Is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other; which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability: it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: DoorDash had a problem. As their cloud-native environment scaled and developers delivered new features, their monitoring system kept breaking down. In an organization where data is used to make better decisions about technology and about the business, losing observability means the entire company loses their competitive edge. With Chronosphere, DoorDash is no longer losing visibility into their applications suite. The key? Chronosphere is an open-source compatible, scalable, and reliable observability solution that gives the observability lead at DoorDash business, confidence, and peace of mind. Read the full success story at snark.cloud/chronosphere. That's snark.cloud slash C-H-R-O-N-O-S-P-H-E-R-E.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. Every once in a while I get to talk to a guest who has the same problem that I do. Now, not that they're a loud, obnoxious jerk, but rather that describing what they do succinctly is something of a challenge. It's not really an elevator pitch anymore if you have to sabotage the elevator before you start giving it. I'm joined by Jon Myer. Jon, thank you for joining me. What the hell do you do?Jon: Corey, thanks for that awesome introduction. What do I do? I get to talk into a microphone. And sometimes I get to stare at myself on camera, whether it makes a recording or not. And either I talk to myself or I talk to awesome people like you. And I get to interview and tell other people's stories on my show; I pull out the interesting parts and we have a lot of freaking fun doing it.Corey: I suddenly feel like I've tumbled down the rabbit hole and I'm in the wrong side of the conversation. Are we both trying to stand in the same part of the universe? My goodness.Jon: Is this your podcast or mine? Maybe I should do an introduction right now to introduce you onto it and we'll see how this works.Corey: The dueling podcast banjo. I liked the approach quite a bit. So, you have done a lot of very interesting things. For example, once upon a time, you worked at AWS. But you have to go digging to figure that out because everything I'm seeing about you in your professional bio and the rest is forward-looking, as opposed to Former Company A, Former Company B, and this one time I was an early investor in Company C, which means, that's right, one of the most interesting things about me is that I wrote a check once upon a time, which is never something I ever want to say about myself, ever. You're very forward-looking, and I strive to do the same. How do you wind up coming at it from that position?Jon: When I first left AWS—it's been a year ago, so I served my time—and I actually used to have ex-Amazonian on it and listed on it. But as I continuously look at it, I used to have a podcast called The AWS Blogger. And it was all about AWS and everything, and there's nothing wrong with them. And what I would hear—Corey: Oh, there's plenty wrong with them, but please continue.Jon: [laugh]. We won't go there. But anyway, you know, kind of talking about it and thinking about it ex-Amazonian, yeah, that's great, you put it on your resume, put it on your stuff, and it, you know, allows you that foot in the door. But I want to look at and separate myself from AWS, in that I am my own independent voice. Yes, I worked for them; great company, I've learned so much from them, worked with some awesome people there, but my voice in the community has become very engaging and trustworthy. I don't want to say I'm no longer an Amazonian; I still have some of the guidelines, some of the stuff that's instilled in me, but I'm independent. And I want that to speak for itself when I come into a room.Corey: It's easy as hell, by the way, for me to sit here and cast stones at folks who, “Oh, you're going to talk about this big company you worked for, even though you don't work there anymore.” Yeah, I really haven't worked anywhere that most people would recognize unless they're, you know, professionally sad all the time. So, I don't have that luxury; I had to wind up telling a story that was forward-looking just because I didn't really have much of a better option. You have that option and decided to go in a direction where it presents, honestly as your viewpoint is that your best days are yet to come. And I want to be clear that for folks who are constantly challenged in our space to justify their existence there, usually because they don't look like our wildly over-represented selves, Jon, they need that credibility.And when they say that it's necessary for them, I am not besmirching that. I'm speaking from my own incredibly privileged position that you share. That is where I'm coming from on this, so I don't want people to hear this as shaming folks who are not themselves wildly over-represented. I'm not talking about you fine folks, I assure you.Jon: You can have ex-Amazonian on your resume and be very proud of it. You can remove it and still be very proud of the company. There's nothing wrong with either approach. There are some conversations that I'll be in, and I'll be on with AWS folks and I'll say, “I completely understand where you're coming from. I'm an ex-Amazonian.” And they're like, “Oh, you get us. You get the process. You get the everything.”I just want to look forward that I will be that voice in the community and that I have an understanding of what AWS is and will continuously be. And I have so much that I'm working towards that I'm very proud of where I've come from, but I do want to look forward.Corey: One of these days, I really feel like I should hang out with some Amazonians or ex-Amazonians who don't know who I am—which is easier to find than you think—and pretend that I used to work there and wonder how long I can keep the ruse going. Just because I've been told a few times that I am suspiciously Amazonian for someone who's never worked there.Jon: You have a lot of insights on the AWS processes and understanding. I think you could probably keep it going for quite a while. You will have to get that orange lanyard though, when you go to, like—Corey: I got one once when I was at a New York Summit a couple years ago. My affiliation then, before I started The Duckbill Group, was Last Week in AWS, and apparently, someone saw that and thought that I was the director of Take-this-Job-and-Shove-it, but I'll serve out my notice until Friday. So, cool; employee lanyard, it was. And I thought this is going to be awesome because I'll be able to walk around and I'll get the inside track if people think I work there. And they treated me like crap until I put the customer lanyard back on. It's, “Oh, it's better to be a customer at an AWS event than it is to be an employee.” I learned that when the fun way.Jon: There is one day that I hope to get the press or analyst lanyard. I think it would be an accomplishment for me. But you get to experience that firsthand, and I hate to switch the tables because I know it's your podcast recording, not mine, but—Corey: Having the press analyst lanyard is interesting because a lot of people are not allowed to speak to you unless they've gone through training. Which, okay, great. I will say that it is a lot nicer walking the expo floor because most of the people working the booths know that means that person is press, generally—they're not quite as familiar with analysts—but they know that regardless that they're not going to sell you a damn thing, so they basically give you a little bit of breathing room, which is awesome, especially in these pandemic times. But the challenge I have with it is that very often I want to talk to folks who are AWS employees who may not have gone through press training. And I've never gotten anyone in trouble or taken advantage of things that I hear in those conversations and write about them.Everything I write about is what I've experienced in public or as a customer, not based upon privileged inside information. I have so many NDAs at this point, I can't keep track, so I just make sure everything I talked about publicly cited I have that already.Jon: Corey, I got to flip the script real quick. I got to give you a shout-out because everybody sees you on Twitter and sees, like, “Oh, my God, he's saying this negative, that negative towards AWS.” You and I had, I don't know, it was a 30, 45 minute at the San Francisco Summit, and I think every Summit, we try to connect for a little bit. But that was really the premise I kicked off a lot of our conversations when you joined my podcast. No, this is not my podcast, this is Corey's, but anyway—Corey: And just you remember that. Please continue.Jon: [laugh]. But you know, kind of going off it you have so much insight, so much value, and you kind of really understand the entire processes and all the behind the scenes and everything that's going on that I was like, “Corey, I got to get your voice out there and show the other side of you, that you're not there trying to get people in trouble, you never poke fun of an AWS employee. I heard there was some guy named Larry that you do, but we won't jump into that.”Corey: One of the things that I think happened is, first and foremost, there is an algorithmic bias towards outrage. When I say nice things about AWS or other providers, which I do periodically, they get basically no engagement. When I say something ridiculous, inflammatory, and insulting about a company, oh, goes around the internet three times. One of the things that I'm slowly waking up to is that when I went into my Covid hibernation, my audience was a quarter of the size it is now. People don't have the context of knowing what I've been up to for the last five or six years. All they see is a handful of tweets.And yeah, of course, you wind up taking some of my more aggravated moment tweets and put a few of those on a board, and yeah, I start to look a fair bit like a jerk if you're not aware of what's going on inside-track-wise. That's not anyone else's fault, except my own, and I guess understanding and managing that perception does become something of a challenge. I mean, it's weird; Amazon is a company that famously prides itself on being misunderstood for long periods of time. I guess I never thought that would apply to me.Jon: Well, it does. Maybe that's why most people think you're an Amazonian.Corey: You know, honestly, I've got to say, there are a lot of worse things people can and do call me. Amazon has a lot to recommend it in different ways. What I find interesting now is that you've gone from large companies to sort of large companies. You were at Spot for a hot minute, then you were doing the nOps thing. But one thing that you've been focusing on a fair bit has been getting your own voice and brand out there—and we talked about this a bit at the Summit when we encountered each other which is part of what sparked this conversation—you're approaching what you're doing next in a way that I don't ever do myself. I will not do it justice, but what are you working on?Jon: All right. So Corey, when we talked at the New York Summit, things are actually moving pretty good. And some of the things that I am doing, and I've actually had a couple of really nice engagements kind of kick off is, that I'm creating highly engageable, trustworthy content for the community. Now, folks, you're asking, like, what is that? What is that really about? You do podcasts?Well, just think about some of the videos that you're seeing on customer sites right now. How are they doing? How's the views? How's the engagement? Can you actually track those back to, like, even a sales engagement in utilizing those videos?Well, as Jon Myer—and yes, this is highly scalable because guess what I am in talks with other folks to join the crew and to create these from a brand awareness portion, right? So, think about it. You have customers that you want to get engaged with: you have products, you have demos, you have reviews that you want to do, but you can't get them turned around in a quick amount of time. We take the time to actually dive into your product and pull out the value prop of the exact product, a demo, maybe a review, all right? We do sponsors as well; I have a number of them that I can talk about, so Veeam on AWS, Diabolical Coffee, there's a couple of other I cannot release just yet, but don't worry, they will be hitting out there on social pretty soon.But we take that and we make it an engaging kind of two to three-minute videos. And we say, “Listen, here's the value of it. We're going to turn this around, we're going to make this pop.” And putting this stuff, right, so we'll take the podcast and I'll put it on to my YouTube channel, you will get all my syndication, you'll get all my viewers, you'll get all my views, you'll get my outreach. Now, the kicker with that is I don't just pick any brand; I pick a trusted brand to work with because obviously, I don't want to tarnish mine or your brand. And we create these podcasts and we create these videos and we turn them around in days, not weeks, not months. And we focus on those who really need to actually present the value of their product in the environment.Corey: It sounds like you're sort of the complement to the way that I tend to approach these things. I'll periodically do analyst engagements where I'll kick the tires on a product in the space—that's usually tied to a sponsorship scenario, but not always—where, “Oh, great. You want me to explain your product to people. Great, could I actually kick the tires on it so I understand at first? Otherwise, I'm just parroting what may as well be nonsense. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not.”Very often small companies, especially early stage, do a relatively poor job of explaining the value of their product because everyone who works there knows the product intimately and they're too close to the problem. If you're going to explain what this does in a context where you have to work there and with that level of intensity on the problem space, you're really only pitching to the already converted as opposed to folks who have the expensive problem that gets in the way of them doing their actual job. And having those endless style engagements is great; they periodically then ask me, “Hey, do you want to build a bunch of custom content for us?” And the answer is, “No, because I'm bad at deadlines in that context.”And finding intelligent and fun and creative ways to tell stories takes up a tremendous amount of time and is something that I find just gets repetitive in a bunch of ways. So, I like doing the typical sponsorships that most people who listen to this are used to: “This episode is sponsored by our friends at Chex Mix.” And that's fine because I know how to handle that and I have that down to a set of study workflows. Every time I've done custom content, I find it's way more work than I anticipated, and honestly, I get myself in trouble with it.Jon: Well, when you come across it, you send them our way because guess what, we are actually taking those and we're diving deep with them. And yes, I used an Amazon term. But if you take their product—yeah [laugh]. I love the reaction I got from you. But we dive into the product. And you said it exactly: those people who are there at the facility, they understand it, they can say, “Yeah, it does this.”Well, that's not going to have somebody engaged. That's not going to get somebody excited. Let me give you an example. Yesterday, I had a call with an awesome company that I want to use their product. And I was like, “Listen, I want to know about your product a little bit more.”We demoed it for my current company, and I was like, “But how do you work for people like me: podcasters who do a lot of the work themselves? Or a social media expert?” You know, how do I get my content out there? How does that work? What's your pricing?And they're, like, “You know, we thought about getting it and see if there was a need in that space, and you're validating that there's a need.” I actually turned it around and I pitched them. I was like, “Listen, I'd love for you guys to be a sponsor on my show. I'd love for you to—let me do this. Let me do some demos. Let's get together.”And I pitched them this idea that I can be a spokesperson for their product because I actually believed in it that much just from two calls, 30 minutes. And I said, “This is going to be great for people like me out there and getting the voice, getting the volume out there, how to use it.” I said, “I can show some quick integration setups. You don't have to have the full-blown product that you sell out the businesses, us as individuals or small groupings, we're only going to use certain features because, one, is going to be overwhelming, and two, it's going to be costly. So, give us these features in a nice package and let's do this.” And they're like, “Let's set something up. I think we got to do this.”Corey: How do you avoid the problem where if you do a few pieces of content around a particular brand, you start to become indelibly linked to that brand? And I found that in my early days when I was doing a lot of advisory work and almost DevRel-for-hire as part of the sponsorship story thing that I was doing, and I found that that did not really benefit the larger thing I was trying to build, which is part of the reason that I got out of it. Because it makes sense for the first one; yeah, it's a slam dunk. And the second one, sure, but sooner or later, it feels like wow, I have five different sponsors in various ways that want me to be building stories and talking about their stuff as I travel the world. And now I feel like I'm not able to do any of them a decent service, while also confusing the living hell out of the audience of, “Who is it you work for again anyway?” It was the brand confusion, for lack of a better term.Jon: Okay, so you have two questions there. One of them is, how do you do this without being associated with the brand? I don't actually see a problem with that. Think of a race car; NASCAR drivers are walking around with all their stuff on their jackets, you know, sponsored by this person, this group, that group. Yeah, it's kind of overwhelming at times, but what's wrong with being tied to a couple of brands as long as the brands are trustworthy, like yourself? Or you believing those, right? So, there's nothing wrong with that.Second is the scalability that you're talking about where you're traveling all over the world and doing this and that. And that's where I'm looking for other leaders and trustworthy community members that are doing this type of thing to join a highly visible team, right? So, now you have a multitude and a diverse group of individuals who can get the same message out that's ultimately tied to—and I'm actually going to call it out here, I have it already as Myer Media, right? So, it's going to be under the Jon Myer Podcast; everything's going to be grouped in together under Myer Media, and then we're going to have a group of highly engaging individuals that enjoy doing this for a living, but also trust what they're talking about.Corey: If you can find a realistic way to scale that, that sounds like it's going to have some potential significant downstream consequences just as far as building almost a, I guess, a DevRel workshop, for lack of a better term. And I mean, that in the sense of an Andy Warhol workshop style approach, not just a training course. But you wind up with people in your orbit who become associated, affiliated with a variety of different brands. I mean, last time I did the numbers, I had something like 110 sponsors over the last five years. If I become deeply linked to those brands, no one knows what the hell I do because every company in the space, more or less, has at some level done a sponsorship with me at some point.Jon: I guess I'll cross that when it happens, or keep that in the top-of-mind as it moves forward. I mean, it's a good point of view, but I think if we keep our individualism, that's what's going to separate us as associated. So, think of advertising, you have a, you know, actor, actress that actually gets on there, and they're associated with a certain brand. Did they do it forever? I am looking at long-term relationships because that will help me understand the product in-depth and I'll be able to jump in there and provide them value in a expedited version.So, think about it. Like, they are launching a new version of their product or they're talking about something different. And they're, like, “Jon, we need to get this out ASAP.” I've had this long-term relationship with them that I'm able to actually turn it around rather quickly, but create highly engaging out of it. I guess, to really kind of signify that the question that you're asking is, I'm not worried about it yet.Corey: What stage or scale of company do you find is, I guess, the sweet spot for what you're trying to build out?Jon: I like the small to medium. And looking at it, the small to medium—Corey: Define your terms because to my mind, I'm still stuck in this ancient paradigm that I was in as an employee, where a big company is anything that has more than 200 people, which is basically everyone these days.Jon: So, think about startups. Startups, they are usually relatively 100 or less; medium, 200 or less. The reason I like that type of—is because we're able to move fast. As you get bigger, you're stuck in processes and you have to go through so many steps. If you want speed and you want scalability, you got to pay attention to some of the stuff that you're doing and the processes that are slowing it down.Granted, I will evaluate, you know, the enterprise companies, but the individuals who know the value of doing this will ultimately seek me and say, “Hey, listen, we need this because we're just kicking this off and we need highly visible content, and we want to engage with our current community, and we don't know how.”Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friend EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB has been powering enterprise applications with PostgreSQL for 15 years. And now EnterpriseDB has you covered wherever you deploy PostgreSQL on-premises, private cloud, and they just announced a fully-managed service on AWS and Azure called BigAnimal, all one word. Don't leave managing your database to your cloud vendor because they're too busy launching another half-dozen managed databases to focus on any one of them that they didn't build themselves. Instead, work with the experts over at EnterpriseDB. They can save you time and money, they can even help you migrate legacy applications—including Oracle—to the cloud. To learn more, try BigAnimal for free. Go to biganimal.com/snark, and tell them Corey sent you.Corey: I think that there's a fair bit of challenge somewhere in there. I'm not quite sure how to find it, that you're going to, I think, find folks that are both too small and too big, that are going to think that they're ready for this. I feel like this doesn't, for example, have a whole lot of value until a company has found product-market fit unless what you're proposing to do helps get them to that point. Conversely, at some point, you have some of the behemoth companies out there, it's, “Yeah, we can't hire DevRel people fast enough. We've hired 500 of them. Cool, can you come do some independent work for us?” At which point, it's… great, good luck standing out from the crowd in any meaningful way at that point.Jon: Well, even a high enterprise as hired X number of DevRels, the way you stand out is your personality and everything that you built behind your personal brand, and your value brand, and what you're trying to do, and the voice that you're trying to achieve out there. So, think about it—and this is very difficult for me to, kind of, boost and say, “Hey, listen, if I were to go to a DevRel of, like, say, 50 people, I will stand out. I might be one of the top five, or I might be two at the top five.” It doesn't matter. But for me why and what I do, the value that I am actually driving across is what will stand out, the engaging conversations.Every interview, every podcast that I do, at the end, everybody's like, “Oh, my God, you're, like, really good at it; you kind of keep us engaging, you know when to ask a question; you jump in there and you dive even deeper.” I literally have five bullet points on any conversation, and these are just, like, two or three sentences, maybe. And they're not exact questions. They're just topics that we need to talk about, just like we did going into this conversation. There is nothing that scripted. Everything that's coming across the questions that you're pulling out from me giving an answer to one of your questions and then you're diving deep on it.Corey: I think that that's probably a fair approach. And it's certainly going to lead to a better narrative than the organic storytelling that tends to arise internally. I mean, there's no better view to see a lot of these things than working on bills. One of my favorite aspects of what I do is I get to see the lies that clients tell to themselves, where it's—like, they believe these things, but it no longer matches the reality. Like developer environments being far too expensive as a proportion of the rest of their environment. It's miniscule just because production has scaled since you last really thought about it.Or the idea that a certain service is incredibly expensive. Well, sure. The way that it was originally configured and priced, it was and that has changed. Once people learn something, they tend to stop keeping current on that thing because now they know it. And that's a bit of a tricky thing.Jon: That's why we keep doing podcasts, you keep doing interviews, you keep talking with folks is because if you look at when you and I actually started doing these podcasts—and aka, like, webinars, and I hate to say webinars because it's always negative and—you know because they're not as highly engaging, but taking that story and that narrative and creating a conversation out of it and clicking record. There are so many times that when I go to a summit or an event, I will tell people, they're like, “So, what am I supposed to do for your podcast?” And we were talking for, like, ten minutes, I said, “You know, I would have clicked record and we would have ten minutes of conversation.” And they're like, “What?” I was like, “That's exactly what it is.”My podcast is all about the person that I'm interviewing, what they're doing, what they're trying to achieve, what's their message that they're trying to get across? Same thing, Corey. When you kick this off, you asked me a bunch of questions and then that's why we took it. And that's where this conversation went because it's—I mean, yeah, I'm spinning it around and making it about you, sometimes because obviously, it's fun to do that, and that's normally—I'm on the other side.Corey: No, it's always fun to wind up talking to people who have their own shows just because it's fun watching the narrative flow back and forth. It's kind of a blast.Jon: It's almost like commentators, though. You think about it at a sporting event. There's two in the booth.Corey: Do a team-up at some point, yeah.Jon: Yeah.Corey: In fact, doing the—what is it like the two old gentlemen in the Sesame Street box up in the corner? I forget their names… someone's going to yell at me for that one. But yeah, the idea of basically kibitzing back and forth. I feel like at some level, we should do a team up and start doing a play-by-play of the re:Invent keynotes.Jon: Oh… you know what, Corey, maybe we should talk about this offline. Having a huge event there, VIP receptions, a podcasting booth is set up at a villa that we have ready to go. We're going to be hosting social media influencers, live-tweeting happening for keynotes. Now, you don't have to go to the keynotes personally. You can come to this room, you can click record, we'll record a live session right there, totally unscripted, like everything else we do, right? We'll have a VIP reception, come in chat, do introductions. So, Corey, love to have you come into that and we can do a live one right there.Corey: Unfortunately, I'm going to be spending most of re:Invent this year dressed in my platypus costume, but you know how it works.Jon: [laugh]. Oh man, you definitely got to go for that because oh, I have a love to put that on the show. I'm actually doing something not similar, but in true style that I've been going to the last couple of re:Invents I will be doing something unique and standing out.Corey: I'm looking forward to it. It's always fun seeing how people continue to successfully exceed what they were able to do previously. That's the best part, on some level, is just watching it continually iterate until you're at a point where it just becomes, well frankly, either ridiculous or you flame out or it hits critical mass and suddenly you launch an entire TV network or something.Jon: Stay tuned. Maybe I will.Corey: You know, it's always interesting to see how that entire thing plays out. Last question before we call it a show. Talk to me about your process for building content, if you don't mind. What is your process when you sit down and stare at—at least from my perspective—that most accursed of all enemies, a blank screen? “All right time to create some content, Jackwagon, better be funny. And by the way, you're on a deadline.” That is the worst part of my job.Jon: All right, so the worst part of your job is the best part of my job. I have to tell you, I actually don't—and I'm going to have to knock on wood because I don't get content block. I don't sit at a screen when I'm doing it. I actually will go for a walk or, you know, I'll have my weirdest ideas at the weirdest time, like at the gym, I might have a quick idea of something like that and I'll have a backlog of these ideas that I write down. The thing that I do is I come down, I open up a document and I'll just drop this idea.And I'll write it out as almost as it seems like a script. And I'll never read it verbatim because I look at it and be like, “I know what I'm going to say right now.” An example, if you take a look at my intros that I do for my podcast, they are done after the recording because I recap what we do on a recording.So, let's take this back. Corey will talk about the one you and I just did. And you and I we hopped on, we did a recording. Afterwards, I put together the intro. And what I'm going to say the intro, I have no freaking clue until I actually get to it, and then all of a sudden, I think of something—not at my desk, but away from my desk—what I'm going to say about you or the guest.An example, there was a gentleman I did his name's called Mat Batterbee, and he's from the UK. And he's a Social Media Finalist. And he has this beard and he always wears, like, this hat or something. And I saw somebody on Twitter make a comment about, you know, following in his footsteps or looking like him. So, they spoofed him with a hat and everything—glasses.I actually bought a beard off of Amazon, put it on, glasses, hat, and I spoofed him for the intro. I had this idea, like, the day before. So, thank goodness for Prime delivery, that I was able to get this beard ASAP, put it on. One take; I only tried to do one take. I don't think I've ever recorded any more.Corey: I have a couple of times sometimes because the audio didn't capture—Jon: Yeah.Corey: —but that's neither here nor there. But yeah, I agree with you, I find that the back-and-forth with someone else is way easier from a content perspective for me. Because when you and I started talking, on this episode, for example, I had, like, three or four bullet points I wanted to cover and that's about it. The rest of it becomes this organic freewheeling conversation and that just tends to work when it's just me free-associating in front of the camera, it doesn't work super well. I need something that's a bit more structured in that sense. So apparently, my answer is just never be alone, ever.Jon: [laugh]. The content that I create, like how-to tutorials, demos, reviews, I'll take a lot more time on them and I'll put them together in the flow. And I record those in certain sections. I'll actually record the demo of walking through and clicking on everything and going through the process, and then I will actually put that in my recording software, and then I will record against it like a voiceover.But I don't record a script. I actually follow the flow that I did and in order to do that, I understand the product, so I'll dive deep on it, I'll figure out some of the things using keywords along the way to highlight the value of utilizing it. And I like to create these in, like, two to three minutes. So, my entire process of creating content—podcast—you know what we hop on, I give everybody the spiel, I click record and I say, “Welcome.” And I do the introduction. I cut that out later. We talk. I'll tell you what, I never edited anything throughout the entire length of it because whatever happens happens in his natural and comes across.And then I slap on an ending. And I try to make it as quick and as efficiently as possible because if I start doing cuts, people are going to be, like, “Oh, there's a cut there. What did he cut out?” Oh, there's this. It's a full-on free flow. And so, if I mess up and flub or whatever it is, I poke fun of myself and we move on.Corey: Oh, I have my own favorite punching bag. And I honestly think about that for a second. If I didn't mock myself the way that I do, I would be insufferable. The entire idea of being that kind of a blowhard just doesn't work. From my perspective, I am always willing to ask the quote-unquote dumb question.It just happens to turn out but I'm never the only person wondering about that thing and by asking it out loud, suddenly I'm giving a whole bunch of other folks air cover to say, “Yeah, I don't know the answer to that either.” I have no problem whatsoever doing that. I don't have any technical credibility to worry about burning.Jon: When you start off asking and say, “Hey, dumb question or dumb question,” you start being unsure of yourself. Start off and just ask the question. Never say it's a dumb question because I'll tell you what, like you said, there's probably 20 other people in that room that have the same question and they're afraid to ask it. You can be the one that just jumps up there and says it and then you're well-respected for it. I have no problem asking questions.Corey: Honestly, the problem I've got is I wish people would ask more questions. I think that it leads to such a better outcome. But people are always afraid to either admit ignorance. Or worse, when they do ask questions just for the joy they get from hearing themselves talk. We've all been conference talks where you there's someone who's just asking the question because they love the sound of their own voice. I say, they, but let's be serious; it's always a dude.Jon: That is very true.Corey: So, if people want to learn more about what you're up to, where's the best place to go?Jon: All right, so the best place to go is to follow me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my primary one, right? Jon Myer; can't miss me. At all. Twitter, I am active on Twitter. Not as well as Corey; I would love to get there one day, but my audience right now is LinkedIn.Else you can go to jonmyer.com. Yes, that's right, jonmyer.com. Because why not? I found I have to talk about this just a little bit. And the reason that I changed it—I actually do own the domain awsblogger, by the way and I still have it—is that when I was awsblogger, I had to chan—I didn't have to change anything' nobody required me to, but I changed it to, like, thedailytechshow. And that was pretty cool but then I just wanted to associated with me, and I felt that going with jonmyer, it allowed me not having to change the name ever again because, let's face it, I'm not changing my name. And I want to stick with it so I don't have to do a whole transition and when this thing takes off really huge, like it is doing right now, I don't have to change the name.Corey: Yeah. I would have named it slightly differently had I known was coming. But again, this far in—400 some-odd episodes in last I checked recorded—though I don't know what episode this will be when it airs—I really get the distinct impression that I am going to learn as I go and, you know, you can't change that this far in anymore.Jon: I am actually rounding so I'm not as far as you are with the episodes, but I'm happy to say that I did cross number 76—actually 77; I recorded yesterday, so it's pretty good. And 78 tomorrow, so I am very busy with all the episodes and I love it. I love everybody reaching out and enjoying the conversations that I have. And just the naturalness and the organicness of the podcast. It really puts people at ease and comfortable to start sharing more and more of their stories and what they want to talk about.Corey: I really want to thank you for being so generous with your time and speak with me today. Thanks. It's always a pleasure to talk with you and I look forward to seeing what you wind up building next.Jon: Thanks, Corey. I really appreciate you having me on. This is very entertaining, informative. I had a lot of fun just having a conversation with you. Thanks for having me on, man.Corey: Always a pleasure. Jon Myer, podcaster extraordinaire and content producer slash creator. The best folks really have no idea what to refer to themselves and I am no exception, so I made up my own job title. I am Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment telling me that I'm completely wrong and that you are a very interesting person. And then tell me what company you wrote a check to once upon a time.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Les Hughes and Jon Sanders are pastors who help pastors and others with a ministry background create a life of financial freedom as entrepreneurs. Today, Les and Jon share their individual spiritual experiences including resisting ministry and surrendering to the Lord. Plus, they share how being pastors led them to start coaching other pastors to create side hustles and other streams of income. The freedom that's available is unlike anything we've seen before and may be how people serve in the future. Les and Jon's story remind us that the Lord uses everything, not just the things we think are sacred. Listen to Les and Jon's story in your favorite podcast app now! Stories Les and Jon shared: Why Les and Jon started EntrePastors Jon was born and raised in a pastor's family in the MidWest Jon resisting the call to ministry and becoming a firefighter Les growing up with parents who were first generation Christians The sense of God's presence Les had as a child in tumultuous times Les giving his life to Christ as a child Les realizing that the anger he had was unhealthy The student pastor who discerned what was really happening in Les Jon's experience of spiritual freedom How the Lord broke Jon's heart for rural America Les's experience in ministry How a heart attack helped Les slow down and enjoy the journey Learning to repent of pride for Jon Meeting one another in a mastermind How EntrePastors came about The freedom that pastors can have by creating their own businesses Great quotes from Les and Jon: It's not anyone else's job to provide for my family. It's my job. (Les) It's a shame when a pastor needs to leave a church environment to increase their income. (Les) I never felt abandoned by God and I know now that's just grace (Les). The church is a terrible business model. (Jon) If we can free some pastors up to go do some things in the marketplace, we can alleviate a lot of struggle for both the pastors and the church. (Jon) Resources we mentioned: EntrePastors website Small Town Big Church, Jon's podcast Related episodes: Robin T. Jennings and the Light of the World Brian Zahnd and the Beauty of Christ Heather Oncken and How to Be A Friend The post Les Hughes and Jon Sanders and The Rise of EntrePastors appeared first on Eric Nevins.

In part two of my podcast interview with Pastor Jim Ladd, we discuss the difference between protecting and equipping our child and learn what could be at risk if we don't get this right.We also discuss the message our children receive when we constantly operate in protection mode and the question you should ask yourself if you find yourself helping a little too much.If you have a child in crisis, we sincerely hope that you find comfort and clarity while listening to his message on the importance of bringing ourselves back to baseline and beginning to examine the bigger picture and opportunity available to us during this time.A few highlights from this episode:7:40    The message our kids may be receiving when we are constantly in protection mode8:21    The difference between protecting and equipping11:45   Everyone can carry some of the load14:50   The question you should ask before rescuingIf you are interested in hearing more from Jim Ladd or connecting with what he's doing, check out the Jim and Jon website to access blogs, books, and the Upstream podcast he co-hosted with his son Jon (It's fantastic). You can also find him on the Evergreen Christian Community Website and Instagram.Resources: Pathways website: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/ (Remember to Subscribe!) Local and national resources: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/resources/  Blog: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/blog-2/  FAQ: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/f-a-q/  ____________________________________________________________________________Pathways to Hope Network is a non-profit organization that provides cost-free support and community to parents with youth facing criminal allegations. Learn more about Pathways on our website: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/  Discover the community and connect by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pathwaystohopenetwork Private Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Pathwaysclosedgroup/aboutInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/pathways_to_hope_network/For support, email: afrey.pathways@gmail.com

Moving Through the Unknown with PurposeThis episode is the second in a series of interviews with different people offering different perspectives on what to consider as you walk beside your child through the justice system. Questioning what it looks like to parent well through a season we've never had to navigate before is a normal part of this process. In this episode, I have the honor of interviewing my pastor and friend, Jim Ladd. Jim is gifted in his ability to communicate concise, practical information in a way that is encouraging and thought-provoking, and this message is definitely one that will stay with you. If you have a child in crisis, we sincerely hope that you find comfort and clarity while listening to his message on the importance of bringing ourselves back to baseline and beginning to examine the bigger picture and opportunity available to us during this time.A few highlights from this episode:2:35    Our most difficult, panicky, terrifying crisis moments are actually extremely fertile for the activity of God.6:45    How to be loving while battling genuine feelings of anger and disappointment towards your child.14:43   The healthy ability to connect and disconnect.19:35   A parent's most important job when your child is in crisis.26:28   Aligning how we parent with God's love for us.If you are interested in hearing more from Jim Ladd or connecting with what he's doing, check out the Jim and Jon website to access blogs, books, and the Upstream podcast he co-hosted with his son Jon (It's fantastic). You can also find him on the Evergreen Christian Community Website and Instagram.Resources: Pathways website: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/ (Remember to Subscribe!) Local and national resources: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/resources/  Blog: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/blog-2/  FAQ: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/f-a-q/  ____________________________________________________________________________Pathways to Hope Network is a non-profit organization that provides cost-free support and community to parents with youth facing criminal allegations. Learn more about Pathways on our website: https://pathwaystohopenetwork.org/  Discover the community and connect by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pathwaystohopenetwork Private Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Pathwaysclosedgroup/aboutInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/pathways_to_hope_network/For support, email: afrey.pathways@gmail.com

This week: Frontline Gaming Blog Writer and 40k Crusade Expert Sam Duguid joins us to look back at the last week in the Warhammer Community with Danny and Jon It's pretty Grim After Dark. Check us out Live every Monday at 10PM EST / 7PM PST! Sub on YouTube https://bit.ly/3pYAexO Follow on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/FrontlineGaming Or listen wherever quality podcasts are found! Hosted by: Jon Quennell and Danny McDevitt Sort of Produced by: Val Heffelfinger Edited by: Tyler "Bort" Bortel Special Guest: Sam Duguid

Evan Valdyke from The Sepulchre of Heroes blog and famed 40k meme sharer on the boomer town known as Facebook to look back at the last week in the Warhammer Community with Danny and Jon It's pretty Grim After Dark. Check us out Live every Monday at 10PM EST / 7PM PST! Sub on YouTube https://bit.ly/3pYAexO Follow on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/FrontlineGaming Or listen wherever quality podcasts are found! Hosted by: Jon Quennell and Danny McDevitt Sort of Produced by: Val Heffelfinger Edited by: Tyler "Bort" Bortel Special Guest: Evan Valdyke

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 197. Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I'm your host, Kimberley Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals. The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn't get to decide how you live your life. And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, because experiencing anxiety ain't easy. If that sounds good to you, let's go. Welcome back, you guys. So grateful to have this precious time with you. Thank you so much for coming and spending your very, very precious time with me. As we do this together, it's exciting, we're almost at 200 episodes. You guys, I cannot believe it. I am pretty, pretty proud of that, I'm not going to lie. Today's episode is with the amazing Jon Hershfield. He's been on the show multiple times and I have been really reflecting and thinking about how important it is for us to practice response prevention and how that is so, so important for everybody who has any type of anxiety, whether that be an anxiety disorder like OCD, social anxiety, specific phobia, generalized anxiety. Even for myself, I've been reflecting on any time I'm responding to fear and responding to discomfort. It's just a topic that I want to continue to address because I think from you guys, I just continue to see how much it's a struggle for you. As I thought about continuing education on tools you can use, I thought, who else can I have none other, but Jon Hershfield to talk about using mindfulness to manage compulsions. Now we talk about compulsions like mental compulsions and rumination. We talk about reassurance-seeking, avoidance, any kind of physical compulsion. We also talk about how to practice mindfulness so that it doesn't become a compulsion. And so I'm just so grateful to have John give us his very valuable time and to talk with you guys about these amazing concepts. I'm not going to spend too much more time doing the introduction. You guys know how amazing Jon Hershfield is. He has some amazing books. He has The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD, and he has Everyday Mindfulness that he co-authored with Shala Nicely, and The Teen OCD Workbook, and Harm OCD book. He's just written amazing books. So please do go out and support him. He does share all that information at the end of the show, and I can't wait for you guys to listen. In the meantime, please do go and leave a review. It helps us to reach more people. I'm going to be quiet now and let you listen to Jon's wisdom. Have a wonderful day. ----- Kimberley: All right, welcome. I am so happy to have the amazing Jon Hershfield with us again today. Jon: Thanks for having me. You make me sound like Spiderman of the OCD world. Kimberley: You are the Spiderman of the OCD world. I love it. Jon: What does that mean? Kimberley: Yeah, it's true. Well, that's a good thing. I know my son is probably jumping up and down at the idea of me meeting the Spiderman of something. Thank you for coming on. I really wanted to invite you on, of course, because I love the work that you're doing regarding mindfulness in OCD. I really wanted to talk about how we can use mindfulness, particularly to address compulsion, because a big part of Exposure and Response Prevention is the response prevention piece. I would really love to pick your mind on how you implement mindfulness as a part of that and also address some of the misunderstandings that happen regarding mindfulness. So, let me first ask you, just for those who don't know or new to the show, how would you give a definition? How would you explain mindfulness, particularly in the respect of treatment? Jon: It's interesting because we all make this same grammatical error. I do it too. We say we use mindfulness as if mindfulness was an act or an action or a thing that you use as opposed to a perspective that you take. So I'm thinking about what mindfulness means. Usually, the definition we hear is “Paying attention to the present moment as it is without judgment and without the desire to change it.” And that's a great definition. It's escaping me at the moment who actually coined that exact language, but I think it applies to most mindfulness concepts. But I don't like that it starts with the word “paying” because it still implies that you're doing something. I think mindfulness is actually the perspective that you have when you're paying attention to the present moment. If you want to play around with the words, it's really noticing the fullness of the mind – mindfulness, right? It's a position that you take as opposed to a thing that you do. Right now, I'm sitting here in my desk chair. I'm aware of the sensation of my body in the chair, hearing my voice in the headphones and I have coffee and tasting that coffee. These are all things that I'm noticing and I'm being mindful of. The other part of mindfulness that I think is important to understand is that, in a state of mindfulness, you're best able to observe the difference between an experience – I just listed for you a bunch of experiences – and a story. A story is a narrative. It's the meaning and the webs that we weave around those experiences. So it's me thinking I'd had too much coffee today, right? That's a story about the taste of coffee in my mouth right now and its significance, but they're two separate things. When we're treating something like OCD, which is very much about being pulled away by your mind into these narratives, these fear-based narratives – to be able to drop out of the narrative and into the experience would be to take a mindful perspective, or in colloquial terms “to use mindfulness.” But I think a lot of times when we say “using mindfulness,” we associate that with stopping what we're doing and focusing on the breath, or pulling out an app and doing a meditation, or trying to execute change in our environment by being mindful. When in fact, mindfulness is very much the opposite of that. It's not about executing change. It's actually about stepping back and seeing the way things really are. Kimberley: Right. I love this. So would you say in this perspective that mindfulness is not adding something on, it's just dropping down into what was already there? Jon: Yes. I would agree with that. Kimberley: I like that. So how might we use this, particularly in terms of managing anxiety or uncertainty or any other discomfort? Can you give me a walk-through of what that might sound like or look like for somebody who is practicing mindfulness? Jon: Well, one of the things you might think about, when somebody feels triggered, something happens. You've touched something you think is contaminated or you've become aware of an unwanted, intrusive thought, a harming thought, or something like that. Then you have an experience in the brain and in the body that alerts you to the fact that you're under attack, that you're distressed, something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. What most people do is they immediately go into the story of, “This is bad. I'm triggered. I need to get away from this trigger. How do I make this feeling go away? Because it's unpleasant.” Of course, it's unpleasant because it's your brain's way of trying to help you jump into action to get away from the things that could harm you. So it's natural that we want to get rid of this feeling. And then we do these things called compulsions that reliably, in the short term, get rid of these feelings. If you know anything about OCD as you do, it's like you get stuck in that loop. The more you compulse, the more you really feel the responsibility towards your obsessions as they arise. In that space, between the trigger and the compulsion, there's an experience you're having. A person who has been practicing mindfulness or who is mindfully aware can show up to that experience in the same way they might show up to other experiences, again, without having to make it go away. So you render the compulsion less important because you're willing to be in the presence of that triggering experience. If you were to take this to the mat and think about, “Well, what happens when you're meditating and you get an itch?” what is the instruction? It's not, “Well, just scratch it so you can be more comfortable.” It's usually, “Okay, well, notice what itching is like. Notice what it's like to be sitting, which is what you're doing, and then have your attention pulled away from the sitting to the sensation of itching, to be able to say, ‘Oh, that's itching.'” Now at some point, we all break and we start scratching ourselves all over it because it's too much, but that's fine. But that's not the first instruction. The first instruction is simply notice itching. And then if you're capable of letting go of that and going back to what you were doing before you got distracted by the itch, you'd go back to your breath or whatever the anchor of your meditation might've been. It's the same thing in real life. You're minding your own business. You're trying to read a book and then you have an intrusive thought that something terrible is going to happen. And then you notice that experience of this mental itching and you're, “Okay, that's happening.” And then you have a choice. You can drop down out of that back into your book, or you can dwell on it, ruminate on it, try to figure it out, try to figure out a way to make it go away, and then give yourself permission to go back to your book. Kimberley: So, we call it in my practice, my staff have called it “itch surfing.” Jon: Itch surfing. Yeah. Kimberley: I always laugh when I say “itch surfing.” So, let's say you have the presence of a thought that's really concerning, right? It's triggering. And you're trying to be mindful, but you're also not trying to step across the line to where you are ruminating or being compulsive related to that. How might someone differentiate between the two? Jon: So there's a couple of things to consider here. One is that a lot of people will say, mindfulness is about watching your thoughts come and go. There's a good reason why we use that metaphor, that idea of sitting at the bank of the stream and watching the leaves go by. But it's not really accurate in the sense that it's more about just noticing thoughts coming and going. Watching thoughts coming and going implies that you're supposed to sit there and stare at them and give them special attention. You're supposed to remember, right? It's a perspective. It's not an act. You're supposed to remember like, “Oh yeah, it was a thought coming and going. Okay, that's cool.” And then let go of it. Ruminating is when you're digging up that thought for the purpose of trying to figure it out to digest it. You're trying to act on the thought and get certainty about it. It's a very active thing you're doing when you're ruminating. To be mindful would really be the opposite of that. It would be to notice that you're ruminating and stop. Because the whole point, if you're being mindful, it's not that you're executing change on your environment, but you're simply noticing what's coming up. So it was really impossible to be mindful and ruminate at the same time because that would be like being mindful while trying to figure out some problem. So the instruction would be to notice that urge to ruminate, to notice what's coming up for you in your body, that experience of, “I really want to figure this out,” and then to allow that experience to be there, and again, drop back down into your anchor. In real life, it's whatever you were doing before you got distracted. In meditation, it's whatever your anchor is – the breath, the feeling of your body in the seat. Kimberley: So it'd be like using the metaphor of, if you're sitting at the edge of the stream and you're just watching the leaves come and go, that would be mindfulness. But ruminating or being hyper-aware would be like watching the leaf after it's way, way, way, way down the river, but you're still giving that attention and missing what's right in front of you? Jon: Yeah. It's easy to make that mistake because you could feel like you're being mindful. You could say like, “Well, I'm just watching this leaf and seeing how far it goes.” But in fact, when you're doing that, you're missing everything that's happening in the present moment, all those other leaves that are going by. A lot of times, people think of themselves as being very negative because they get distracted by negative thoughts, and the thought comes down the stream and they follow it. And while they're falling, those negative thoughts, all sorts of other nice things are happening – the smell of their breakfast or the warmth of the sun or whatever it might be. But they're not noticing that stuff because they're immersed in tracking that negative experience that they had. They think of their lives as being negative instead of thinking of their lives as just being whatever it happens to be in any given moment. Kimberley: Right. Talk about, if you will, hyper-awareness, because I think sometimes people think they're being mindful, and I think it's going to be very similar maybe in your answer, but I just want to be really clear for people who I've heard struggle with. They're trying to be mindful, but it becomes hyper-awareness. Do you have any thoughts on that? Jon: A lot of this, I think, comes down again to language. Most of us are trained to say things like “Sit with uncertainty,” which sounds like a good idea, but the implication for some is that you're literally sitting and there's literally uncertainty in front of you. It's like sitting on your head and you're immersed in it and you're dwelling on it. So it gets translated as “Dwell on uncertainty,” and feel bad as long as you can feel bad. Actually, I interviewed Jon Abramowitz who some of you may know in a lecture series here at Sheppard Pratt not too long ago. He said he likes to say, “Act with uncertainty instead.” I really like that because to me, that is still mindfulness. You're doing something, you notice you became distracted, cool. That's what that's like. Now I'm going to go back to what I was doing before I got distracted. I'm going to act with the uncertainty instead of sitting, letting the uncertainty sit on my head. I think it's such an important distinction because to be mindful of your thought process is to be aware of it. But it's not the same thing as to be trying to figure it out or be certain about it. That would be the opposite of mindfulness. And so the whole instruction, if you've had a lot of experience meditating, it might sound something like you wander away from your anchor and you start trying to figure out what's wrong with your life. And then you go, “Oh yeah, thinking.” And then you go back to your anchor. No meditation teacher is going to tell you like, “Well, just notice that you're trying to figure it out and keep trying to figure it out and try to get to some sort of outcome.” That really would go against the larger project. Kimberley: Yeah. I mean, for me, if I were to explain it, if I were out and about, and let's say another emotion showed up, like shame or guilt or something, my practice is just to go, “Oh, hi, Shame.” I think actually in the last episode, you were here talking about teens and you were like, “That's cool, bruh,” or whatever it was, but that's observing it and allowing it to be there. But then there's a redirect to the present. Would you agree that's a method that you use? I mean, again, we're saying it's not a doing, but talk to me about whether that's something that you would apply to. Jon: I would absolutely apply that. I mean, at the end of the day, we're coming up with fancier and fancier ways of politely and compassionately saying, “Let it go.” We might have all the different ways of saying “It's okay to let it go,” where we understand that it's very painful to have these experiences and that makes it difficult to let it go. We don't mean let it go, like, “Oh, you're being silly.” I mean literally, it arrived and you allowed that, and now it's leaving and you can allow that to let it go. To become aware that you have an urge to ruminate or an urge to do some other compulsion and to let that urge be a thing, don't sit there and stare at the urge and wait for it to go away. just be like, “Oh, that's happening.” Just like shame arises or guilt arises. And then just gently note it and allow it to be, and you don't have to do anything. It's really a beautiful thing. The shame and the guilt and the urge to ruminate and the urge to wash, it'll go away in its own time. You don't have to be actively involved in it. Kimberley: Right. It's like mindfulness underneath there. A major component is non-attachment, to not be attached to it or the story we tell about it or what it means and all the things. Jon: I mean, if you look at that and the concept of diffusion, they have specific skills for trying to make that happen. I think people can argue over like, “Well, what are the mechanics of building those skills? And could there be some compulsivity involved in that?” I mean, I think there's some people that certainly could. If you're going around saying, “It's just the thought, it's just the thought, it's just the thought,” that's not exactly what we're getting at when we talk about diffusion. But the end game is diffusion, it's being able to say, “I'm having a thought that...” What we want is to be able to do that without having to say it, without having to remind ourselves. But instead, simply have the experience that the thought arises much the same way the credits in a movie arise on a screen. Okay, yeah, that is the thought. And then you get to decide, “Do I want to engage with this or let it go?” If it's an obsessive thought that you've been grappling with, that you've decided is your OCD because you keep trying to get certainty about it, well then the instruction is going to be to drop it, not to play with it. Kimberley: Right. Yeah. I think that this was a lesson for me early in my mindfulness game. Mindfulness is not just that heady, heady meaning like only a cognitive skill. It's like you talk about dropping down, and it's a behavioral skill as well. It's not just sitting still and thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking your way out of discomfort. It's also a doing. It's a body thing as well, instead of it just being heady. I think that's where we get into trouble, right? We start to try to think our way out of problems or our way out of discomfort. Jon: Look at checking OCD, for example, like OCD where there's a lot of checking compulsions. What happens is there's this experience of not being complete, something missing or something being lost. And rather than own that experience and be able to say, “That's something that just came up for me and I'm willing to allow that,” the instinct is to get rid of that experience by engaging in the checking compulsion. So, mindfulness plays an important role in being able to say, “I'm aware of this urge to check, and that's fine. I have all kinds of urges throughout the day. I don't have to give in to this urge.” You don't have to do anything about it. Like you were saying, that's an experience you have in the body, like a sense that the body is craving a change and your willingness to allow that craving. Again, not to sit there and stare at it and wait for it to go away, but just simply just know that it is there and then go onto the next thing. Kimberley: Right. I think that this is true in so many compulsions. Would you use the same skill? Would you use the same concepts regarding reassurance-seeking compulsions? Jon: Yeah. Well, reassurance-seeking is really just another form of checking, isn't it? It's like you have a sense that you know something, just like you have a sense that your door is locked when you go back to make sure. In the case of reassurance-seeking, you're going to a person or the internet to try to make sure. But again, it's that experience of dis-ease, right? Not feeling ease with your experience and wanting to change. Instead of resisting that by doing compulsions, you're saying, “I'll allow it.” I've been using this coping skill with the client. I might have mentioned that they prefer “allow” rather than “accept” because accept felt, I don't know, it felt different to them. We can use whatever language you want, but I liked it. I've noticed that as a coping statement. If something comes up, like, “I want to change it,” and they're like, “Nope, I'll allow it.” And then now you're free. Kimberley: Open the gates to it. Jon: Yeah. Kimberley: Right. I like that a lot. The same goes for avoidance, right? Do you want to share how you might drop into mindfulness when it comes to avoiding, whether you're about to avoid or you're already in avoidance? What would your thoughts be there? Jon: Well, it's like observing your inner magnet, right? Something is pulling you in a direction. It might be pulling you away from something or pulling you towards it. And again, what does that feel like for you? What does that experience in the body? And rather than telling yourself “Accept it, accept it, I got to accept it, and push, push, push, push, push,” can you just notice where the resistance is? Can you let go of that, that part of you that's resisting? you want to go to this party, but it's overstimulating and you might say something embarrassing and there's something there that might be triggering for you or something like that. But you want to go. As you're approaching it, do you notice that resistance? Do you notice that push-pull in your body? And again, can you allow it? Can you say, “Worth it, investment return, worth it.” Very quickly, not spending a lot of time on it. Again, I think cognitive therapy gets a bad rap a little bit in the OCD world because it can so easily turn into mental rituals, trying to assess the probabilities and things like that. But just a pinch, like a pinch of salt, a pinch of cognitive therapy where you're able to say, “Come on now, this is a black and white thinking. I can handle this.” If you're allowed to do that. Kimberley: It's funny that you say that because I was actually just about to ask you, like, go back to your story. Remember at the beginning, you were talking about the stories we tell ourselves. And I think in avoidance, there are so many stories that take us away from mindfulness. So I was actually going to ask you. Do you want to share how you would maybe implement a cognitive skill there? Jon: So, if you're being mindful, it means that you're aware that you're thinking. And if you can be aware that you're thinking, you can also be aware of the tone of thinking. This is especially useful if you're trying to quickly assess. Are you ruminating? Are you engaged in mental rehearsal? Are you thought-neutralizing? What is the mental behavior? If you're noticing the way that you're thinking and that tone, you might be able to pick up historically if that tone has been helpful or not, or if it usually ends in you feeling like you have to do compulsions. Take catastrophizing, for example. You're saying, “Something in the future is definitely going to go badly and I'm not going to be able to handle it.” Now, if you're aware and you're mindful, you know you're thinking, and then you know that that's what you're thinking, and you know that that's catastrophizing, you can simply say, “Yeah, that's catastrophizing. I don't need to do that right now.” Very simple. “I can't predict the future.” You don't have to go into “Everything will be fine,” or “The probability is that this is going to go my way.” Again, we want to spend as little time there as possible because we don't want to get wrapped up in arguing with the OCD, but to just call it out and say like, “I can't predict the future. I'm going to just go with this and see what happens.” And then when you make that choice, notice what that feels like. Can you allow that or not? And if you can't, that's okay. You can go find something else that you can allow. Kimberley: Right. I will always remember many, many years ago, probably even when we worked together, a client of mine, and they gave me permission to tell this story, but I won't, of course, disclose any information. But they always said they can feel the shift in their body. And that was them being mindful. They said as if they were holding onto the sides of their chair. So even though they weren't sitting in a chair, they could feel this shift in their body of clenching. You can't see me on the video. You can see me on the video, but listeners can't. But just this wringing of the hands or clinging of the hands, and that her being able to just identify that slight shift in her body was enough to be able to shift out of that avoidance or resistance. I think just being aware and mindful of that, I think, is a big piece of the pie. Jon: So, it's knowing the quality and the tone and the texture of your internal experience. That's essential for being able to pick out and resist mental compulsions. Ruminating is not just thinking about something because you like to think about it. Ruminating is very much like, there's a puzzle and you've put all the pieces together but one, and now you can't find that one piece that it's somewhere. Maybe it's on the floor, it's under your desk. You know what that feeling is like. It's so intense. And that mental quality is what's going on with the person who's ruminating. And that's what they have to let go of, or be able to experience to let go of the ruminating. If you can't truly appreciate the tone and texture of your mind that “Sometimes when I'm thinking this way, it feels like this, sometimes when I'm thinking this way, it feels like that,” it's just very difficult to trust yourself enough to call out the mental compulsion as they happen. Kimberley: Yeah. I love this so much. I think it's so important that we do address it. So, in all, I know there has-- we have addressed this, but I want to make sure we're really clear. Do you believe that someone can mindfully ruminate? Jon: I think it's an oxymoron because to be mindful is to remember that everything going on inside is an object of attention, and to ruminate is to really engage in a changed behavior. So it's really the opposite of mindfulness. There are types of meditations like traditional meditation. You have an anchor. You notice when you're not paying attention to the anchor, you return your attention. Then there's other types of meditations that might involve free-floating, like free-associating. Notice that this thought then connected to that thought, then connected to that thought. That is a kind of meditation. And you could argue that there's a kind of mindful awareness of where things are going when you're doing that. I still wouldn't call that ruminating though, because ruminating is done with purpose. It's done with a specific intention. It's not just watching where your thoughts land. Now, if you have OCD and you're learning to meditate, I certainly wouldn't recommend you do the type of meditation where you just watch your thoughts bounce around each other. But if you're a more experienced meditator and you want to do that free-associating of watching each thought arise and fall and rise and fall and connect to other thoughts and feelings, that can be fun. But it's not ruminating. To ruminate would be to intentionally try to figure out or try to get certain about your obsessive content. And I don't think that there's any mindful way to do that because it is literally the antithesis of mindfulness, in my opinion. Kimberley: Right. No, and that's how I was trained on it as well. I think the thing that I often will say to clients is, anything can become compulsive. Treatment can become compulsive. If you were to technically look at the term, engaging in compulsive treatment isn't actual treatment because it's going in the direction of doing compulsions, which is not the technical term for treatment. Jon: It's tricky with exposures. For example, I encounter people all the time who are doing checking compulsions but calling them exposures. “I have a fear of something. So I'm going to go over and pretend to do that thing and expose myself to that fear by being in this scary situation. And then it's going to go away and then I'll know that I'm not going to do that thing.” Well, that wasn't an exposure. It might've been hard, but it really wasn't ERP. I usually tell people not to do ERP when they want to. That's usually suspicious of that. And also to consider what the point of it is. Like, if your OCD is getting between you and some valued behavior, that's a good reason to go do that ERP. But if it's not, and it just exists in your head, you don't have to go ahead and be ready to go find any ERP to do. You're allowed to just live your life. That's allowed. Kimberley: Right. Jon: Yeah. I think that the other thing that happens with rumination that I think is very confusing and hard for people to appreciate is that, though, I wouldn't say you can mindfully ruminate. You can certainly be lost in thought and you can certainly ruminate without full awareness of what you're doing, because a lot of it is habit, right? Rumination, some compulsions, they can become habitual, but most of them are pretty easy to tease apart from habits. But mental behavior is a little bit trickier, I think. In the same way that a person who's-- let's say they have difficulty with biting their nails, and they always bite their nails when in front of the computer. The computer becomes the cue to bite their nails. The hands go up to their face. They start chewing on their nails. They're not necessarily thinking, “Oh, I'm going to bite my nails now.” It's just happening. And then they might become aware of it. And if they're working on it, then they might use a habit blocker or some other strategy that they might remember to be mindful of the urge to bite it and come up with another strategy. The same thing happens in the mind where if you're someone who's used to engaging in compulsive rumination in different contexts of your life, there are going to be things that actually cue you to do it without you paying attention. You might not notice that, but it's like, “Oh, every time I'm in this chair, I start to ruminate.” The goal here in terms of improving your mental health situation would be to take ownership of the moment that you become aware of what you're doing. Not to beat yourself up for ruminating, because again, your mind was like, “Oh, are we sitting in that chair? Okay, sure. Let's bring up that topic and start reviewing it.” And you can't take responsibility for something you can't control. You might argue, “Okay, well, that's not really rumination because you're not the one trying to control it,” but it has all the same words. You're just lost in this thought of like, “Well, I know this thought must not be true because of this and that, plus my therapist said this and I read in a book, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You don't know that you've left the building. You still think you're sitting in the chair. But then, boom, you become aware. You suddenly remember, “Wait a minute, I'm a guy sitting in a chair, having a thought, and wait, I'm trying to figure out if my obsessions are true. Nope. Not going to do that. That's rumination. Okay, good. Where was I?” Let it go. But I think people can get very self-critical, really hard on themselves, and say, “I can't stop thinking, I can't stop ruminating.” In part, some of that is then taking responsibility for something that's-- it's just habit. It's just the brain has been trained to just start revving up the engine. That's all right. You'll catch it earlier and earlier and earlier if you practice. Kimberley: Right. Okay. Is there anything else that you feel we haven't covered in this area? I mean, of course, we haven't covered everything, but is there anything that you really want to drive home here in this conversation? Jon: Well, I guess one thing that's been on my mind is, we talk a lot about how thoughts aren't the problem, right? If you're being mindful, thought as a thought is a thought. And if you have mastery over your OCD, whatever, a thought about what day it is or a thought about hurting your baby, they're just thoughts. It's no big deal. And to some extent, that's true. We don't treat OCD by treating what thoughts people have. We address how they're relating to those thoughts and what behaviors they're choosing in response to that experience. But in the interest of remembering self-compassion too, I think it's important to recognize that it may also be the case that people with OCD are more predisposed to the average person to receive certain types of thoughts in a certain way. So even though those thoughts are normal events, it is normal for you to have thoughts about all of the potentials in human existence, all of the different things. We can kill and have sex with all of these things. It's totally normal to have thoughts about them. But it might also be that when you have that thought, it hits you in a way that immediately generates an urge or a moral responsibility to address it. And yes, mindfulness can help because it can help. You both recognize the arising of the thought as an object of consciousness and the arising of that desire to do something about it as an object of consciousness. But it's also worth noting that it's just hard to have OCD sometimes. And every once in a while, you're just going to get sucker-punched by it. And that's not because you've done something wrong, it's because your brain is conditioned or wired to receive some thoughts in that way. And that can be something that you develop mastery over. But I think when we take all of the emphasis on behavior and none of the emphasis on perspective or predisposition, some people feel like they're not being heard. Kimberley: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I think that that's been largely the feedback I have gotten as well. If people are struggling and they don't want to struggle, and they're trying to navigate this thing, that feels like an absolutely crazy puzzle that, like you said, they don't even have all the pieces. They don't even have half the pieces yet. So I totally really loved that you said that. I love the idea of compassionate responsibility, which is, we can take responsibility for our experience with the absence of self-criticism. I think we sometimes think that owning this and experiencing this has to mean you have to beat yourself up and that it has to be like “You should've done better” kind of thing. But I do not like that. Jon: Well, you've recently written a book on the subject, and I could go on and on about self-compassion. We could do a whole other episode on it. But I do want to end on this note, which is, a lot of what mindfulness means is simply being honest, and we often lie to ourselves about our experiences. We say, “I should have known better,” but when you look at it, there's no way to have known better, that everything you've done is preceded by a thought or an urge or an emotion and we can track this back very, very far. I'm not making the case for no free will or not taking responsibility for anything. I'm just saying self-criticism is inherently dishonest. I say, “I'm a bad person.” That's a story. That's not an objective fact. I say, “I feel terrible.” That's an experience. That's honest and that's also mindful. Kimberley: Right. I love it. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. I wanted to navigate all this, but I didn't want to do it on my own. So, thank you for coming on and helping me because you're just so good at explaining this stuff, and I really appreciate the way that you conceptualize this. So thank you. Jon: Well, I appreciate you inviting me. I always love hanging out. Kimberley: Yeah. Are there any projects or things you've got going on that you want to share with us? Jon: Well, right now, we're working really hard at The Center for OCD and Anxiety at Sheppard Pratt. We have some new team members and so we're helping a lot of people that way. Not too long ago, we launched the residential program, the OCD program at the retreat here at Sheppard. We've had a few people come in and out of that program. It's really exciting because it's just a different way of working, working as a team on one or two cases at a time and seeing them every day. That dynamic is new and exciting for us. And then book-wise, the OCD Workbook for Teens is out there. The second edition of Mindfulness Workbook for OCD is out there. I just started working on a new one that I'm co-writing with a friend on how to combine ERP and DBT. Kimberley: That's fantastic. Jon: Yeah. So, dealing with relentless thoughts and painful emotions. Kimberley: Nice. That would be so important. Jon: Yeah, I hope so. Kimberley: Oh, without a doubt, DBT is such an important piece of the work, particularly when those emotions are really strong. So that's super exciting. We'll make sure all of those links to that are in the podcast notes so people can check that. Thank you again. Jon: Thank you. ----- Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.

In this premiere episode, author M.C. Beeler joins the podcast to discuss what it's like to dedicate nine years to a project, the benefits of self-publishing, and why it feels so good to have someone read your work. Timestamps and full transcript included below.Links:M.C. Beeler's Website: www.margaretcbeeler.com M.C. Beeler's Instagram: @margaretcbeelerSacred: Eslura's Calling: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Signed CopiesThe Heart of the Kella Short Story: AmazonFREE* copy of The Heart of the Kella via M.C. Beeler's Newsletter SubscriptionOther works mentioned:The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell: Amazon | Barnes & NobleVisit www.causeofcraft.comFollow Jon on Instagram (@jontilton) and follow the show (@causeofcraft).Topics Covered with Timestamps:IntroWorking on a Project for 9 YearsGetting Encouragement on Early DraftsBen 10 InspriationScenes That Survived Every DraftThe Stories Within Us and The Hero's JourneyDiscovery WritingPlanting Seeds for the SequelsConnecting a Short Story to Your NovelChanneling Emotions into WritingChoosing Self-PublishingCollaborating with Other ArtistsDeciding to PublishThe Value in Having Someone Read Your BookWhere to find M.C. Beeler's BooksOutroAbout M.C. Beeler: Raised in northern Indiana, Beeler lives in a small city just close enough to be considered part of the Chicago-land area. A student at Marquette University, she is studying business with a concentration in Marketing and Entrepreneurship in hopes to use her skills to not only help herself, but other authors pursue their writing careers.On the off chance that she isn't stationed at her writing desk, she can be found glued to whatever Nintendo console she can get her hands on working to sustain her self-proclaimed title of “Pokémon Master.” You might also find her snuggling with her Goldendoodle or hitting the slopes during the winter season (aka her favorite season) either snowboarding or skiing.Episode transcript: (May contain some errors due to automated AI transcription):Jon: Welcome to Cause of Craft, I'm your host Jon Tilton. Why do we create? Where do our ideas come from? What does our craft say about us? These are the ideas we explore here on the show, and this week I'm joined by M.C. Beeler, author of Sacred to discuss what it's like to spend nine years on a project, the benefits of self publishing, and why it feels so good to have someone else read your work. Welcome Maggie.Maggie: Thank you so much for having me.Jon: Yeah, thanks for coming on. I'm super excited. You must be excited because you have a book out. Can you tell us a little bit about that?Maggie: Yeah, so I'm releasing my first book, next week, it's actually a week from today and today is the recording date so very exciting, i It doesn't feel real quite yet, but I'm sure in a week it will feel real to have a book out I've been, you know, working on it for nine years. So it's finally going to be out there and it's just very exciting.Jon: Yeah, nine years, that's not like a short amount of time that's a big chunk of your life there. What made you first decide you wanted to write. And this might be a different part of the answer but what kept you working on it for such a long time to see it through to this point.Maggie: Yeah, so to the question of what made me want to write. Well I feel like, obviously I have the cliche answer that I've always been into writing, but it's actually kind of a funny story so I was on vacation in Florida, and I was 12 So I was kind of, you know, an annoying like preteen whatever, and I was really bored and I kept nagging, my mom about like my boredom, and I wanted some sort of solution so she bought me a notebook and told me, she's like you're creative sit down and write and I was like okay, so I started writing, and at the time I was very into the show, Ben 10, I don't know if you know that show. It was a pretty popular show at the time, and I was very into it so my first draft was to be quite honest, of Ben 10 fan fiction. And it was just very entertaining to write that, and what kept me going over the years is, I think, I sort of realized as I was writing, you know, I shared bits and pieces of what I wrote with my parents and it was very exciting to share something, and hear feedback so I think that sort of feeling really carried me through it is the feeling of like getting some sort of confirmation that what you're doing is like good and worth it and like worthwhile. So I really wanted to like see this project through, though. Over the years, I mean it took me nine years to finish this thing so I wasn't consistently working on it, it was more of like in the back of my head like oh I have this, this book and I kind of want to publish it, but I don't really want to like work on it because it's like a lot of work and I would like, work on it for like a week at a time I like write for like a week straight in, and then I'd put it away for like a month, and then I'd like pull it back out and like, type a couple words and put it away for a while, and it was just this whole like cycle of like working on it and then not working on it and then at a certain point I think I was like, 18, or 17 I was like, I really want to publish this thing, and I want to take the steps to learn how to like publish a book, and I learned and I took the steps, and I finally finished and now it's gonna be out in a week. That answers the question I kind of go long winded there.Jon: No, it definitely does and I think you answered both parts of it really well in the same kind of the same answer did cover both things and so that's really interesting, you know, both how you got started led into why you kept going. I was, it struck me when you talked about how you put it away and came back to it. Did you find… Have you been able to look back on the times that you were taking it back out to work on it and like what was… was anything particular prompting that or was it more of, oh, I have some extra time I'm going to pull it back out I'm bored, I'm going to pull it back out, or it was it something else that drove you to come back to your manuscript?Maggie: You know, quite honestly, I don't know I want to say like, I mean, no to get all spiritual on ya, I don't know I feel like I just had something in the back of my head that was like you gotta like do this like this is like something that's really important and will be really important to you and it obviously is it's like kind of my life now, but I don't know I just like, I'd be like sitting around in my room I've like any kind of want to like just work on this thing because like I have it, and like I had shared it with a couple people at the time who told me that it was good and obviously they were lying because it was a first draft and it was really really bad, but their encouragement, kind of like in the back of my head, you know, push me to keep going. And I think that's really important for like people who are like just starting off in the creative industry to really have that like to, like, the confirmation that like what they're doing is worthwhile and like will be worthwhile and I think that's really what like carried me through it, the entire ways that like I had people who were like telling me that what I was doing is worthwhile and what I was doing was good, and that in the back of my head was like, Oh, I'd like me to keep doing this because it's good and it's worthwhile.Jon: I think anyone who spends that amount of time working on a project like there's something about them that I meant to do this and I think it's funny you mentioned about oh well my friends were lying because it was a first draft. You know, I wouldn't be so sure about that, you know, I've had terrible first drafts, I think, I think most first just are probably terrible for everyone, a lot of house season they are, but there's something that there's something there I think if you have if you're meant to be doing it, and you have some talent, even if you don't know how to bring that talent out of yourself yet. I think people can look at elements of it and you know it requires a friend or family member or someone who has a good eye for seeing incensing what's there behind kind of the mess, and know that there oh there's some gold in here that I see, even though it's not all uncovered yet so I think kind of I'm tempted to say the same thing or it's like oh, people are being disingenuous about what they say about some of my early writing. When I talked to them specifically about what they do like about it and I understand the elements that are working, and then I noticed oh they're not saying this, or oh I have a mentor who points this piece out of my writing that I can improve. Right, I think it's all that process of going into something chipping away at it until you really have a refined product that, that speaks to people.Maggie: Mm hmm. Yeah I mean I agree with that because it's definitely they definitely weren't like looking at like my grammar or my like dialogue or whatever they were more probably looking at like the imagination and the ability to like come up with something like that just like randomly not like, you know the actual story structure which is like, I think, really good like to just encourage people at a young age, you know, just not criticizing everything because it can like ruin. You know, if I had showed my parents or my mentor I did have like a little non official mentor but he was like a family friend that was in the publishing business, and I would talk to him a lot about writing. If I had showed them my draft, and they said, “this sucks,” I would probably never have continued, so it's just like really important how you go about talking to young creatives, I think personally.Jon: What is it about Ben 10, that spoke to you as a kid? I know the show but I haven't seen it.Maggie: Yeah, so I just like well I was actually like so obsessed with it at the time I was like just I download it all I like a Kindle Fire at that age, and I just like downloaded all the episodes onto my Kindle Fire and my mom thought that I was like reading but I was really just like watching back then. And, well, I took the idea of the two cousins, and their grandpa and a trailer going around on these like cool quests and like having all these magical powers which like you can kind of see it seeping into my novel now a little bit with like the the powers and stuff but not as much. I mean, my like I literally had it down to the T. Like it was a boy, main character and his like redheaded cousin. So it was like very much the same, but yeah over the years it changed a lot, obviously, and I think it's just like, how much I worked on it and how much I was changing as a person throughout those years because I mean 12 to 21 is like a really like big age range, and like you go through a lot of change then so I think my story was like growing and changing as I grew and changed, and yeah I just like really did a lot of like, I don't know like editing with the plot, and I really don't even know how to like, explain how it changed it just kind of happened like ruin. Look at parts and be like oh, this needs to be something else, and I think it also ties in to me learning what actual story structure is.Jon: So that's one of the questions I actually had listed down here to ask you was just, again, branching off that nine year aspect of this project for you. Like, I think about, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit older than you are, and my first book took about three years to do it on and off, and I think about how much I've changed in that time. And this is an age range that I've done this as a short amount of time, and it's an age range where you don't really change as much as you know the ages from 12 to 21 Right? So, it just blew my mind when you first told me that you had worked on this project for nine years, I was just like, okay, how many times is this rewritten? Are there any scenes, I guess, that's another question, maybe without giving anything too much away that you don't want to… but is there a scene that really stayed with the book the entire time that that you can point to as a scene that stayed in the draft the entire time?Maggie: So, yeah, um, about the drafts first. I literally I think I counted how many drafts I have I have about like 14 drafts of this novel, not including like the written ones, but throughout all those drafts. There is one scene that has stayed very consistent throughout them all. And I don't think it's much of a spoiler because it happens within like the first four chapters, and it's kind of in the blurb to I mean obviously she goes into another world. So there's a scene where she goes into a cave, and I won't really expand much, but she goes into a cave, and that has been in pretty much every draft not the first draft because the first draft was like literal bedtime fan fiction, just like going in an RV, whatever. But the cave thing has been consistent through it all and if you've read the book you'll know what I'm talking about. It also characters there's a couple of characters who have stayed consistent I have a character in my novel who's basically a giant talking lizard, and he's been in every single draft, thus far, and my side character Well she's not a side character really anymore. She was a side character, but my main character Reagan has been in every draft as well. And there's one more I believe I have a giant talking dog as well I'm kind of very into the talking animals, named long pause, who's also been in every draft so those three have survived the nine years of revision.Jon: It's really interesting when you mentioned those things because those elements are directly. I've been really into learning more about Karl Yune, and I've been reading here with 1000 faces by Joseph Campbell, and the lizard person, and the going into a cave like those are big, like within story elements or at least you know there's obviously debate about these sorts of things but those two elements are often things that come up in stories belly, or the cave, being kind of the belly of the whale element. So it's interesting that that's there and to be in the fourth chapter, that's exactly where it goes, you know, in the hero's journey so I'm guessing you're not reading Joseph Campbell when you're 12 years old. So I think it's, it's always so fascinating to me how much these things do actually show up in people's work, and there's just something about being human that like is leanness to this. And there's also the lizard people that's, that's something that shows up a lot in fiction, as well. And so it's interesting that those two things have stayed consistent. Yes, if their connection to those, but of course you know they're coming out and, and I think that's why it's so fascinating to me these sorts of things because how it shows up in different people's work is completely different and so you find out all these things about a person based on how they, how they approach these kind of deep seated, things that are somewhere in our brains and so it's just fascinating to me. I've always been interested in how that works and, and how it comes out in different people's stories.Maggie: Yeah, well I thought about that too because I heard, I saw a little post a while ago that pretty much everyone is writing, Almost the same story I mean because we use the hero's journey template and there's a ton of other like templates but it's really how you make that story your own like using all these because I mean, someone came up with dragons, a while ago and then everyone uses them now in their own way, in their own novel and it's just like the different ways that you use things that make it unique to like your story.Jon: Yeah, and it might not even be a literal Dragon, it might be yeah I mean that that resembles it or that even handset something like, I'm writing something now, and there's a dragon element to it but it's, it's not a dragon at all it's a person but the fact they're guarding something that's the dragon element, you know, the classic like the hobbit with the dragon guarding the gold. Yeah, there's still that element in it, and it's just, it's just so fascinating to me. So it's cool, it's cool to hear a little bit about how that's showing up in your writing.Maggie: Yeah.Jon: Those ideas are actually kind of what brought me to the idea of the show in general, because I started thinking well why am I writing like what I'm writing like why is this element in the story because I don't know if you have the same experience but a lot of times when I write, you know, there's, there's a lot of intentionality behind it but then all of a sudden something will come in, that just pops onto the page and pops into the scene and I just can't control or explain it, and it's, it's, I kind of have to just explore it, that's where I became kind of fascinated with these concepts, and trying to figure out why is it that that happens, but also why is the way that I approach it different than everyone else, you know, that sort of thing.Maggie: Yeah, as you mentioned something about the ideas just kind of popping into your head in that kind of brought a thought to my mind because I mean, when, when people ask me how I've come up with like these ideas I'm like, I don't know how to like explain it because it's kind of like they just appear in your mind, you know, It's like there's like another person in there, kind of like whispering these ideas and you're just like, okay, then you write them down, you're like I don't know how I got this.Jon: Yeah, it's, it's that and that's probably the closest analogy because it's definitely at least for me, it's not like a literal person whispering in my ear. Yeah. but it's like, but I can't explain it because it's like okay I'm locked in I'm writing. And then I have a plan for the scene, and then all of a sudden by the end of the scene it's like well that's not what I planned for and I'm a big planner I like to be a big planner in life. Yeah, I think actually writing has taught me that. Well, it's maybe not the most important thing to stick to your plan 100% And let let what happens happen and respond to it, like, going in with a plan is good, but responding to what's real, I think is, is kind of the key to it.Maggie: And I've seen, I've actually heard. I mean I've read a lot about other authors in their processes and I've read a bit about George RR Martin, the author of Game of Thrones he writes the book. And then he doesn't plan, like he writes one book, And it's, you know, he wouldn't have planned out the series before, and he'll go through the book and see kind of like what seeds he's sowed and see what those seeds can like grow into like work with what you have. But then, for me, I don't I haven't really outlined a story that I've written before I don't know like what you do but I you know I write as much as I can. And then I'll like look back at what I've read and kind of like George Martin, and kind of see like what I have and like where it can go from there. And then I'll like kind of like workout a little bit of an outline based off, like what I've gotten like what I can work with and stuff like that but I kind of like to just sit down and write as much as I can without planning because I feel like, you know, like you said, the more planning you do the more it's like restrictive and it's better to just kind of like, let yourself. Write and see what happens.Jon: That makes me want to ask you this question Stop me if I'm not allowed to ask about the sequels but, and that this is part of a trilogy is that right?Maggie: Yeah, so it's I'm, I mean, if it's two books it's two bucks if it's two bucks, three bucks, if it's four bucks, I don't want it to be more two bucks. Yeah right. I mean I don't I really don't want it to be more than three I feel like three is like a nice sweet spot for this series, but if I can wrap it up in the second one I would, or, you know, just as long as it needs to be I'm not really, I don't have like a restrictive like guideline or anything I just am going to write until the story is done, if that makes sense.Jon: So you right now have kind of a direction you want to start in with book two or is that going to be like I guess how much in for people who aren't writers, there's kind of this mentality of, are you a pantser or planner and I think most people are probably a mix of both. It sounds like that's kind of where we're both that.Maggie: Yeah.Jon: But I guess when you start the project I think there's, there are definitely like two camps of like I started with all my plans and then it got a little bit changed where I started with no plans and then had to outline later.Maggie: Yeah.Jon: What's your approach.Maggie: So, I have a couple chapters thought out for the book I have like a little folder of ideas that I've been stashing stuff in for the second book that you know, like I said, so I've put stuff in the first book that I'm like oh this is totally gonna like grow into this and the next book. So I'd have like those chapters thought out I guess you could say, and I do have the first chapter of the next book kind of renowned I like to do for my books, I like to start the book off like kind of in the villains perspective, almost. So if you've read my first book, it starts off with the villains, and I do like that because it kind of gives you like a little bit of an insight into like what's going to happen throughout the plot. So I do have that first chapter thought out for my next book and I'm really excited about it, but I haven't actually like gone in and like written it yet. I just have like, that's cool, you know, bullet points is like this is gonna happen this is gonna happen this character is gonna say this and this and this. So like I have it like planned out, but it's not like in it's, it's not written yet.Jon: Yeah, so you have like a goal you have your aim in mind. Yeah, you're, you're complete, you know how to approach it yet isn't there yet. Yeah right. I think that's cool that's a, that's a cool thing.Maggie: Mm hmm. And then also it's the same with the ending I know exactly how Book Two is going to end as well.Jon: And another cool thing about you is you have a short story, then yeah, there's two ways to get it, you can go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble any of these places and pay the 99 cents or if you subscribe to Maggie's email newsletter, you can get it for free and it's a fantastic short story. Thank you so it uses characters that are in the book in sacred Yeah, did you find that you had more to tell about those characters or did you kind of go hunting for something you could do a short story, like how did the short story come about.Maggie: Yeah, so I was a part of this Facebook group, and they were kind of nailing it in my head that I needed to have this like newsletter. I was like alright, I'll make this newsletter so I made the newsletter, and they're like, you should have a newsletter magnet to kind of like draw people into your newsletter and I was like okay, so I had that thought in the back of my head but I wasn't like actually planning to write one because I was like, I don't know like how, you know, whatever, how big, I'll make my newsletter or anything but now, currently I love my newsletter, but anyway, so I didn't really want to write the short story thing. And it was in the back of my head and then one night. This was after like I was going through a breakup, so I was kind of in like a moody like. And I was just laying in bed just thinking in this idea for the short story just like popped in my head like, out of nowhere, and I was like oh my god, and I just like started writing I pulled out my laptop because I couldn't sleep because I was just like so stressed out with all this stuff going on, and I just started writing it, and then I finished it the next day. So I was just like, awesome, really just like kind of like, I was almost like I was channeling my emotions from that like breakup into the writing, like, almost like kind of a therapy thing. And I found myself doing the same thing right now. But going through another breakup and writing another short story so maybe it's a, it's like a thing that's gonna keep happening.Jon: So you're the Taylor Swift of books right?Maggie: The Taylor Swift two books, literally, actually.Jon: So I don't relate on the breakup level, because when I started writing I've been married so I, didn't have that conflict in my life, but I do definitely relate to that idea of when you're going through something right and, and it's interesting because originally we had all these house renovations, and it really tore our lives up. And what I went into that time with was this idea of… “oh no, if I write now, it's gonna screw everything up, like, like my mind is not right right now yeah shouldn't right, and I ended up pointing out that that, that is exactly the wrong mindset because what ended up happening was I didn't have a way to process what I was going through, because I wasn't writing, and then it ended up doing double damage because what I did start writing, I use all of the kind of emotions and the conflict that I was going through I figured out how that related to my characters in my story and I just it just propelled me through the next draft of my novel, and it's so funny because I was like wait, I should have been doing this ahead of time because it would have benefited my book. First of all, and then second of all, once I got that all out like I had this new perspective on the situation. And I thought, well shoot… here I was like miserable about it for so long, and when really I had to do was just keep working. And I actually would have been able to process it better so it's it's cool that you know obviously there's things that are, You know, big or small things are awful and you don't want awful things to happen to you, but when you do when they inevitably do, there's definitely something that you can tap into to both overcome the problem but also benefit your writing so it's, I don't know it's maybe it's a kind of a weird way to look at life but, but I think it's a, I think it can be helpful for someone to to think about, Okay, I'm going through this, how can I turn the lemons into lemonade.Maggie: Yeah, definitely. I mean I've always seen, writing is kind of like a therapy type of thing because it really is like, you know you're really absorbed in your writing for that period of time where you are writing like when I sit down at my desk and I start to write, it's like, that's all I'm thinking about so it is like kind of a good little escape from everything that's going on and it's a good way to like, you know, get your emotions into something that's, you know, constructive.Jon: It's interesting you say that too because it is an escape, but it's almost like if, if, you know, people tell you how to handle certain situation right and you're like, they're like oh just don't think anything about it and just escape. And it's like, okay, that's an option but then that leads it to its own problems because you're not dealing with the problem, then you have the other side of it where it's like, okay, just focus on it internalize it, figure out what you know like, really, really think about it, and it's like, well then you're overthinking about it and you're probably doing some other damage to yourself, but writing, it's almost like both of those things happening simultaneously, bring you into this central point where it's like okay I am escaping the issue, but in the back of my mind I'm actually dealing directly with the issue, and I think that that's, that's such a, obviously, neither of us are mental health consultants, like that so we don't, we don't really know the science behind it but I really think there's something to the process of writing and maybe this translates to other disciplines to where you're escaping something but you're also dealing with it in this kind of act of creation.Maggie: Mm hmm. Yeah, I agree, definitely.Jon: So, you have self published Sacred. Did you go through any, any debate with yourself about whether to try out traditional publishing or dive right into self publishing like what all went behind that decision?Maggie: So originally, what I was like, just lucky like first considering publishing when I was like 16 or something like that it was, it was in like fresh, it was, I don't know what year of high school was like maybe like sophomore something year. I have the I considered both options, because I think it's best to, you know obviously consider both options first before you make a decision, so I really did a lot of research and do both industries at first, but the more I started learning about self publishing the more I realized that this was the option for me because I would, I wanted to have complete creative control over my project, you know I had a vision for what I wanted and I was going to make that vision a reality. I didn't want there to be any middleman making decisions for me I wanted to be at the forefront. And I've kind of always had this like sense of like, like this entrepreneurial spirit so I, it was a very exciting thing for me to take this project head on. And I mean, it's had its ups and downs of course you know, so publishing is quite stressful because you're the only one doing it in the success of your book really hinges on like what you do. But of course, success is different for everyone would depends on your definition but anyway, it definitely was the option for me because of the creative control, and the, you know, having my own project in my name in my hands and yeah, just like being able to do everything by myself. Which, I mean, for some people that might be a little daunting, you know, Having to do everything by yourself is definitely daunting but for me personally, which is why I say like, definitely research your options before you make a decision, you know, just because one person does something doesn't mean that it's like right for you. So, you know, of course, research the options before you make a decision because what works for someone might not work for you, and self publishing ended up working out very well for me.Jon: So you did a live stream the other day with your hardbacks coming in. The quality is really good, both on the product itself but in the design as well. You really thought through every element with your designer, and you guys did a great job. And not only that but inside the book you have illustrations. So, each is it each chapter or how many illustrations you have?Maggie: Yeah, every chapter has an illustration. And then there's the map as well.Jon: I mean, I might be making assumption, but you did not draw the illustrations, is that right?Maggie: No I hired out and illustrator.Jon: Okay, and so when you're working with that person. How do you communicate, kind of what you wanted and did it take long to get to a place where you're like, oh, that's, that's what I mean or like can you talk about that process?Maggie: Yeah, so I did. I wrote out little descriptions for every single header and I would be like, I included reference photos of what I want, made it as clear as possible so she knew what I wanted and she was pretty much spot on and in she did a great job with it. You know a couple of the headers are creatures that I've actually made up, so you know she did a really good job bringing those to life, and you know working with me I think it's all about finding the right person to work with, because you know there's tons of creators out there, and, of course, many of them are very talented, but you know it's all about finding the person who kind of like matches your vibe and sees your vision and knows like, you know, kind of understand you, it's a little bit of a mutual understanding between the creator and the you know the commissioner because obviously they get a little bit of creative control as well. But yeah, I sent descriptions of what I wanted. And she was, She was very spot on with all of them, I think, you know, I found a good artist and she did a really good job.Jon: And this is separate from the cover designer, right?Maggie: Yeah.Jon: So that's two different people and so I imagine it's kind of the same thing you think okay what do I want from the perspective of what someone sees when they pick up the book, and what do I want when they're experiencing the story.Maggie: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's actually I have a cover designer, a map like a cartographer, I guess is the official name, and then I have an interior illustrator, so I need different artists working with me on this project, though, for my cover, which is kind of funny, I actually am the character on the cover. So, I like took a photo of myself in that position, and then drew it out. So that's kind of like a weird little tidbit that people don't know.Jon: That's cool, as I did not know that about it.Maggie: Yeah, yeah.Jon: Cool, well the cover looks great, everything about it really looks great. And by the time this episode is out the book will be available so some of what we're talking about is like oh looking forward to release, but just, you know, being a new podcast we're recording a little bit ahead of time so when did you okay so you're writing when you're 12. And then you are changing this kind of semi Ben 10 fan fiction into something that's your own. I imagine that 12 or 13 or whatever the ages, you're not thinking, Oh, I'm going to self publish this one day, because self publishing is super new when you're that age, so it's probably not even on your radar. But I guess when does the switch flip for you thinking to… “you know what, I don't just write this I write this so other people can experience it.”Maggie: Yeah, when I first started writing and I, I had no intentions of publishing I was just writing for fun, and like seeing what happened. And so I you know I was talking with my I call my mentor, but he's not really a mentor, it's more of like a friend like a family friend that I was really close with. I was talking to him and he suggested he, he suggested that I look into publishing, and I was like, oh I don't know like I, at the time it was kind of like, oh publishing a book that's like, I can't like I can't do that like that's not something that's like even an option available whatever like publishing a book just was like, you know, because I feel like everyone when they're little is like, oh I want to publish a book, blah blah blah. And it's, it was like a weird like out of the reach kind of thing, but I considered it I was like, Oh, that'd be cool, like, if I could publish it. And then over the years he kept telling me I should look into it, and when I got to be like 1617 somewhere, somewhere around there. I really was like, I mean, what if I did like look into publishing because it's like, why not, Why not just like research publishing, because I've been working on this thing for so long and I wanted to kind of like, you know, do something with it. So I like, did the research and then I decided that I was going to take my big take a shot at it. And that was, at first I was interested in traditionally publishing so I was doing like research into agents and stuff like that, but then I discovered self publishing, and that really took that really took hold in my mind, and that's when I was like, oh, it's gonna be this I'm gonna self publish this book and it's gonna happen. And I started doing all that research and I got my cover design way early, so I was like alright I'm gonna finish this book, within the next month and I'll polish it. That was when I was like 17 So, obviously, that did not happen. It took me a lot longer than a month to finish. But, you know, with that, it's like, take however long you need, it doesn't need to, you know, doesn't matter if it takes you a month, or nine years to finish something it's, you know, that dedication to continue working on it is like really what matters but yeah I don't know, long winded answer to the question.Jon: Well it's funny because you mentioned you getting the cover done early, and you know I think that kind of speaks to, it almost sounds like you kind of had like, once you decided you were going to do it, you almost have like this fearlessness about like I like just gonna go ahead and do it like it wasn't, it doesn't sound like you had a lot of like, doubts creeping in. At that point did you or, and that was just a different sort of response or did you ever have that come into play later?Maggie: I feel like I've always had the confidence about it because it's been a passion project for me, I mean I've been working on it for nine years. So, you know, it was more. I want to publish this because it's been so important to my life for so long. I don't really care. You know how well it does I'm publishing this because this is my passion and I wanted the guy set my mind to it and this is kind of like a goal accomplishment for me. But of course you know I want the book to be successful because, obviously, anyone who puts something out wants it to be successful. But in the back of my mind I do, I'm just very happy with, you know, any sort of result, you know I put this book out, and it sells one copy and I'll be thrilled. I'll be excited about that but, you know, if I put it out and it's well received, that's also good, but for me it's just, it's been such a huge passion project, this is just something that I needed to do in my life, and having finally done is like, wow, it's like I've done this I can do anything you know. Yeah. The doubts, haven't really been like that big, because it's been a passion project, you know, The worst that can happen is it flops, and then I read another book, and whatever you know it's just, it's, it's like, I saved up all this money for this. You know I don't want to spend my money on anything else like this is like my like thing. I don't know it's like it's hard to like explain, because I don't know it's like, it's weird. It's such a passion, such a very important thing to me. So, but yeah, obviously I do want it to be successful. Because that'd be cool.Jon: Is there something about like the you know you mentioned if just one person reads it, or, and again we were talking about when you decided you wanted to publish it, what does it mean to you when you have a reader, and, you know, these ideas that you've had for nine years are developed this story for nine years, Like, I struggle to ask this question because I'm like if someone asked me this question I don't know how I be answered. I don't know it's like sometimes that's unfair, but, like, like I don't know if you've been able to identify and maybe that's why I want to ask it because I'm like trying to identify this in myself too like, like what is it about like having someone else read it, that is satisfying.Maggie: Yeah, that's I mean that's a good question. It's just, I think it really comes down to like the affirmation that like the confirmation that, you know what you're doing is worthwhile and like they you've created something that's like a value to someone else, and you know when I see someone reading it, or when I hear that someone really enjoyed the story I'm like, Okay, so like, that's awesome. Like I spent so much time on it and it was worth it was worthwhile and people are enjoying it and it's like giving them something to do in their free time, you know, helping them through something you know whatever like they're that your creative work is appreciated, and it's just, it's like, it's kind of deeper than that though I feel like, like when someone reads your book, it's like deep down and you you're like, you have this feeling, it's like, oh wow, like, that's awesome. I don't know how to explain the feeling, but like, you know, when I would get reviews for my short story and people would message me saying that they loved it or whatever that they cried or something like that. I was just like deep down like had this feeling I was like, that's awesome, like it's just such a it's such a weird thing to explain like like you said.Jon: Okay, I think, in what you're saying I think you're helping me understand it better to it which is why my guy asked out because I don't know there's something about like someone else reading it because what you can put in a novel is different than what you can just talk about like most people, I don't think can describe just the emotional journey, and the end what an author can contain into a novel, like if you had the same amount of words to not use a story, and say what you're trying to say. Yeah, it's not going to come off the same way. So, having part of yourself in a fictional story is almost this way of communicating to someone else, how you feel. And you know, to have someone else read it, you are then heard in a way that you can, can't be heard by just speaking to someone like, yeah, like me and you talking now like we can get into deep issues like we have and talk about all these things, but it's not the same as when, like, so I read an early draft of your novel and it's like, oh, like, like there's some, like there's elements here, where, you know, you go through it and then, oh, I've heard something that this person is communicating right and I think there's just this extra kind of, you know, magical. I don't know if there's a better word, but yeah, magical value to understanding someone through reading their work and so I wonder if there's a little bit of that element, and then kind of going off of that and going off of what you were saying, you know, when you see something, or when you read someone else's novel, and you go through this experience of, well how would a satisfying story and and really spoke to me you know I've really, I really connected with the story, like there's just something about that that's so powerful and so the ability to give that feeling to someone else I think yes, you know, it's almost like you know you mentioned this, this mentor of yours and I'm sure that it because I have someone in my, my life who has mentored me a lot. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times I think, Oh, why is this person spending so much time on me like it doesn't make any sense. And then I've explored kind of this idea too and I think about times that I've been able to mentor someone about something else or even writing now and it's like there's something about it where, like, helping someone to be able to give that gift of their story to someone like there's just something powerful there and yeah, again, it's like, it's almost like we have to talk around it because we can't, maybe that's sort of a story should actually be, we should have a story about what it's like to read a story and then understand it, but it's hard to explain. But I think we at least wrestled with it which is, which is good. We attempted the explanation.Maggie: Yeah, it's hard, I mean it's like, I feel like writing is such like a personal thing and then you like, share it with other people and they can interpret it in their own way based on like what they're going through and it's just, it's weird writing is, I mean writing is obviously very special and it's something that I think, you know we'll be around for ever, because it's like a way of telling something it's a way of like expressing your emotions, it's a way of expressing who you are, it's literally like an outlet, I feel like to, to who a person is and it's just such an important like thing and our winner world. And I just, you know, I love writing.Jon: Same here. I love writing too, and I think that's a great note to end on, Maggie, thank you so much for coming on the show it was a pleasure to have you.Maggie: I really enjoyed this conversation and I just want to thank you again for letting me come out here being your first guest.Jon: Can you let everyone know one more time where they can find your books?Maggie: Yes. So, this short story is available on Amazon for those of you who do not want to subscribe to the newsletter, but if you do subscribe to the newsletter. I promise I'm cool and will not spam your inbox, and then the story is called Sacred, Eslura's Calling and that will be available June 24, a week from recording, and that will be available on every platform that you can buy books, and as well as you can get signed copies on my website.Jon: Thanks for listening to this episode of Cause of Craft. For more information about Maggie's writing, head over to www.margaretcbeeler.com There you can also join her newsletter for your free copy of A Sacred Tale, The Heart of the Kella. I'll have links to her website and her Instagram in the show notes, and also at www.causeofcraft.com. Hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode, and follow at cause of craft on Instagram, to stay up to date on the latest news and clips. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a five star review on Apple podcasts, and if you have feedback, suggestions, or guest recommendations, send an email to Jon at causeofcraft.com. See you next week.*Not affiliated with Cause of Craft, offer may be limited time.

The real reason people cancel [It's not really the money] We're on a mission to help one million people RISE by 2030 - join the movement at www.myrise.co.uk We've mentioned before many times that people leave us. As always, people leave every fitness facility on the planet. Most just pretend otherwise. Probably the most commonly given reason for leaving is money. “We need to cut back on outgoings” “Need to save for a house, holiday, wedding, etc” And we get that. We've all found ourselves in the position where more is going out than coming in. And we need to do something about that. But………. From my experience (nearly 20 years)…….. In the vast majority of cases, the money is only part of it. When people are achieving amazing life changing results they've never got anywhere else……… When energy levels, mood, mental health, fitness, endurance, sex and / or sleep are up……… And weight, aches and pains and the like are down……. We normally find financial adjustments we can make elsewhere. So……… Is it worth considering……. That when we're tempted to cut back on this particular expense………. It's just because we're not getting the results we want? At that point we've got two choices; 1. Stop spending the money and get even less results 2. Get better results Sure, the second is harder. But that's the one we really want, isn't it? Just because it's “easier said than done”…… Doesn't mean it can't be done! And, as always, we're here to help with that. Hit us up if your results aren't where you'd like them to be

We wouldn't think our money was magically disappearing [Would we?] We're on a mission to help one million people RISE by 2030 - join the movement at www.myrise.co.uk Imagine you were getting more and more into debt as each month passed. You'd done some rough sums. You felt you were probably earning more than you were spending. But that debt kept increasing. Further into the overdraft. What would you think? Assuming you were confident that no one was stealing, you'd probably think “I must be missing something with my sums”. We wouldn't think that the money was magically disappearing, would we? But we're tempted to do the same with our calories aren't we? Think we're “not eating much” but gaining weight? Or that “I should be losing weight on what I'm eating” but aren't? When people are kept in tightly controlled, laboratory style conditions……… Where every morsel of food is measured…….. Body composition accurately calculated……. Movement precisely tracked……… Breath monitored constantly to measure energy usage…….. Everyone ever tested has lost weight when in a confirmed, sustained calorie deficit. With only marginal differences in the rate of that loss, when otherwise matched. So………. If we're not losing weight……… One of two things can be happening: 1. We're the first person ever to not lose weight in a calorie deficit 2. We're missing something with our ‘calculations'. We might be a bit optimistic with the activity multiplier we pick when calculating our energy needs. Our estimates of energy used exercising might be somewhat ‘keen' (many FitPros massively overstate how many calories are ‘burned' in their sessions. These estimates might neglect to consider that we'd have used an amount of energy just by being alive in that time. We might have already factored our exercise in our choice of activity multiplier (and, so, be double counting it). We might be a little bit out with our estimates of portion sizes. We might forgot to consider a few snacks, drinks and other bits that ‘make their way' into our mouths through the day. The nutritional info were going off might be a little out. All relatively small potential errors individually. But add a few together? What appears, on the face of it, to be a deficit, might be maintenance. Might even be a surplus. Ultimately, unless we're that first person ever to not lose weight in a confirmed, sustained deficit………. We'll be missing something in our ‘calculations'. And that list above might give us ideas as to what. Much love, Jon ‘It's a kinda' Hall

This is part two of my interview with Jon Mamela. Yesterday we explored his career at Procter & Gamble, Fairmont and his path to becoming Canada's top destination marketing leader. In this part of the interview we explore how destination marketing is different from traditional “company” marketing.You can also listen to these interviews in your podcast player of choice: Apple, Sticher, TuneIn, Overcast , Spotify. Private Feed (for premium episodes).TranscriptEdward: This is part two of my interview with Jon Mamela, CMO of Destination Toronto. Today, we're going to explore the world of destination marketing, specifically his experience in marketing Canada, and now the City of Toronto. Jon, can you start by describing what a destination marketing organization does?Jon: Sure, Edward. Organizations within the destination space can vary in terms of their mandate and the work that they do. Generally, I would summarize most of them in terms of the representation of the local community, be it restaurants, hotels, attractions, businesses of all sorts, that effectively benefit from what we define as the visitor economy. The destination marketing organization is the entity of the agency that represents those organizations in promoting and selling the destination to various source markets that are important to them, to bring new visitors into the local economy.Edward: How do you measure success then? Is it the number of visitors that are attending? Is it the amount of dollars spent?Jon: It really varies, again by organization and where its particular focus is. Most destination marketing organizations promote two primary forms of travel: one being a leisure traveler coming in and vacationing—as a couple, as a family. The other is the means with which you bring a meeting or what we call a business event into the community. That business event can take the form of a corporate meeting, it could be a sports event, it could be a large cultural event and the like. The means and the measures behind those two segments vary tremendously. One, you could be at the upper end of the funnel, measurement and outcomes of it in terms of making your destination, the destination being more aware and people in your target audience are more aware of your destination, down to consideration, and all the way as a lead over to the business event site, in particular in terms of assisting through the sales funnel and through the sales efforts, actually book a meeting that comes to the destination in itself. Measurement varies extensively. It can be attributed or at least tracked to. It means with which your hotel occupancy in your community sits at, the means of expenditures if the capacity in the means with which you can measure actual visitor expenditures at the cash register (so to speak) can also be assessed, and there are means with which you can do that buying third party data, so we take a look at that those types of measures as well.It's a pretty broad broad measurement scorecard (so to speak) relative to the role with which the organization will play, the segment of business they go after, and how (again) the community also holds them accountable.Edward: Are you targeting ROI? Are you targeting, hey, I have this much money to spend. It's going to drive this much value for our community?Jon: Depending on the sophistication, on your ability to do so, we can. At Destination Canada, we're used to being prior to where I'm here at Destination Toronto. We had an ROI calculation and a means of calculating an econometric model of return on investment across markets with which we invested in. That was based on quite a bit of historical data on visitation and marketing expenditure, relative also the forecasting on various elements or factors that would indicate what we would anticipate or see in terms of our performance of our marketing going forward. I've been in an organization that does it both ways. The more sophisticated and larger invested organizations or larger budget organizations where I was before get to that point. You can debate and have very good conversations, whether the means with which you don't own a cash register, how accurate that work was. I thought it was very well-constructed with third party expertise that we had, alongside with their internal business intelligence team. At a point with which you're truly getting down to ROI would, in absence of owning a cash register, is definitely challenging. It's up to the organization if they're seeking to go there or are expected to go there.Edward: I expect you could measure revenue or measure expenditures is probably the easiest way. Is there an equivalent for profit? What did destination organizations care about in terms of the equivalent of profit? Is it the tax revenues generated by those tourists? Is it the profit of the hotel chains? Who's paying your bills and what does success look like then?Jon: I was going to answer to you earlier a list of options there, all the way to option (e) all of the above to some degree. The funding mechanism for destination marketing organizations vary greatly to a degree. I would say vary greatly in terms of the nuances of them but primarily fall into two means: (1) They're based on what is called an accommodations tax, usually at the hotel level. If you're traveling and you see a line item on your hotel bill about a destination marketing fee or promotional marketing fee that is captured by the hotels, attributed, and flowed back to the destination marketing organization, that is one option. (2) Sometimes, it can be a line item expense for a government or a regional municipality in terms of direct contributions. It's taxpayer-based.I think the popularity of having travelers or visitors into your destination, funding the marketing and sales activity is one with which a lot of destinations go to. Declared at a city level, state level, or province level, usually find it as part of a platform or focus of the government in terms of recognizing the value of the visitor economy, and investing behind is as much as maybe not to the same dollar amount but in terms of the health care line expense and the like. It varies in an organization, depending on what makes up a better organization. So, it usually happens in those two means.Edward: I expect the feedback cycle is very, very slow. Like my wife has wanted to go to Bhutan since before we even met, and we still haven't gone together. When we finally do, I expect tracking the visit that we do have to the marketing message here 20 years ago is just going to be impossible. How do you know what marketing is working and what isn't?Jon: That's a great question. Study after study that we've seen and witnessing that the means of how many times one changes their mind in the past to purchase in the journey of deciding where you're going to go and what destination rises to the top, and how quickly one can be subverted over to another destination almost at the point of the cash register was seeing something more compelling and the like, is tremendous. The means to tie it back that ROI, and believing that with which the marketing activity that you've put out in the market has been the lone attribution or a big part of the attribution, is extremely difficult in this sense. And again, because most destination marketers don't own a cash register. When we have a sales force—as we do a global sales force that is selling business events—where it's a very engaged one-on-one conversation into a series of engagements through the sales funnel process, they're particularly our efforts that brought a meeting over to the destination.On the leisure segment side, it is that Holy Grail and the means with which we worked with the likes of Google and others that we've tested in very interesting ways. A means with which we have confidence in the exposure of the marketing and the messaging, to what we look at when there are various technologies out there in our industry that tag browsers to show that we know we reach you on your phone and you showed up in our destination.That attribution comes again with a lot of questions and debate whether there's accuracy and ability to do so. Those organizations and technologies certainly support what they believe this to be true. They're certainly valid, they're great data points, and they can be used in various ways, but a true attribution, unlike in a lot of other categories, when (as you said) the means of choosing a destination can take years, as you've noted to Bhutan for 20 years, or even the next year and how many other times you've engaged that brand, you're not going to be—by means of your financial ability—in touch with your journey all this time, You can even say it's the Holy Grail; it is a bit difficult even to suggest that it's going to be an easily provable or a worthwhile pursuit.Edward: Given that difficulty, what do you do? What are you optimizing against on your marketing spend in the short term that you can measure?Jon: In terms of what we look to, in terms of where you can drive behavior of a customer. Optimizing our spend, what we create in terms of the story of the community and the means with which the content partnerships and the means with which we generate content. In addition to traditional paid media options, content co-creation, publication, and dissemination is a big part of where a lot of destinations have move to, in terms of what is the story that we're telling on behalf of the community and what are the means with which the content you create, where that gets viewed, how it gets passed along, how gets engaged with, is a big part.An example there, for instance, while I was at Destination Canada, Korea was one of our key source markets. We co-invested into an opportunity there with which was a long-form content play that we were able to link back. Again, not with 100% certainty, but we were able to link back given the growth in the explosion of interest in the destinations that were featured in this long-form content in Canada, from the purchasing, what's happening with travel agents and tour operators who are featuring [...] that the link to that is something with which you try to make the case.In terms of real time optimization, we do so on performance. A little bit just in terms of the performance, the media in terms of getting people to our website, and the means with which we optimize against the mix of the media choices there, so we optimize that behavior. A behavior (for us) is a digital referral onto a partner and optimizing investments. Someone from us and moving onward to a hotel would give us an indication of someone taking a further further lead into the community in terms of inclination to visit. We will lead and optimize. We optimize towards leading a customer further down the path to purchase in many instances.Edward: The end of the funnel is relatively easy to optimize, I imagine. What is your cost per visitor to a hotel landing page? Is it what I expect you can do? What percentage of your budget would be end-of-funnel versus early funnel in destination marketing?Jon: I would anticipate that there's 50/50 sometimes. It varies on the year and varies on the objectives (I guess) of the organization in terms of the expectation of the community and the stakeholders, and where the focus of the business is going to be. Clearly, in a global sales activity with which we're bringing in business events certainly leads a lot more down to the bottom of the funnel in terms of us really trying to close and win business and the like. There is some top-of-the-funnel effort and activity is selling Toronto's a place to bring your business meeting, so I might be more of a 30/70 split, whereas driving and attracting a leisure visitor could certainly be anywhere it's 50/50. It's going to be (again) on the intended outcome or what you're trying to seek to achieve. More and more, the importance of holding that obligation and driving home the collective community story and the content (as I alluded) getting created behind that and top of the funnel is becoming more and more important and difficult to do really well. More important is because no one else in the community is telling the community stories, much as destination marketing organizations should itself.Edward: In that story-telling, in the top-of-the-funnel stuff, is it primarily input metrics? Is it a matter of, hey, we created this content. We think the content is good, therefore we've done a good job, rather than trying to figure out how much revenue has been generated by this great content?Jon: Certainly. I would say there are output measures. Working with publishers in terms of engagement time, with content, the referrals, the forwarding on, the passing along, the means with which it actually performs with the embedding of the ability for someone to dive deeper or search your website or onto another landing page and the like.Edward: On those output metrics, have you ever looked at the correlation between those output metrics and actual visitors over some delayed time frame? If you do a really good content campaign in 2012 and you have all those output metrics of engagement and stuff being really, really high, does it correlate to more visits in 2013 and 2014?Jon: It can. What we've done in terms of working with Google here is actually taking a look at what that lag period is between engagement with content and advertising to search, and then onwards to visitation. It was (I think) the first global pilot for Google to do that with destinations. We did that as team Canada to really take a close look at that. It can be done. It's not done as being less confident in the results. It does cost, but the means with which the expectation of the stakeholders of the community is expecting us to prove that, certainly can vary from the work I've done in the past. It's challenging, absolutely, but it can be done. It can be done and we have shown it through that work with Google.Edward: What type of correlations do you see? Is it to the 0.1% range or is it like a 0.5%? If I get that metric up, how confident should I be that it's actually going to do something?Jon: That was the first time pilot that we did with Google in terms of trying to prove a point in terms of how we set it up and to test that again, similar as we talked earlier about the means of setting that up in a clean test environment but a balanced AB sample approach. Statisticians are a much more complicated scenario planning and modeling than I'm describing it here with you. The means with which and the correlation, I can't recall what exactly was. I'm not saying it was one, and even at 0.5 I can't recall, but the indication was that the means of the investment would give you the impression that it was worthwhile to continue to invest, that you would see the return. I just can't recall. We didn't act on it at the time. It was pre-pandemic, so the industry itself in terms of here in Canada with our borders closed, to go in and start marketing to Americans, to continue to prove the model and prove the case would be difficult to do so or would be meaningless at this point.The same type of tests I'm working with OTAs and the like are possibilities here to correlate and connect based on (again) if you're doing high-level funnel content efforts or you're going down to the bottom of the funnel. Tactical means can also be done with them.Edward: That's a nice lead-in. We recorded this podcast in early 2021. Covid shutdowns have been going on for almost a year now, but the vaccine is being distributed, so the end is at least visible. How did Covid change the way you thought about destination marketing last year?Jon: The importance of staying top of mind, even with everything going on in the world, once our target audiences' lives, the state of concern, security of one's health, the health of themselves and their family, when and how would travel come back, and when the means with which people look at travel as something with which they want to pursue, all of our research is indicating clearly the importance and the high level of desire. Travel still sits on people's expectations when this pandemic goes to a stage of not being a pandemic, that the borders open, and the confidence and safety is addressed in terms of being able to find some degree of the next wave, the market behaving and people behaving. The importance of staying top of mind and now addressing a combination of both being inspirational, still. Travel's one of those most inspirational categories that you can connect with people on but also the importance of health and safety. You're not coming across as a destination purely not by health and safety alone and you're coming across as if your Clorox or something to that effect, where the efficacy of your product is fully depending on the brand reputation. The need to recognize health and safety, the balance of health and safety, and the experience one would have has now risen in importance to the customer and the traveler. What exactly is the experience I'm getting on the other end? What can I expect? What is the physical separation and distancing that businesses and experiences are delivering? What is sanitization going to be and such? There's no turning the light switch off and this pandemic disappears and behavioral shift just goes back to what used to be. It's not going to be like that in our indication of the research, so the needs on marketing the destination will have to have a very careful and an appropriate balance of messaging, without getting to the point where it's so factual and sanitized, overused means with which the inspiration is lost because inspiration is going to be equally as important.Edward: That gets me to another thought. I often say that marketing is less about advertising what people think and often more about things as fundamental as product. Now, at least in most organizations, a product is part of the organization, but for destination marketing, not only does your marketing or not control product but your whole organization is a control product. The product sits under all the hotels, attractions, airlines, and sanitation departments effectively for the city that you're marketing to. Do you ever have to try to have any impact on the product or do you just live with the product that you're left with and focus on the advertising?Jon: In terms of the direction we take, we don't focus in terms of the development and the progress in terms of product. We don't own anything, we don't manage anything as you've alluded. Some organizations in the destination marketing space have a pretty aggressive look at product development and would possibly have a means of either co-investing or facilitating co-investing and direction in terms of what gets designed and developed in their local community. Here in Toronto, we don't. When I was at Destination Canada, we were neither at that national level, by any means. You are—including coming out of this pandemic—going to be a means of taking a very—as we do—close eye on. Who's going to make it through at the other end of this pandemic? What's their business vitality look like? We have a very different compliment instead of a product that we can market coming out of this—at least in the near term—and where we will be in the future. That is part of the unique challenge and the means with which the effort to rise above any singular product or experience. Being able to encapsulate that collective experience within the community in a way that you're not putting logo soup or a means with which it's just a quick flash of this, show this, show that, show this, and at the end of the day people don't know what you actually stood for.Edward: Is there anything you can do to influence those products, though? Is there anything you can do, like hey, is there a way to improve the quality of the hotels in the country, or the distribution of hotels, or the entrance fees to national parks? Are there any leverage you have at all to influence the product itself, or you're just left with creating the content with what you're given?Jon: More the latter. You're certainly not doing so in absence of having numerous number discussions, staying connected to your community, and stakeholder engagement that we put dearly in terms of the importance of staying closely connected to our industry. The decision's often on a private enterprise' standpoint of owning a property or managing a hotel, to an attraction. If anything, we can provide intelligence of who the visitor is, what they're looking for, how their behavior, attitudes, and consumption patterns change. We could provide the intelligence, but the means to really make an impact on what you described—in terms of a decision outside of our hands—we certainly could be an advocate and a point of view at the table on things but certainly by no means do we try to drive that change or expect we could make that change. Speaking of your notion of park passes, it wasn't our decision at Destination Canada but working with Parks Canada to make parks accessible in 2017, which was Canada's 150th birthday. It was a big move to expose the parks and I think they've done even further activities of the sort since to make parks accessible to many more Canadians and visitors. They'll cover that. Clearly, parks are an opportunity to continue to promote and showcase all that there is to offer in that vein. That decision wasn't ours, but we capitalized on it when I was there.Edward: It sounds like you can collect information about what your customers or potential visitors are looking for, and you can feed that information to the people who are building the products. In a way, that's your lever of influence. Your lever of influence is effectively knowledge dissemination that they otherwise wouldn't have.Jon: Absolutely. Again, through the means of financial data, credit card data, and direct debit data, we and other fintechs can track where and what type of categories are visitors from various markets buying, where they're buying, what season and the like. Coupled with model data, we have the ability to take a look at an anonymous fashion where people are moving in and around the community. Mirroring and layering those two—although they're not connected by any means—starts giving us quite a bit of insight in understanding behavior without intercepting and interviewing a ton of people. You're gathering it anonymously in the background. That's invaluable information and insight. You see the shifts pattern-wise by season, by origin, by visitor, year over year as well. It's incredible value that our stakeholders do really appreciate.Edward: Jon, one of your big successes at Destination Canada was driving visits from Korea. Can you spend a couple of minutes just walking through how you did that, what the impact was?Jon: Absolutely. It was one of my career highlights in terms of the success that it drove. I think every CMO would probably lean more to my data side than my gut side in terms of making a call on something. This is a bit of both. Having trust in my team in Korea who came to me with a strategy and a plan, the long-form content within Korea and the TV series were extremely popular. Arguably, we filmed at the various locations and we've all heard the success stories of New Zealand, Iceland, and other places within the popular HBO series. The opportunity was presented to us that this new series is going to be chosen in terms of destinations around the globe, and we were approached as one of many destinations to see if we would have interest in hosting the filming crew to film the show.Important with the team and a great group that I had working with me in Korea was ensuring that the storyline was authentic to Canada and that it wasn't just a misplacement of a storyline and a place that doesn't seem natural, or just seems out of whack. You just lose confidence and that could be any means you'd want to go and see that place because it just didn't even connect with the story.Fortunately, the story was a really odd mix of both humor, sci-fi, romance, drama, all embedded together in a great Korean style fashion with content creation. They make it work. We went in with pretty much all chips in to see if this long-form content series that was going to promote Canada overall but a particular region of Canada in Quebec City could, in fact, connect with travelers. The team certainly sold me on the idea that Korean travelers and many travelers also in the Asia-Pac region were very keen and made travel trips and decisions on where popular film series in Korea also took place. Seeing that first-hand in the [...] really quite surprised. I don't get popular fans of certain shows will do that here, but it was more of a general trend there. We went all-in, collaborated with our local national airline—Air Canada at the time—and with the Fairmont Hotels, and put together a [...] to bring the crew over. These are top A-list actors in Korea, filming various segments of the show in Quebec. The result of this series—I think a 13-part series—where we weren't in every minute of the show in terms of the destination but very important points in the story, including the closing point which is the romantic conclusion of the story, happened in Quebec. The popularity of this just went above and beyond anything we would have expected. Now, having the benefit of having Korea's equivalent to Brad Pitt and another movie star–caliber actor doesn't hurt either, but the outcome was hundreds of millions of views of putting Quebec on the screen of everybody in Korea and beyond. From television to social media, in counting, we had over a billion views of this content. It's incredible. The means with what was then putting a place on the map almost, somewhat overnight in terms of the popularity of people wanting to go and see the scenes or the location of the scenes, to see these in Quebec.Kudos to some of my colleagues in the industry who were sold on my case, that this actually had potential. It was one of those [...] you think the data's right in terms of the potential, but you got to go with your gut. This is something worth pursuing and fortunately it really did.Edward: Did it translate into actual visits?Jon: Absolutely it did. The hotel, that particular Fairmont property with which it was filmed, saw incredible growth. I can't speak to the particular hotel performance per se. It's just on top of my memory, but our visitation from Korea was well over double digits, like into the 10% and 20%, 30% growth that we were seeing coming into the country overall. Recognizing how popular that was, that was a big driving force of who was coming in.Edward: How fast did that happen? Jon: Within a year. The benefit of having a director fly with Air Canada helps, so people could get here quickly, direct from Korea to Toronto, or Vancouver, or to Quebec City. It was pretty quick. And the means with which we stood out in the market for sure and capitalized on the series itself through really an omnichannel approach with which we promoted on social channels. We had the actors commenting on their experience in Canada. In addition, we did [...] and intermediate was all in, but the anchor and the crown jewel of it was that TV series.Edward: John, thank you so much for your time today. This has been really great.Jon: I really appreciate it. Thank you, Edward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

I met Jon while interviewing for the role of CMO of the Emirate of Dubai. In this interview we talked about his path to being the chief marketer for the country of Canada. Tomorrow we cover details on how destination marketing differs from more traditional “company marketing”You can also listen to these interviews in your podcast player of choice: Apple, Sticher, TuneIn, Overcast , Spotify. Private Feed (for premium episodes).TranscriptEdward: My guest today is Jon Mamela. Today, we covered Jon's path to CMO. Procter & Gamble, Fairmount, Four Seasons, Destination Canada. Jon is now CMO of Destination Toronto, the partnership that's focused on growing tourism in the greater Toronto area. I'm excited to have this conversation and where it's going to go today. Jon, you were Director of Customer Experience at Four Seasons when you got the CMO role for Destination Canada. How did you get that job from where you were?Jon: The opportunity at Destination Canada presented itself through actually a bit of my past when I was prior to working at Four Seasons, I was with Travel Alberta. An organization who worked closely with Destination Canada at the time. I got to know the National Tourism Group through collaboration, partnership, co-investment in marketing, got to know the leadership and on my time at Destination Alberta, leaving over to go to Four Seasons, I received a call about 2, 2 ½ years into my role at Four Seasons. From then, at the time, the CMO who is ascending into taking an interim CEO responsibility and at the same time they had another individual leave and opened it up as an opportunity to the marketing department and was approached to interview. The opportunity to take and put on the Team Canada Sweater was intriguing enough to do something. You normally don't get too many chances in a lifetime to market an entire country. This enthusiasm, I put my name and the hat, went to the process and was successful in landing the role. Edward: You had destination marketing experience before that role, but in the meantime, you had built out expertise in more end of the funnel even retention marketing. That end of the funnel retention marketing experience at Four Seasons, was that considered valuable or were they really hiring you based on your Alberta experience?Jon: I think a bit of both. I would say that the opportunity with which I had to work in Destination Canada had responsibilities on both ends. In terms of the experience with Destination, our Travel Alberta which was important for appreciating and understanding the industry and the industry dynamics and that upper funnel engagements and approach and strategies. But at the same time, with which the responsibilities and the work that we did at Destination Canada and is still being done, there is lower funnel activity going on and that's working with the trade channels and the conversion channels with which where the path leads a customer to make an actual booking is a very important relationship to hold with the likes of travel agencies, tour operators, OCAs and the like. Having that experience at a hotel side and appreciating that dynamic in mixing and melding the two was invaluable in the time spent at Destination Canada. A bit of both.Edward: Was there any skill you were missing you took that CMO role that you had to develop after you're there?Jon: Yeah. The biggest skill or the opportunity to grow into was the dynamic of when representing a country as large as Canada and complex as it is, the number of partners that we were bringing into the fold to help coinvest and help us go to market was very key. I would say a skill to build was the relationship building and the importance of staying in touch and engaging and building the business case as to why a destination like where I'm now in Toronto to Alberta to Ontario, British Columbia, Vancouver. Why would they come on and market with Destination Canada when they themselves have their own independent brand, they have their own focus strategy, where and how do we add complementary value. The building the business case and building consensus. Clearly having learned a little bit of that at the hotel level and working at a brand level in the hospitality industry, you're doing similar commitment behind building commitment with hotels under your management. But a little bit different when these are pretty independent organizations. With different boards and different mandates. That skill of building the business case to bring everyone in together and operating as Team Canada was something that I would say I didn't have a great deal, a little bit of exposure in Alberta. But during the course of my time was built over my tenure. Edward: Jon, I want to go back to the path that got you there. You grew up in Canada but you chose to go to college in the United States. Someone who also grew up in Canada, I know that's fairly unusual. How did you come to that decision?Jon: It was a pursuit of my interest in playing sports that took me to the United States and there are certainly many Canadian athletes in the US university and college in the CWA system. The opportunity to take my passion playing soccer alongside with the opportunity to go to university took me down to the US. At the time too, when playing soccer while schooling maybe is not as popular as playing hockey in Canada as it still is today. But soccer certainly has grown in popularity. But the opportunity to broaden my exposure to the world, so to speak, in the early ‘90s, getting down to the US, playing on a team of international teammates from around the globe and pursuing my education at the same time got me down to the US at the time when it wasn't too popular thing to do. But invaluable as it led me to continue on my education and to my MBA and then on to Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. Edward: That's my next question, having done that, you decided to stay in Canada, you went to University of Toronto, how do you think your career path would've been different?Jon: That's a very good question though. Looking back at it in terms of the interesting and if everyone looking back at their career looks at what doors opened at what points in time and who you meet in the circumstances of it. I don't anticipate I would probably have a breath of career maybe in terms of the companies I would've worked for necessarily. Not that P&G isn't here in Canada. Clearly my career took me back to Canada working with the hospitality and tourism industry where I am today for a great extent of it. But I don't know if the same doors would've maybe been made available to me. At the same time, a door can open but you have to be able to make an entrance and make an impact at the same time when it comes to your career and working through past engagements and relationships in your network and the successes you've had. I don't know if I'd be where I am today just based on the nature of where I may have studied and where that would've lent to it. To our question, something tells me there could've been [...] that I could have landed in a similar path and career. But it's probably not, I would probably maybe find myself if either maybe in a banking industry, which is pretty financial services which is pretty significant here in Toronto. Or I had stayed out west, maybe in the agricultural sector or something, who knows where it's quite common. I look back at it and just bewildered a little bit and turns out things always play themselves out when you take a look back at what's been across your desk and what passions and enthusiasm you have and what connections can lead you to. Edward: You started your career at Procter & Gamble. In 1996, you were Brand Manager for Digital Marketing. This was back before even people were even calling it digital marketing. What did you guys call digital marketing back then?Jon: Interactive. P&G Interactive was the group name.Edward: So you're Brand Manager for Interactive Marketing. What were the big problems you were trying to solve back then?Jon: On the group, I had a particular focus on the consumer market intelligence side of the group's focus and working closely with everybody in the small team that we were. It was an interesting time in the sense that we were looking at determining with this advent at this channel what would be the migration and the migration strategy to bring brands under the P&G umbrella into those channels and how do we effectively show as this was always being taunted then, their flaunted story that it was the most measurable channel, you can get the ROI, it's so much better than anything else you could.The degree of which P&G measures and monitors investment in spend for media and programs is extensive and well documented within the organization. This was an improving ground. We considered it the next evolution in step of the new media channel. Like going from print to radio, to radio into television, and to television to internet. This was a means with which we were showcasing the incremental value that was going to be enabled by two way conversations with customers, the building of databases. Unlike we would've been able to build before, the opportunity for different forms of contents, trying to determine the ways with which traditional means of marketing and selling CBG based products was going to work in the ad model spaces and channels that were options that were available then. It was pretty broad. It was really making the compelling case that we needed to be there and it wasn't just an environment for new startups and the like be a technology based startups or content plays that a package goods company could capitalize on the creativity that was permitted. The data was now at a level that we didn't have direct access to before and the means with which the measurement was lining up to similar measures where we would test advertising efficacy all the way through close model purchasing systems that we were very ahead of our time back then.Edward: Part of what you're responsible is for is attribution. How did you do attribution back then? Attribution today is hard enough. Back then I imagine the tools you had to work with were pretty limited.Jon: They were. Attribution primarily done with the means with which we succeeded in it in a very interesting pilot test with a variety of technology players and data panel providers. Working with the legs of AC Nielsen. At the time, there was just starting to become the means with which you could create internet panels which were then cookied or tagged in terms of being able to witness, monitor your web browsing behavior way back then. A means with which we could close the loop in terms of the investment and spend of the marketing and insurances that in splitting a shop per panel who committed to participate in various research and split that panel in a maybe fashion that allowed us to expose by being able to serve ads to one audience versus another and watch exactly also what they were—these same panels used by Nielsen at the time—would come home and just scan their groceries. We're doing so in terms of being able to then serve that grocery buying data off their receipts and the like. We had a means with which a central foreplayers, the advertiser, the shopper in panel, the ad serving media company, and the publishers got together in the means with which we effectively created an online digital close environment for the degree with which we'd be able to adjust spend, expose certain audiences to certain communication messaging and then watch what their behavior was by virtue of what they were scanning and bringing home back from the grocery shopping bag. Edward: That's amazing. I was going to say, I feel like now, so much of attribution is based on last touch attribution. I push companies to do more and more randomized control trials. You guys are effectively doing a randomized control trial back in 1996 to measure the effectiveness. Clicks didn't even factor into it. It was a matter of hey, did these guys actually buy more or did they not? And then you just assume that whatever impact you had on that panel was broadly applicable and then just rolled it out more broad.Jon: Correct, yeah. Clearly with the modeling on any other means of incremental exposure to other advertising was also considered and factored in, correct. Edward: P&G tries to keep people around for life. That's their motto. But you left in 2001. Why did you leave?Jon: Procter & Gamble, a lot of people make that decision early on in their careers to commit to an outstanding career that can be provided by the organization or people leave at that point of the five year mark and around that five year mark in many instances. For me, it was really taking a hard look where my passion was with the work we were doing in the interactive space. The group itself was, the P&G interactive group, we had a mandate that the need and necessity of that functioning unit inside as an internal consulting group for the brands didn't need and hopefully it wouldn't have to exist after about five years that the brands and the organization would and by the growth of the internet was going to make us obsolete and that the need of group, we would just migrate back into other line function opportunities. I took a look around and at the time, there was the pre internet bubble and at that point a lot of P&G expertise and brand marketing and other functions were leaving to go to Silicon Valley and other parts of the country. Taking a look at what my colleagues were going to and where I was looking to expand my opportunities and my passion of what doing this versus getting on to a brand was a decision of taking a risk of exploring options outside the business. Unlike P&G-ers being recruited directly to something else, I took the opportunity into parting the organization to assess multiple options to really appreciate whether this was an environment and a place that I was moving into the internet space was going to be something I was truly enthusiastic as much as I was in Procter & Gamble. Inside P&G, the opportunity to experiment, you're the biggest fish clearly inside of an environment, in terms of the media spend, you're sought after by so many publishers and so many technology brands wanting to prove their business case on the benefit of what they could serve P&G as a client, and the like. But when you leave, you're pretty independent. It was a big change. But it was a risk that paid off ultimately in an interesting way. For me, it was pursuing what I thought was going to be of a long term career in the internet space itself. Edward: Now, I also heard that you met someone on an airplane. Jon: Yeah. That's part of the continuing part of the story in terms of speaking to the doors that opened, so to speak, although we didn't want to open the door in the airplane at least while in the air. But the opportunity when I left Procter & Gamble and just doing independent work with various brands that I had got to know and organizations, a conversation on an airplane led to a path in a career shift and pivot to the hospitality, tours, and travel space. That just simply occurred by being, you always say, ignore your neighbor on your plane. You don't want to be the Joe talker and bothering anybody, and it was mutual respect, we hardly chatted much at all in a flight at the time from Toronto to Denver. But having a mutual common interest in sports. The individual, he was reading the sports pages. The Toronto Newspaper at the time. I struck a brief conversation, it was near playoff time. Through that short conversation, a quick why you're flying, where are you coming from, led to a love to stay in touch should be back in Toronto and led to an introduction into Fairmont Hotels. Which I didn't appreciate knowing a lot about even though we're Toronto based at the time during the merger at a buy out that they were in the midst of. But it led to a great career and a start in hospitality. Had I not struck up a conversation, I was sitting next to this fellow, I would not be where I am today. Edward: You hear these stories from time to time about a chance meeting on an airplane leads to something. I never talk to the person sitting next to me. Am I making a mistake? How do you make stuff like this happen?Jon: As I said, I wouldn't be the guy that you'd be like, my gosh, tell this guy to shut up and pay attention. I don't know. It was one of those you don't know in terms of where conversations can take you. The enthusiasm to have and have them, being open to wherever it goes and a lot of them don't lead to anything other than just being cordial and striking up a discussion. But if you don't try, you don't know. You'll neve realize what could be on the other side of it. I'm not suggesting to everybody to say that's the secret sauce to driving your career forward. But it was something that worked out at that point in time. Again, it wasn't from a conversation of here's a job. It was clearly the opportunity of introduction that led to further discussion of then let's your process of engaging with the VP of Marketing at the time for Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and the opening they had that my background was a suitable fit. The opportunity presented itself. I would just only encourage when you can strike up a conversation with what might be a stranger or someone whom you might only know by a third degree connection on LinkedIn to where it could lead. You'll just never know. You just need to be pretty open to it. Edward: Jon, at Fairmont, you oversaw loyalty. Fairmont's loyalty program is very different from what people might be familiar with, at say Marriott or SPG. Why was it so different? What were guys thinking?Jon: Yeah. Certainly, it's a different structure. Fairmont as a brand still exists, it's now woven underneath Accor, which is a larger global hotel, hospitality player based out of Paris. But back when I was with Fairmont as an independent company and a brand, it at the time, as I alluded earlier it was an interesting point and its history, Canadian Pacific Hotels had acquired Fairmont Hotels out in the United States along with Princess Hotels in terms of an acquisition. The amalgamation of those three brands led to, at that point, of going forward, three separate programs that were coming in that each hotel brand had a loyalty based program functioned and ran differently. They're just similar to what the industry had been on a points basis, of a spend, receive X points and the currency and through redemption of that currency was with which the benefits primarily are realized. Fairmont recognized at the time that this expansion, this opportunity was going to present itself with a unique marketing challenge of which did not sit with a lot of cash on hand to be out there competing with the likes of Marriott, Hilton Heights of the world and that the opportunity to build and engage with customer directly through means of the loyalty initiative was going to be one that which we could do more smartly in terms of the cost model behind it. But at the same time count on the customer to be the voice of the brand and to engage others to speak about the experience they had at the Fairmont. The avenue we went which was purely based on annulating with the luxury brands, most luxury brands were doing in terms of offering personalized service and attention, doing it at scale, doing it in very large hotels which was a new proposition because we had large room properties versus most property brands or smaller room counts. But doing it with that attention of personal benefit and recognizing that you, Edward, are the same Edward going to multiple properties under the same banner and building upon the knowledge built and understood by one property to parlay that into ways with which we could customize your experience going forward. That proposition of personalized attention enhanced in stay benefits that we launched in various ways and capacities in partnership with a lot of other brands that wanted to get in front of an affluent customer led to a unique positioning in the market that was welcomed once people understood it was in the program. Clearly, everyone's comparison to what the industry standard was or what I was getting at Marriott or as I said, a Westin at the time, part of their merger, Hilton and the like. We really found to our customers that it was more meaningful to know who you were, how important you are to our business, and how we personalize your experience with what was most meaningful to you. And not simply just reward you with a cash currency that was sitting as a liability to the hotel company and was looking like everyone else's programs primarily. Edward: Jon, what were the biggest failure points in your career? Where did things not go as expected?Jon: That's a great question. I don't think anyone asked that one of me before. I'll answer from the perspective of maybe first career path and then secondarily maybe from a progress in terms of a success of the work that has led with many successful and talented people. From a career path standpoint, I would say maybe, I'm not going to look at it as a failure, but I look at it as maybe an opportunity. You give up opportunities as much as you pursue and take others. Again, I don't classify it as a failure, but I do undertake and look back had I stayed in some of the organizations a little bit longer as to where my career would have progressed inside those organizations. Be at Procter & Gamble as we talked earlier, but leaving around that five year mark or sticking around with Four Seasons or a Fairmont longer than I had in the past and building up my career in that capacity. But I was always leaned in and most attracted to the opportunity of additional growth and responsibility and broadening and enhancing skills. I always felt maybe the accelerator to get that outcome was through a move ultimately. But you can take a look back and see some of my colleges were still with those organizations doing very well and do wonder a little bit. Classification as a failure, maybe not so much. But opportunity in terms of one given up to pursue another. On the side of that question to the pursuit of what may not have occurred in terms of the production or the delivery of work and success or failure in the business. I look at that one too and I'm a little bit struggling to say I would lean on something, I'm not suggesting by any means perfect hit the homerun every time I'm up to batting. Maybe I always challenge myself with expediency which the work that I'm leading is getting out the door on behalf of the organizations trying to be faster and more nimble and the like. I look back at the level of accomplishment of maybe not being as either as much as I anticipated we could've gotten to or at means with which the work itself was either passing the baton at some point on to others to carry on after I left. But I don't look at it particularly as a significant failure. But I have to give that one more thought. It's a great question. I'm sure if I spend more time at it I'd come up with something for you. Edward: Jon, what are your productivity tricks? What do you do to be productive that most people don't do?Jon: One that I find in terms of the amount of information I like to peruse, and keep up to date and read. I have a pretty consistent means with which I organize and file information and a system in terms of the devices and where I hold stuff so that it's not scattered in terms of multiple devices and content being placed in multiple places. I go through a pretty regimented approach in terms of unifying nomenclature and filing systems, so to speak, on multiple platforms from Evernote to Google Drive and others that I use. I find that means of quick access and application of something I'll be there I've read in the past. Bookmark red, taking personal notes to be able to ease up access in finding and applying it on a regular database would certainly be a big part of what I find that helps me personally on my productivity side of things. And that being diligent in doing so on that front. Which takes a little bit of additional time because I appreciate the business of everyday life to everything from the general environment to recall something. I read something somewhere, I've done something somewhere. I definitely capitalize on the means while trying to have great consistency and where I put anything I learn, anything I observe, anything I listen to in a pretty consistent fashion for easy retrieval. I try to remember it and apply it would certainly be one of the big things I find from my productivity hack, I guess, if you call it that. Edward: Jon, this has been great. We're going to pick this up tomorrow with a dive into Destination Marketing.Jon: Great. Thank you, Edward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

We're on a mission to help one million people RISE by 2030 - join the movement at www.myrise.co.uk I've mentioned many times that the inspiration for these blogs and videos comes from conversations with people. After all, if one person is expressing that they're unsure about something or struggling in some way…………. They won't be the only one. Sometimes, coincidentally, we have the same conversation several times in a row. This happened the other day. Whilst we weren't able to meet people in person, we were doing a lot more online conversations. Voice and / or video calls with members to go through things and help them ‘course correct'. Whilst we're back able to meet in person now (and that's always preferable), we will continue to do this as well. The thing that several people in a row said the other day was “I just need to stop”. You know – of a particular behaviour. Drinking, snacking, finishing off what's left in the serving bowl, finishing off the kids' meals, having a tub of ice cream or a bottle of wine in front of the tele, etc. And, on the face of it, that sounds like a valid plan. It is, however, the same plan that hasn't worked. Usually many, many times in the past. We've probably said “I just need to stop XYZ” many many times before. And maybe have for a few days or a week. But then started again. Just stopping rarely works. It leaves a hole in our lives. There was a reason we were doing that thing before. To change to way we feel usually. That's what us humans are ‘designed' to do. Make ourselves feel better. And not doing the thing that'll make us, at least momentarily, feel better………. Means we'll have to use willpower to force ourselves to continue to feel not as good as we'd like. Which will only ever last so long. Replace that thing with something else……… Something that makes use feel better to, at least, a sufficient degree……… Without / with less of the ‘downside'……….. And that might be something we can keep doing. Eating something else (perhaps less calorie dense), exercising, going for a walk, taking a few deep breaths, meditating, doing something we enjoy for a few minutes…….. Something that has the same (or sufficient) benefit in the same way the thing we want to ‘stop doing' does………. Could be an approach that, on average, lasts……… Much love, Jon ‘It's Hammer Time' Hall

Larger companies get most of the press and excitement with their 6 and 7 figure marketing budgets, but the majority of clients we work with are smaller. And smaller companies have to do things a little differently than the big guys. What impact does a small budget have on driving traffic? How should small budget brands compete online? https://www.logicalposition.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Jon: Hey Ryan. So we get companies contacting us all the time, that don't have large, six or seven figure marketing budgets, and many times, those large clients get most of the press and excitement, but the majority of companies that end up investing in marketing are going to be smaller, and smaller companies have to do things a little bit differently. I want to ask you today, what impact does a small budget have on driving traffic and how do those small budget brands compete online? They obviously want to compete, they have to compete in order to grow, and I want to know what's the magic, how do they make that happen? I'm excited to talk to you about this today, and I guess I'll start pretty broad, in e-commerce, is there such a thing as too small of a budget? Ryan: Across the board as a broad general rule, no, but if you're really going to do something with your budget, then yes. I mean, you have to have enough budget to start moving things around and collecting data. And I think that initial starting budget, if you're a smaller business, is going to be important to determine how quick you can grow, how aggressive you can be, where are you going to find that opportunity to take the next step in the digital marketing evolution of your business? And I challenged a lot of business owners in this space, as I'm talking to smaller ones all the time. Like for example, yes, you can start with $100 a month budget, it's your money, and you can market it however you want, invest it however you want. But if you're e-commerce, you're e-commerce so that you can sell everywhere and have your online store open all the time, even when you're sleeping. And so if that's the case, $100 is not going to get you very far in marketing across the internet. And so if you're going to do something that small, you really need to be hyper, hyper, hyper-focused, which does limit your potential and opportunities to find little pockets where you can really dominate or win. And so I would generally say less than $1,000, there may be better places for your money than trying to drive traffic with it online. Jon: Interesting. I was going to ask, and maybe you've just answered, but I'd love your take on this too, if I only have $1,000 a month to spend, is it worth doing it or am I just throwing my money away, when we're talking about driving traffic through traditional paid media sense? Ryan: That's a difficult one because most business owners that are coming up with this $1,000 and you're smaller, that's a meaningful number to them probably, but they probably don't have the expertise to really make that $1,000 do as much as it can. And so you probably have to bring an expert in, and that costs money as well, because most people in the digital marketing world are not working for free. And so you have to figure in an expert generally, and I'll probably come back to that point, but for most businesses, I would say that you have to look at it through a lens of time and money. Jon: Okay. Ryan: Anybody can learn how to do digital marketing. You have to be able to study, you have to be able to go in and make some mistakes and learn it, but anybody can figure it out. It's definitely not the most complex thing you could be learning. But if you have more time, then you should be doing some of that work yourself and learning it and getting it to it like, "Can I get some basic things done?" If you have more money, than you need to hire people and your budget should probably be a little bit higher to be able to invest and push traffic. Jon: So we should be saying, when we say budget for today's conversation, should I be thinking about it as budget including the expert or budget just in what you would spend to drive traffic in these channels? Ryan: I think businesses should be looking at it together, but I think most business owners are thinking about, "Okay, I can spend $1,000 to drive traffic. Let's go put that on Google and make it work." I do believe though, the Googles in particular and I'll focus on Google for right now, but Google in particular has done some pretty cool things helping small e-commerce businesses get going. If you've got a feed and you're on a smaller platform, like if you're on Shopify, it's very, very simple to get up and running on Shopify and get your products going to Google. And then there's what Google is calling smart shopping campaigns that allow a business really to say, "Google, here's how much I'm willing to spend per day, and here's the goal I need to get out of it." It does not take an expert to get that up and running. And in fact, I tell companies, do not pay an agency to manage smart shopping campaigns because there's nothing to do. It can be a small piece of an overall structure, in fact, we at Logical Position do use smart campaigns in a small piece of a campaign occasionally, but we have to do a lot more work in the reporting and strategy on that type of client, to be able to justify charging management fees on smart campaigns. Jon: Okay. That makes sense. Ryan: Small budgets use more automation, I think, is the name of the game. Use things that are set up to make sure you don't just waste a bunch of money, and I think that's where a lot of small businesses, what keeps them from starting often is that fear of, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to go waste money trying to drive traffic because I don't know how to do it right." Doing some research, I think, can help keep that option to a minimum, that is just going to go out there and be a big waste. Jon: Let's say a company hasn't driven traffic on Google. How do they decide what that starting budget should be? Ryan: This generally comes down to, what's the business doing as a whole? If you're doing $100,000 a month on your website and you haven't been spending money, you probably have a larger amount you could start with then if I'm only doing $1,000 a month in sales. It's a threshold there of starting to look at it, but I generally say, in e-commerce, at least $1,000 to start with on Google. And then start thinking about it through a lens of, "I know I'm not going to be starting out at the gate if I'm doing it myself in a perfect world scenario." So there's going to be some learnings. I look at it through the lens of what's my light money on fire threshold, to let me get things going, and I've done this with new platforms on some of my brands. Nobody knew what they were doing yet, across the entire platform. Pinterest is being one of them. A couple years ago, it was just wide open. Nobody knew what it was going to do. I think they're getting some more structure in place and it's driving better traffic, but I went onto it saying, "Look, I don't know what it's going to do." My light money threshold at that point was, I think about 2,500 bucks, so I talked to Pinterest like, "Look, we can go a thousand a day for two and a half days if you want, or we can go $100 a day for about a month. I'm okay with either, whichever one you think is going to work better for me." And that was my light money on fire threshold, that I wasn't going to be mad, I was just like, "Yeah, that did suck, but I got some learnings." Pinterest didn't work for us at that point in time on that business, we'll continue to be revisiting it. But all that to come back around to it can't be a budget that if it doesn't work, it's going to tank your business, because there's a lot of unknowns if you haven't been on Google before, to how is your website going to convert, what traffic is going to work best for you. Because you'll take the same product with the same price for the same search query, going to two different sites and it's going to convert and there's going to be a different return on ad spend. And so with all of that unknown, anybody that tells you they know exactly what you're going to get by putting $1,000 out there, they're lying to you because there's no data to tell you one way or another. There's no way to know. Jon: Okay. So don't bet the farm. Ryan: Don't bet the farm, but it should probably make you a little uncomfortable. Jon: Okay. Ryan: When I'm looking at business decisions and I want to grow, and you know me, I tend to be on the aggressive side of things, I want what I'm risking to make me a little uncomfortable. I don't want it to be an easy decision or an easy thing to be like, "Okay." Could I have wasted $100 to test Pinterest? Yeah, but that was not an uncomfortable thing. 2,500 from me was a little bit uncomfortable. Partners and I talked through it and we're like, "Okay, if it returns nothing, that's not going to be great. But again, we're not going to lose the business because of a mistake if it doesn't work." So a little bit of uncomfort, I think, is good. Jon: Okay. So then let's say I have a thousand bucks, where do I start, Facebook, Google, something else? Ryan: I think generally it's going to come down to those two for most businesses to start off with. I think other platforms generally are younger and they are less proven and therefore generally higher up in the funnel. Like if you're going to jump right on TikTok or Snapchat for marketing and you haven't done Google or Facebook, I think it's going to be difficult to know if that platform is actually working for you, if you haven't gone to more advanced ones yet. And so when I talk to a business owner or a marketing team that's looking at deciding between both of those two to start, the easy way of looking at it as if there is existing market for your product, I generally say go to Google because you're going to capture people towards the bottom of the funnel as they're looking for your product. If you're creating a brand new category, there's not a lot of people searching for it on Google and so you're going to have to figure out how to create that and find the right audiences on Facebook and convince people to start trying you to build that search volume. So for example, last week I talked to a guy, his company makes edible bubbles and I'm like, "I have never heard of this before.'. Jon: Isn't that bubblegum? Ryan: Yeah. This is for kids going out and playing and blowing bubbles, he makes edible bubbles. And I had no idea my kids would want that until he sent me some samples and they're actually pretty cool. Jon: That's awesome. Ryan: But they actually make them for bars. Someday when we get to go back to a bar, they make these bubbles you can blow on top of a drink, and a lot of times they infuse them with smoke for presentations. Jon: That's cool. That's a great idea. Ryan: So really cool stuff, but there's not a target market yet that they know to search for that. So I, before last week, never would have even considered searching for the term edible bubble or edible bubble for a drink or bar drink presentation bubbles, that's just not even there. And so for that type of business, you've got to go on Facebook, you've got to target bartenders, you've got to target moms with kids, with the kid bubble one. And there's some really cool targeting on Facebook, and if you've got a good visual and some good offers, I think Facebook can work really well. For other businesses, Facebook generally will hit top of funnel like that, and so the return, again, generalizations, is going to be a little bit lower than if you had run some bottom funnel, Google stuff to figure out where people are searching for your product and what are your advantages and all of that. Jon: So we're talking the difference between perhaps intent versus awareness? Ryan: Yes. Like if there's already people searching with intent for your products or services, I would go capture them first. It's going to be a little more expensive per click, possibly, there's generally going to be more competition, but it's an existing demand that you're tapping into. You've just got to figure out how you're going to compete there. If you're creating a brand new product that nobody's ever searched before, you probably can't even spend your money on Google on search terms, you're going to be on broad match keywords on Google wasting money. Jon: Right. No, that definitely makes sense, then Announcer: You're listening to Drive and Convert, the 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. Ryan Garrow, of Logical Position, the 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: What other things tactics do the smaller budgets need to be aware of? What else would you consider? Ryan: Some of the tactics I talked about when looking at smaller budgets on advertising and driving traffic, don't even have to do with the tactics to drive the traffic. A lot of small businesses, even over the last year with COVID and a lot of brick and mortar moving into online, a lot of them haven't thought about what is my advantage online? If you are selling the exact same product at the exact same price, and you have no discernible advantage over a competitor, what are you doing? Try to figure out, before you go spend money, why somebody is going to buy from you. And you can't really tell me that your advantage online is going to be because you have really smart salespeople inside, or you have a lot of knowledge in your industry, because that's not going to come across in Google shopping. Nobody cares how much you know, they don't know how much people know when they're just going to a website and transacting. And so you've got to figure out what that advantage looks like first. Why should somebody buy from you versus a competitor, if they've never met either one of you and all they're doing is seeing your website because the internet is the great equalizer and small companies can't compete with big companies, if they're better at certain things. Better at converting, if all of your competitors are stuck on really ancient Yahoo stores that are 20 years old, and you're going to come in there with a Shopify or a big commerce site, that's really easy to convert on. That can be a significant advantage, even if everything else is the same. Jon: It's funny, you say that, a friend and I were just talking about that and we were laughing, saying a great business model would be to just go to find a index of all the remaining Yahoo stores making over a million dollars a year and just replicate that on a better platform, with better usability and you would print money. Ryan: Why are we doing a podcast? Let's go get a list and start making business. But it's true. I think we still have 50 clients on Yahoo and some of them are, I think, are on the RTML, that really old coding platform, that if you're not 50, you've never even heard of that. And I only heard about it because we have clients on it. Jon: Yeah. Look, I mean, I think a lot of these stores take the approach of, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And they're still printing money, so why change it? I think they're going to ride that till the end. So somebody will come along and end them by doing something better, but you got to find it first. Talking about that is one of the things that the platform could be, one thing that these smaller companies are doing wrong. But thinking about smaller budgets, if they're sending traffic to their site, what do most of these smaller budgets do wrong? What mistakes are they making with their small budgets? Ryan: I think a lot of them, if they do have some advantages and they do have a reason to market, a lot of them make the mistake of not being aggressive enough. I think I've mentioned this probably multiple times, but a lot of small business owners really watch their P and L and all line items going in and out of the business, which is good. But when they come to Google ads, it can quickly become a very large line item and they want to focus on, hey, I need to increase profits, so we need to start cutting this budget and controlling Google, because if I control something in the middle of my P and L, the bottom gets bigger. And unfortunately, something like a Google ads or Facebook ad, is generally driving top line number that does translate into bottom line number, but if you eliminate what's driving that top line, it can really have an opposite effect of what you're intending. And so it's really a paradigm shift. If you're looking at your budget like a line item, you start looking at it as you're investing in getting new customers and then what are you going to do with it? Don't see Google ads or Facebook ads as a cost necessarily, unless you're purposely losing money and you have to control that piece, but that's a whole different story and most small businesses are not doing that, so I won't dive into that necessarily now. But then trying to figure out, okay, once you've got a customer, what are you going to do with them? Because Google and Facebook, they're a marketing channel and you're going to have to give some or all of that initial order margin to the platform to get the customer. And that allows you to compete and capture more market share, but if that margin is going to the platform, it's not going to you, the business owner or marketing teams future budgets. So you've got to do lifetime value, figure out what you're going to be doing to bring them back. So many times small businesses are thinking about, I've got to get customers, I've got to get customers, so I've got a market. Okay, good, you do have to do that, but you can't keep trying to do that without focusing on the customers you do have. What happened to the customers from last month, what are you doing with them? If you're not emailing them, if you don't have a loyalty program, you're essentially wasting all of this effort that you're doing to successfully bring new customers into the brand. And so that's where I see most struggles, because then they'll just be like, "Oh, Google was terrible. It took all my profit and then I had nothing." Jon: Well, we've talked about this several times on the show, of understanding that it's okay on that first sale to break even, and your customer acquisition costs might be high on that first sale, but you have to have a longer term game plan in place. Is it a subscription type product that you're going to use, if you have a consumable, is it something where you're able to continue to market to them afterwards, but you're doing it in a way that is going to continue to drive down the customer acquisition, but up the lifetime value over time? That definitely makes a lot of sense. So, okay, we've heard a lot of disadvantages to being small here today, but there's still a fact that most brands are going to be in that small budget. What are the advantages, what's the positive side, the glass half full here, what's the advantages to being smaller advertisers? Ryan: Yep. There's no secret that having more money can have more advantages in advertising, I mean, that's just basic marketing 101. But what I've seen through a lot of small businesses and having my own that compete against much larger brands, is you inherently have more flexibility. In fact, we were just laughing before we got on and started recording, about politics in larger companies, having all these things that you have to wade through to get things approved, or to do things, where you can't move quickly into new markets, because there's all these layers of approval. Small businesses, hopefully don't have that problem. And it's like, if you see an opportunity, you can just go do it and there's not a lot of people that have to sign off on. It's like, no, I'm going to go capitalize on that change in the market or that area that hasn't been attacked by larger brands. And so that can be a huge advantage, but I still think a lot of small businesses don't think of it that way and look at it, hey, I can afford to make mistakes and learn from them very, very quickly and pivot and adjust. And I can test new products on my site, I can test things on my site as a small business that I don't have to go to a web dev team. I can make quick little changes on my Shopify site to say, "Hey, let's see if this works or not. Let's run it for a week and if it doesn't work, flip it back." So much opportunity to test and so few small businesses actually taking advantage of that. I mean, I can't say the number of times that we've tested small things, even on Joyful Dirt, as we're moving very quickly and say, "Hey, let's test this or test this." That many of them work. I mean, we've got a really smart team that can come up with really cool ideas to test. For example, this month we did a black history month label, so we just, "Hey, let's just do a small run of a few hundred labels and see what happens." And larger brands can't in mid January, decide to do a label run for a specific event and try to get it to work. We're like, "Yeah, let's just see if it works. And so based on the success, we're going to do this multiple times throughout the year for different events and just have custom labels. Jon: That's a great idea. Ryan: Because we can. Jon: I believe this is called the innovator's dilemma. So when you're at a large corporation, you as an individual can come to the table and say, "I want to do custom labels for this month, starting in two weeks." But you have so much red tape to get through that you can actually affect the change that you want to affect. So that's a definite competitive advantage for a small brand, I can completely understand how that would work in their advantage. So that's great. Is there any other advantages that we should be thinking about? Ryan: I think being smaller also forces you to pay attention to details, that larger brands don't have to. We have a lot of large clients that focus on such macro level numbers, 35,000 foot layer of saying, "Hey, what's our data? How much should we spend? What is this?" And there's not the deep dive on, "Okay, how can I squeeze this little bit more out of this product?" It exists on a few large brands, but generally it doesn't matter to them on the small little minutia. And I think smaller brands, really have an opportunity because there is less data to sift through, they can quickly see where markets may be changing or evolving, that larger brands aren't going to catch till later. So you have to be willing to be aggressive and move quick when you see them, but you might see, even on Amazon, this is a massive thing with one of our clients where there's a couple really big players in vital wheat gluten, for example, on Amazon and the volume of sales on baking products on Amazon, is astronomical, I had zero clue until we started working with this company. Jon: Yeah, would not have suggested or thought that. Ryan: No, I'm like, "Vital wheat gluten," that's a very specific product for a very specific niche of people. Jon: Baking in general on Amazon, you would think there's no way. Ryan: It blew me away. But because the volume is so high, everybody selling FBA can only send in, because vital wheat gluten comes in, it's heavy and it comes in five pound bags or two pound bags, so it takes up enough shelf volume that you can't get 50,000 units in there at a time. And because you're usually co-packing, you're getting pallets delivered, and once it's down, you can't all of a sudden like, I'm just going to send 10 units today to take care of the sales. It's massive in and out of stocks all over the place. And so smaller advertisers could leverage that by saying, "All right, if I have my own fulfillment house, I can always keep a seller central product in stock on Amazon. Even if my FBA stock goes out," and you can play a lot of games and figure out what part of the country is or is not working. But that type of flexibility as a small brand, can pay huge dividends just by being aware of some of the struggles of your larger competitors. If your larger competitor has a disgusting amount of aging inventory, they've got problems probably floating the next purchase. Whereas you may not have that problem as a small advertiser, and you can even use drop shipping through one of the partners that could help you. So I think small companies have some significant advantages and I enjoy that part because it is more exciting to grow a smaller brand to take on a larger one. I do it myself, I add to this one. Jon: You'd love to take down the big guy. Ryan: IT do. Jon: Who doesn't? I mean, if you're in business, you're a competitor, just the way it is. Ryan: Oh yeah. And I love competing. And so it's fun as smaller business, but it does take a mentality that you are going to scrap and do everything you can to make it work. And when you come in with that mentality, I think it's very difficult to fail on Google ads or Facebook ads, because you're not accepting that it's not going to work. You see the data, you know people are spending money in your industry and they may not all be making money, but there's consistent effort there. And you just have to get to the point where you can wade through it and make it work because it will. Jon: Well on that note, any parting thoughts on this? I feel like I'm sufficiently equipped if I were a small brand advertising. You're giving me some renewed hope, that's for sure, that my $1,000 per day or per month, excuse me, would actually go someplace. Ryan: Yeah. The only thing I will say is that I do believe quality help will go a long way. You can be a small advertiser as a business owner and spend $1,000 if you learn and you're quick enough at adjusting and pivoting and looking at data, you're going to learn how to do it, but it might take you six, seven, eight months to get the point where you could have started at that point with an expert. And so it's at least worth interviewing a couple of agencies to see what it is they could do to help you if you bring experts on to manage that $1,000 spend. Yes, you're going to have to pay an agency extra cost, but can they get you moving towards your target at a quicker rate? I think often they can, but even if you're going to do it yourself, at least talk to somebody else that really knows what they're doing to see what the advantages could be. Jon: Well, and it could be huge too, if you get a higher return on that ad spend, that margin difference, they pay for themselves. It's like working with a great CPA, they're going to get you a bigger refund than if you did it yourself. So that covers their fees and hopefully more. Ryan: For sure. Jon: All right Ryan, well, thank you for your expertise on this. I know you guys work with thousands. Every time I talk to you, it's another thousand. So I'll just say thousands and thousands of clients at Logical Position, and a lot of those are smaller ones and you guys have learned a lot from that. So thank you for sharing all of the expertise you've learned. Ryan: Oh yeah. Thank you, Jon. I appreciate the time. Announcer: Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert, with Jon McDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

Envoy B2B is a wholesale content and eCommerce platform for your entire team. Their tools and services are designed to help you create dynamic content, increase your speed of sale, and bring you closer to your retailers. The technology you need to empower your sales reps and support your retail channel. Locally helps thousands of stores present their selection to nearby shoppers using eCommerce tactics and we provide users with novel last-mile fulfillment options like in-store pickup and same-day delivery. Facebook Twitter Instagram   The Outdoor Biz Podcast   Please give us a rating and review HERE   Show notes Contact Envoy Contact locally Jon on Linkedin Mike on Linkedin Episode 264 part 1 of our conversation So let's go back to January 2020. What was going on in your world back then? I'm sure we were all ready for a kick-ass year and had big plans, right? Jon: Yeah, let's see I think in terms of Envoy and myself, we had a team including myself, at OR. I think it was right in January. And I remember that being quite a good show for us, actually. I think we came back with a ton of opportunities in terms of new brands we were talking to. One of the things that's kind of interesting is I think there was a prevalence around this conversation of what is this show good at anymore? What should this show be? What is its purpose? Is this a marketing event? Is it replaceable? Is anybody writing business here? Those kinds of things. I remember being in a lot of those kinds of conversations and I think there was even a bunch of op-eds like almost immediately after it, that was one of the big industry conversations going on. And along with that, I think there were a lot of climate action initiatives at that OR as well. We were in a very positive place for 2020 for sure. Mike:  Same thing. We had just come back from the ISPO. We had a ton of meetings. Like Jon, we walked out of the show optimistic that we were gonna crush our budget, even though it was the first of the year. I was thinking, Oh man, this is great, we got so many people who are talking about our mission and it was very exciting and the team was excited. Then I remember by the end of the month I remember spending time at home. My wife works from home and she's in the medical field and by the end of January, I remember being in her office, jumping up and down and going, this is really bad. This is really bad. And her trying to talk me off the walls and she was like, you don't know anything about medicine, just shut up. And I'm like, you watch, this is the bad one. And while I did think it was gonna be a lot worse than it is. I mean, in hindsight it was bad. It was terrible, but my sense at the end of January was that this was going to be a run and cover event, it was going to be bad. Jon: It was until probably Aprilish or around there where it became pretty understood that the market was going to change. Everything was going to change. We started thinking again about, okay, well, what are the things that we need to do to Envoy to become more helpful to our clients? I think fortunately in the B2B space and I would imagine you too Mike, a lot of what we had just became more relevant and more useful. We didn't really have to invent a lot of new things. It was more, okay, well now there's this gap, right? In terms of, we're not going to be meeting in person. So how do we connect? And a lot of brands woke up to the idea. And the messaging that we have been throwing out for years now, which is, well, there's this destination for that. It doesn't replace it, but it is a useful tool to rally connections with your retailers around. So there wasn't this, okay we've got to build a bunch of stuff real quick to be helpful to our brands and retailers. It was more shining a light on here are some ways to use what we've got that will really help you guys out. Mike: we had been working on solutions that, fortunately, applied to the situation, rather nicely. Between sorting out opportunities with potential partners, onboarding retailers, and brands. And things like that, we were excited to be able to bridge the gap between COVID shopping behavior. And what's really curious now is that we're a year, almost a year past this thing getting started. And a lot of those shopping behaviors have kind of stuck and a lot of the optimizations that Jon's worked on, that we worked on at Locally, other ones that our partners have worked on, those would become kind of the norm for consumers. Jon: I think the other thing that I think around what's kind of happened. There was this kind of question, these questions circulating around the show in January about what is it good for? And what's the purpose of this? And I think come March. I guess the next OR, when it just got canceled, I guess it was April we all got an opportunity to try that out and answer that question and be like, well, what is it good for? And I think that's where we're at, which is okay, well, it certainly has its place, and I can get into some of the things we're hearing from retailers that suggest that. But I think we're at this point of well, what do we bring back that we've learned from our time away from trade shows and what do we want them to be and what are they not going to be good at? And what are we going to do with these relationships that have actually gotten stronger upon being more direct and more personal? Between brands and retailers rather than rallying around something that is fun and very community-driven, but maybe actually isn't the most personal experience. I think we've got retailers through surveying is they want personal experiences and that's very easily confused with, well, then we need to go to a trade show. But that's not what it is really. Those aren't personal experiences, the personal experiences they're talking about are the ones that the rep offers by walking in the front door you don't get that at a trade show. So a lot of the travel is not coming back. And I think this is kind of one of those really interesting nexuses of like things happening right now. And I think as a digital B2B company and Mike, I honestly don't know where you sit on this. I expect that we're in a similar spot, but people expect us to embrace this idea of everything's going digital. We all have to go digital right now. And that really isn't what the research is showing us. They're saying, what I want is personal contact from sales reps. You look at a word cloud of what they want or what they miss right now, based on the market changes and things going virtual, they want. It looks like touch, It looks like see, it looks like feel, it looks like rep. Those are the things that they're interested in. What didn't come up was virtual. An interesting thing that I heard from a retailer recently was basically brands are over-correcting, they're over-correcting and putting all of this emphasis into, 'well, we have to make our entire sell in digital. And part of that is bringing our buyers into this immersive digital experience. And some are going really much further into this augmented space. Essentially this retailer was saying, well, you're putting me inside of a video game. So this person actually got kind of disenfranchised for the brand, it's actually working against the brand. So I think the premise of our research and what we're saying is actually the brands that are going to do well in this next phase of wholesale are the ones that double down on their rep relationships and personalization. To use that as the bridge to continue, what I think has been reinforced through COVID, is retailers want personal contact. And that's the secret ingredient. And then you look into what ongoing Locally are doing in terms of the level of personalization that we can help a rep provide and that's the angle. It's not a replacement. It's an augmentation and really staying tuned to what retailers want, not what you think you need to do as a brand to connect with them in terms of digital investments. Mike: we didn't have to take any dramatic steps, but, we were also dealing with lots of existing clients and potentially, incoming new clients that that had a lot of needs coming out of the gate. And it was really cool to watch. And along the lines of, what John was saying, it's really cool to watch the brands that saw the opportunity or the retailers saw the opportunity as being every man for themselves. Versus the ones that reached out and said, okay, well we're all in this together. Brands and retailers have to work together more than ever to ensure that everybody remains healthy or this won't really work. The ones who really just grasped this as an opportunity for me, and I'm gonna do all these things actually, it was counterintuitive. They were the ones that had the hardest time gaining traction. Whereas a lot of the brands, especially the ones that John and I collaborate with those brands were really reaching out and making sure that they weren't siloing the opportunity and keeping it all to themselves. They were making sure that handoffs were occurring to local stores and keeping those healthy. And suddenly we looked up at the end of six months and we're like, Oh, my God, we were expecting half of the retail base to go away. And it was exactly that there was like no one went away. So I think that was really great. And relationships were strengthened and I think that's something we hit on in the last podcast was those that doubled down on their existing partnerships and specifically talking about brand retail or retail and a partner. That's what got everybody through. And now we have a decision to make, what parts of that are we going to augment and keep, or rather cause the converse, what parts of what wasn't working and what we weren't doing do we actually just want to let die on the vine, and what parts of it do we want to reincorporate back into our new model, which is working. And those are tough questions. And inside of all of that, there's this thing happening out there with trade shows, which is, 80% of their revenue of that evaporated and they're looking for ways to exist still. And are they the ones that are going to invent the future? Those that didn't have the model to get through what occurred? I just don't think so. I think they've got a great product and offering, but I don't count on them to make the next big step for us all. Let's dig a little deeper into that, the current state of trade shows. It's definitely in flux. Everybody seems to think that there are some timing issues and, travel issues and all kinds of things. What are your guys' thoughts on those? Mike: I still think that the larger format trade shows will add value in the sense of bringing the community together of an industry. The broader community. I don't know that the big format trade shows are going to be able to put themselves back into the box of actually taking orders on the floor of trade shows. I just don't see that being a thing anymore. But I do think that there's a reason for community. And then the other thing that is occurring that I think is really powerful is this micro trade show format, whether it's the Grassroots show or whether it's Trek holding like a Trek only trade show or regional rep shows. Or The Big Gear Show like Kenji's offering. I think all of those will gain relevance because they're better curated. They're going to be kind of like microbrewery of trade shows. Whereas very large format, you just get lost in those. And it's very difficult to make personal connections.  Jon: What I hear you saying is a continuation of what we were talking about a little bit earlier. Which is the larger format trade shows, and I think everyone was arriving at the point in January. What's important about this as a community is getting together and doing something as a community. But I don't think that is personal. Those aren't personal experiences. And if what we're saying is what retailers want moving forward is largely personal experiences to help them do their buying, what I love about what you said, Mike is, basically that's happening at these smaller shows. That's the personal experience. That's where that personal buying experience is happening. Mike: What I spend my day talking about is really simple. About a year ago throughout this whole process, it really dawned on me. What we do as a company, we operate in this B to B to C space, where you've got business to business to consumer, but where really the only thing that matters in this space is the consumer. We can all talk about how we do things and how we love the consumer and if the consumer walked away from that . . . it's over. What matters and what's coming from Locally and what's coming with Envoy is, how do we keep the consumer engaged in a way that delights them? And how do we do that in an environment where it's hard to get to us. How do we get people in the store? How do we make sure that when that person walks in the store, they walk out with a product? That they walk out with the product that they happen to be looking at live. What we're looking at is how do we deliver, personalized marketing that drives the consumer to the local retail store. And why is that a win to the brand and the retailer instead of just a win to the brand or the retailer. It's only a win if the consumer is delighted by the overall experience. And when you look out there and you look at the most admired brands and retailers in the world today, you think of Apple or maybe a Lulu lemon or something like that. They have completely hybridized the notion of what a brand and retailer want in return. Both brands and retailers need to look at that and say, consumers, are delighted by this experience. There are opportunities here, that having the right thing in stock, just in time inventory, auto-replenishment all these kinds of things are going to bring in the next decade to retailers. And I think it's going to be a paradigm shift from, the big model e-commerce merchants that basically have unlimited investor money.  Jon: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, every boardroom, every entrepreneur that started a brand, every CEO at a mid-market brand, every boardroom at the enterprise brand needs to hear that last minute of Mike right there. And now post COVID, retailers even get it more than they did before. They're like, Oh man. Yes. This idea of shop-online, pickup in-store, same day pickup, or any of that? Yes. I'm open to it. Everybody's open to it. Brands just need to step into this place and say, we're going to be your partner on it.   Snippets 30:28 - 30:59 Mike Massey- Delight the consumer  14:43 - 15:38 Mike Massey- The current state of trade shows 16:16 - 16:56 Jon Faber- The current state of trade shows

Envoy B2B is a wholesale content and eCommerce platform for your entire team. Their tools and services are designed to help you create dynamic content, increase your speed of sale, and bring you closer to your retailers. The technology you need to empower your sales reps and support your retail channel. Facebook Twitter Instagram   The Outdoor Biz Podcast   Please give us a rating and review HERE Show Notes Tell us about your background Jon? I'm going to go a little further back than normal. It started off as a paper, boy, I have that fun part of my history. And from there to music. So there's a lot of variety in my past that I think that has been pretty helpful in what I'm doing now. I did some advertising for a stint there for a few years then software development. This brings me to Envoy, which is what I've been really doing for about a decade now. I think in all of those roles, it's been like, I'm this team guy, when I think back and look at why and how that happened? As a paperboy I was rolling papers with my family, getting them all involved, getting my mom eventually to drive me around. And I was that team person, in music, the same thing. I was the recorder. The tour planner, the marketer on my space back in that day advertising, the same kind of thing. I got hired at a TV station, so this was back when there was a lot of, there still are, accounts selling TV ads, and they wanted to augment their TV experience with selling digital media. So I helped them do that but had to bridge the gap between the old school and the new school together there. So the team thing going on. That's good for development. And CEO right now I really just consider myself our team's champion, I help us get done what we want to get done. Mike tell us about your background. Probably something very similar.  I got started by working for my family. My dad was a professional baseball player, came back to New Orleans after his career ended, and started a small local sporting goods store. And rather than daycare, he put his kids to work and so I spent a lot of time choosing sizes on ordering, things like that when I was a little kid. And I went away to college, got a job, and then realized I felt passionate about specialty retail and my family had pivoted from generalized sporting goods to outdoor sporting goods, forced to do that by the large chains moving into our city. We decided to start focusing on things like Patagonia and North Face, which were emerging companies in the mid-eighties. And I left my real job and came back to work for my family. I was the third generation involved in the business. My generation was all about email and websites. I helped the company get involved very early in e-commerce then subsequently was the very first outdoor store to sell products on Amazon. So during that process of learning a lot about e-commerce and starting up like drop shipping and all these kinds of things. I was involved in various organizations with the outdoor industry. With, people like Backcountry and focused on some of the standards that would be used to exchange POS and catalog information and stuff. My experience with Amazon taught me one thing. It was basically where we were going to go in the next decade, which was mostly online informed shopping. People were going to do almost all their shopping online. And without any local presence, it was increasingly cutting off local stores from any type of visibility. Locally was founded focused on that one consumer behavior. It became obvious by the late two-thousands shopper behavior was moving mostly to online discovery. Things like open table and, ticketmaster.com and, Airbnb, that was the inevitable future of retail. People would do most of their shopping online and for lucky local stores, they would be able to get some referrals from maybe their vendors or something locally. And now we do all sorts of stuff. Since we founded the company in 2000 and launched in 2014. What brought Envoy and Locally together? Jon: It was through research that we were doing for product development. To make our platform a little more retailer-centric. Something that we do at Envoy as a part of our product development process has always been a research component, a really big research component. We're not really inventing things and putting them out there and saying, Hey, do you like it? We do all the research upfront, figure out what people want. It sounds simple, but it's hard to do a really good job of research. And part of what led us to locally was we asked retailers, "what do you want, what are you having issues with?" One of the things that came back really strong all the time was we're having trouble replenishing easily. Essentially there are open spots on my store shelf too often. And what can we do about that? One of the things we started looking at was how can we get their on-hand information inside of our brand B2B portals, so that the rep can be that proactive champion to say, "Hey, I can see you're about to be out of this." Here's an opportunity to get the product now before you do run out. In that search, we found Locally and they were doing it already essentially, and they're really good at it. So it made a ton of sense to partner up. With all the progress and, like Mike has been saying just the amazing job they've been doing and innovating this area already. Our solutions came together really well. Mike: same kind of thing. One of the things on our side, Is that it's awesome to spend so much of our time trying to connect people to a local place to buy merchandise. But just like John said, if the local store isn't aware of what they should have or has holes in their stock that's just a big mess. So we worked with John at the very beginning to conceptualize. What if we could do a better job? Somebody like Amazon or, a big online merchant, they're using systems that can automate, find missing products, fill them in, they're just doing a much more sophisticated job. Our vision was: Hey, we don't want to build a B2B order management system. How do we give what we have to help our retailers be better? Jon, tell us about Envoy We're a wholesale B2B commerce platform. We play primarily in the footwear, apparel, and accessory space. Most of our clients are pretty established brands. We do have a focus on the outdoor space. That's been an interest of ours since the beginning. So brands use our platform to provide, great service to their retailers and support their reps with the tools they need. Largely we get used for our selling tools for reps to show the line, build assortments with their accounts or let their accounts do that on their own. All the way through, pre-book ordering and replenishment. And then you've got to think content too. That's a big part of the picture now is this destination for showing the coming line, but also is sustaining that current line. So it's not only content it's commerce as well, a big part of it. I would say more and more though, what we're doing is just helping brands get the right products in the right stores now. That's kinda the big motive. And try to do that without a solution. It's inefficient, it's almost impossible to do it at the pace you need to do it at to keep up with the trends and capitalize on what's happening. That's really our focus more and more. To get down to it, we help brands get the right products in the right stores. It's ordering tools. It's assortment tools, its line planning tools, its content tools, but more and more, what we're excited about is this data-centric approach, intelligence tools that are the future for onboarding. That makes the most sense. Mike, give us the background on Locally Our whole mission is to basically transform online marketing tactics that are used by large e-commerce merchants for the acquisition of customers, engagements, transactions, we've duplicated virtually all of that on behalf of any size local retailer. Our specialty is driving consumers to in-store pickup and curbside. Same day delivery and shipments to store. And we use all the normal tactics. We, we do a good job of winning SEO tactics. We integrate with brand sites, retailer sites, Shopify. Our mission is to drive engagement for shoppers with their local store. Then to create a path for the shopper to, go all the way through to, buying the item in the store. It makes everything so efficient. What the major retail spaces that you support? Jon: I think you go a little bit wider than outdoor for us, not another industry, but more of a category that we're specific in would be footwear in general. That's a big segment for us. All footwear brands are more or less becoming head to toe though. So I guess it's just apparel in general as well. And there are some outliers too, we do some business within the toy area. And like kids' games and like that kind of thing. And then also golf is a growing category. Mike: We're at the epicenter in outdoor and sporting goods. We have fly fishing brands and scuba brands and a lot of snow brands. We're like Jon we're very prevalent in running shoes and also comfort shoes. We've got some foothold in electronics and baby and hardware. So it's fairly wide. Consumer behavior is similar across almost every retail space. It's the synergies between Envoy and Locally that feel like where the real value is. Give us the basic value props of your integration. Jon: The first thing is to get an understanding of what we do together, for retailers that approve, we bring their on-hand inventory into Envoy, into the brand's B2B portal. This is the B2B portal where reps are using this to sustain their accounts. So it's a very helpful bit of information to have. Oh, these accounts are low on stock. That's the perfect thing for a rep. And to do that is really simple, but it hasn't happened until now. It's one of those simple things that are the bedrock for some other really cool things that locally brought to the table. I mentioned we help brands get the right product in the right store. It's this functionality that does that. With Locally, we really have what we're calling "consumer product demand intelligence". What we mean is we can show brands which of their products are hot in different DMA's or market areas. And then cross-reference that with their product that the retailers are actually carrying. Simply put, we can empower a brand to say, Hey retailer. You're not carrying these top five products that are in demand around your store and you should carry those. And in doing so, all these cool things happen. Now there are a lot more visible to that retailer as a pickup point for same-day delivery or shop online, pickup in-store, or any of those kinds of experiences when a consumer is on that brand's DTC site. For example now, instead of having to have it shipped to your door, there's an opportunity because they're on trend with what's hot in their area to get that product that same day, or just go in and pick it up. It's this kind of leveraging market data or consumers' interests and saying, okay, retailers in that same area here's an indication of what consumers around you like and what you should consider carrying these products. It's a really powerful data point to give to reps and a really powerful set of data to put in front of retailers when they log into the platform. Honestly, for them just being able to see an Envoy B2B and say okay, What products of this brand are hot in my area? That's gold.  Mike: There are so many different types of retailers that as we have built this system, there's going to be, obviously there are early adopters that are gonna, come in and go, Oh, I'm going to use any additional market intelligence I could possibly get. The standard at this point is just national market intelligence that's 60 to 90 days old. And we don't really think that's tremendously relevant for somebody who's trying to stock their shelves today. The forward-looking vision of the way this would work is that retailers get to the point where some type of automation is occurring that keeps their shelves filled with stock. Perhaps it's a roof rack and it keeps all the right parts in stock. The system is somehow aware of emergent trends. It's looking at the vendors available to sell inventory in the warehouse, mashing that together with DMA-specific and business intelligence. And, the goal is a collaboration between the brand and the retailer, rather than everybody doing it for themselves. We've done things where everybody does it for themselves and the cavalierness of every industry, not just the outdoor industry. The problem is that you're not really competing in that world anymore. Consumers are online 24 seven doing product research, and you need information in order to be able to be competitive. And you give them information, from around the country, the world basically. And it allows them to be more efficient. And the thing here is that while there's always going to be early resistance for the truly independent retailer, the reality is that the larger format brick and mortar retailers are already using these types of technologies. They're not sitting here scratching their head about filling in their shelves. If you go to an REI, they do a really good job of keeping the pegs filled. They do a really good job of keeping all the sizes in stock. And smaller retailers now have access to very powerful tools to optimize their inventory based on what consumers near them are doing online.  Jon: I wanted to say something quick about competition, you mentioned how you keep up with the competition. I think there are two things that are really simple that I would say at least for brands, retailers, and suppliers . . . Community, that's just one right now. Your community is everything and secondarily, Availability. And to that, what we're talking about with Locally, you've got to share what you need from a retailer's perspective and the tools are there. Mike has said it's not the time to be scared of them. It's the time to embrace them. You're not losing your independence by embracing technology. It's what you need to compete right now. And specifically availability, that's what it comes down to. Make sure that as a retailer, you are easily showing what's available in your store. It's that simple, consumers are looking for it. If they can't find you, they can't come in and get it. And same from the perspective of a brand. Availability, share with your retailers. Really it's just, it's all about forging this kind of data-centric relationship moving forward. That's the future, it's that simple. Look at how a ton of these communities just took it to the next level over the past, several quarters of challenge. The community will engage with the new kinds of technologies that you bring to the table. They're ready for it. And they want it. And in fact, they understand now more than ever, why it might be valuable to them. So it's time. This isn't going away. This is here and it's a great piece of technology that represents a ton of opportunity for both the brands and the retailers. Now's the time. Mike:  Yeah, and one of the things John, that that I think about, and I talk about all the time is, today, none of us think twice about how we're going to go see a movie. Even though movies have been a little bit, not as popular lately. But none of us think twice about checking a movie time online, maybe buying our ticket, maybe even our seat, like figuring out what movie theater to go to. Could you imagine if somebody says, Oh, now we're just going to go back to getting our movie times out of the newspaper. This was a good experience, Walmart crushing it with curbside pickup, and the thing is, is it giving consumers more control over how they shop is, it has never been about that and it never goes backward. Who was most excited about this. Was it the rep? Was it the brand? Was it the retailer? Mike: I think that sales reps were the very first group to realize, Hey, this is literally creating foot traffic in stores that are, trying to create foot traffic. And they realized that just giving consumers addresses of locations is really not enough to get them to go down to the store. We just don't, especially now don't operate that way. But the reality is that we weren't operating that way for a long time. It was already really broken. The initial brand response typically under COVID and really even leading up to it was, Hey, this is a tremendous opportunity for us to sell direct to consumers. Who'd have figured out, that by and large brands, aren't very good at selling to consumers without wholesale networks that generate all of the enthusiasm and Goodwill for a brand? And then they're able to take advantage of the extended inventory assortment and, new types of logistics. If you haven't built your brand at all, it's very difficult to go to market with a consumer-facing brand and build all of your enthusiasm and Goodwill right out of the gate. Even big brands that are, we think of as, ubiquitous these days, like Yeti. Really spends a lot of effort on how do we get people to go to local stores, despite the fact that they ship coolers. So what they want to do in the end is make sure the customer buys their products somewhere. Consumer Lifetime Value, not just this one sale needs to be on my quarterly income statement in this one, vertical business unit. That makes a lot less sense these days. It's repeat customers that are the holy grail. Jon: brands really need to see this as the retailers out there are creating that amazing experience and helping the brand. As you said, Mike efficiently and in an exciting way, bring their product to market. It's this part that needs to close. We need to close that loop and say, okay, thank you retailers for helping us do that. Now I'm going to help you stay replenished and I'm gonna help you stay on trend with what's selling around you. Because you've done such a great job building that excitement up and being that local pickup area or that same-day delivery area. Now we're going to close the loop with you and help you with even more sales. Funnel some of that excitement back to you. What's the number one thing brands can do to support retailers? Jon: Here's some stuff that I'm seeing given the current conditions that we're in and whatnot. I think brands need to acknowledge that, They did it, they made it, they're currently making it through this. And it wasn't a trade show package, it wasn't a new virtual reality experience, it wasn't a bunch of these things that get thrown at you. It was you and your retailers doubling down on your relationship and working together. I think that's the picture of the future. A more data centric approach with your retailer or from a brand perspective your retailer, from a retailer's perspective your brand. That's what we're learning out of all of this that you don't need to look too far. You already have it. It's already available and you can do it with the right partners. Mike: I would say that the best thing that a brand really could do at this point is to take a more global and holistic view of how they partner, local retail is a thing that still represents almost 90% of total retail sales. And it's a critical part of every brand's solution. Making sure that you're truly partnering with local retailers and using tools that empowered them rather than creating these various silos that treat local retail as a competitor is I think a really smart tactic for every brand. Links Envoyb2b Locally Follow up with Jon Follow up with Mike     Snippets 06:45 - 07:34   Research 32:16 - 32:59    How Brands can help retailers- Jon Faber 33:59 - 34:33    How Brands can help retailers- Mike Massey

Businesses are always looking for the most effective strategies and tactics to create the best customer experience possible, and in the world of ecommerce, that’s getting harder every day. We wanted to dig into some of the trendiest ways ecommerce brands are weaving their way through this maze, so we invited our good friend Jon Feldman on this episode of Up Next in Commerce to show us the way.   As a senior manager of product marketing at Salesforce, and someone who talks to commerce business owners and operators on a daily basis, Jon knows a thing or two about what’s on their minds, the challenges they face, and the questions they are dying to get answers to. He’s also seen first-hand what kinds of major and minor changes ecommerce companies are making that have had the biggest impact. So how are small website tweaks having a ripple effect on call centers? What will happen to the customer journey as commerce moves to the edge? And what kinds of technology and platforms will brands need to lean on to win across a new ecommerce landscape? Find out all of that and more right here. Main Takeaways:On The Edge: Commerce has already shifted from retail stores to store-specific websites. Next, we’ll see more of a migration to shopping on the edge, with commerce happening on content websites and away from the traditional retail site. This sets up a question of customer loyalty and trust that brands have to answer and prepare for.Know Who They Are, Not Where They Shop: As ecommerce becomes more distributed and marketplaces and virtual shopping experiences crop up, brands need to accept that they will have less control over where a customer finds them or how the brand is represented. Instead of trying to funnel people to a specific site, make sure that however a customer ultimately finds you, when they buy your product, the experience with your systems, shipping, customer service and everything else meets their needs.Opportunities Abroad: The world continues to become more and more interconnected, which also means that the opportunity to spot product trends abroad and introduce them to a “new market” in another country is also shrinking.. Luckily it's easier than ever before to market and ship products around the world, so you are probably only a few backend adjustments away from being able to expand across borders.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 Postles:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, this is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-Founder at Mission.org. Joining us today is Jon Feldman, a senior manager at Salesforce who works on Commerce Cloud. Jon, welcomeJon:Stephanie, great to be here. Thanks for having me.Stephanie Postles:I'm excited to have you. I think before we start, because we haven't had many Salesforce people in the show, I was hoping you go through your background, what led you to Salesforce, and what you do today.Jon:Yeah, absolutely. I started doing internet commerce at ATG back before Oracle bought it in like 1997 in their professional services group. I was at ATG for eight years and I did implementations around the world, honestly. I was in New York for a while, West Coast and East Coast, and that was super awesome. I met a ton of people and learned a lot about how people use commerce systems. After that, I went and did a four-year stint at a consulting company, doing the same thing. I guess, it's not as exciting. And then I went to Restoration Hardware for four years. I was the senior director of IT/ecommerce, which was really rad, until I got laid off, which was a super bummer.Jon:And as I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my career after being laid off. I was like, "I really don't feel like there are a lot of jobs that are senior directors of IT/ecommerce in a lot of places." And so I thought I'd try marketing and I switched over to product marketing. And I've really been enjoying it ever since. I've been at Salesforce for about two years now and talking all about the commerce product. It's a lot of fun, honestly.Stephanie Postles:That's great. What does the best day in the office look like to you?Jon:Best in the office. It's interesting because we're at a big evolution point for Salesforce marketing, I think, particularly for Commerce Cloud. The company was built around physical events. For Commerce Cloud, we had three big stations every year, we have the National Retail Federation, which is coming up in January, we have Connections in the middle of the year, and we have Dreamforce at the end of the year. And those are our big opportunities to talk to clients. And of course, with the pandemic and travel stopping, those have all gone away, which if you are a company that sells software, that's problematic because you need to be talking to customers to generate leads and keep the machine rolling.Jon:And so, because of that, we've been trying a lot of stuff with video, and my job is really around how we talk to customers through video and how we continue to generate a conversation in an audience with potential customers and existing customers when we can't see them in person. And so for me really fun days are days when we're working on new video stuff. I think that at a high level, a lot of the video that's created is repurposed webinar, and it is just like, here's just a bunch of stuff.Jon:And for me, the fun stuff is how we can modernize the format and talk to customers in a way that they're like, "Wow, this is actually interesting and engaging," and not like, 45 more minutes on payments. Anyways. So that's what a good day is.Stephanie Postles:Awesome. So on the topic of video, a lot of different companies right now are talking about that as well, about what they're leaning into in 2021, they see a lot of opportunities there, not only with YouTube, but also TikToK. What are you guys seeing in that area?Jon:Taking a step back, I think that modern video is YouTube. YouTube is the number two search engine on the internet. And so there's a format to YouTube, which is 10 to 15 minutes long, really clear call to action, and then there are like a million genres underneath that. And I think that as we think about it, it's, how do we get into a format that is more fun and interesting and engaging, and that has a clear call to action? Yeah, I think for us, it's really about, how do we modernize the format? How do we engage on video in a way that isn't just a 45-minute program on a topic.Stephanie Postles:When you're talking to customers every day, what are some of the trends and themes you're hearing from them right now and maybe how they're thinking about next year?Jon:Yeah. In my role, making all these videos, we talk to customers all the time because Salesforce doesn't want to make a video unless there's a customer interview, which I think is really smart because at the end of the day, customer's the one who have the interesting stories. Obviously, a lot of a lot of what we talk about, it's the impact of code and retail sales closing, or things being pushed to digital because if you look at the numbers on their own, they're pretty remarkable. I have access to Salesforce numbers, and its biggest Cyber Week doubled. Some of our biggest customers are seeing 500% of what they did.Jon:And that's interesting, but I think that it hides some of the really interesting storylines. I think it's easy to talk about the numbers, but one of those common things we hear from our customers is that COVID has pushed a lot of people online, it's increased the volume of their business, the velocity is much higher, and that in turn has exposed a lot of problems that they've had in their supply chain. And that little things that weren't a big problem had become really problematic as the scale goes up. And that's manifesting in everything from more attention, to deflecting calls from call centers, because we talked to Hibbett Sports and they were getting a ton of questions about the order cancellations.Jon:They implemented online order cancellations and it had this huge impact on their call center. Even though obviously you're losing revenue when someone's able to cancel the order, the impact of taking that pressure off the call center was worth it. And that also manifested on the front end where we find that-Stephanie Postles:Oh, interesting.Jon:The thing which I think is really interesting about those call center things is how there's always just little things that make enormous changes in the volume. I remember Restoration Hardware, one of the big efforts we had was to just put dimensions to the objects on every product display page, because at the time, the biggest three reason for returns at Resto was that stuff wouldn't fit through the door. And we weren't telling anybody how big it was, so you'd show up with this giant couch that was designed for like a palace in France and it wasn't going through a US standard door. Yeah, really interesting stuff along those sides.Stephanie Postles:Yep. We had someone previously on who talked about spotting bottlenecks, and it reminds me of that. Maybe people aren't looking at their customer service department or figuring out... There's so many things to look at right now. So many companies are saying their models were breaking and they had to rebuild things from scratch. And I think taking a step back and figuring out what are the biggest bottlenecks, like you guys were doing with your one customer, how they were able to look at their call center, is a great first step. That's interesting adding order cancellations online.Jon:To your point, what I think I've seeing through a lot of this is that companies are taking a broader view of what the whole customer experience is and looking for ways to work around some of these bottlenecks. Intuitively, as somebody who's done a lot of these implementations, I think that oftentimes those bottlenecks are in places where systems touch or there are like decision points and financial trees. You don't have to turn the whole thing off, but make changes that make it easier and faster for customer to go through it. It just takes stress out of the whole organization.Stephanie Postles:So what other trends are you hearing from your customers right now? And do you think these things are here to stay, or do you think the world's going to pivot back to where it was before and some of these are going to be short-term fixes that maybe aren't needed in a longterm?Jon:It's a really interesting question. I was talking to another customer, they were bringing up this really interesting point that, 2021 comps are going to be a really tricky thing to work with because the market was so crazy this year and next year, you're going to have to figure it out. You're going to have to say, "Hey, was the push online to COVID forever or short?" To your point. The other thing about what I think the future is going to hold and where commerce is is that, originally, a lot of commerce happened at a retail building, And that made a lot of sense, you own the customer that were in your store, no distractions, ready to go. And then a lot of stuff moved online and customers gravitated towards your website, where you could still have a very curated experience and it could still be on your terms, make everything happen.Jon:I think that as I look forward, we're going to see more shopping on the edge, which is where products are going to be more deeply integrated at the content sites or in marketplaces, or you're going to be finding places to shop which are not the traditional website. And I think to the question, I think that then becomes a really big customer loyalty question of like, if I'm on a content site and I see an ad for Home Depot, do I trust that it's really Home Depot? Do I believe Home Depot is going to fulfill? It brings that whole question of, what is my relationship?" And image of that vendor up And, "Am I going to transact with them outside?"Jon:But internally, we think that something like 15% of commerce next year is going to happen at the edge. So I'm really excited to see how that goes.Stephanie Postles:That's interesting. So how can a brand prepare for that? Like you said, a lot of these brands right now are thinking about community building and how to build up that loyalty. There's so many new DTC companies popping up, so there's a lot of competitions. They're all trying to figure out how to really get ahead. So how can they prepare for that if you're saying now it might start turning into shopping in other places to where you're not going to see the brand front and center anymore?Jon:Totally. And it's interesting because I think a lot of people approach that as a technology problem, like, "We're going to buy a bunch of software and it's all going to be magic." My personal belief is that technology is an enabler, but it doesn't actually solve any problems on its own. And so the specific things that I would, if I was to presume to tell someone what to do with their business, it would be that, "I think you really need to focus on what your customer is and how you can build loyalty and build a customer experience that is so great that they would prefer it." I think that if you look at Amazon, arguably the shopping experience is a disaster, but the fulfillment is so strong that you have trust that if you're able to find whatever it is in that haystack, that it's going to come to you and it's going to look largely like the picture has.Jon:I think that if I was thinking about going to DTC and I was thinking about how to do that, it's about really knowing who my customer was, what they liked, and where to meet them. Because I think the relevancy of where your product shows up and how that customer journey ties into your system relationship with that company are going to be the most important things. Because ultimately, we've lost control of the presentation, it's owning the customer and just being wherever they are, because then that's the consistent thing, is you are where they are. Not that you're always on your website.Stephanie Postles:That's interesting. When you're thinking about shopping on the edge, is that referring to Amazon or is Amazon excluded and it's more talking about newer marketplaces that are popping up, like the Fairs of the world or Italic or places like that where maybe they're sourcing products, or is it all of it?Jon:I would argue that Amazon to some degree is the edge, their marketplace is this... anyone can put stuff in there, so your brand has to compete there against the knockoffs and events, that similar stuff. So I think the edge is marketplaces and a host of other non-traditional stuff. The single sourcing stuff, I'm not as sure about, white labeling stuff I think is slightly different. When we talk about it, we really mean that, hey, your products are just going to be in places that you'd never expected. And I think honestly, we think a lot about content alongside content when we talk about it.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. You were just mentioning Amazon and knockoff products, and one interesting thing, which I didn't know, maybe it's because I don't have an ecommerce company at the moment, is that you have to win that Buy Box. Did you know this where you have all these competitors and you actually have to win out the Buy Box and be able to like brand gate your brand to make sure that no one else can show up under there? There's so many things like that I think a new commerce owner would not really know until they start figuring out that people are now showing up under their listing and there's fraudulent people there. It sounds like a lot of times, you find out or see things going wrong until you learn how things actually work.Jon:Yeah, totally. I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me. Retail has always been monetized. Like if you want a good placement at the grocery store, you're certainly paying for it. None of that stuff happens by accident. No, it doesn't surprise me. I think that it all comes back to the brand management. It speaks to how much of a pain in the butt it is to curate a brand, even if at the edge you still have to be controlling it, you have to be really mindful of what's showing up on your PDP on Amazon and who they're showing next to you. Yeah, it's really tough. I think at the end of the day, the control you have is the loyalty, because that transcends the market that you're in.Jon:Because if you're buying like an LED light on Amazon to like do podcasting, you've got 62 million choices, 90%, they're all like the same product with different brand names on it. There's no way to stand out in that marketplace. Even if you have won Buy Box, I think it's loyalty.Stephanie Postles:Yep. Are there tools right now... If this is going to be the way of the future, buying on the edge, are there any tools that curate where you can sell things, how things are going, all in one place for a business owner, so if it does start moving to that model and maybe their product is now selling in like 50 different areas... I'm just imagining the chaos of trying to keep track of pricing and orders and even knowing where you're showing up and what's happening there. Do you know of tools for that?Jon:Yeah, it's interesting. Certainly, at Salesforce, we have some ideas and tools. We have some aggregation tools that make it really easy to plug your existing Salesforce Commerce Cloud catalog into other places. But I think ultimately, when you think about a commerce solution for a company, it's really a platform. Because what you're describing, it can turn very chaotic. I'm selling on 50 stores and I have 50 skews and they're all going to different order management systems, and that all gets crazy. Personally, I think the architecture to do this is to have all of those places centralized into a central order processing, central order capture, central service thing, so that no matter where it is, even if...Jon:I think people go into this thinking that, "My customer is only going to shop from me on one channel," but they may be buying something on eBay and they may be buying something on that content blog. How do you link those two things together? So the architecture I think is always the central order capture and service thing and that you have either APIs or integrations that allow you to then push that content in a way that makes sense onto the places and appears at the edge. But I think that all the capturing transactional stuff, if at all possible, runs through your engine. I mean, obviously the marketplace is going to want to own it, but it's not all marketplaces.Stephanie Postles:Yep. We've just finished pulling together a top trends of 2021, and we're talking about platforms, so it's relevant. We've talked to a lot of companies where they've mentioned that they outgrew their platforms. And so one point that we were making in the article was that a lot of companies right now are seeing the ability to scale a lot quicker than maybe prior to 2020, just because so many people were pushed online, new demographics are online. You can grow a lot quicker, at least this year, than maybe prior years. I'm sure you guys see this as well, new customers potentially coming your way.Stephanie Postles:How do you know they're ready for Commerce Cloud? What kind of problems are they encountering with their current platforms where you're like, "Oh yeah, you've outgrown it," because I think I've heard this at least 10 times from guests who've come on the show, like, "Well, things just started going wrong and we knew it," but they didn't always have details. It was just like everything was going wrong. So I wanted to hear some from you guys, what are you hearing?Jon:Well, let me take off my Commerce Cloud hat, because I think it's an interesting question because I actually think that that's a platform agnostic problem. I'd love to say, "Oh, you solve those problems on Commerce Cloud." I implemented ATG for 15 years, and my belief is that enterprise software is elastic, can do anything. And then it's implemented and then it's like in cement and it's very inflexible for a lot of it. And I think that companies outgrow these when either their original implementations didn't model their business processes completely or didn't anticipate the change that they would have to use.Jon:And I think that what happens is that if you're a business person within an organization and you need to like launch Wishlists and you're an IT person who hears this and you're like, "Wishlist, that can take me a full year to do." I think those agenda, those feelings that, "Wow, this platform is fundamentally broken." So don't blame this author, it doesn't really matter. I think it means that you need a new implementation and a new truing of your business processes with your IT processes so that what you're putting onto the internet is once again in sync with what you're doing and what your dreams are.Jon:That's what I think when people say they're outgrowing, there's so much friction getting just their basic business processes done that they feel that they need to just throw it out and start over it. And I empathize with that, I think that there are truly some systems regardless of the software where just it's better to start over.Stephanie Postles:Yep, that makes sense. Another thing that we talked about in the report was about these demographic changes that are coming and how many more people are online. How are you thinking about that right now with meeting those people? Some of them are brand new with ordering online, they're now getting used to it and they're probably pretty sticky going forward, but how are you guys thinking about these new users online?Jon:Yeah, it is a really interesting question. For me, an interesting analogy is fitness. In a previous life, I was also a fitness instructor that had small boutique fitness. And you can arguably do everything you can in a group setting at home. There's really no magic, there's no secret thing except someone's yelling at you and telling you what to do. And you've had all those fitness places closed and now everything's at home and you have this huge proliferation of home fitness stuff, Peloton, Mirror, Apple's coming out with a product, and all that's really rad. But the question is, and I think it's exactly the same with the fitness as it is with ecommerce, how sticky is that really?Jon:When the fitness studios open up again, are people going to rush back to them? Is there something inherent about that in-person experience that people are going to go back to no matter what? As I think about that, my conclusion across retail and fitness is the same, which is that some people really miss that in-person component, regardless and are going to do it, and are going to go back. But I think that even with that chunk of people going back, it's not going to be, at least initially, be the same level that it was before, because the internet is the new technology. It's something that in the last 20 years is new, and I think is going to have a longterm impact now that everybody's been forced into it for a broad array of daily services that it's going to be stickier.Jon:So I don't think it's going to be quite as crazy. I think the 2021 comps are going to be lower online, but I think it'll still be higher than 2019.Stephanie Postles:Yeah, I agree. We just had Stitch Fix on the show, and it was really interesting because they were talking about starting to at least test out or try out GPT-3 and how they're focused on figuring out ways to process the natural language, which is what the technology is for, because a lot of these new users are coming on and they're typing very formally, they want a formal answer. They want to make sure they get a response in the way that they would expect it. And so Stephanie from Stitch Fix was just talking about how she thinks about personalizing the messages and reacting to the user depending on how they're typing in their question, how they're asking for things, to make sure they meet the user where they're at.Stephanie Postles:Which I thought was a really interesting take on personalization and a use of GPT-3, which I hadn't really heard of, at least in the world of ecommerce.Jon:It is. It's really interesting. And I would suspect that that's different from vendor to vendor that some people... Stitch Fix will probably see some of that more formal stuff as more professional people are trying to put together AI-inspired wardrobes. And other places, I could see... I'm stumbling around trying to say it's interesting, because all of those are technologies that ultimately will replace the interaction that you would have with a human. I worked at Restoration Hardware for a long time, and so this idea of human curation being something that you can't replace with AI, that there's something inherently wonderful and irreplaceable about that, the person who like knows the product line back and forth and is able to work with you to help you identify it.Jon:I didn't buy the full Resto thing where it's like... There's no way to do it all in technology, because I don't believe that everybody wants that kind of transaction every time, but in these situations, it's really interesting to see how people are trying to make up for that, that human curation, human taste's thing with AI on scale now. Oh, it's fixed, it's obviously doing great.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. To their credit, they always keep a human stylist to finalize things and make sure that they're still choosing things from a human perspective. So they do do that, but I have also seen it go very wrong when most recently I was calling a phone provider that I'm working with for my new internet in Austin, and they have it where they have the little robot pretend typing, it literally sounds like-Jon:Ugh, that's horrible.Stephanie Postles:I'm like, "What? Don't look try that." I know it's a machine, but when you try and add that extra emphasis to try and improve, I don't even know what they're doing, I'm like, that actually makes it worse, I'd rather you just tell me, "This is a robot. If you don't want to talk to a robot, let me know." Or something.Jon:Or you use your experienced people. What are you doing? We know it's a robot.Stephanie Postles:You ain't typing, you're not fooling me, and anyone that you do fool, I feel very, very sorry for.Jon:Yeah. It's interesting too because it's almost like we're going to address that real person thing by pretending, by trying to... Because I think no one's surprised when they deal with an AI thing, they're not disappointed, so why pretend that there's a person behind it?Stephanie Postles:Yeah. That was my biggest learning back in the day at Google was, if you're going to build these new pieces of tech and you're going to start having machines interact with people for, I don't know, restaurant bookings or whatever it may be, be up front with them because people are fine with it if you let them know, but no one is fine with it if they feel tricked. And I feel the same thing now with chat bots and anything that's happening on your website, people are fine if they know it's a bot, but don't try and pretend to be a person for then that person or the customer to revisit and be like, "Hey, I just talked to Sally last time and Sally's here again, and there's Sally again, Sally's just everywhere. Oh wait, I was tricked, it's not really a person."Stephanie Postles:That's when I think that you can do things well, or you might get away with it once, but you actually might anger a customer if you trick them.Jon:Yeah. Tricking customers never a good look, I don't think. My customer journey steps six is, trick them into thinking they're talking to a person.Stephanie Postles:Oh, that's a good quote, tricking the customers never a good strategy.Jon:No, it's not. I don't know, I would be very curious to know what the designer's life on that last stage of Stitch Fix is like. Is it that the AI has come up with banana stuff and you got to piece it back together. I think that'd be fascinating to see how much manual adjustment they have to do, because it's, I don't know, I think people are pretty good at feeling out when there isn't a real human behind it.Stephanie Postles:Oh yeah, yeah. I think so too. The other thing I wanted to talk about a bit was trends from abroad. So we've had quite a few guests on the show, some of which I think are actually customers that you guys sent us, and they've found different products, maybe in, I don't know, Japan or Thailand or something. And then they either created the product there and brought it back to the US, or they just brought the trend back here and figured out how to make it here. And I wanted to hear, how are you guys thinking about commerce abroad right now? Are you guys looking into that area? Do you even have customers who are overseas? And where do you see the world headed outside of just the US?Jon:Yeah, no doubt. There's two things in there, the first one is this idea that you would bring a foreign concept to another country and introduce it as your own product. And certainly, that happens all the time. And the other is, if you are a company working abroad or even in the United States and you want to address a global market to prevent just that happening, how would you do it? I think actually they're really intertwined because we do see a strong trend right now of companies serving a much more global market from their domestic website.Jon:20 years ago, you couldn't find a payment processor that would take international cards in the states, you were getting stuff shipped out of the country, there was this forward carriers. All those services to make it easier, though, very expensive to ship out of the United States really weren't there. But now, you can find a product anywhere and it can be sourced from anywhere. I remember that my son had a plushy stuffed animal and he was given us a gift and it came from Japan, and we were terrified that something would happen to it. And so we bought another one from Japan, which is... I think increasingly what we're seeing is that, because of global commerce and because of the increasingly connections to this both payments and fulfillment systems, it's much easier to be fulfilling anywhere in the world.Jon:I was talking to Sally Beauty yesterday and they were talking about how, when they launched in Canada and COVID hit, they just fulfilled from all their stores because they didn't have a local DC and they couldn't do the inter-country commerce. It's like really interesting stuff. But I think that thing goes back to that question, I think it's going to be harder for someone to be like, I've seen this amazing concept in the Philippines, so I'm going to bring it back to the states because no one's ever heard of this and do it because I think that it's so much easier for that company in the Philippines to find and sell into a market anywhere now.Jon:We've actually talked about it at Salesforce, is that this idea that you really need to be thinking, even if you're not directly selling to a global audience and what's going to happen when someone from Switzerland comes to your B2B side and wants to buy your ball-bearings, how are you going to make that happen? So, yeah, I think it's interconnected in just that way.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. That's a really smart take. So basically the opportunity that used to be there where people would go to a country that maybe not everyone in the US has been to and come back and be like, "Look at this amazing thing," I mean, that's what happened with Red Bull. They went overseas, found it, brought the recipe back here and then it became a hit. It's essentially that opportunity is now closing because we are able to shop abroad, there's a lot of great things happening with localization, and the payments automatically switching over to wherever you're entering in from, and fulfillment's becoming easier, so definitely the gap is closing now around that.Jon:Oh, absolutely. I nerd out on audio stuff, and I've got this bananas like Mic arm that I bought from Germany. And I got most of them from a local US distributor, but there were some weird parts because of my microphone I needed. And I just went to their site and it's shipped from Germany and they took my American Express and it came in two weeks. There wasn't some weird customs thing and it wasn't this big process, it was just like, oh yeah, here we go. Boom. And it shows up. I think market's everywhere.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. That's cool. I do think there's still a big opportunity though to find very overpriced items and just do a D2C method. We just had on Solé Bicycles, and they said that's exactly what they did. And now they're being sold in Urban Outfitters and they have a bunch of other big partners, but their bikes are, I think like $400 and you can customize them. And there's so many spots that I still see at least here in Palo Alto, I see people riding around with these bikes and there's these big, you've probably seen this Jon, big boxes on the front where their kids are all in the front of them.Jon:Oh, yeah.Stephanie Postles:Three to $4,000, and a lot of people are going to Europe to have to ship them from Europe and then it's even more expensive. And when I see that kind of stuff I'm like, "Oh, there should definitely be an option because this should not be a $4,000 bike to just have a bike with a big wooden box on the front of it."Stephanie Postles:When talking about potential opportunities or not, abroad, the one thing that we were focusing on a little bit was looking at the internet penetration. And so right now, a lot of, I mean, this is more of a VC who's looking into this, but she had a really good quote talking about places like Latin America that have a really high GDP per capita, similar to China, but then their internet penetration being only 4%. So how are you thinking about maybe approaching markets like that, where you have really high GDP for the amount of people that are there, they're ready to work, but then their internet penetration is so low, how are you guys thinking about that?Jon:It's interesting. And I would get to this, both internet penetration as well as last mile fulfillment. A while ago I did a project on one of the major retailers in South America out of Santiago Chile, and their big problem was actually getting the product to people and actually payments as well for those final mile pieces. Internet penetration is tricky, I don't know, frankly, I'm a little surprised to hear that because I feel with the proliferation of phones, I feel I'm so ubiquitous right now that everybody has some ability to transact on their phones. It could obviously just be my own sitting here in San Francisco bias.Jon:I don't know. The only people that have the capital to do that are going to be like Google and Facebook where you would see already moving into those. I don't know. I don't have an answer to that one.Stephanie Postles:I think that regulations are definitely something that's tricky in some of those areas, and I just think the payment thing, and I know inflation has been an issue where alternative currencies in some of these countries have been looked into, whether it's Bitcoin or whatever it may be. But I think there's a lot of opportunity there, but a lot of times they didn't get focused on like, can the people keep their money? Is inflation out of control? Can they actually spend it? And there are a lot of issues, but I also think there's a lot of opportunity once you can get past that barrier and figure out how do we get these people online and transacting like the rest of the world.Jon:Interesting. Is that a good thing?Stephanie Postles:Yeah. The 4% right now, I wouldn't say it's good because it's like... It's maybe good for their local economy because they're only spending very locally apparently, but they're not getting access to the rest of the world, which there's got to be some reason there, I just don't know enough about it and why not. But when I saw that quote, I'm like, yeah, that's a lot of people who could be coming online for the next like five years or so.Jon:It's like when a AOL put users on Usenet, I was like, "Man, everyone is AOL."Stephanie Postles:What is Usenet? I was on AOL, but I don't know what Usenet is.Jon:Back in the day, Usenet was like the original internet forum system, it's where like all.nerd.games and like rec.games.pinball, my favorite one in college, it was where the nerds hung out. And I remember it was this exclusive community of college students and internet nerds, and AOL was going to take all of their unwashed people and bring them onto the Usenet forums, and here we are, internet broken.Stephanie Postles:Okay. Now, I know, I learned something very awesome and new today about AOL, brings me back to my days of putting up my away message, BRB, going to eat a sandwich.Jon:Yeah. And it's funny because Salesforce just bought Slack, and so now all of us are thrust back into Slack and everyone's like, "How does any of this work?" It's really interesting to feel so old, "What do you do with status?"Stephanie Postles:We just had Slack's CTO on, IT Visionaries actually. And it was perfect timing because then I think it was two days later it was like, Salesforce acquired Slack and we're like, "Ha ha, we're right on it." We just had [crosstalk 00:36:50].Jon:Step ahead.Stephanie Postles:Timing news check.Jon:It'd be an interesting acquisition, I think it's going to be really good for the company.Stephanie Postles:Do you think you guys will be able to figure out the away messages and how to use it?Jon:Well, anything connected to the world's number one CRM is going to have outstanding away messages though.Stephanie Postles:That'll be fun. Fun to hear about. The one thing earlier that you mentioned, I think is also an interesting trend was about fulfilling from stores. So we've had a couple of brands come on where they were like, "Well, we didn't do this before, but with COVID and our warehouses maybe getting shut down, and then we had all this inventory sitting in stores, we actually started using them to fulfill the orders. And then we realized that, "Oh, it's more efficient to do that because if someone orders from California and our stores are in Oregon, it's better to ship from Oregon than to ship from our warehouse that was maybe in Virginia or something."Stephanie Postles:And so they started using a more localized method and fulfilling it based on where the person was ordering from, which apparently, a lot of them weren't doing before. So do you see this staying around even when retail starts to open up again? Do you see them continuing to use maybe retail to also fulfill orders or maybe reverting back to warehouses or PPLs?Jon:Well, I think that fulfilling from stores is for sure in the future, and I think that there are a couple of reasons. One is that warehouse space is just getting so expensive, particularly around in city areas. Amazon just spent $200 million for the old Greyhound lot here in South of San Francisco, it's crazy money. So if you already have a physical presence, I think in my experience, living here in San Francisco, Best Buy is doing unbelievable job of this where when COVID closed their stores, they turned them into distribution centers, and you can do all your buy online, pickup in store. When it reopened, they did the mix thing.Jon:I think that people will continue to use those mixed models. And I think that the benefits are actually on both sides, it helps the consumers get stuff faster and frankly allows a wider variety of stuff to be stocked because you can have more stuff in stores than you can in a single warehouse is my belief. But from the company standpoint, you can shift stuff more quickly and you also... My wife just got a job doing this, she works up at Sport Space, which is a small sports retailer here in the Bay Area, and she's doing ecommerce fulfillment from their store.Jon:And so they have like 15 stores and they use every one of them as a warehouse, and their volume over the holidays has gone way up, but they've coped with it because they have a zillion DCS. I think the trick to it although, is that really for it to work properly, you need integrated inventory. And that can be really tough depending on your backend systems. But if you can get that, then I think it's a total no-brainerStephanie Postles:Oh, that's smart. We when we were talking to Wellesley, they were saying the same thing about they used to have these stores where, they're B2B, they are plumbing and HVAC and stuff, and so they would have these big stores that you would go and talk to the salesperson and place your order, and you could look around and all this. And she was saying in the future, they're thinking about moving to just, they don't even really need a store. They have this huge warehouse behind the scenes, like a shoppable warehouse and you just come to the curb and continue picking your stuff up.Stephanie Postles:They don't really need their store anymore, and that's the way they're thinking about the future could look for a lot of businesses, either shoppable warehouse or just order online, and if you need to come pick it up in person there's a very mini, mini store out front of the warehouse that you can transact there if needed.Jon:Absolutely. I think that, certainly, I'm biased here in California and I see what it sees in San Francisco, but certainly the downtown area, the metropolis of San Francisco is still completely shut down, very few people are going to work. And all of that real estate is shut down both in terms of offices and the commercial stuff on the ground that I don't think that there's any reason to think that all that's going to open up exactly the way it was before. I think there's going to be a lot of innovation in the physical retail space, particularly in places that are based on worker and office traffic and not like suburban weekday traffic.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. What kind of innovations do you see coming? Because I do think retail will be transforming. A lot of the retail stores, I think, we'll have to have that in-person experience component or event or something to bring the people into the store because they're so used to shopping online at this point, probably it's like, "Well, what reason do I have to actually go to a store and be in-person and talk to someone?" Or whatever it may be. What kind of changes do you see coming for physical retail?Jon:Yeah, absolutely. I think that just drawing up on what we've talked about already in this call, I think that you will see a deep emphasis on stores that really are just, or the staffing levels in stores that really are just warehouses. If you are a Costco, you just don't need that many people because the vacuum is the single vacuum and that's what you're going to buy. But for stores, I think that the physical retail transformative places where taste is the big thing, or there are multiple products that are equivalent and you want someone to help you curate, this is my Resto vocabulary.Jon:But ultimately, a human just going to actually help you walk out of the store with something that's a better fit for what you want. I think that that's the future because... Where was I? I was in line the other day, and I walked to the place because I just wanted to get this one thing and I'm waiting in line, it's like, there's no advantage to this, to, "I know what I want, I want to get out of here as fast as possible transaction." But in a transaction where I'm like, "Tell me which one of these is the right one?" That's where I think physical retail is going to shine.Stephanie Postles:Yeah. I agree. A couple of times I've been in line maybe at, I don't know, a T.J. Maxx, not recently obviously, or something, but I would just give up because I'm like, "This line's too long, I came here for a reason and now I'm in-patient. Goodbye." That's happened multiple times, I'm like, "Why can I not just walk in and walk out with this stuff and just hit my credit card with it or whatever it may be." I know Amazon was experimenting with that, but to me, that's going to be the way the future, because I don't want to wait in another dang line ever again. I'm spoiled.Jon:No, absolutely. And I think self-checkouts too. I did the Amazon Go store and I found the whole thing very weird because you're very aware that there's a camera in the shelf and everywhere, they're recording everything, but that was the best ever. But to your point, I think that people get used to a faster transaction that they're not. I totally get, you need full service, but no one has the time to sit and wait, or I guess some people do, but it gets frustrating and it's a bad customer experience.Stephanie Postles:Where do you see the world headed for ecommerce? I mean, big picture, any higher-level things that you guys are preparing for that we haven't covered yet? Or why you guys are working on the things you're working on right now?Jon:Yeah. I think probably we're working on stuff which will make having a really amazing customer journey easier. I think that you can say broad... I think there's an argument today that commerce tools on their own are commoditized. At the end of the day, you can build whatever you need with any of the major packages from just a pure commerce standpoint. And so I think the question becomes, what are the tools that are going to help you have a complete customer journey because you're going to be losing control of the specific place that you're going to meet your customer, so how do you continue to build journeys that are amazing anywhere? That's really where I think we're going right now.Stephanie Postles:What things are you focusing on then? When you say, making sure you have a good customer journey, I think a lot of people say that, but not everyone actually gets, what does it mean to have a good customer experience and journey. So what kind of things are you focused on right now to make sure that happens?Jon:Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a fair question. And I think a lot of people are like, headless ecommerce? But that's a technology. I think really what you're looking at are ways that you can 100% of the time know who you're talking to as a company and identify your customer. And specifically what that means to customer journeys is that means that when you start with a marketing campaign, that whatever that messaging and whatever you know about them is then reflected in the commerce campaign, is reflected in the order management, and then all the way through to the service.Jon:So a customer experience at that point is actually the experience of the totality of interacting with your brand, of discovering it, transacting with it, and then enjoying the product or whatever is after it. So that's what we mean by the customer journey, the full thing and how you can make that coherent and make sense and not like, "Oh man, well, you're in supports domain. Godspeed, I don't even know what those guys do."Stephanie Postles:Yep. I love that, especially knowing who your customer is. We had on Domm from Fast, and that was his biggest thing is even though they're known for that one-click checkout, he's like, "We're actually solving for identity so that you know who someone is and you're not constantly having to ask them to fill in the same details that they filled in 1,000 other times in different places." And once you can figure it out, the identity piece, the customer experience part will be easy to figure out because then you already know who you're talking to, what they're looking for, their payments stuff's all covered, and it becomes very frictionless.Jon:Absolutely. Totally. And I think that that's the future. When you want to reorder from someone, you want to do with one click, you don't want to be like, "You guys definitely know my phone number, but here it is again."Stephanie Postles:All right, Jon. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, where can people find out more about you and your awesome work?Jon:Oh, well Salesforce Commerce Cloud, everything I'm doing is up there. Unfortunately, it's all gated, but check it out. I'll make sure they don't badge you too hard if you do check it out.Stephanie Postles:Yep. Hit Jon up if they do, he's your guy.Jon:Totally.Stephanie Postles:All right. Thanks so much.Jon:Thank you. Have a great day. 

Google recently dropped all commission fees on their "Buy on Google" platform. On the surface-level this seems like a very intriguing offer. But Ryan here is to explain why "Buy on Google" may not be the best thing for your brand. TRANSCRIPT: Jon: Ryan, a few days ago, I sent you an article I read about Google's Buy on Google program and how they were dropping all commission fees for their sellers as part of the program. Now, to me, this seemed like a pretty good deal. Who doesn't like freeways to sell products and utilize a huge platform with lots of awareness like Google search? At least that was my take, but when I asked you about it, you said, and I'll quote, hopefully this is okay, "That product was dead in the water before this change. Some merchants will of course test it, but it will compete for ad presence with their regular Google ads." Honestly, this was not what I was expecting to hear from you at all. I was really interested in connecting with you a bit more about this and just seeing your thoughts on it and getting some more information about the program out and seeing where and when it makes sense for all of our eCommerce listeners to take advantage of it. I guess just to jump right in, Ryan, on a high level, just so we're on the same page, what exactly is Buy on Google? Ryan: Buy on Google is the little colorful shopping cart icon that shows up in Google shopping. When you start filtering and sorting, you actually transact on Google and then the merchant fulfills it. It's basically a Google trying to be this marketplace saying, "Oh, we can trust Google because I'm buying it here." It's a shopping ad set that you're able to get when you push your inventory into Google and say, "Yes, I'm willing to sell this on Google." Previously, there were commissioned tiers to sell different products. It ranged somewhere from five to, I think, 12%. It was a 12% number that Google [inaudible 00:02:07] because it was less than that Amazon 15%. That came out, man, I want to say maybe three, four years ago, maybe in an alpha-beta four years ago. I think it did cause some Amazon changes within their system on what they were going to be charging to try to have more parody with the Buy on Google scenario. Yeah. It was basically give Google the commission that you would maybe be paying Amazon and we'll push your product out there. There's no advertising costs. Google's the one putting it out there and then you just get the sale and give commission to Google. Jon: They're trying to create a marketplace without really holding any inventory or doing any fulfillment. They literally just take the money, take their cut and send everything over to the retailer? Ryan: Yeah. From a high level, it sounds like a great idea like, "Okay. I have all of this work. I'm spending all this money in Google ads and shopping and I've got agency fees or employee costs or my time in it. Now, I can just go to Google and you're just going to take a commission and it's a fixed cost, so I don't have to worry about what my return on Google shopping is." That theory sounds phenomenal. There's not many business owners are going to be like, "Yeah. Here, take my products. Sell them for me. I now know that I'm only going to be paying 12% of my revenue for my advertising cost." There's no scenario in which that doesn't sound like a good idea. Jon: That definitely makes sense. How does Buy on Google differ from Google Shopping? This is a complete novice asking that question. Ryan: It's part of Google Shopping. You only see the Buy on Google when you're in the Google Shopping tab within Google space. It used to be a little more prevalent on the first page of Google, but I believe it's only showing now in the Google Shopping tab. It's one of the filters you can put on there. Jon: Okay. Then, really Google Shopping is getting your listing of products up there. Some of them will take you to the retailer. Some of them will just take your money on Google. Ryan: Yes. It's always interesting. Google's, as we know, a for profit company. They want to make money. When they came out with this program, it obviously sounded great to business owners, but it immediately put up some flags on our team internally to say, "Okay. Google needs to reward shareholders for their investment and needs to make money to afford employees," and all the things they do around the world that are very good and positive, including paying people. If Google is going to take 12% of the revenue for a sale and not charge for any clicks to the merchant that's selling that, in theory, Google's not going to be willing to lose money by showing those products at 12% when they know from a click cost, they're getting a 20% or a five X return for the merchant. Jon: I see. Yeah. Ryan: Google's got a lot of very smart people and they do say that they are out for the good, and they will do things to just benefit people. Period. There is an opportunity maybe that they're willing to take less money, but that's not always the case. You just have to start investigating. That's why I challenge every merchant to do with any product in Google is test and measure and see if it does actually make sense for your brand. Jon: Spoken after my own heart there, test and measure. Ryan: Yes. Jon: I've had an impact, Ryan. I appreciate it. Let me ask you this then. If they're not doing any commission anymore, then how are they going to make any money and how could any brand really think that Google is going to list this above their ads? Ryan: It's a great question. That's why it's surprising that Google made this move, especially when they just released earnings when we're doing this podcast yesterday where they had the first time that their revenue dropped in a quarter. I don't know how long, if ever, that Google being willing to give up money. When that happens, it's telling us internally logical position that, "Okay. Something wasn't going the direction that Google thought it was going to be going." Either we're in the process potentially of just sunsetting this or moving it to a place where it's not going to be necessarily a focus of Google because if there's no revenue coming in, how are you going to support it internally? You can't dedicate a bunch of employees necessarily longterm to a product that makes no money. It's either a stepping stone into something different, or they're taking steps to buy some market share to a degree and try to get people using it in broad adoption so that they can monetize it later. We don't necessarily know where they're going because they won't necessarily tell us this despite our levels of... I actually asked the question. I was interviewing, I think the global partner strategy person for Shopping. He's a big guy in the Shopping space. We were talking about the free and fast program that's recently come out and I brought it up and he's like, "I answered something, but not how you want it. Then, we can't have this in the interview because I'm not authorized to speak on it." Awesome. Thanks. It's a big unknown. I know that if Google is not making money on it generally, it's not going to be something that I, as a brand, am going to get really excited about and try to push all of my eggs into that basket for my personal brand. I might test it. Again, test and measure, see what it does, but my hopes are not high. Also, my hopes are not high, but just because of the nature of the Buy on Google and the data we've seen in it. A logical position... One of the companies I talk about often, I won't mention them by name, but they started working with us in May of 2020 after they had not been doing any paid search with an agency. They had been using Buy on Google with another agency that recommended that this was the greatest thing for them. This sells B2B kind of like distributor cleaning products, just all things businesses need. They have something in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of skews. Most of their sales come from Walmart or Amazon, at least, they did at the time. We looked at Buy on Google and they did about $34,000 a month on average. That was over the previous six months, and they paid Google and this agency somewhere around between four and $5,000 for that batch of sales, $34,000 worth. Jon: It seems like a good [inaudible 00:08:20], if you will? Ryan: Yeah. It wasn't terrible by any means. I said, "Okay. Well, that's not bad, but based on what we see, I believe you're limiting yourself on the potential that our website only did, I believe $16,000 in revenue in the month of April." Their web sales, just if it evaporated tomorrow, not a big deal. I said, "Okay. Look, I think you're being limited here. Give us three months to test this and see what we can do." This was in the very end of April. They said, "Okay. Fine. We're going to fire the agency we've been working with, but it's going to take two weeks. You're going to actually officially be able to kick off mid-May. But in the meantime that first two weeks of May, we're going to just push all our products into the merchant center and flip a very basic shopping campaign on based on just... We don't know anything. We're just going to have the products in there. Just see what happens." I said, "Okay. Great. Can't hurt anything while we're building it out." The data, when we're on a test and measure here, Jon, the data in the month of May, half of this was just that are basic campaign. Half was us getting ramped up. Their sales went from the site in April, $16,000 to $192,000. Jon: Now, that's a return on investment. Ryan: They only spent 2,500 bucks in Shopping in the month of May to generate an additional... What is that? $176,000? The crazy thing we saw and it surprises a lot of companies, but shopping has an effect on lots of areas of your site, not just what you're going to see in analytics on Google Shopping. That $2,500 generated Google Analytics last non-direct attribution, $115,000. The organic traffic on the site went from $10,000 in April to $45,000 in May. They weren't even doing any SEO. There was a halo effect on other things that Google Shopping does because you click to a site on Google Shopping, go back and do more research. Then, you're going to come back through other channels. Direct traffic was way up. Email was way up. Social was even up and they don't even do much on social. The Buy on Google doesn't allow for that because you're buying on Google. You're not even going to the website. You don't have the ability to buy other products. We know as well, based on our research and expertise within the Google Shopping space, over 50% of the time, people click on our product to go to a site and they're going to buy something else entirely. You get to the site and you start shopping. You see the data when somebody interacts with product suggestions on a site, time on site goes up dramatically. Conversion rate goes up on dramatically by clicking that suggested product, or you might also like type products. Everything gets better. They've committed to shopping the site. Maybe you can challenge me in that in some other arena, but all you want is a traffic from Google Shopping to get to the site because everything looks better from an analytics perspective. When you don't have that because of the Buy on Google not sending people to the site, you lose all of that. When I'm seeing Google give something for free, red flags and lights and flashes of all kinds of go off in my head saying, "Okay. Either something wasn't working for Google on this. They just need to get it out there more for adoption to try to take a last gasp for effort, or are they going to try to get companies to forget about sending traffic to the site to try to convince them that Buy on Google is the only thing to be doing?" It's just interesting to say the least. Also, if you have the product in Buy on Google and also in Google Shopping, you don't get to show in both ad sets, so it's not giving you extra inventory. It's a replacement, which also tells me if it's now free, how... Yeah. Google's not bad by any means. I think Google's great company. I'm very honored to be partnered with them at the level we are. I know that they're not going to give up all their revenue from Google Shopping. Jon: Right? Well, there's something else they're getting there in terms of... It's like the old adage about Facebook. If you're not paying for it, you're the product. Ryan: Yeah. Jon: There's something here that makes me think that they're interested in the consumer data. Ryan: Yeah. They want some data, and how much are they willing to pay for that? If they have 100% of all merchants adopt that immediately because it's free, they're not willing to take a $10 billion hit in Q3 probably to see some data. Jon: Not after Q2. Ryan: Because Google already has more data than they know what do it through a degree. Again, interesting. You need to watch it, test and measure it, but often it does not make a lot of sense to utilize the Buy on Google for most eCommerce companies. Jon: Is there anything else you feel like eCommerce brands should know about Buy on Google? Ryan: If you put this on your site and you're also running Google Shopping, we've got some merchants that spend north of $10 million a year on Google. When they came to us, they're shopping... Overall, they were using Buy on Google and Google Shopping and their shopping traffic was down 40% year over year including Buy on Google. Then, they couldn't figure it out. They came to us that find out about this. They had some prior relationships with us from other companies, the eComm team that had started working with them. They brought us on and we were able to uncover that when they had flipped on Buy on Google, that's the key thing that happened to drive the volume down. They thought they were going to be adding ad sets, adding all this additional stuff, and it was going to fix their marketing costs because the numbers looked great. When they flipped it on, everything went down and the agency they had been working with just said, "Well, it's just because the market's down or your prices are too high," or they had all these excuses that just didn't necessarily hold water when we started looking at the data. It's not easy to analyze Buy on Google and what the impact on your business, because the transaction is not happening on your website. You don't see that in Google Analytics. There's a lot of matchup data. There's a lot of filtering and analysis you have to do that is very complex to actually see the impact. When I say test and measure, you're going to actually have to do a lot of work on that measuring to figure out what the impact actually is. You have to look at skew data to see, "Okay. This product, I started showing in Buy on Google. What was the impact of overall sales in taking some of my offline data?" Because the Buy on Google's not going to show up in Analytics. What does that look like? When we put it here, we started seeing what's the impressions of Google Shopping that I lost? If I lost again, easy math, a thousand impressions and 10 sales on Google Shopping when I flipped on the Buy on Google, did I get more than 10 purchases of that specific product? Probably need more than that because the halo effect of Google Shopping of my organic traffic getting more searches and clicks and purchases because of my shopping investment, that goes away. You got to take in the fact, the halo effect. Go in paranoid like I do with most things. I'll go in paranoid to start and say, "Okay. If my business is not going to go to the direction I want to, where am I going to see it? What levers am I going to need to push and pull quickly and uncover some changes?" Jon: Is that paranoid why you live on a farm and all that acreage? Ryan: No. I also have four small kids and you need room to run. We're very blessed in COVID time to have all that room. Jon: You had said at some point, as we were having this conversation a few days ago, that larger merchants will usually lose volume when they have both ads and shopping actions. Is that summarizing what you were talking about a second ago? Ryan: Generally, yeah. It's simply because you can't show both ad sets. Playing out the conspiracy theorist in me saying, "Okay. Google's... Previously, they were going to get 12% from your Buy on Google, but they knew they were getting 20% with people clicking on ads to your site, they're probably going to take the 20% margin that they were getting on click and not show the Buy on Google." Buy on Google, you don't get any search queries, so we don't actually know what you were showing for. What we were seeing often was that it was cannibalizing brand terms and taking some of the easy stuff that you were probably getting at less than 12% cost already. Not that it's bad, but even smart shopping to a degree, take some of those easy layup searches and shows a pretty strong ROI. But a lot of that was brand that maybe you could have been getting a better return on ad spend with a more complex shopping structure. That's where you can't see the data from a search query perspective, so you have to see it from a transaction perspective. You're never going to get really apples to apples, but when you're comparing it volume loss of sales or volume increase based on skew, you'll want to hopefully have a lot of that data you can be pulling. If you have smart campaigns running currently on Shopping, you're probably not a large merchant. If you are a large merchant, we should chat. Smart campaigns are quite limiting to your scale, but if you have smart shopping and then you do Buy on Google as well, you have zero data in both of those. You're just going to be able to measure total site sales and maybe they do increase, but could they have gone higher if you went just to a manual shopping campaign structure and didn't do either smart shopping or Buy on Google. It's a difficult analysis, but it's something that all brands spending over 10,000 a month on Google should probably be doing. If you're doing spending money on Google Shopping and also doing Buy on Google, you need to be doing some deep analysis of what that looks like because I would venture, I guess when you flipped Buy on Google on, you probably lost some volume because of that transit. People not being able to shop the site and add different complimentary products. Jon: Right. Ryan: Buy on Google doesn't do that. They don't know what the complimentary products would be, but if you work with Jon who's going to help you figure out some of those things that are going to help your conversion rate to help your AOV, you can only do that on your site. Jon: Right. Yeah. That's been my rub with Google Shopping and I guess Buy on Google, more specifically is that you have very little control and you lose the contact information for the buyer. This leads me to my next question, which was I had mentioned there was an article in Forbes that kick started this whole conversation. That article says something along the lines of Google just updates eCommerce game to attract more sellers, but it's still not enough to compete with Amazon. What stuck out there was not that it's not enough to compete with Amazon, but this has been viewed as a play to compete with Amazon. Do you agree that this is a play to compete with Amazon? Ryan: Well, Google and Amazon has been competing for over a decade. I don't think it's a new thing for Google to try to test waters to create more of a marketplace. It just makes sense. With over 50% of all eComm transactions happening on Amazon, there is a risk to Google on ads that people could be just moving stores to Amazon and not paying for traffic on Google. That is a potential that Google is probably well aware of, probably not giving them any insight they don't already have. Jon: But I was wondering with that approach also, they're willing to offer this for free almost as like gut punch to Amazon in that, "Hey, we'll keep the customer data and the sale. We'll give that commission up to increase the volume and steal basically the revenue away from Amazon," almost as a way as a retaliation. I'm sure Google would never say this, but for Amazon launching on platform ads, which kind of hurt... I'm sure hurt some volume on Google. Ryan: I don't necessarily think that if you are selling online, you're not aware of Google or this was what was going to all of a sudden, get you to start working with Google to a degree. I think that there is some of that there like, "Hey, we want to try to get more merchants and more data," but I don't think that that was necessarily the play for Google that they're trying to use this to be the marketplace or take down Amazon at all. Then, probably trying to get new data to see, "Oh, if it is free, what is that doing to our margin? What is that doing to the volume of people buying on Google? Does that give us the ability to push into a marketplace?" The fact that they're integrating with PayPal, the fact they're integrating with Shopify Pay is pretty big. Letting people pay with those things, so it does seem that there is a marketplace potential here and it may be if we play this out, I'm guessing that Google is taking some margin from PayPal and Shopify Pay if people are using those for the transaction. Jon: I see. Ryan: Google's Pay could be as a merchant processor at the end of the day because they already have Google Pay. If they're making enough money on the processing fees, maybe they don't need to charge for a marketplace listing. Jon: That's a great way. I hadn't thought about that, but that's a great way for them to increase the volume there, which probably makes their cost cheaper to process those overall because of the larger volumes. Yeah. That's a great idea there in terms of how this makes sense for them. That leads me to my next thought, which is that Google has really tried several ways to take a piece of the eCommerce pie in the past few years. Right? We talked about Google Pay for instance, right? But I don't see a whole lot of eCommerce brands taking advantage of it or really making it a priority to support all these things. Do you have a feeling that Google will ever become a really large player in the actual eCommerce space besides driving traffic? Ryan: I would never bet against Google. Jon: That's fair. Ryan: They have a tremendous amount of intelligent people and more data in the eCommerce space than almost any other company [inaudible 00:22:14] in Amazon just control it. I think there's so much value to owning the customer experience for brands that as a brand owner myself, I do have an Amazon storefront. I do advertise on Google. I do have my own website. I look at Amazon as a retailer because it's their customer. It's not a me customer. For me, the more people that I can get my product into their hands through Amazon, the more likely they are to become a loyal advocate brand fan for my brand and maybe they'll buy from my site. Maybe they'll follow me on social and I can get new products into them, but I know it's Amazon's customer and Google can send traffic to my site. I have a lot of affinity for that because they're willing to share all of that customer data with me and not own it. It's difficult for me to be able to give up my customer and sacrifice that data and potential relationship and experience that I know I want my customer to have on my site to ever be like, "Okay. I'll never drive traffic to my site. I'll just let the transaction happen all over the place with everybody else's system." Jon: Government antitrust interviewing aside with all these big tech companies recently. I've always wondered why Google didn't just buy Shopify before it went public or by big commerce before it goes public. I could see a massive antitrust issue there perhaps where they own the entire ecosystem, but I also think that for them to really get a piece of this pie in the longterm in terms of on the transaction side, I almost see that that's going to have to be a requirement and we'll see what happens, but it would be interesting for them to take a play there. Ryan: Yeah. I think it's going to be easier for a Shopify to move into a marketplace than it is for Google to move into a web ecosystem that you can't get out of, but there's potential that Amazon gets broken up. As big as it is, maybe they have to uncouple their fulfillment and let everybody on the planet use Amazon fulfillment or Amazon becomes just the marketplace. I foresee that as potential. I know that Shopify is moving into logistics. They're going to start fulfilling orders for their merchants. There's a lot of frenemies in the digital marketing space. You and I partner with companies that we technically can compete with on certain areas as well. It's not uncommon and it's going to be to fascinating next few years to see how a lot of this is going to shake out. Jon: Yeah. Not really on topic, but I do see that if Shopify starts fulfilling, that's a huge win for Amazon because they can go back and say, "Well, we're not on it. There's no antitrust issues here," that Shopify fulfills and they do two days. Walmart now does one day. What's the problem? You could definitely see that argument. Ryan: Yeah. I think Walmart, we need... I didn't mention. You brought up Walmart. I think they have more distribution than even Amazon. Amazon has for their FDA, I think something in the neighborhood of 77 locations around the country. Walmart's got, I don't know how many thousands of stores, but a lot of them and Shopify has all this data around all of these merchants that a lot of them sell the same thing. If you've got the same skew at Shopify system, they know where you're located. They know where you're shipping from. In theory, Shopify could start selling that particular product and saying, "Hey, merchant X, Y, Z, you have it listed for 50. We know that we can sell it for 45. Do you want to take 45 and ship it to somebody?" Yeah. Most merchants are going to be like, "Yeah. I'll take that. You're going to share this customer data with me." Kind of like the dealer network. Do you remember Shopatron? I think it's now Kibo or something like that. The dealer or the manufacturer sells it and the dealer fulfills it. That's for sure within the realm of possibility within the next couple of years. Jon: Yeah. Wow. This has been fascinating. Thank you once again for educating me on this. You're always so knowledgeable on what's happening in the Google ecosystem, not only because you guys are such great partners with them at that scale, but also that you dive really deep into this personally as a store owner and somebody who helps clients. I really appreciate your time on this today and looking forward to the next conversation, Ryan. Ryan: Yeah. Me too. Thanks, Jon. I appreciate the time and the good questions.

On this episode of Quiet Light, we speak with Jon Elder, who had a seven-figure exit and now guides others on their startup journeys. We discuss the start of his Amazon career; his new business, Black Label Advisor; and how he guides his clients to success.   Topics:  Why he got into an Amazon business. How his conservative spending affected his start. What he negotiated in the sale of his business. Who his current business helps. How his methods have changed since he started. Why you should consistently innovate. Creating experiences for customers. Who his typical client is.   Resources: Black Label Advisor Jon@blacklabeladvisor.com Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com   Transcription: Mark: Starting an online business and an Amazon business, that can be tough, right? There are a lot of mental challenges in that and especially those first couple of years; there are a lot of decisions you have to make in order to be successful. You have to think about how much inventory should I be buying in that first year, how much should I be investing, how many new products should I be launching, all while not seeing a lot of cash in your pocket, because any money that you bring in, you're typically reinvesting in that business to be able to help it grow. And so, there are a lot of challenges through those first few years and I think a lot of people get drowned down mentally during that time because there are just so many decisions to try and make as you're growing a business. Joe, you had Jon on the podcast to talk about that. He went through this. He went through a successful exit, and now he's training people on that startup process. How to start up an Amazon business, how to build brands and make those decisions a bit more clearly, have the right mindset as well going through this to make sure that you have some resiliency through that process. Joe: Yeah, Jon reminds me of us and what our website says which is a bunch of entrepreneurs with a bunch of crazy, been there, done that experience. That was a terrible quote from our own website. I should have had it up and read it. Mark: It's something like that. Joe: It's something like that; a bunch of people that have done something. Mark: We're just a bunch of guys and Amanda. Joe: And Amanda, she runs the show. Jon, he had a mid-seven figure exit and it was a substantial and life-changing one that will probably change a generation or two of his family. And he did it through building an Amazon business the right way with multiple brands in one Seller Account. Not that that's the only right way. There are many ways to do it. But he's sharing his direct experience. He's not the typical guru if you will. And I shouldn't say that because we have many friends who would be considered gurus that are actually really good at what they do. But he's been there, he's done it, and now he's going, okay, look, I can help people. I truly, truly can help people. And he set up a system and a process to help people understand how to identify the right product, not just from maximizing value and return on dollars but upon doing that, you're going to be happy and satisfied with working with you and your cash flow; how long the launch process really takes, how often you should launch. He never used any launch services or anything like that. There are a lot of steps that he's set up and he goes through and he's working with people one on one. And I thought it would be beneficial to have him on the podcast because he does have a crazy amount of done there and done that experience. Joe: Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Today we've got somebody that had an incredible exit, one in the mid-seven figure range. Jon Elder ran an Amazon business with multiple brands. Jon, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Jon: Yeah, thanks for having me, Joe. Joe: That was a short but powerful introduction if I do say so myself. We don't read fancy intros here. Jon, can you give the audience listening a little bit of background on yourself so they understand who you are and why you're here? Jon: Yeah, of course. My story is kind of similar to a lot of people in the sense of I wanted to get more out of life and there is always an entrepreneurial spirit in me. And so, 2014 is when I started on Amazon and I was also working on a corker construction job and I honestly thought I was going to be in that type of career the rest of my life. I went to college for Construction Management and so it's a pretty high profile, very successful career. But the scaling of salaries is driving me a little crazy and so I wasn't okay with just getting the 5%, switching companies maybe down the line. So, I got into the Amazon world because I thought it was a really great opportunity. At the same time, I'm really conservative so I didn't go in with a large amount of capital. I started with roughly $5,000 and I got my feet wet in the golfing category. Some of that is due to just my general interest in sports and it was a product that there weren't a lot of competitors in that category. It was something I was interested in and something that I thought I could innovate a little bit in that category and become the leader. And within a year I actually did become the leader. I became the number one seller for that specific product. Joe: And you have a job the whole time, Jon, or did you quit? Jon: Yeah, actually I worked full time until 2016. Joe: Excellent. Okay, that's good to hear. Jon: Yeah. Joe: That's what I like to hear. It's a less risky path for people. Jon: Yeah, I'm married, I have a son and so their needs actually come first. I had to make sure that I wasn't putting my family in a bad financial position. So, yeah, I definitely worked with factories in eight. I spent a lot of hours. My wife was very sacrificial, allowing me to spend all that extra time. We used to have conversations about this that we're building a business in the future and there's some sacrifice that has to be made for that. And that's just part of life. Anyone who says that it's easy and it doesn't take that much time is a complete lie. It's a lot of work and very, very stressful but it definitely paid off. Joe: Yeah, you've got five brands over that time period as well, not that just one? Jon: Right and part of that story is just pursuing products that I had an interest in. And not all the brands were successful. Some of the brands were definitely not successful but thankfully the vast majority of my brands took off and became leaders in their respective categories. Joe: Okay, so just to review and just to understand fully who you are, what you've done, because we're going to talk about some of the nitty-gritty here. But in the last year that you sold the business, you did about six and a half million in revenue. You ran the business side by side with being a new dad and a full-time job for a couple of years before you exited. You had five brands and ultimately you sold for mid-seven figures. We're not going to give away the detail here, but an amount that is a life-changing figure that would have taken you 20 years in your construction business to earn probably maybe even more, right? Jon: Oh, yeah. Joe: Over the over the five years or so that you were running the Amazon business, I always love asking this question and it's a tough one because you haven't done the math yet but did you take and make more money as you were running the business; take more cash out of the business for you and your family during that five-year period, or did you get more when you sold the business? Jon: Oh, I definitely got more when I saw the business. One of the driving factors behind the success of my business was the vast majority of the money; any profits that we got were reinvested. That helped us launch products faster. It helped us launch new variations faster and so that allowed us to grow the business very, very quickly. Joe: You must have taken something out for yourself, though, I would assume. Jon: Oh, yeah, definitely. Joe: Just enough to live off of, was your wife working? Jon: No, my wife is a stay-at-home mom. In 2016 when I went full time with Amazon, the goal was to pay myself a salary that mimics my salary at my job and then as the business grew to continue to scale that up from there. And of course, at Christmas time because of the sales and the profits there, doing things like small bonuses and things like that. Yeah, the money that I paid myself definitely increased over time. In the first two years, I paid myself very little just because I was obsessed with growing the business. And honestly, from the very beginning of starting the business, I had a number in mind for my exit someday. A lot of people will say they have vision boards mine was a very specific number. It was in the multiple seven figures and everything I did in the business was geared towards that end goal. And so that's everything from having all my brands under one seller account, all my bookkeeping, just keeping everything clean, strong tax records. Joe: Preaching to the choir, I love that. I love all of it. That's great. It's a clean and easy deal. Did that enable you; was your buyer and SBA buyer or were they a cash buyer? Jon: He was an SBA buyer and the package deal for that was kind of interesting. Roughly 75% was upfront cash and then the rest was split between the seller note over five years and then an earn-out in perpetuity. And so that actually wasn't originally in the contract and with my lawyer at my side, we negotiated that to be perpetuity so I'll get the money eventually. Joe: Wow, that's fantastic. That part of it was probably outside the SBA guidelines though, yes? Jon: That's completely outside the contract. Joe: Good, good, good. Understood. Okay, so you learned an awful lot, you had five brands, some were successes, some were failures along the way, and you're now helping other people as well. What are some of the basic tips that you would give somebody if they're just starting out? So this podcast, even though you had a multiple seven-figure exit, even though you've operated five brands, you're really focused on helping people that are just starting out more than anything else. What are some of the basic things that somebody should look for if they're, let's say, either starting out or if they're buying a small Amazon business, that might be a couple of hundred thousand dollars in total value? Jon: So it sounds cliché but follow your passion. That's something that I tell my clients and friends and family who are interested in starting an Amazon business. Do something that you're generally interested in. And it doesn't have to be your ultimate passion. For example, golfing was never the ultimate sport. It was just a general interest in it. But go into something that you have some sort of interest in because at some point you will have hurdles and you will have issues with your business. So, for example, you might have to spend a couple of hours on a Friday night talking with one of your factories about resolving quality issues on a previous purchase order. You got to be invested in that product and if it's not a product that you're interested in, for example, I would never go into women's makeup because I have zero interest in it. I just don't know if I would be totally in it once I hit those bumps in the road. Joe: Yeah, and I've heard people say just the opposite, except for that part of the bumps in the road. So you could be product agnostic, but it helps, it's not an absolute requirement, it helps, as you're saying, to have some passion about the product. If you're going to end up on a call at 11 o'clock on a Friday night with a manufacturer on the other side of the world to work out some kinks in the detail, if you're not passionate about it, if you're not interested, if you hate it, you'd probably think about doing something else. Jon: Yeah, and I think along this subject too it's even deeper than that. I mean, so often, you're going to have other competitors for your product. There is so much innovation and improvement in your product that takes place over time. Personally, I wouldn't want to be looking at makeup and spending hours and hours and hours trying to get a better formula because I just don't care about it. One of my other product lines was an outdoor kid's product. The mission behind that brand was actually to encourage kids to rediscover the great outdoors. So many kids are on tech now and they spend hours and hours inside on the Switch and on iPads that; and this is how I parent as a dad, too is I encourage my son to go spend hours outside. Joe: How old is your son? Jon: He's five. Joe: Okay, wait until they're teenagers. It gets even worse, man. It gets even worse. They're playing with friends all the time it's just online I tell you. So, yeah, have some passion about what you do. There's no question about it. You started with 5,000 bucks. Are you helping people that haven't even picked a product yet or those that have a product idea and has sourced it and are really just trying to figure out how to how to get some traffic on? Jon: Yeah, obviously it depends. Some of my clients definitely have product ideas and they're already innovating and they want to go into a category where it's going to be truly unique and different. And then others are still in the brainstorming stage. My job is to just advise and help them along the journey all the way through sourcing and getting on to Amazon and launching. But there is so much that goes into the product research phase, and that's what I tell people, is just expect to spend hours and hours researching and researching because this is your money you're talking about. And some people take out loans. This is real stuff. You need to be 100% sure that you're in it for the long haul with your product. So, it comes down to researching the estimated revenues for that product. The thing that made me the most successful was innovating products that had some negative reviews. So I would harness all those reviews and fix all the problems. Joe: How do you do that with the manufacturer on the other side of the world? Jon: It's pretty incredible. I actually never visited any of my factories. I had four factories and it was all through phone calls, Skype, and emails. Joe: And it worked, not a problem. So are you working with a product innovation firm that's doing industrial design work for you or are you just sketching it out yourself and asking for innovations from the manufacturer? Jon: No, actually, the innovations were things that; again, because I was in product categories that I had a deep interest in, I was able to innovate myself. Joe: And do you then just put a drawing in front of that manufacturer and say can you do this? Jon: Exactly. Yeah, sketches are really useful, and then something that blew me away was how intellectual or sophisticated the Chinese factories were. They actually had 3D modeling engineering guys in-house. And I worked with some big boys. The factory for the golfing product that I sold, they actually supplied some products for the PGA Tour. One of the keys to my success was working with factories that were not starting out their journey as a factory. These were very established factories that sold products to Walmart and brick and mortar companies. Joe: Yeah. For those listening one of the additional options is Gembah, www.Gembah.com. We had Zach on the podcast here. It's a product innovation company, its industrial designers that can do that. If you're not good at drawing and innovating, they can do that work for you so that you present a more professional look to the manufacturer. Okay, so advise number one, spend a lot of time on deciding what product and product categories you're going to go into because this is where you're going to be spending all of your money in the future years, yes? Jon: 100%, and all your time. Joe: All right, let's just say we picked a great product. What's next? I mean, is it simple photography, put the listing up, look at basic stuff in terms of recommendations from Amazon? Are you using a launch service like Viral Launch or are you using some other launch service or a combination of different things? Jon: Yeah, for launching, I can get into that in a second. So, the next step that worked really well for me was doing a ton of screening with the factories. And then what I would do is I would do three final samples and we're dealing with weeks and weeks of communications here. Like this is a long process to make sure that my factory is the best of the best. So I would test the factories over email and I would ask oddball questions. I would also come across as the VP of Logistics or the VP of Product Innovation. So I would definitely present myself as an image of a large corporation. They never thought that I was a mom and pop shop in the States. But getting three samples from three strong factories was really successful for me. Joe: Three samples from each or one sample from each? Jon: Sorry, one sample from each factory. And then I would stress-test those products, use them, inspect them, see how they feel in my hand. I would do all those types of things. I ask friends and family what they thought of the products. That was a very common process. And then I ended up after taking in all that data, deciding on my final factory. Joe: This may be a basic question, but I assume you're paying for the sample and paying to have it shipped, right? They're not sending free samples and free shipping. Jon: Correct. Joe: So you're going to spend several hundred to a thousand dollars in just reviewing product samples I would assume, depending upon product cost of course? Jon: I would say a couple of hundred. Joe: Expected, and that's an incredible investment that you have to make, right? You can't just look at some stuff and get one sample and off you go. Jon: Yeah, so it's common to see that everywhere right now. It's like you can skip all those steps and you don't need to worry about that. There is some time and money upfront that is going to save your butt long term. 100%. Joe: So then if you've got the product samples; let's say you want to innovate on all three, let's say they're pretty close but you want a thicker grip on a handle or something like that, are you asking the manufacturers all three just to see how they respond and react and work with you in terms of innovation? Jon: 100% and part of that is also testing how flexible they are as a factory and how easy they are to work with. Joe: Okay. Jon: If they put up a big fight and complain about things, that's going to be a red flag for me. In the factories that I ended up working with, the answer was always yes. Their response was yes, we can do that. Yes, we want your business. Yes, yes, yes. Those are the guys that I ended up working with. The ones who caused issues for me and said, no, we can't do that, that's going to cost $5,000, I just got rid of those guys off the bat. Joe: All right, so what's next? You've tested three manufacturers. You chose a product, you innovated the product, and you're at the point where you've got the final decision on what you're going to invest your money in. What's next after that? Jon: So at that point, you have your final sample, and hopefully you have that in hand, typically production, depending on how many units. My test unit order was always 250 units, sometimes 500 units. So what I would do is while production is happening, whether that's two weeks or four weeks, I would have my final sample sent to a professional photography firm. In the very beginning, I actually took pictures myself and had a designer kind of edit my pictures and pump up the colors a little bit. But later down the road, when I was launching product after product, I'd send the products to a professional photography firm and have them do the enhanced brand content just to tie in the branding for my product. Because in the beginning, I sold a lot of random products, and then as time went on and I got more educated on it, I realized I need to be establishing my brand. I need people to come to Amazon for that specific golfing product. I want them to see my name and think quality and fantastic customer service. That's what I wanted them to remember about me. And so part of that is beautiful packaging, part of that is beautiful enhanced brand content. I had videos as my seventh picture on the listing. Joe: I was just going to ask that. How many of your listings had videos on them, all of them? Jon: The two largest brands had videos and that was kind of like a cost decision because the videos that I went with were extremely high production videos. And not everyone has to do fancy videos. The reason why we justified that was those brands were very, very large. We're talking big revenue numbers so it was something that I felt was needed. Joe: You didn't do that out of the gate on that first golfing product I assume, right? Plus, it was 2014. It probably wasn't an option for you. Jon: No. I don't remember the year that they allowed videos on the listing. I think it was maybe starting to happen in 2017-ish but yeah, in the very beginning you were locked out of everything. You had a paragraph for your description; you had bullet points, and then seven pictures. That was it. Joe: Yeah. Okay, so now you've ordered products, you ordered 250 units, spent a couple of hundred bucks on samples, you got another final sample you sent off to a photographer. It doesn't sound like you've got a whole lot of money left if you're starting out with five grand. I guess it depends on how much product cost is. Jon: That initial investment can range drastically. My first product in the golfing category, I sourced it for a dollar a unit. Joe: Well, that makes a difference, that it explains it right there. Jon: Yeah, exactly, it makes a huge difference. And I did that on purpose just because I'm so financially conservative that I wanted to learn the logistics process of Amazon and if I did screw something up along the way, whether that was customs or something at Amazon, I wanted that capital invested a tad small. Joe: And if you were in a competitive space that would have meant the barriers to entry in terms of cost are pretty low. A year later you said you wound up with the top listing, but did you start to see competitors come in pretty rapidly after that? Jon: Oh, yeah, 100%. And I think what drives that is people see a new seller take over that category and then they see all the revenue go to me and then they think, oh shoot, I'm going to mimic him and I'm going to come in and take some of the revenue. And that's part of life is you have to; and when I mentioned innovation, you have to be constantly innovating your products. So I ended up adding a special device to my golfing product that actually had a patent for it. No one else could do that but that was kind of like an additional tweak I did for the products that made my listing unique and different from all the other listings. That's just the harsh reality of Amazon is once you become a category leader, you will have a lot of other people come in and mimic you. Joe: And the way to fight that is to innovate. Jon: Innovate, be the best, and when you think your pictures are good just get even better pictures. Joe: Yeah, I hear you. All right, so now we've got the product. You've ordered it. You are starting to have your photos done. What's next? I had mentioned launches and systems and things of that nature, where are you helping your clients and advising them to go from there? Jon: I'm different in the world of Amazon because most of my products; actually all the products were done organically and so my strategy is a little slower than other sellers. Joe: Let's define what you mean there organically. Jon: So for example, never using services like Viral Launch or other services where you're paying discounted rates or using websites to launch your products. Joe: You simply put the listings up on Amazon use Amazon Sponsored Ads and off you went? Jon: It's a little more than that. Joe: It always is. I'd like to simplify things and dumb it down but I know it's a lot more complicated than that, yeah. But no launch services, nothing like that? Jon: Right and so what was really beneficial was really actually humorous autoresponder emails. So we use a service called Feedback that was really, really successful. Alongside that doing a little bit of a giveaway through the early reviewer program and then just pumping PPC, to be honest with you. And so typically we do like slightly reduced cost for the products to be priced a little lower; nothing too drastic because that can mess up your Lightning Deals down the road. So we would reduce it a little bit and just funnel a ton of money into PPC. And then we had an autoresponder series on average two to three emails. Joe: So explain the autoresponder part because you don't have control of the customer. This is after they buy the product? I'm confused on the autoresponder part. Jon: This is right after someone buys the product. So one email goes out three days after they receive the product and then another one goes out seven days and another one goes out 14 days. And those are all tweets specifically to be kind of funny. So many people open up emails and to be honest with you, most people don't open their emails very often. So having a really funny title for the email and then the actual body of the email being short and sweet and using a joke or something about the product was really, really helpful. Joe: I got you. So, you're not breaking even upfront, I assume, because you're spending a lot of money on Pay-Per-Click. Jon: No, I'm definitely in the red when I first started. Pretty much all my product launches started in the red. Joe: How long are they in the red for? Jon: Probably a minimum of six months because I'm doing it organically. Joe: So, how many products are you launching in the first year; two or are you going after more? Jon: The first year was two products actually. Joe: So, if somebody is coming to you with a little bit bigger of a budget and let's say they've got 20 grand and they're really needing your guidance to get launched and they've got an idea of the product. Are we still looking at losing money or breaking even for the first six months, eventually breaking and making a little bit? Jon: That is so dependent on the category that you're in. If you go into a category where you're competing with guys that have 500 reviews or a thousand reviews; let's say the top 10 sellers have a thousand reviews, it's going to take some time and you're going to have to burn through some cash. And the reason why is PPC gets more expensive every single day. That's just the reality of it. And everyone is competing for those keywords. And so, for example, with my products, I always outbid my competitors for the top search volume keywords, and the reason why is that that drove incredible sales to my listing. And PPC was actually the highest cost in terms of expenses for my business. Joe: Do you know what it was overall as a percentage of your revenue? Jon: Oh, man. Joe: I'm typically seeing anywhere between 10 and 20%. Jon: Yeah, I want to say was more like 25%. Joe: Okay. Jon: If we're dealing with the PPC costs alone my CPA would just look at me and be like, man, you guys are spending a lot of money on PPC. But that's just the reality of the business. Joe: But your CPA still has a day job? You get to do whatever the hell you want at this point in your life, right? Jon: Yes sir. Joe: Then who is right, you or the CPA? I think you were. Jon: Those expenses look kind of scary, but when you're looking at the percentage of revenue, it becomes a little less scary. Joe: Yeah. Now do all; I know the answer to this, but not all product launches are going to take six months to start to get traction and breakeven, did you have any in your five-year stretch where you would see some just home runs out of the gate or get some profitability within the first one to two months? Jon: The kid's product took off very fast and that was a very organic launch. And the reason why was there were maybe two or three sellers for that product and they had an inferior quality problem. So if you go look at the reviews, the actual liner of the material for the toy would just deteriorate like within a month under the sun. And so we innovated and we got the best liner possible, got UV-resistant liner and improved the product drastically and that took off with beautiful pictures. We actually hired some models; some family members actually took pictures with the product and just focused on quality for that product. People bought it and I realized, wow, this is like; it showed up in the reviews, your product is as lasting a long, long time. And that became very successful, very quick. Joe: And it was all from looking at other listings and the negative reviews that those had and innovating and improving the product? Jon: Correct. Joe: Yeah, pretty cool. How hard is it, though, to find a category where there are only two or three sellers? It seems like an impossible task these days, is it not? Jon: So Amazon is definitely; there's a lot more competition now. I think the secret's out about FBA. Joe: It might be, yeah. Jon: It's definitely harder now. I think that most categories are going to have far more than two to three sellers and so what I always recommend is even if there's seven sellers, you can break into those market segments as long as you're not dealing with sellers that have like a thousand reviews. If seven of them have 75 reviews or maybe 200 reviews, that's something that you can definitely go into and compete with. But there is always going to be a hole in the market. There's always going to be a chance to innovate and do something and spend the time to make the best product possible that lots of other people aren't going to do. And one example was actually the leather goods category that I was in. It was specifically for men. We drilled down all the way into the product packaging. A lot of people don't do that. They would get their leather goods products and they'd open it up from the box and it's in a polybag, right? That's not an experience. Joe: Right. Jon: So our idea was let's make it an experience for this person to open it up and sell everything down to the custom packaging for the box down to a branded tissue with branded tape. So whenever the person opened this product up, they knew that they were receiving a high end, high-quality product that was different from everyone else. So that's just like; it sounds kind of silly, but no one spends time with packaging and what does it feel like when you open up that product at home? Joe: It's because it's not sexy. They spend time on marketing and topline revenues and talk about it with their friends because it's sexy. But packaging and good bookkeeping and good branding and good photos and videos and the profit is actually what puts you in the best position possible, which is doing whatever you want at this point in your life. Jon: Yeah, definitely. What's interesting about that is the customers would actually talk about all the nitty-gritty details that I spent time on. That would come up as content and some of those reviews would be the top-rated reviews. Someone left a review on one of the leather goods products and it was this detailed long review with pictures and they went out of their way to be like, I've never opened a product from Amazon and the packaging was just stunning. So I was like, yes, it worked. And so other customers who are on Amazon obviously see the top-rated reviews and see that type of content and it definitely helps and it soon became a leader in that category. Joe: Cool. Jon, we're a little short on time, but I wanted to ask you, what are some of the biggest challenges you think folks are going to face? Jon: I think the biggest challenge is definitely just not getting swept up in sexy products. I've seen this online so much, just this huge push for going into supplements, for example. I tell my clients, do not do supplements. Don't go into that category. Don't do it. Don't do products that go on people's skin. Don't go into products where you're ingesting things. I'm always recommending kind of simpler products that are very, very low risk. And don't go into knives; things where people can get injured. So, just focusing on a product that you're interested in and it's low risk. And that's always tough because you see the revenues that other sexy products are bringing in and people get swept up in that. Joe: This is one of the first times I wish I just hadn't asked that question because I sold; my own company was a digestive wellness supplement company. I've got a good friend that's selling his makeup business for like 40 million dollars. We have, as a company supplement companies that are under contract for anywhere from two to 20 million dollars. And I think when they're when they're done right, they're done right. Jon: Exactly, and I would never want to give the impression that it's not possible. It's just my conservative nature kind of stays away from those types of product lines. And you have to be you definitely have to be a more sophisticated seller to… Joe: These guys are. These guys are all very, very smart, very good at what they do, have SOPs that'll pass on to the owners of the business, as did mine. And it's competitive, right? It's that they are low barriers to entry cost-wise. Jon: Extremely, you have to have big capital and that's one of the barriers for sure. Joe: Yeah. Well, I think it is a nice; it's a low barrier to entry to buy into the product category, but then you've got to rank and that's where the additional capital and expertise goes. It's very, very challenging. All right, so how do people reach out to you? I see its www.BlackLabelAdvisor.com, but ideally, let's talk about who your typical client would be and how they reach out to you. Jon: Yeah. So the easiest way to reach out is to go to my website, www.BlackLabelAdvisor.com or you can email me Jon@BlackLabelAdvisor.com. My passion is to help other people replicate my story. So many people I talk to you are they'll see my story and they'll say, oh my gosh, that's a dream, you know? And I used to think it was a dream too. And when I closed on the sale of the business, it was a dream come true to see the money come through. It was an unbelievable feeling that you just never think it's ever going to happen. I have recommendations and systems and third party companies I highly recommend. Along the way, I made mistakes myself and my passion is to help people avoid those mistakes and grow their business faster just because of all the experience I have and just help them along the journey with the end goal of selling someday. Joe: Yeah, I like it, folks. Jon is not somebody who can't so he teaches. He actually did it. He built an Amazon business with five brands, sold for a multiple seven figures, and now he's helping them. And that's what we do at Quiet Light, we help first. We want to help you succeed. Strangely enough, it actually helps us in the long run too, right? Somebody listening in the audience hire somebody like John who has real-life experience to give real-life advice to help them succeed in their online business. That person will come around at Quiet Light someday as well. So with that look around, who can you help? Help out your neighbor, help your friend that's in the online space and keep helping, it'll come back around too in time. Jon: Definitely. Joe: Jon, I appreciate your time. BlackLabelAdvisor.com folks, reach out and connect with Jon if you need some help to help get your Amazon business off the ground. Jon: Awesome. Thanks, Joe.

Today, Jon asks how to determine what your SEM budget should be...and Ryan explains why the answer may actually be to have no budget at all For all your digital marketing needs: https://www.logicalposition.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Jon: It's a common question that I hear quite a bit. "How much should I be budgeting for search engine marketing and how do I even forecast what I should be spending?" Well, securing the SEM budgets is always a challenge, right? So when you do spend on search engine marketing, you want to ensure that you reach your performance goals, but there are countless traps and ways to actually overspend or even underspend on your search engine marketing budget. And even if you follow all the best practices, you could still end up with some inefficiencies, so correctly addressing the ways to misspend requires paid search experts to consistently monitor campaign performance and budget spend. And also they need to have a pulse on what the company is trying to accomplish. So luckily for us, we have access to Ryan and he has access to 6,500 search engine marketing budgets to learn from. So today we're going to talk about ad word budgets and how to forecast what your brand should be spending and how to ensure you don't overspend or underspend. So, Ryan welcome. Ryan: Thanks, Jon. It's a big one. This topic is constantly top of mind for CFOs and there's constant tension, I think, between marketing teams and finance teams over budgets. And for me personally, it's one of my favorite topics and also my least favorite topics, just because of all the tension around it. It's my favorite because almost every company needs to be educated in how to forecast and plan budgets. But it's also my least favorite because it's always an uphill battle with changing the opinions of business owners, executives, finance teams, even marketing teams that don't understand forecasting and budgeting. It's a difficult conversation to have, but I'm happy we're going to be diving into this and hopefully doing some education. Hopefully making people think about what they're doing and how they can be maybe looking at SEM forecasting a little bit differently. Jon: Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to being educated on this. This is a topic that we were chatting before we started recording, and you have some unique perspectives on this that I've never even given thought to. So. Ryan: We both have [inaudible 00:02:32] all kinds of things, Jon. It's great to be able to do this with you, but when this topic came up in our sequence of things we're going to be talking about it. I get all hot and bothered and excited and adrenaline starts flowing and I talk fast. So bear with me, but very similar to how you get when somebody's got a discount email pop up on a site is how I get when somebody tells me what their budget is X number of dollars a month. And don't overspend. It's just, I'm on a personal mission to eliminate SCM budgeting for 99.9% of the population. It just doesn't make sense for most companies. Jon: So explain that to me, I'm interested to learn more. Why is that? Well, Ryan: we get into the conversation because finance people want to see what numbers are going to be and understanding what's going to be coming in and out of accounts. And so it's for the last a hundred years of CFO's doing work to prepare bank accounts. Marketing has been a line item on the P and L that they've paid attention to and set goals around on how much are we going to spend? What are we going to do? How much are we putting into magazines and newspapers and TV ads and billboards? So it's understandable, but SEM is in a very unique position that it's not a normal P and L line item. Let me just use an example because here's what normally happens. Finance meeting, all right, the owner is, "What the heck," gets all red in the face. "What the heck is this $350,000 charge for Google last month? You know, we need to cut that down because our retailers are selling less of our product. We need to save money. And you know, if we go into a COVID time, we've got to control all of our money and keep it from going out so we're not spending $350,000 on Google anymore. Every month, a marketing team, we need to cut a hundred thousand dollars of that." Marketing team reaches out to the logical position says, "Hey, yeah, our wholesale channel is down because nobody's shopping in stores. So we need to cut a hundred thousand dollars of our marketing budget on Google." And that I get it, logically it passes the make sense test that you're going to take that hundred thousand dollars from Google and move it to the bottom line of profit. So you can cover the missing profit from some retailers that aren't selling product. Jon: Right. They're looking at it purely as an expense line item. Ryan: Exactly. Which again, conceptually makes sense. What isn't considered in that is that $350,000 drove 1.3 million of top line revenue, 10,000 new to brand customers, and also had an impact on two million organic direct traffic revenue. And so cutting that hundred thousand dollars, most likely won't even save that company money. It'll probably cost them revenue and profit because it's not going to be driving as much top line revenue. And many times in the past, if you cut a hundred thousand dollars of billboards, you may not actually feel an impact in the business at all over the next month, depending on what you're selling, depending on what the billboard's mentioning, but it simply does move that hundred thousand dollars to the bottom line. And that again, logically makes sense. But with SEM, it doesn't operate like a historical marketing channel. It is driving so many other things that impact the business. And so because of that, it is somewhat complicated to explain that to a business owner over a phone call or, "Hey, we've got five minutes with the exec team. Let's tell them why we need to be spending on SEM." For most businesses, I'll add, will start with the crazy notion that you should not have a budget for paid search. It should be, "Nope. You are going to set your goals and going to spend. And if you can spend more, you are going to take it if you're hitting your goals." Jon: Okay. So it's not an expense line item. It's an investment. Ryan: Yeah. Jon: Okay. Ryan: If you're printing money with an investment, is there any reason you wouldn't continue printing money? And the general answer is, "Well, no, if I put a dollar in and I get $10 back, I'm going to go find a bunch more dollars. There's no limit to the number of dollars I can be spending. Because I could take that $10 that I just printed and put it back in and it prints a hundred and I take it out and it prints a thousand." The asterisk to this, which we will touch on probably a little later is it does make sense to forecast sales from SEM, potentially based on historical data for inventory or production. And that's where it does get kind of like a sliding scale on what we can spend based on the inventory we have. And I've got a couple of examples on that. Jon: So if you're not budgeting the spend, should you be looking at the back end is what you're saying. You should be budgeting the return on that adspend and what that's going to be in revenue. So you're saying, "I want to make a million dollars. What does the adspend take to hit a million dollars?" Ryan: Maybe? But the reality is, is I challenge companies to, yes, you're going to look at this, after the fact on a PNL, as a line item, but in the month itself, the spend on SEM actually doesn't have an impact on cash. Therefore it's not necessarily a normal P and L line item. So easy math example, you're going to spend a hundred dollars on paid search on Monday. Great. You set up your Google Ads account. You've got your credit card on there. You spend a hundred dollars on your credit card on Google. It drives $500 of revenue. Okay? That hundred dollars that you spent on Google Ads doesn't even hit your card until you spend 500. So it's still just in Google system. You spent in essence, at that point, fake money, it didn't hit anything. It's just a Google system, but that $500 that you processed on your website is real money. And that's going to hit your account as soon as your merchant processor will send it to you. So let's just say easy math. It's going to hit you on Wednesday 48 hours later. So every day you're going to spend a hundred dollars to get 500, your credit card's not going to get built from Google until end of day Friday, when you hit the $500 billing threshold from Google. And by that time you've already collected $500 on Wednesday, $500 on Thursday, $500 on Friday, that's hit your bank account minus the processing fee. But we will ignore that for this example, you've got $1,500 in your bank account. Your credit card has only been hit for $500. If you are like me and you're [inaudible 00:08:29] this, I pay my credit card once a month. And I pay off the entire balance on ever pay interest. And that credit card bill is probably not due until the 14th of the next month. Let's say this was the first of the month. So you've got 45 day float on that hundred dollars you spent on Monday. And by that time you've already collected money. And if you're not losing money, which ideally you're not, but you're actually making money, then it's a money printing machine that actually doesn't cost you any money. You have, in theory, an unlimited amount of money, as long as you're at least breaking even just from a cash perspective, right? And your credit card limit, obviously. Jon: So it's no longer about SEM budget forecasting. It's around the laws of SEM cash flow. Ryan: Not every business has unlimited inventory. So you might be able to spend a hundred thousand dollars tomorrow to generate a hundred thousand and $1 of profit in your business. But if you don't have the inventory to back that up, then you do have problems. And we have some clients right now that are struggling to get inventory from China for their production. I think one company has a hundred containers en route from China they're just waiting on to be able to sell and they can flip a switch, and that inventory is almost going to be gone immediately. It's crazy, the demand for their products. So from that perspective saying, "All right, we have this much inventory coming. We want to sell it." And maybe that becomes the conversation around, okay. Based on the historical data of what we've been able to sell, what we've been able to spend, what's the return on adspend goal that we need to be at to sell that much inventory? So again, this is getting somewhat complicated math, but I'll try to boil it down simple. Let's say in my brands, for example, I will spend down to break even to acquire a new customer at any point in time, because I'm competitive. I would love to put my competitors out of business because I think my product is better. My service is better, but break even is fine for me because it doesn't hit the cash. I'm getting new customers. And I have a lifetime value. If, for example, I all of a sudden had a... And this happened, I think in April we had a production hiccup. And so I knew that I was going to run out of inventory if I kept spending down to break even on like, let's make it up the 20th of April. So I said, "Okay, all right, marketing, we're actually going to raise our return on adspend goal because I need to throttle down sales because I can't run out of inventory on the 20th. I have to be able to get to the 30th before I can get my inventory back in." And so that's the strategy I use. I didn't care what we spent, as long as it wasn't losing money. I still, I said, "All right, instead of breaking even, and we're going to get a 2.5 X because based on the historical data, we think that's where my sales special is going to be." So that took some guessing and manipulation on daily sales totals. And we had to watch it pretty carefully. But once we hit inventory levels again, I was right back to pushing aggressively to sell an inventory. Jon: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So there's other factors you need to be thinking about here and inventory sounds like is a big one for sure. Then that could be the more delimiter than what you should be spending or what the budget would be for SEM. Jon: Let me ask you this as a little divergence, but how do you get leadership on board with this type of mindset? Right? Because if you go in most financial folks would probably understand that return on investment spend, but maybe if leadership and finance is still looking at all of this as a budget line item, that's only on the expense column. How do you recommend people approach this conversation? Obviously there's simple math, just like writing it out, might help, but have you have found any tips and tricks for how to approach leadership about something like this? Ryan: It's difficult again, going into this conversation about money is always... I don't think there's any conversation around money that becomes easy, except, "Hey, I want to give you a million dollars." That's pretty easy. I'd be like, "Yeah. Okay, great. I'm in." The longer an organization has been looking at marketing on Google or Microsoft Ads as a line item that they forecast and budget annually, the more difficult it's going to be to change the minds of the team that's been doing that. We've worked in some billion dollar organizations that said, "All right, last year we did X number of dollars on our website and we expect a 10% growth. Therefore we're going to take our marketing budget for paid search, which was 10% of that total. And then we're going to add 10% to it again. So there's your budget. Go do it. Divide it up by the quarter that you think the revenue is going to come in and four quarters higher, therefore it gets 42% of the budget." And then they work down into the week and have even daily budgets. Those organizations are going to be much more difficult because they're bigger, their CFO, they were publicly traded. So they had to report numbers to shareholders and forecast what their expenses were going to be. And because SEM is an expense you report to shareholders, if that expense was a hundred percent higher than you told them it was going to be last month, they may not be happy because they're not understanding what's that top line number that it was driving. So you have to have it correlate really, really well saying, "Hey, we spent a hundred percent more, but we actually drove over a hundred [inaudible 00:13:53] more revenue." It's going to make them excited. But the group that's doing the conference call with the shareholders may not understand that and be able to break it out in that much detail, especially if it's a multibillion dollar organization and the website is a small piece of that overall business, which it was at the point we were working with them. It's challenging. So my advice is to try to chip away at certain aspects of it over time, being able to show, "Hey, when we spent more at this level, we got more, it was a direct correlation." And I like to use impression share showing potential like, "Hey, there's a potential there in impression share. We used absolute impression share at the top, which means you're in position one on Google and top impression show, which means you're just above the search results," to kind of give an indicator if there's a room to push. And then I also like to talk about what we refer to an internally as the Halo Effect. I don't think that's an official term, but if it does become an official term, you heard it here first. Paid search, specifically shopping in eCommerce has a large impact on organic traffic and direct traffic. And in fact, if you look in Analytics and you get lost in Attribution, sometimes it's hell, sometimes it's heaven, but you can get lost all over an Attribution. You will find out that the more you spend on Google Shopping, the more your organic traffic increases, the more organic sales you get. And you can look at assisted conversions to see that if you label your campaigns appropriately, you can see generally on non TM shopping campaigns, which is non trademark people, just looking for your product and service, and don't know you as a brand yet for that product or service, you will see assisted conversions generally higher than attributed last click conversions in Google Analytics. And so it's having a disproportionate influence on driving sales through other channels, and it is driving sales to its accredited channel. And so showing them that, showing them, "Hey, this says have a large impact. If you just cut it, you're not just cutting the results that you're seeing from the SEM budget. You're cutting results you're seeing in other channels as well." And so in some companies, this is unfortunate, but if you cut Google Shopping, your SEO team, all of a sudden is going to look worse without them doing anything wrong. They just happen to have the organic traffic drop because of Google Shopping not spending as much money. So it's a very complicated web picture as we continue to shop more and more online, it's only going to get more complicated and intertwined, but at least helping them understand some of that first, even before you get to the, "What are we going to spend," budget. Jon: Yeah. It's almost like we, as an industry, need a one sheet for executives on how to explain this simply for them, because I think there's a so much education that goes into this. And I think half the job of marketing ends up being internal education, which is really just reduces effectiveness. I mean, we fight that all the time with conversion optimization ecomm and marketing teams, they're all a hundred percent on board and understand the return on the spend on optimization. But then you look at a high level executive and they say something like, "Well, but you know, we just had our best month ever. Why would we need to optimize?" Ryan: No, exactly. We're constantly in education mode in what we do. And I actually had this conversation with Google last week because they're really internally pushing for more automation within Google to control a lot of the inner workings of Google, which is not bad for many companies, but they want to move agencies into more of an advisor role and helping companies grow by educating them on digital marketing, which I think is a great goal. I said that, "Well, the problem you're going to experience with that though, is you've got a bunch of, let's just say 24 to 30 year olds in digital marketing that have never owned a business that are trying to educate business owners on growth strategies for their brand. And they probably just don't have the experience to be educating at a high level why these companies should be investing in marketing." And it's scale yet, I just don't think we have the expertise as an industry to be advising people that have grown hundred million dollar brands on how they should continue growing. Jon: And the barrier to entry with marketing roles is typically pretty low, right? Ryan: Yup. Jon: It's something where there is a lot of people in the industry, but there's few experts. And you start doing something like that with all of the junior folks who are just getting into it, and you're going to end up with some big problems. So let me ask you this, Ryan. What are some ad word budget management solutions that kind of help you maybe just prevent yourself from even under spending? Because I think we've determined today, most companies under spend, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: Because they're not focusing on the right metrics around this, but I know you're talking about a lot of these tool sets that Google's coming out with. I know we've talked about them on this podcast before how I've even been personally kind of put through the ringer by using automation tools through Google. So what are your thoughts just on the AdWords budget management solutions that are out there? Ryan: Generally, I don't like them, but when I'm talking to business owners about controlling budgets, the first thing I tell them is, "Look, you're going to have flexibility, regardless." If you're rigid on your goals, you're either leaving money on the table or you're wasting money. You can't dictate search volume across the entire United States, for example, for your product or service, but what you can do is decide, "Okay, here's what my goals are. Let's make sure that we're at least meeting those. And if we have a little bit more we spent, that's probably okay, as long as we get the goals, if we under spend it's okay, because the search demand wasn't there." Google at its core is a demand capture. People are searching for a product. You put it in front of them because you have that product. There are pieces of Google that can be demand creation, but by and large, it is demand capture. And so build flexibility into your model. But then this is another thing I have to educate a lot of businesses on as well. A big education piece is aligning your marketing goals with your business goals. So often those are not going in the same direction. So you have a marketing team. That's been given a goal and they're rowing in direction to achieve that goal because they have incentives and bonuses in place to hit those goals. And then you have an executive or a business owner that's driving or paddling the boat in a different direction because of their goals. And if they're not aligned, you have a lot of tension and issues because there's going to be frustration from the executive team. "Why isn't marketing giving me the results I want? We set this wonderful goal and they achieved it, but it didn't have the impact I wanted it to." So you start with, what's your business goal? Do you want to grow? Even beyond that, do you have an exit strategy as an owner? Do you have shareholders? You have to hit certain metrics as a business to be successful and make them happy? And then after you've set that you say, "Okay, how can my marketing team utilize the SEM channel to help hit that goal?" And let's set incentives around that rather than what a lot of companies do is well, "We had an agency five years ago tell us that we should be getting it for X or you know, 10 years ago, we were highly profitable on Google Ads. I want to be highly profitable still." And don't pay attention to the changes or evolution of digital marketing over the last decade that has made your 10 X profit goal spending 50 grand a month, not possible at this point, based on what your site's converting at or all these other things you could be doing or should be doing. So it's goal alignment build in flexibility and then monitor it. It's not something you just set it, forget it, let the marketing team just do it. Like I'm in marketing, I have brands, I still daily track everything. It's all about the data. Like I want to know what's happening in my business regularly. I don't let it go on autopilot. Sometimes I want to, but I don't. And just in be involved as a business owner, you have to have an understanding of what it's trying to do. Jon: This is great because I think if I could summarize a little bit of my learnings from the conversation today, it's you shouldn't have a budget, you should have a goal, right? So look at the other end of the spend, not the front end, but the back end. Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: And then you really need to work on educating your team internally and the executives, if it's not your money that you're spending, because that way, you're making sure that they understand the return on the investment there. And then from there it's really an inventory challenge perhaps on how much you could spend. And you could really look at this as a cashflow machine. And that's how this should be looked at, perhaps is what's that cashflow equation? How are you getting that money before it's even truly spent? And how can you reinvest that up until you have no inventory left or you have an inventory problem. And then from there, there's no real way to kind of put something on autopilot here. They just don't work that well. You don't want to look at your marketing channels as equal. You really want to play at these different points of the acquisition funnel as you've mentioned. Did I miss anything on that? Ryan: Well, there's a couple of points. I think people should just pay attention to as well. There are circumstances where some companies intentionally lose money on the initial order from a customer. They have high lifetime value, they have a competitive space where it's necessary to even compete. They're going to lose money on the first order, beauty, skincare, that is often the case. Jon: That's still the cashflow formula. You're just stretching it out, right? Ryan: You can't spend unlimited money because it does actually cost you money to get that customer. And so you have to look at, from a finance perspective, how much money do I have in the bank? I can't spend endlessly if I'm losing money on the first order, if I'm breaking even or profitability, you can usually spend endlessly, but then it's also saying, "Okay, what's my diminishing return, and is there a better place for that investment?" Yeah. Diminishing returns is I'm losing money to spend. So maybe I stopped spending here on Google because I know that I can get this money losing return on Facebook or Instagram which is actually better. And so that's where forecasting probably has a bigger impact. And we've had those conversations with businesses about lifetime value. And there's some complex math formulas around it, but it can be done. But then when you're looking at moving budgets, there are some automated tools that brands love looking at. I mean, brands really do love tools that have great graphics and sliding things you can move around and makes it look like you're just doing amazing. And there's one that I really don't like. And it says, "We're looking at your Facebook spend and your Google and Microsoft spend. And if Facebook is at a five X and Google is at a three X, Oh, we're just going to move money from Google over to Facebook and keep spending until they're kind of at equilibrium," because that totally makes sense if you're just looking at math and numbers, but what most brands miss is that those budgets are accomplishing very different things. And so you have to look at them differently and not necessarily move budget from one to the other, just because a return on adspend goal makes sense like, "Oh, I'm printing all this money on Facebook and I may be breaking even on Google." It should be looked at differently. So generally avoid tools that just automatically move budget to the best performing things. Because for most businesses that doesn't make sense. Jon: I think that's a great point to end on today. And I think we've packed so much into 30 minutes here. I really appreciate you as always Ryan educating me on and helping me change my point of view on this, as I definitely came in thinking of SEM as an expense line item and you need to budget and have a forecast around that. And you've definitely shifted my thinking completely around, which is awesome. Ryan: One less business owner to educate. I love it. Jon: Boom. All right. Well hopefully a few other got educated today by listening to this and we'll continue to spread the word. So thank you Ryan. Ryan: Thanks Jon.

In recent years, we’ve seen the employee engagement and performance software market explode. Along the way, we’ve come to realize that success takes more than just providing people with the software tools they need. It’s education and training that makes the difference, and a deep commitment to having organizations transform. Meaningful transformation only comes when the deep and difficult work happens. Today, we’re talking with two of our employees who are helping other organizations train their managers to be far more effective.  Jon Greenawalt, our Chief Performance Officer, brings over 20 years of global, cross-industry consulting experience to help develop leaders and teams through progressive leadership and management development programs. Jon is the former Chief People & Culture Officer at SharkNinja, where he built the Talent Development function, trained over 500 leaders and managers during his tenure, and implemented 15Five across the entire 1,600 global full-time employee population. Emily Diaz is our Director of Transformational Services, a division she created after identifying the need for organizations to teach ‘vital skills’ to their people, skills which in turn supercharge the impact of 15Five’s performance management software. Since joining our founding team 7 years ago, she has served as advisor, trainer, and coach for companies across all industries — including Visa, Tesla, and Citrix. Emily’s experience across domains informs the creation of unique and powerful programs that train core professional competencies. In this episode, we discuss the future of performance management that incorporates intuitive, empowering software, but also services and ongoing education. We've realized that helping employees and managers form new habits and skills leads to high-performing and healthy organizations. By being transformative in this way, meaningful changes occur that result in lasting positive change. Professional services are usually about helping companies succeed with a (software) product. These do provide help with how people use the software to improve their work and possibly even to contribute more. But that’s largely a transactional process. Transformational Services is a partnership whereby people are taken through a process where they permanently change their mindset and behaviors in order to thrive.  This is often hard work. It begins with a desire to grow and from there a thorough examination of old practices and mindsets. Hard truths will be confronted. People will stretch beyond the familiar. In the end, when people realize that work can be a source of satisfaction and personal growth, they’ll build a better business environment. What transformative changes would you like to see in your company? Let’s chat about it in the comments on the episode page!   In this episode What transformation actually means for individuals and a company Building an environment of positivity by deconstructing old mindsets How people learn including repetition and feeling discomfort Why failures should be celebrated Reframing soft skills as vital relational skills required for any high-functioning organization   Quotes “We’re a mission-driven company. 15Five is not just in the business to create a widget, a tool. We’re actually here to transform the world of work.” [4:38] (Emily) “Transformation is hard work. Yet it’s important work. The benefit of it is, even though it may be challenging to have that breakthrough and move yourself to the next level, it’s an amazing experience.” [13:48] (Jon) “It has to be okay to grow. The best environments are the ones that make it cool to grow. That’s what it’s all about. We’re never done growing.” [19:26] (Jon) “There’s a spectrum where you need to learn how to relate to your people in a way that still puts the responsibility of their own growth with them.” [34:10] (Emily)   Links Learn more about our transformational services 15Five’s Best-Self Academy   Find 15Five online Follow 15Five on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

Summary: We all want new streams of new business, and today’s guest shares how they were able to build a healthy business serving other agencies. We’ve talked about the value of partnerships and collaboration with other agencies as a source of new business before and Oyova is a prime example of that. We also discuss the pros and cons of having business partners. And we get another look at how an agency is dealing with the effects of COVID-19. Tune in as Jon shares his experiences (good and bad) with business partners, talks about the impact that technology has had on his career journey, how Oyova has held up during the last 6 months of extreme disruption, and what he expects of the remainder of 2020.    Top 3 Curtain Pulls in this episode:  Consider other agencies as potential partners rather than competition. If the character is high, then risks are low. When determining whether someone is a good business partner for you, ask yourself if you’d mind getting a call from that person on a Saturday morning. If you don’t LIKE your partner in life, a business relationship is sure to fail.  Maintaining steady business growth through any disruption means applying Positive, Persistent Pressure in sales scenarios. Speak to the heart of your client’s business, and remind them of the services you offer and how it would benefit them.    For more tips, discussion, and behind the scenes: Follow us on Instagram @AgencyPodcast Join our closed Facebook community for agency leaders   About our Guest:  Jon Tsourakis: President and co-owner of Oyova, a Florida-based, full-service technology and marketing agency. He is the leader of a Mastermind for Digital Agencies and host of “The Climb”, a podcast where agency owners and marketing leaders tune in to get growth tips and strategies for growing their businesses.  Learn more about Oyova Join the Mastermind: DigitalMastermind.com Check out The Climb on Apple Podcasts!   About The Guys:  Bob Hutchins: Founder of BuzzPlant, a digital agency that he ran from from 2000 -2017. He is also the author of 3 books. More on Bob:  Bob on LinkedIn twitter.com/BobHutchins instagram.com/bwhutchins Bob on Facebook Brad Ayres: Founder of Anthem Republic, an award-winning ad agency. Brad’s knowledge has led some of the biggest brands in the world. Originally from Detroit, Brad is an OG in the ad agency world and has the wisdom and scars to prove it. Currently that knowledge is being applied to his boutique agency. More on Brad: Brad on LinkedIn Anthem Republic twitter.com/bradayres instagram.com/therealbradayres facebook.com/Bradayres Ken Ott: Co-Founder and Chief Growth Rebel of Metacake, an Ecommerce Growth Team for some of the world’s most influential brands with a mission to Grow Brands That Matter. Ken is also an author, speaker, and was nominated for an Emmy for his acting on the Metacake Youtube Channel (not really). More on Ken:  Ken on LinkedIn Metacake - An Ecommerce Growth Team Growth Rebel TV twitter.com/iamKenOtt instagram.com/iamKenOtt facebook.com/iamKenOtt   Show Notes: [1:08] Ken introduces our guest, Jon Tsourakis. President and co-owner of Oyova, a technology and marketing agency. John is in charge of sales and marketing while his partner handles the production and operation of the business. They’re based in St. Petersburg, FL. John also leads a digital mastermind group for agencies.  [2:52] Bob asks John to tell us about his agency.  [3:01] John responds: There are about 30 people on their team between two offices. They focus predominantly (60%) of their business on development. They also do marketing services for companies that are over $2 million, all shapes and sizes above that. In addition they work with a lot of agencies and help with their overflow work. [3:38] Bob: “Is it full service? Do you specialize in anything specifically?”[3:46] John responds that they are full service, although that pains him because there are so many great arguments for specialization.  Biggest strengths are understanding the mechanics of technology and  marketing.  On the marketing side, “we can create some really impressive lead growth through  third engine optimization.” [4:20] Ken: “It sounds to me like you are specialized, it’s just not industry specialization… one of your specialties seems to be this relationship with agencies. [4:50] Brad asks if the work they do for other agencies is mostly dev work.  [4:58] John responds that 90% of what they do is dev work. “A lot of agencies will have one or two developers on their staff… but that’s just not in their wheelhouse, so we come in a fill that gap.”[5:25] Brad asks what John thinks the percentage is of agencies out there that don’t have deep dev in-house. [6:05] John: “I would say it’s probably 85% of agencies that don’t have a super deep tech bench. They’re very focused and specialized and they have a developer that can wear some other hats…” but ultimately most of them don’t have the experience in development that his agency can add.  [6:28] Bob: “I’m curious to know of the agencies that you work with- are they typically traditional older agencies? Are they digital agencies that don’t have the depth? Are they hybrids? What does your client makeup look like?” [6:47] John: “Some of them have just moved away from paper in the last few years and have embraced what the internet is… other are very advanced platinum HubSpot partners that just run into situations that are outside of what they’re great at… there are others that are amazing design agencies that have really good front end developers who run into overflow that they will send to us because they know we can take care of it.”  Other than that, many want to take on an ERP (Enterprise Resource Management) based project because they can see the revenue in that and they can bring Oyova on at the partner level. [7:45] Ken talks about recent episodes about cost and pricing. Oyova serves agencies, and one of the things they have to accommodate for is cost. Agencies are selling at a certain price that you have no control over, so cost has to be below that. “How do you make that model work?” [8:07] Jon responds- cost is definitely a factor. They sell everything in blocks of hours, so the more hours you purchase then the lower your cost will be. Some agencies buy a LOT of hours, just to have access to their team.  “Others will just do it on a project basis… when agencies are white labeling someone else, the really smart ones get sick of that because they realize the inefficiency in it.”  [9:26] Brad asks about billing- do they bill the client directly, or do you bill through the parent agency you’re working with?” Jon responds that it depends on the agency that they’re working with, they try to be respectful of how they want the relationship managed. [9:55] Bob asks if they have built this model intentionally and whether they aim primarily for agencies or individual clients.  [10:09] Jon gives a brief history of how he and his business partner met. It was an accidental discovery at first, they were a marketing agency with two developers, they’d get overflow from other agencies and then after 8 years realized it was a great business model.  [11:57] Ken asks Jon for a deeper history of his business relationship with his partner and the pros and cons of that relationship. He also asks about what Jon expects for the next few months within his company. First, Jon’s story. [12:28] Jon: His father was a master carpenter and builder, so he was part of the family business. He met a guy at school that had a marketing company that worked in the healthcare space. He worked with this guy for a while, and in 2009 he decided to start his own agency.  Around 2013, 2014 he realized that partnership wasn’t working and they had a disastrous breakup, Jon was left high and dry.  He decided to work with his current partner and over the years they developed a great working relationship.  Jon says the best part of that relationship is that they can fill in the gaps in each other's strengths and weaknesses. Where Jon sees shiny things, his partner sees dull things and can bring him back to earth when excitement takes over.  [15:16] Jon continues: “For years, we’ve just been fighting the good fight, trying to be an agency in a world of sameness, create differentiation… a merger sounded like a really good idea based on the technology depth and the strategic advantage of being a strong partner.” [16:13] The guys ask for details about that bad partner relationship.  Jon responds that he was a brilliant developer but just not on the same page about a lot of communication things, there were some psychological differences in the way they thought about professionalism. The client called and strongly advised that unless that partner went away, there would be serious problems for their company.  There was a huge vulnerable, humble moment that allowed him to realize that the relationship was destructive. [17:22] Bob asks for some advice based on those learning experiences.  [17:37] Jon: “The direct and gentle communication… he just couldn’t deal with people.” Do business with someone who you wouldn’t mind getting a phone call from on a Saturday morning. You have to LIKE the person you’re working with.  [18:12] Ken confirms that concept of direct and gentle communication- even in the face of disrespect in return, you always have to respond in a direct and gentle manner. It’s really about basic respect.  [18:40] Brad asks for advice for how to approach things in a direct and gentle way while things are heated or when there is stress in the company. What does that mindset shift look like? [19:20] Jon: It’s about setting a foundation, and asking if you’re being logical and not emotional. It’s great to have those conversations with partners and asking yourself constantly what the logical next steps are. Be aware of your own tendencies and allow for those weaknesses in logic that you may have.  [20:13] Brad asks how they manage clients who are very reliant on them, who are more attached than an agency would be.    Jon: “We have an agreement that’s evergreen with our client, so they’re continually getting a percentage for essentially not doing anything just based on the engagement that they helped us create.”    [22:25] Bob asks about the longest contract they have that an agency brought to them.    Jon responds that it’s 8 years- that’s a great contract!   [23:06] Brad talks about how the more you’re in bed with technology that drives revenue for your client… “there’s always a fear that you’re going to get canned… because you become a commodity.”  [24:32] Brad asks “What kind of stuff do you do in the development world?”[24:50] Jon responds: Mostly websites, some entire technological infrastructure for some companies where it’s essentially their ERP. “Ranges from little website integrations, all the way to the entire technological skeleton of the company.” [28:00] Ken asks how the last few months have been managed for Jon. What was it like in the beginning of quarantine, what was it like through that process, and how has business gone since then, and if any of these things have changed how they run overall. [29:10] Jon: The theme of 2020 was going to be The Climb, and it turned out to be more true than they thought. They came up with a plan over Zoom, and decided to stay focused on clients, closing business as much as possible. They realized very quickly that their team could definitely perform and provide results from home, and have surprised themselves with their productivity.  [31:52] Brad affirms that it’s been hard- and congratulates Jon on their success through Covid.  [32:40] Ken: “What area of your business grew? Was it new business or existing business? Is there a difference there?”  [34:14] Jon talks about how they were able to extend or increase their marketing packages, they really talked up this being “the time” to invest in online business. If you come to the table with logical, competent people and a plan, you’re set up for the highest chance of success!  [36:12] Jon talks about what the next 6 months might look like. “The path forward and the recession is going to be different for everyone. There’s going to be pocket recessions based on specific industries. And some aren’t going to feel it at all.”  [37:00] Ken asks how this may change going forward, and what sort of opportunities he might see. [37:12] Jon talks about how the challenge of Covid is actually exciting for him, although he feels guilty about that at times. Business owners have been really lucky over the last 10 years, so now you really get to see what you’re made of.  There will likely be a lot of acquisition happening, but ultimately he feels positioned for the best chance of success. [38:30] Ken asks “How can you package up what you actually are selling in different ways?” This is something that Metacake has done well through the quarantine.  [39:42] Brad asks if there are any new products or service offerings that have come up during Covid for Jon’s company.  Other than rapid messaging via popup websites or email blasts.  [40:20] Brad asks what sort of packages of services other than development Oyova offers.  [40:39] Jon:  Other than the mastermind group, one event per year that is a collective knowledge base. “I think creating that space for all these agencies to come together and just be open and share and be transparent is important.”  Oyova spends a lot of time helping agencies scope out projects, helping them win those projects and making it an enjoyable experience to work with them.  [50:44] Ken: “You’ve built really high quality relationship with agencies that you get a sustainable business model through… how do you do that?” [51:28] JOn: “If you connect with somebody and build relationships that are genuine, you can go a long way.”  [52:31] Brad asks about generating new business, and their business development process.  [52:38] Jon talks about the three P’s: Positive, Persistent Pressure. If you have the right message and continually follow up with the people on that list, you’ll find them.”  [53:27] Brad asks what Jon has done to become a thought leader in his space. “What kinds of things do you do to promote yourself to new clients?

Today Jon takes a look at how to improve your category pages on your website. He'll explore what you should know about headers, footers, navigation, bread crumbs, and more! For help optimizing your category pages: https://thegood.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Ryan: Hello Jon, and welcome to the podcast. Ryan: I was digging through one of our shared clients analytics, and this is a rather large international brand that most of our listeners would probably recognize if we mentioned their name. And outside the home page, the largest volume of traffic to their site is condensed into just a couple category pages. Now that's not unusual for a lot of major brands because of Google's algorithm, on the organic side, favoring category pages over product pages. But it also means that there's a huge opportunity for a brand capturing a lot of this traffic to really make that traffic work better on category pages specifically. Ryan: So through this, I'd really love to hear some of your suggestions and best practices on improving those category pages. And maybe even at least some tests people can be testing as they're looking at their category pages to make some improvements. Kind of like our CRI name we coined. What do you think of that category pages and the importance of them? And should we continue down this path? Jon: I love it. Let's gain some knowledge on this. Ryan: Fantastic. So most of the listeners probably haven't had the amazing opportunity I have of hearing you talk about landing pages as much, and just seeing some of your tear downs. And so as with most of these, let's start at the top and kind of work our way down, and even some of your general best practices, probably, in header navigation can be applied to other places of the site. Especially if you keep it consistent. But do we need to think about mobile and desktop separately in this scenario? Or just pick one and go with it? What's your usual recommendation? Jon: I would recommend that we start with desktop and keep it to that for today. The reason being is that even with e-com, I think we're seeing the vast majority of traffic is now on mobile, but still a very, very large majority of conversions are happening on desktop. Now that varies from site to site, of course, but I do believe in what we see here at the good on a daily basis is conversion kings is still on desktop. And so it always makes sense to start there. The other reason is that if you fix your desktop experience and you have a responsive site, that should, for the most part, filter down to your mobile website. And so there's no longer just a desktop and a mobile version of a site. It should be responsive or adaptive for the most part. And so with that in mind, I would highly recommend starting with desktop. And then of course you could look at mobile later, but I think for the point of today's show, we could just stick with desktop. Ryan: Yeah. And if you do maybe have a mobile site and a desktop site, you may need to contact us because we may have some abilities to fix that [inaudible 00:03:12], because that's probably a struggle for your business. There's maybe some lower hanging fruit for you, before you get into Jon's conversation about it. Jon: The number of sites I still see, it's dwindling. But there is still a number of sites out there that they have mobile on a separate domain. And that's always... It's like M dot, the domain dot com. That's when I know there's a bunch of opportunity there to increase sales and conversions. Ryan: God, John knows he's going to make that company a lot of money when they listen to them. Ryan: Okay. So let's start right at the header, very top as you're scrolling down this page as soon as you come onto it, a lot of companies do things that are not great in the header. What are some of the things that they're putting in there maybe that aren't needed or that distract from the actual conversion that they're attempting to get these people to take on the site? Jon: Well, I think the first thing is that it always blows my mind when I see a header, and these brands invested so much to get people to their site, right? Whether it be content marketing or paid ads or SEO, whatever it is. And then they immediately show them social icons, and show them ways to bounce off the site. Right? Social is great for getting people to your site, but once they're there, keep them on your site. Don't send them back out to those channels. And so really be looking in the header to keep people on a site, as opposed to sending them back off through something like social links or icons, things of that sort. That's the biggest one I see. Ryan: Okay. So as far as distractions, social is the biggest issue there. What are the things that maybe companies are missing out on in that header that they should be thinking about putting into them? Jon: Well, I think that the biggest thing people miss out on is just communicating very simply what the brand is, what the value proposition is. Jon: Now, most people don't think about including that in the header. And I'm not suggesting putting your entire company story there, your entire value prop. But what I am saying is you can communicate these things through perhaps your navigation and the language that's being used there through the utility navigation, through what's the lines of texts that goes right next to your logo, right? Jon: So a lot of people will just put a logo up and expect that because they're on your website, they know exactly what you do. Well, think about it through the eyes of a new to file customer. That customer just got to your site by clicking on a link that a friend posted on social. They have a little bit of context, but it would be great to get that reinforced and the first place, especially in Western cultures, folks are going to look is the top left corner of your site. That's generally where people put their logo, but then they miss the opportunity there of including additional context. Could be just one sentence or one line, does not have to be very huge and it can be blended in with the logo, even. Ryan: Dang it. I am taking notes. I think I need to go to some of my brands and add some, maybe, lines of contexts. Jon: Well, if you want a good example just go to thegood.com and look what we do in the top left hand corner right next to our logo. Ryan: No, that's brilliant. And I think as a business owner myself, and working with brands constantly, I'm in the business too often that I don't step out of it often enough and think about the perspective of a brand new user. I clicked on a link, maybe not even necessarily thinking before I clicked, and boom. Logo. I'm supposed to know what you do right before that, but probably I don't. Jon: Well Ryan, this applies to you based on what I'm hearing right now, but it also applies to almost every e-com brand and e-com manager. Is that it's, and I've probably said this a hundred times on this show already, but it's very difficult to read the label from inside the jar. Right? You are so close to this, you probably helped to wire frame out the site, design it, define the navigation, lay out all the content. And so you're so close to that, that you know what each link does, you know what the site is, you know your value prop. So it doesn't occur to you that other people might not get that, might not understand it. And it could use a little assistance there. Ryan: Yeah. And you've helped me a lot on navigation so I'm going to jump into that in a second. But before that, site search is a often misguided location on the site. Do you recommend that as high up as you can, as obviously as you can in the header? Or do you recommend other places on the page for that? Jon: I am not opposed to having search be front and center. Having search front and center is great for people who are second time visitors or repeat visitors to your site. They know exactly what they're looking for. Think about things like a car parts dealership, right? Or car parts retailer. People may come and know exactly what model number for that very specific part that they need. They're definitely going to know what car model that they want to put that on, so they might just search by that car model. So anyway you can give people a shortcut down the funnel, and skip steps of the funnel so that they can just get to exactly what they need as quickly as possible, is better. And I can tell you that search is going to convert twice as much, if not more, than just a regular visitor. So encouraging people to use search can really help boost conversions and sales. Ryan: Wow. That is an impressive stat. So just on average from what you see when somebody uses at least a decent search, because there's different levels of search quality- Jon: Of course. Ryan: ... On a site, but an average search you see approximately 50% increased conversion rate on the traffic that uses search versus doesn't? Jon: Right. And an easy win for listening to this is just look at your top five, maybe 10, search terms that people are using and search those yourself and see what the results are. They're likely lackluster. You can easily fix that, just go through your product detail pages that are relevant and add some additional meta information to those pages to have them pop up in search results. Things like common misspellings or the plural of an item. I can't believe how many times people don't think to add an asset at the end of an item because people may search for it that way. And also just make sure that the search results page... The results themselves matter, but also that search results page that shows those results needs to be optimized as well. A lot of people just forget about it and just show no context at all. They just show the title of the page and link to it. Why not have the description there? You already should be, on your product detail pages, having some meta-description that Google can pick up, why not display that there if it's already part of the page? Ryan: No, that's great. And I think making sure that a search that happens on the site has a listing of products, generally, make sure that you can look at that in an incognito window when you scrape the URL and paste it. That way you can use it, from a traffic generation perspective, you can drive traffic from a paid search ad. But also, if you're having enough people search that on your site, you should probably make that a category page so that Google can start indexing that as well, because you're probably not alone on your site in people searching for that product. Or group of products. Jon: Exactly. Yeah. And an easy way to find out what people are searching for, just go into your Google analytics. Most platforms, I mean they all have a little bit different perhaps, but most eCommerce platforms, the search results page is just something that ends in a question mark S equals. So if you figure out what that URL pattern is, and then you can just run a filter for that question mark S equals or whatever, and then you can understand how many times people are hitting each of those search terms. Jon: So it's pretty simple to figure out with about five minutes of work and I can promise you it will increase your conversions immediately. Ryan: Awesome. Okay, one area you've helped me a lot in sites and understanding how to improve the experience for the users is navigation. And a lot of companies tend to do this wrong. They seem to think that more is better. What do you often suggest to companies when it comes to navigation? Jon: Keep it to five items or less, first of all. Anything over that and people just assume that it's going to be a lot of work and they're not at your website to do work, right? So they just like, "I don't want to weed through all these options," and it becomes more taxing than it needs to be. What I would recommend here is you keep it to five items, but also have the navigation copy, be in the context of your customer, not of yourself. What I mean by that is so many brands try to promote themselves in the navigation. They have things like about us. Nobody's coming to your website to learn about us. Now they may want to learn more about you, but not in the main navigation. They typically will scroll down to the footer and look for that, or that information that's on your about us page should be throughout your site in places that people are actually looking for it in context. Jon: So a lot of people will do things like put home as the first navigation item. Really, we all know, we've been trained over years, that if you clicked the logo in the top left hand corner, it's going to take you to the homepage. So you can eliminate home out of your navigation. That's a real easy one. Also, highly recommend if you're an e-com site and you have only a handful of categories, that you just list the high level categories in your navigation and leave it at that. That will do two things. It clearly tells people what you sell, how you can help them. And in addition to that, it gives them a quick and easy way to get to the place they want to go to. So that again, they're skipping steps that are in that funnel by having to kind of continue to drill down and find it. Jon: So there's a lot that can be done in navigation. It needs to be clear. It needs to be concise. You need to keep it to five items. And you need to try to keep yourself out of the navigation whenever possible. Ryan: Got it. Now on many category pages I will see, in addition to the top navigation, a left hand navigation or kind of a filtering system on the left hand side of the category page. Do you have an opinion on if that is good, bad, helpful, indifferent? Jon: I think it depends on the amount of product that you're trying to sell. So let's talk about that. We were actually, just before we got on the recording here, we were talking about a shoe manufacturing brand that had a left hand navigation that was filtering, that contain, I think, 40 to 50 different check boxes, right? That you could filter by. Right? And the problem with that, I mean, they had every single shoe size as a filtering option. It wasn't a dropdown, it was just a whole bunch of check boxes. So imagine being a consumer and trying to filter, but you have to look through all of these items just to find the ones that are relevant to you. It's really not that helpful. In the end it actually, I would argue, makes it more complicated. Jon: Filtering in that way can be helpful. I think it needs to be a high level filter. What are the main differentiating points? And then once they get down to the product level within that category, then you could start doing some other points, like size, availability, in stock, out of stock, et cetera. So helpful, but it depends. And the thing it depends on is how many products are you selling? If you have a handful of products, then you don't need it. People will scroll and look at your six or eight categories. If you have 50 categories, so many that you really just can't list them all on a page. Then of course you need some filtering for categories. Ryan: Got it. Okay. Makes sense. I've seen some that are great on that left hand side and the other ones that I get lost and I just leave. Ryan: So on each category page, generally speaking, best practices are to have a piece of content for the search engines, usually three or four sentences talking about that category. It's great for SEO. A lot of platforms default to having a place for that content at the very top. Have you seen that impact conversion rates being at the top, the bottom, the side, or is it kind of like it hasn't mattered too much to what you've seen? Jon: Well, I think that ideally I would put it below. If you need it for SEO purposes, that is. Right? Because most of the time that SEO type of content is not going to be helpful to the consumer. You're trying to write for Google, you're not writing for a consumer. So in that sense, I would get it out of the consumer's way. But I do think that some content above the products on a category page could be helpful in letting people know A, where they are. So any type of wayfinding you can do there, that type of stuff can be really helpful. I do think that if you're running a promotion on one category, that could be a great place to do it. If you have a little bit, or just maybe even some branding stuff where you have an image that relates to that category, showing it in use, something of that sort, can be really, really helpful. Jon: Say you sell tents and you are showing a family and you're on the category page for four people tents, right? And so you show a family camping and are sitting around a campfire with the big tent in the background. Right? Something like that can be helpful. You're setting the context and the tone. Ryan: Now also at the top, a lot of times you're going to see bread crumbs. And I've heard some good things from you about breadcrumbs and some bad things about breadcrumbs. So how do you decide whether or not breadcrumbs are helpful? Or are they always a terrible idea? Jon: I'm not really a fan of breadcrumbs. I think at this point that what has happened, it's a hold over from SEO practices of yesterday. It's not something that I see quite often anymore that is actually helpful for a consumer. And typically you're just giving them information either that they're already aware of, or that they don't really need. And if they want to go back up a level to the homepage, for instance, because you're only on a category so you're probably one level deep, maybe two. At that point they're probably just going to click the logo and go home or look at your main navigation. So overall, likely not that helpful. It's just another piece of content you're asking your visitor to wade through before they get to the content that they really are at your page for. Ryan: Okay, good. And so, just a general question going deeper, do you like them more on product pages that can get you back to a category page? Or is it just kind of across the board breadcrumbs are not a great idea? Jon: I think that it's helpful to have a navigational item that takes people up one level. Now, when you say breadcrumb I think that it starts out with homepage, next page down category page then, then your product detail page, right? So now you're four or five items long. Most people put the entire page title in those. It's not just so and so category. Look, the breadcrumb typically is dynamically built and the way that the platforms do it is that they will use the entire page title. And so they put that into the breadcrumb. Now your breadcrumb ends up being like 300, 400 characters long. It's massive. It's stretched across the entire page. It's distraction. It's not really helpful either at that point. And all of the eye tracking that we've done at the good over all these years, people never look at the breadcrumb. It becomes blindness because they see it and they stop, maybe for a split second, but they're definitely not reading the entire breadcrumb. And that's why I say it becomes a distraction and it gets in the way. Because you're making people stop and think before you're giving them the content you want. Ryan: Got it, okay. So sitting on a category page, you see a list of all the products. More and more often on a lot of these SAS platforms, I'm seeing the ability to add to cart from the category page or even just a kind of a quick view, popup JavaScript. Have you seen some direction on whether either one of those or both of those as good or bad? Jon: I personally am not a fan of those. Unless you have a product that's like a refill or something like that, where you have a limited number of products and you have a product that somebody is coming to the site and is quickly looking for that product and knows they're going to want to buy it without having to see any additional details. Jon: Here's the thing, on category pages people are still looking and browsing and trying to find the product or service that is going to solve their pain or their need. And the challenge here is that you're putting a really high intent to purchase call to action by saying add to cart, likely when they're not at the stage where they're ready add to cart. And if you just give them one image and a title, and maybe it shows the stars and the price, and then says add to cart, I would think most products, that's not enough to get somebody to purchase. So you're blowing an opportunity to send them to a page that you can convince them and show them all the wonderful benefits of your product and how great everyone else says it is in the reviews, and show it in use, and all these other things. So you're shortchanging yourself by just having the small little thing that comes up, gives minimal details and then asks people to add it to the cart. Likely not a good idea. Ryan: Probably [inaudible 00:21:29] in the quick view as well, just from, if nothing else, an analytics perspective. Where it's going to be much more complex to track that process or that funnel like category page, product page, purchase. Whereas if I go quick view, it's got to be an actions in Google analytics, if it's a JavaScript overlay, you don't get to do as much optimization on the JavaScript overlay popup necessarily. Jon: Yeah. Ryan: That's what I would say. Jon: You end up recreating that funnel in Google analytics and it's a lot of extra work. And I just think all of the negatives outweigh any of the positives. Then people say, "Well, I added this to make it easy for people to add to cart." Well, if they're not ready to add it to cart then it's not easier. Ryan: Moving down, anything else that I kind of skipped in that middle page where we jumped into the footer? You've seen products, is there a good way to put products? How many across? How many deep? How many products on a product page makes sense? What's your default response to that? Jon: I think on the category page, there's so many times where people will do a couple of things. They'll list hundreds and hundreds of products here. I think that's obviously the best use case for filtering, and I would do that filtering at the top of the page. Jon: Great example of this is we helped, a handful of years ago, to optimize Easton Baseball's website. Now, if you don't know what Easton Baseball is, they're the number one supplier of little league aluminum bats. In little league college, about 99% of swings are done with an Easton bat. They don't do anything in the major league baseball because they don't do anything with wood and aluminum's outlawed. So what does that mean? Well, the vast majority of people coming to the site are parents looking to buy their son or daughter a baseball bat. Or a softball bat. And if you went to their category page, all you saw was a wall of grid of bats. And if you can imagine what a little picture of a bat looks like online, they all look the same. Jon: They're all these sticks that are different colors, maybe. Right? But you can't communicate out of that picture. What the benefit is between the different bats, right? And they have wildly different prices. I mean, you can get a hundred dollar Easton bat and you could go all the way up to, I think, a five or $600 Easton bat. And so if you think about it, you're a parent, you get really confused. And right away, you're just upset, right? You're like, "Man, I don't know what bat to get. I'm going to be here all day clicking through all of these." And you just get frustrated really quickly. You probably just log off and go to your sports sporting goods store and just ask the guy which bat you should buy. Who's just working the counter. Not a great experience. Jon: And so once we dug in a little bit, what we found was that there are four or five different leagues, little league being one of them, that have certifications for different bats. And if your bat that you start swinging with does not have that logo of certification on it, then the umpire is supposed to not let you swing with that bat. And so the big problem is that all these parents were buying the bats based on price or the color they thought their kid would like best or whatever that is, and would end up getting to the game and the bat wouldn't be able to be used. And that's a huge let down, not only for the parent who just invested all this time trying to figure this out and got through that frustrating experience, but then the child who is up at the plate to swing, and they're being told that they have to use someone else's bat. Jon: It was creating a really poor brand experience. And what we found was that there were a couple of things parents knew about their children. What league they were playing in, and then they knew what style of hitter that the person was. So were they swinging for the fences or are they somebody who's just trying to get on base or something in between, perhaps. And then they generally knew what size of child they needed. So right? The bat is going to be different weights based on the size of the person swinging it. So they would say, "Okay, well I have a 12 year old. He can probably swing a heavier bat than my six year old," for instance. Right? So generally you have an idea of what weight you need based on the child who's swinging the bat. Jon: So what we did was we added some filtering and we made it three quick questions. With easy dropdowns. What league is your child playing? What type of hitter are they? And then do you know what weight bat you should be using? And usually what we found, we came to that third one because coaches would often tell the parent, "Buy this weight of bat for your son or daughter." So they already had that knowledge that they could bring. So what was really great there was we turned a wall of bats into something that now became three to four options. You answered those questions and it gives you a couple of options and a range of price points. And then you could decide, for your budget, what would work best and what was the bonus of stepping up a level? Jon: And it took all the frustration out of it. And their sales went up online 200, I think, 240 something percent Euro per year. Just by taking the pain point out of their category page. Ryan: So you're saying CRO has a return on an investment? Ryan: Little shameless plug for Jon's skill set there. Jon: We wouldn't have been doing it for 11 years if there's not a return here, I can tell you that. But at the same point, I think that it's all about just increasing that consumer ease of use. And if you just have a laundry list of products on a category page, that's not very useful. Especially if they all look the same or there's very minimal difference, or if they're all wildly different products. That also was a problem. And so it's like, "Where do you start as a consumer?" You think about walking into Walmart. If you didn't know what you wanted, when you walked into Walmart, you're going to be really overwhelmed because they sell everything. Jon: Yeah, it's a very similar type of experience to that feeling that somebody would have, and you want to make it as easy to use and help them to... Let them know they're in the right place, and help them make that decision as quick as you can. Ryan: Got it. And so I would advise people, a lot of times what I've heard you say, is take your category page to Starbucks. Buy somebody coffee and have them try to do something on it, to try to see some of that, because I'm guessing the Easton people didn't even conceptually think about that. Like, "No, we have all these bats. We know which one you want. Just get this one." Rather than, "Oh, you're not a parent trying to buy a bat." Jon: That's exactly it, is that they were too close to the product. They were inside the jar, and they didn't understand the pain points that the parents were having because the parents don't know as much about the product as the staff did at Easton. Ryan: Got it. Okay. So in conclusion, we've got all the way down to the bottom of the page. We've seen all the products. What are some of the things and quick best practices to be looking at in the footer of the category page? And what are some of the things you see that people do wrong down there? Jon: Well, the first thing in the footer that most people will do is they just dump all their links, extra links, down there. And it's just a grid of link after link, after link, no order to them. Maybe they put a header above them, but generally not that helpful. Jon: The first thing you should do in your footer is you should repeat your main navigation down there. And it should be the first thing on the left hand side of your footer. That way people don't have to scroll all the way back up to continue the shopping experience. If people scrolled all the way down to your footer, they are interested in your company and in your products and they want to continue shopping. So give them an easy way to do that. Ryan: And then do I add in all the navigation links you made me take out? At the top. Jon: I think there's a place here for a secondary navigation, and there's generally room for it. So that's a good thing you could add here. I think that another thing that you could add in here is your email sign up. That's always a great place. If people are still interested, but they're not ready to buy, they reached your footer, that's a good time to say, "Hey, you know what? Sign up for email and we can stay in touch." Ryan: You mean if they ignored my popup giving them 20% off their first order if they signed up with an email? Jon: Yeah. If you have those popups around by now, we're going to have some big issues because you obviously have not been listening to the questions you ask me. Yeah. Ryan: Yeah. Do not have popups. Everybody listening to this, do not have popups for email. Please put it in the footer. Jon: And maybe we'll do a whole episode on popups. And then I- Ryan: It'd be very short. Ryan: Simple answer, don't have it. Jon: Yeah. You can get me really riled up if you just keep asking me about them. Jon: Yeah. And I think the thing that should also be on the site in the footer there is your contact information. And that should be in the bottom right hand corner. And I'm always surprised by the number of sites that don't have contact information in their bottom right hand corner. But here's the thing, it increases trust if people see that you have a way to get ahold of you, but more importantly just put a physical address there. Let them know that you're not running the site out of your parents' basement. I mean, even if you are, just list your parents' address on there. It doesn't matter, right? Nobody's going to show up to this address. What they do want to know is that you're a viable business that's not just drop shipping and with no care. That you are actually reachable by either phone or support email. Ideally the physical address is really just a reassurance tool. We see that trust increases dramatically if you list one. So I would highly recommend that. Jon: So having your contact information in the bottom right hand corner is just standard practice. That's where people are going to go if they want to get ahold of you. Somebody comes to your site, they're immediately going to scroll to the bottom right hand corner if they want to reach out to you. Ryan: Yeah, I can actually vouch for this. Recently I actually didn't purchase from a site because they didn't have an address. That just, it made me concerned like, "Oh, you're just drop shipping, you're living on the internet, you're a fly by night organization." Just surprised me after I got done. I was like, "They just didn't have an address and that's all that caused me to not buy from them? That was weird." Jon: Yeah. It's surprising, right? I mean, the return on investment in this is pretty darn high because all you have to do is go to mailboxes et cetera, or a UPS store or any of those places, right? And just get a box from them for, what is it? Five bucks a month? And nobody knows that that's the address, right? People aren't Google Mapping this address. They're literally just saying, "Is it there? If it is, okay, I feel better." Ryan: Yeah. And I mean my wife and I, we have five businesses and live where we registered a lot of the businesses. And I have them on the internet, you can find my home address and nobody comes to us. Thankfully. Because I want to keep it that way, keep my privacy. Jon: Well now we're all going to show up. Ryan: Yeah. Ryan: But I think it does. I think it's a very simple thing that I've never really thought about, even until last week when I just didn't buy from a company. And I spent all day online looking at sites. And just the simple act of putting an address in a footer would have gotten that company a sale. Jon: Exactly. Ryan: Okay. Anything we've ignored or haven't touched on on a category page that you think we should be aware of? Jon: Yeah. Don't have popups. Ryan: Just email sign in at the bottom. They're not going to get a discount, it doesn't matter. Jon: Yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job of working our way through the entire page. So I feel pretty comfortable that we've answered the majority of concerns that I would have on a category pitch today. Ryan: And understand too, you'll never be done optimizing your site. You can't. Jon: There's always something. It's interesting you mentioned those tear downs that you see me do quite often at conferences and the like, and I'm never at a loss to find content for those tear downs. You can continually optimize the site and always be iterating on the site for a better experience. It's just a fact of life, but it's something that gives you a big return on that investment. It's well worth it. Ryan: Yeah, it's kind of like that Gordon Gekko thoughts. Like, "How much is enough?" More, well what's a good conversion rate? Better. There's no answer. Jon: One that is always improving. Ryan: Yes. That's your perfect conversion rate. Ryan: All right, Jon, thank you for the time and enlightening me as well as the people that are listening into us. Jon: Yeah. Thanks. It was a great conversation. Hopefully everybody's learned a lot today. Ryan: Thank you.

Jon dives into why Conversion Rate Optimization doesn’t stop after the purchase and the different points after-purchase that you need to optimize in order to drive higher revenues. Link: The Essential Guide to Ecommerce Sales Promotions (https://thegood.com/insights/essential-ecommerce-promotion-guide/) (In this article, #51-78 are focused on promotions you can run that aren't discounts) Outline: First, Jon cover’s different points after purchase that CRO can have an impact: In cart, right after purchase -Thank you page Email post-purchase sequence: -Confirmation email -Shipping confirmation -Customer service -Please leave a review – just click here -Add to general marketing email list sends He also explains the metrics a brand should be looking at to track progress of post-purchase optimization: -Return purchase -CLTV -Conversion (overall, should go up with repeat customers!) Jon is a firm believer that companies shouldn’t use discounting in post-purchase communications. However, there may be offers you can make that are not discounts. You do not want to become a discount brand. Finally, Jon explains that a successful method for getting referrals post-purchase outside of a set loyalty program is just to ask! Very few do! Transcript: Ryan: Jon, today, I really want to move our focus to an area that I think many companies and individuals would not normally think of conversion rate optimization and the impact it can have. I'm talking about post-purchase. Most people generally would assume that once a purchase happens on the website, CRO has done its job, time to move to the next person on the site and get them to convert. But, because I know you, I'm aware that CRO doesn't stop at the purchase. There's a lot more to be done. Can you explain to people, that maybe aren't aware of post-purchase conversion rate optimization, what they need to be thinking about, what they need to be doing, and why it even exists after they've already taken the sale, done what you wanted them to do originally? Jon: Right, and I think that's an important point there, Ryan, which is that most people think that conversion optimization stops as soon as you get someone to purchase. I think that's really shortsighted and it's a big problem because so much of the consumer experience and getting people to purchase a second time, is all about what happens when they purchase that first time. So, if you get them to convert, your job's not done. At that point... you got to think of this like a marathon. You just ran a marathon. Most people who are seasoned marathon runners, they get through that finish line. They have a process they still go through to cool down, protect their body, recover a little bit. It's the same thing here. After you've- Ryan: ... And I just go drink beer. Jon: ... Right, exactly, and that's why you don't run marathons. Ryan: That's why I don't. Jon: Learned that lesson the hard way, huh? Ryan: Uh-huh (affirmative), I did. Jon: Yeah, so exactly, this is it, where we can't just stop and drink a beer. You've got to go through a follow-up process here that can really, really have a massive impact on your overall metrics of your site and success and revenue, and even your conversion rate, because most people don't think about that. But overall, your conversion rate should go up with repeat customers. Ryan: True. Jon: There's a handful of things you should be thinking about that I think we should talk about today. There's a bunch of different points after purchase that can have an impact with conversion rate optimization, and if you optimize these points, you will see higher revenues. Ryan: Okay, so somebody's purchased on my site or client's site. Action's done. Does post-purchase conversion rate start after the product arrives, or where's the first point that we can be making an impact to improve conversion rates in the future? Jon: In the cart. It starts right then. As soon as somebody completes the order, gives you their payment, what happens? Ryan: Hmm. Jon: Most of the time, people aren't really considering the first step, which is a thank you page. What is the content that you're putting on there? Now, there are ways to, even on that thank you page, influence so many extra metrics. You can influence your average order value on that thank you page. There's some great tools out there right now. One of my favorites is a company called CartHook. CartHook has a tool, where you put it onto your thank you page, and it actually shows you complimentary products to what you bought and says, "Do you want to add it to the order?" You're doing an upsell after the purchase. You already got them to commit, and maybe they're thinking, "I bought those shoes, maybe I'll add a pair of socks. Why not?" Ryan: Now is that in addition to maybe also having upsell in the shopping cart, or do you usually recommend just get them to commit to something and then try to upsell them later? Jon: Right. I think that's a big mistake people make is to do the upsells in the cart. I don't think that's serving the consumers' needs, because serving the consumers' needs is helping them complete that checkout as quickly and easily as possible. You want to get that conversion. That's most important, obviously. So, after you've completed that sale, then, go back and do the upsells. Now, that doesn't mean you're not doing upsells throughout the funnel and throughout the product detail page or categories, things of that sort, right, complimentary products. But I don't think you should be doing it in the cart. That's when you just closed the transaction, at that point. Jon: A lot of people like to think of it like retail, where you're at a grocery store and they have all the candy bars and magazines, and you're just standing there in line. It's not like that because online, you shouldn't be waiting around at the checkout. Those items are there at the grocery store line because you're waiting for the person in front of you. You're likely bored, and they're capturing your attention. It's a captive market. Well, when you're in the cart and you're checking out online, you just have one goal, and that's to get it done. So, anything you put in the way there is actually going to become a distraction and annoying for the consumer. Not something where, "You're entertaining me with the latest gossip about celebrities for five minutes while I'm waiting for the family in front of me that's scanning 300 items at the grocery store." Ryan: Oh, you follow me at the grocery store, huh Jon?" Jon: Exactly. I got one kid. I can't imagine having a whole family like yourself. I think the first step is definitely in-cart, on that thank you page. Pay attention to the messaging. You can run a lot of A/B tests on the messaging alone and see what resonates. But also, adding a tool like CartHook, where you're figuring out all of these additional metrics and how to increase things like customer lifetime value, average order value. All of that kind of even goes back into your ROAS, your return on ad spend. If you start thinking about it this way, the higher your average order value, the higher your return on ad spend. Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Now, in addition to something like a CartHook offering up some complimentary products, is there any kind of messaging or kind of like, "Hey, I really want to make them feel good about what they just did. They spent money with me..." because most companies are like, "Hey, thanks. We'll be emailing you a confirmation," and that's pretty much the thank you page. Do you recommend adding more to that, or is it just kind of just get the products in front of them, get them in and out type thing? Jon: Well, we've actually run some tests, where brands who already participate in like 1% For Good or some of these other donation or charity causes, at that point, and reemphasizing that on the thank you page. Like, "Thank you for your purchase. Did you know part of your purchase is going to these great causes?" Ryan: Oh. Jon: Right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: So, what's happening there is you're actually just making somebody feel even better. You're reassuring them about their purchase. I think that's really important there, is the reassurance. I don't know about you, but sometime... like, I bought a new car six months ago now, maybe. There's nothing like the joy of driving the new car home. But then you're sitting at home and you're like, "I'm a little guilty. I feel guilty. I bought a new car today." You know what I mean? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: It's that thing where it's like, "I just dropped a lot of money on this." Yeah, it's awesome, but at the same time, I could have got a used car that had a hundred thousand miles on it and would have got me from A to B. It's the same thing when you buy online. You need to reassure people that... they probably didn't need what they bought from you. Maybe they had some need around it. But if you did a great job with your marketing sales and every everything else but your customer experience, you helped them see the benefit of a product that maybe had a little more cost to it than what they were planning to spend, but there's some value there for them. Sometimes that's just the emotional value. But, at the same time, reassurance is really key on that thank you page. Ryan: Got it. Okay, so we've got the thank you page dialed, we've got some upsells potential there, we've told them that they're amazing and they bought from an awesome company. Now, how do I go about encouraging future business from this customer of mine? Jon: Well, I think the first thing that really needs to be paid attention here is that what happens in email post-purchase. Now, most people don't think about this when they're optimizing a site. They usually just leave it to whatever the defaults are. So, if they're using Shopify, it will automatically send out some emails, depending on what email provider, using like a Klaviyo or something like that. It will have some of these built-ins with some best practices. But this is a ripe opportunity for optimization that most people are not thinking about. Jon: I always say there's five emails that should be sent out after a purchase. It's a huge opportunity if you're missing any of these five. Now, the easiest one, and the first, is always confirmation email. The order went through, all is well, it's received, we'll be shipping it on this date or soon. Just confirming everything's gone well, it's gone through. Just send them an email, and that email should go out immediately. There's no reason to hold on to it, even if you don't have a shipping date yet. It doesn't need to have tracking information in this email. It's just, "Hey, you know what, we have your money, your order, here's your receipt," right? Ryan: Okay. Jon: That's a good opportunity, at that point... I've seen this done very well, and I don't know what the tool is, but I should definitely look into that. I've seen this done so well, where they even do the upsell in that email. This happened to me last week. I bought some lights for my yard, solar lights, and to light up what's been real... we live in Portland. It's super dark here this time of year for long hours of the day. So, I'm driving home and it's dark in my driveway. Well, what I did, I went and I got some solar lights. Yeah, probably not the best for how dark it is here, but we'll move on from that. Jon: In the cart, it said, "Hey, you bought a certain number of these, did you want to add more?" That was a great in-cart experience and I decided not to do it. But then, I got the email right away. In that email, it said, "Hey, if you change your mind, you have four hours from when this email is sent to add a few more before we're going to start packing up your order, and you'll have to just place another order." And it said, "Click here to add four more, eight more or twelve more." It even had a discount on them. I thought that was really interesting. I wanted to see it, what would happen, just from a research standpoint, so I added four more to my order. It was great. It just took me right back to a page on the site that said, "Thanks, Jon. Here's your order number. We added four more to it. Your new total is X." Ryan: And you got a discount on it, on adding the four more. Jon: Well, it was because they didn't add any more for shipping those extra four, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: So, it wasn't a percentage off. It was saying, "Hey, we'll add these, but we won't charge you more to ship them." Ryan: Got it. Jon: Now, you could do a whole bunch of different items around discounting. We should definitely talk about discounting today, a little bit there. But I think the point here was, is that they had a captive audience. I'm going to look at my receipt email. Most people do. Ryan: Yep. Jon: It should be a highly opened email. So, it's a great captive audience and a great opportunity to do an upsell that nobody really thinks about. Ryan: No, yeah, and I can easily see how... you didn't take the complimentary products, but maybe you suggest something maybe even more different in the email, but offer a discount. Like, "Hey, add this in and we'll give you 10% off, and just include it in the order and it'll go out at the same time," or something. Jon: Right. And you think about it, it's a free cost of sale at that point for the retailers. So, there's really no additional cost in sending that email. You're already going to send the receipt. Email is super cheap as is anyways. But you don't have to advertise to them. You're not remarketing. You're not doing any of that that could add the extra cost. Jon: Okay. So, we have confirmation email. The second email is shipping confirmation. Once the order has shipped, let the consumer know immediately. "Your order has shipped. It's on its way. Here's the tracking number, and it should be there within this date range or on this specific day." Now, even if the tracking number is not available in UPS or FedEx or whatever at this point, because those can take 12 hours or 24 hours to show up in there, you can always just say, "Hey, this link won't show any results for X amount of time." But you should give them that right away because they're going to reference that, perhaps, throughout the order process or while they're waiting for the order. But I think it's a great opportunity just to confirm things have been shipped, all is still well, it's going to be there. Jon: It's a great opportunity, at that point, to also offer any resources. So, you can say, "Hey, you bought these solar lights. Let me include a video..." and this is exactly what they did for me. They included a video that showed me how to put them together, in that shipping confirmation. Ryan: Hmm. Jon: So now, I had something to kind of tease me a little bit until the products arrived. I thought it was super interesting because, not only was I just getting that shipping information, which normally I would just look at, but archive and save in case it didn't arrive, but I actually went through and reengaged with the brand by watching an installation video, which is a great opportunity. Now, when I get the product, immediately I can open the box and start using it. Right? Ryan: Oh, yeah. Jon: That's a much better experience. So, we've got confirmation email, shipping confirmation email, and the third email I always recommend is a customer service email. What do I mean by that? Well, this is just a check-in email. This should be a couple of days after the product was supposed to arrive. What should happen here is it should say something like, "Did you receive the product? Was everything okay? If not, just reply to this email and let us know." Pretty simple, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: It's a just let them know you're there, that they have a channel if there's an issue. And what you're going to do here, is you're going to prevent a negative online review. Because if they have a problem, they're not going to go online and vent. They're going to say, "Oh, you know what, I got that email from them. I'll reply to that email and try to figure this out." And then, you have an opportunity to turn a bad situation into a good one very quickly. You're preemptively handling that situation by just letting them know you're there. And if there's no problems at all, it's still awesome just to know that that brand is available for you and that they're there. Jon: I often recommend, have this email either go out the day the product should arrive, and you can say something like, "Your product should be arriving today. Let us know if you have any problems," and things of that sort. It's also another opportunity to send some more resources. If you want to link to more stuff up on your site, or there's... we worked with a company that sells tents. They did a really good job with this. It's like how to set up your tent, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: Because a lot of people struggle with that. They've gotten a lot easier over the years, but it's still something that required a little bit of knowledge. So, we've got confirmation emails, shipping confirmation, customer service, and then the fourth email I always recommend is please leave a review. This is a review request. Now, this should definitely go out a couple of days, maybe even a week, after they've gotten the product. The idea here is just make it so simple for them. There's a couple of tools that make this super easy. Shopper Approved. It does this extremely well. It's a reviews platform, where they just send out an email that asks for the review, and then it has five stars in the review, and it says, "Click the star that you want to rate." Ryan: Yeah, I've actually done that before and didn't even know I was giving a review. Jon: Right. It's one click. Ryan: It's phenomenally simple. Me, as an online marketer, I'm in it all day every day. Then I got a review email from one of the companies I bought from, and it was Shopper Approved. Blew me away. Like, "Wow. I actually just accidentally gave a five star review." I was going to give it anyway, but it was like, "Wow, that was ridiculously simple." Jon: Yeah, and that's exactly what it's about here, is just make it quick, make it easy, but ask for the review. Most people, at this point, don't ask for a review. They're asking for a review on their website, which I can promise you, nobody is going back to a website, from finding that product detail page for the product they purchased, and giving it a review. It's a huge red flag and perhaps we should do another episode, Ryan, on product reviews, because it's a huge red flag for consumer trust. Jon: If you see, on a product detail page, that you can leave a review, that tells me that there are so many unverified reviews on there. I don't trust what's being said anymore because the manufacturer or retailer could just be sending their entire family to that page. I want to know that they're actually verified reviews from people that have purchased and that's the only reviews that are in that mix. The best way to do that is just ask for it via email after the purchase. It's going to be a verified review. That also, and you probably know more about this though, Ryan, but that also allows you, if they're all verified, to have the star ratings show up on your product detail page listings in Google search results. Ryan: Yeah, exactly. You need to have a review aggregator that's approved by Google that's looked at their system and said, "Yes, you're actually getting legitimate reviews." I know there's some plugins on a lot of eCom platforms that allow people to just leave reviews on the site, like you said, and it doesn't build trust. Those can't be sent to Google. So, if your website is, "Hey, I got a place to get reviews. I've got 500 wonderful reviews on my website. How come Google is not allowing me to send them?" It's because you haven't used one of the 30, I believe, companies that are approved to send those reviews to ours, and Google trusts that they're legitimate. Jon: Now, you're not gaming the system, so that's helpful. Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: So, five emails. Confirmation email after purchase, shipping confirmation, customer service, leave a review, and then the fifth is just add them to your general email marketing sends. So, whatever that next email marketing send is, just add them. Now, here's the thing. If you're going to send an email every day, or even every week, the cadence can't be the same as somebody who clearly signed up for your marketing emails on your site. Now, I'm suggesting sending them marketing emails, but maybe it's once a month. It's just some way to stay in front of them, and these emails should be more helpful. They shouldn't be, "Here's the big promotion we're running right now." It should be something like, "Hey, Valentine's Day is coming up. Have you thought about ordering by X date to ensure that you'll have it in time?" Ryan: And so on this, real quick though, you would, in theory, keep them out of your marketing emails until they get to this point. You don't want to automatically, you purchased, you're in my marketing email, and you're going to get a marketing email in the middle of this cadence of emails. Like, you don't want, "Oh, shipping confirmation." "Oh..." two hours later you got the marketing email. Jon: That's exactly right. I think that's extremely important that even if they signed up... okay, this isn't a tactic I recommend. You know I rail on this all the time. But even if you had a pop-up, and you offered a discount to sign up for the marketing emails on your site before they made a purchase, you need to hold those emails a reasonable amount of time, maybe a day or two, to see if they made a purchase right away. There's so many of these tools, like Klaviyo, that make that pretty easy to do, where you can just add an exception real quick to hold them until the next email blast or something. But I would wait for them to at least complete that purchase. If they complete the purchase, then don't send a marketing email until they've gotten the other four emails. Ryan: All right, so we've got an email cadence. We've got in-cart right after the purchase. Some of the things you can do on the thank you page. We touched on this a little bit, in the process of going through there, but in addition to CartHook and maybe the email platform you're using, are there any other CRO tools people can be utilizing or looking at when they're trying to improve post-purchase conversion rates? Jon: Well, I think that it's not as data-focused on tracking every click and movement at that point. So, it's less about the toolsets here. It's more about that customer experience. Email is going to be your biggest toolset here. Yes, there's a lot of stuff you can do to run tests and see how much people are engaging with that thank you page, and there's tools like CartHook and several competitors to them, but I don't think that being as data heavy at this part of the process is going to be very beneficial. Ryan: Got it. And a lot of that is going to be measured by lifetime value of your customers. Are they increasing or not? So, if your lifetime value was $500 and then you implemented a bunch of these things Jon's talked about, did it move to $700 or $800 over a course of the time period that you're outlining? Jon: Right. And there's really three kind of goals that you should have from doing this, and three metrics that you should be tracking by optimizing post-purchase. The first is that customer lifetime value, of course. We want to see that go up over time. What influences that? A return purchase. Did you give them such a good customer experience that they came back and purchased again? Another thing is number of reviews. That's a great one because people are only going to leave a review if they're satisfied or if they're deeply unsatisfied, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: That kind of mushy middle there, nobody really leaves a review, typically. That's why you very rarely will see like a three star review. You're going to see a five or a one, or a four, sometimes people don't like to give five unless... they reserve that for the one time a year. Maybe it's between four and one, but you see very few in between, typically. Then the third metric, besides those, that you should be thinking about is just your conversion. Your conversion rate overall should go up because of those repeat customers, in the sense that if you get more people to come back and purchase again, you should see your conversion rates go up because it's going to be an easier purchase, you're going to have more sales. So, it kind of feeds itself in this cycle. Ryan: Got it. So it's post-purchase conversion rates not something I've normally thought about, or even associate with typical CRO and what you're doing with customer testing and heat mapping and all these wonderful things you do onsite. Now, is generally post-purchase CRO a part of an overall CRO strategy or do you kind of separate them into like, get the purchase CRO and then post-purchase CRO? Jon: That's a great question. Now, my initial thought on that is that it is something that is built into what we do at The Good, and it should be part of a full conversion optimization. But it is a graduate level step. What I mean by that is if you haven't gotten into college and completed those courses of just getting the conversion, then there's no reason to focus on post-purchase yet. So, you really want to have a good customer experience up to that point, and then you can start working on post-purchase optimization. But it is an overall part of the CRO picture, and it really should be. Ryan: Now, one easy way to increase your conversion rate is to throw a bunch of discounts out, obviously. If people save money, of course they're going to buy more, generally. But how do you, or do you, recommend any discounting post-purchase? I kind of mentioned like, "Oh maybe I would throw a 10% discount out for complimentary products in an email." But that may be a bad idea. I don't know. Jon: Well, I'm not a proponent of doing discounts on a site at all. I really believe discounting is not optimization. I call it margin drain, because that's really what it is. Now, can you get more sales through discounting? People love a discount. It does work, but I'm not a proponent of it. I don't think you should be testing discounts, testing promotions in that way. There's a lot of other ways to be doing promotions that aren't just a straight up discount. And the reason is, and I say this all the time, once you bring a new-to-file customer in through a discount, your brand is forever a discount brand in the eyes of that consumer. And it's just not going to change. That means, every time you do a purchase in the future, you're going to have to offer a discount. It's just what's going to be expected. They're never going to want to pay retail price because that's not what the expectation is. Jon: But there are ways around this that are still intriguing offers that aren't discounts. We actually have an article up on our site. We'll have our producer put it in the show notes. But there's an article that we have up on The Good that's something like 90 or 100 different types of offers that you can do that aren't discounts. Ryan: Oh wow. Jon: There's just an unlimited number up there, it seems like. Now, things like buy one, get one, bundling. I mentioned, just earlier, how the company got me by saying, "Hey, we'll add four more to your order without charging you more for shipping." So, you can do things like shipping promotions. Free shipping should be something that you're considering. If not, look at a better fulfillment partner, perhaps, but there's a lot of options out there. That you're allowing people to upgrade their shipping speed. Ryan: Yeah so, one final point, I think, in the post-purchase thing. Something you and I do a lot of between our organizations is referrals. I'm always referring business over to Jon and Jon's very good at referring business to us. But in the eCommerce space, very rarely do I get asked to refer somebody else. I just bought this product. I'm really excited about it. I mean, more than likely, I'm going to be willing to refer, but very rarely do I get asked about it. And a lot of times it's... there may be a loyalty program system out there that does some of this, but what do you suggest companies do to increase some of that potential for referral? Jon: Just ask. I think, as you mentioned, so few do, and there's... most eCommerce managers are spending all this effort and money in affiliate programs, where they're getting people to recommend their product in exchange for an affiliate fee. But they ignore the power that people who actually buy can have. And I think that's a mistake. They really should be thinking a lot about how can we just get somebody who purchased, and is happy with that purchase, to be a referral source? One of the things you can do is, in that email chain that I mentioned of those five emails, instead of asking for a review, you could ask for a referral at that point, right? Ryan: Yeah. Jon: You could mix it up and do a 25% you're asking for referrals, 75% you're asking for a review, however that mix is that you'd like. There's a lot of options there. But the reality is, is all you have to do is ask, and it should cost you nothing at that point. You could offer them a gift in exchange for making a referral, something of that sort, or have a loyalty program that you're doing. There's some great tools out there. I'm a huge fan of one called Smile, smile.io. Smile.io, however you want to pronounce it. But there's a handful of these out there that do a really good job with the loyalty programs. And one of those is asking for referrals and doing it at the right step in the process. Just so few people do it that it blows my mind. Ryan: Is there a right or a wrong way to ask for that referral? Is there a way that it can make people mad, or there's a way that you've seen that's been very successful in that email chain of asking for one? Jon: The first thing I would do is offer them something of value to share. So, instead of the overt, "Just click here to publish to your Facebook a, "I just bought this product, you should too," or something that is super cheesy and very pushy. That's the mistake I see, typically. And most people aren't going to do that. But if you make it something that is really useful, like, "Hey, I just bought this tent from this company, and here's a video on how to set up a tent, or a trick on how to set up a tent, perhaps, that would make your life easier if you camp too." So you say, "Okay, well, share that out," perhaps with this referral code, something of that sort. And you can offer people a discount. Jon: Now, a lot of times... I do this a lot. If I really like something and I'm recommending it to somebody, I'll say, "You know what, I know I get a discount on that. Why don't I just make the introduction and then I know you'll get a discount." So it's, "Offer 10% off to your friends," or whatever that might be. Or, "Use this code and your friends get free shipping," or, "They get a free gift if you refer them." It doesn't, again, have to be a percentage off. But I think there's a lot of options there and a lot of offers that could be mixed in. It just requires a little bit of thought and creativity instead of doing the lazy thing that every eCom site's doing, and either not asking or just saying, "Hey, use this code and give it to your friends for a percentage off." Ryan: Got it. So, just kind of make it a little more fun or exciting, or not just the basic "give me a code." Jon: Right, exactly. Ryan: Well, that's awesome. Okay. So, we've got a lot of potential for increasing conversion rates from thank you pages to emails to referrals to countless different things. Thank you, Jon, for downloading all of that education on us. I think there's just a ton in there that I'm actually going to start implementing on some of my brands. Anything else you want to leave us with? Jon: No, I think that the first thing to think about is getting that conversion. After that, there's so much more opportunity to go that most people don't pay attention to. I think it's really important that they take that extra step. I appreciate you bringing this topic to the table and us discussing it today. Hopefully it's a value for folks. Ryan: Oh yeah, I'm sure it is. Thank you, Jon.

Ryan is excited to dive into the often overlooked remarketing options for re-engaging those prospects who don't convert on their first visit to your commerce website. Contact Logical Position for remarketing needs at https://www.logicalposition.com/contact. Reach out to Ryan Garrow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangarrow/ Transcript JON MACDONALD: Ryan, good to talk to you again. Today we're going to talk about remarketing and re-engaging your audience, how does that sound? RYAN GARROW: Man, nothing gets me more excited, John. [laughter] RYAN: Marketing is a huge piece of online marketing driving traffic, it's an often-overlooked piece of digital marketing. I'm excited to drive into some of these details with you and hopefully shed some light on the mystery that is remarketing for most companies. JON: I really want to talk about a few things today, what do you do when someone doesn't convert on your site? You spend a ton to get folks to a site but then when they don't convert on that first visit because let's face it, most visitors aren't going to convert on their first visit, how do you keep marketing to them and close the sale and get that conversion? As my understanding, and hopefully, you're going to school me on this today this is typically what is called remarketing and it can be extremely powerful when done right. I do know that, tell me a little bit about how you and the team at Logical Position define remarketing? RYAN: Man, nothing as a marketer can make you more frustrated than somebody not doing what you wanted them to do when they came to the site because he spent all this time and energy sculpting traffic, eliminating waste saying, "All right, they are searching for my exact product and service. They are ready to buy, they're ready to put a credit card in." To get you into the right category or the right product page and then conversion rates on websites dictate that for almost every company we work with over 90% of that traffic goes somewhere else to do something and not take an action, and it just is frustrating. Especially if you do some of those real-time heat map watching and watching people on your site behind the scenes, you just get frustrated like, "Why didn't you click that? What's wrong with you? You should have just gone and clicked add to cart and buy?" Remarketing ends up becoming the step in the process next. You almost need to look at remarketing as a bunch of different layers. It's not just one simple, "We're remarketing, we're good." There's search remarketing, there's remarketing through email, there's remarketing through display ads. There's so many different things you need to be doing and be aware of in the e-Commerce space to help bring those people back to the site and take the action you want. Each one of them needs to have a lens of what's the return, am I doing it properly, is it generating the type of return that I need it to be as its own entity? When you look at driving traffic through paid search, and I think one of our earlier podcasts we talked about all traffic is paid traffic. At this point, it is requiring some level of investment to get that traffic to your site. Whether that's just time, energy, money, thought, something's happening that you're putting out there to bring people in. Paid search, hopefully, there's a return that's making sense with paid search as its own entity, search shopping, Bing, Google, Yahoo, whatever that looks like for you hopefully there's a return that makes sense. An additional marketing piece needs to be re-marketing, and it needs to have a return that makes sense for the business and for the products and services that you're selling. Within that re-marketing entity, there's different layers within that that say, there's this type of re-marketing and this type of re-marketing and this type of re-marketing and each one of those has different expectations for return. It may be five years ago re-marketing was vanilla and now we have the Baskin Robbins if you're in the Oregon area and you know Baskin Robbins, there are 31 flavors. There's all these different things you can be doing with re-marketing that for some brands it's overkill, you don't have enough traffic to use all of these wonderful different things. Other brands are using just the most basic remarket and they should be using a really complex additional layers of re-marketing to help drive different types of traffic, different ways, with different expectations. Brands should be doing it and they should be doing it more than likely more complex than they are. I think on average, most companies are not utilizing all the things they can be doing, even just through the simple Google platform of re-marketing, there's a lot there. JON: I look at this as two sides. One is what is the data that you need to be tracking or where are the points where you can then have data to know who to remarket to and then on what channels can you be re-marketing? Maybe we break that down. What events or obviously, there's the simple page view. Somebody views a particular page like a product detail page, you can then start re-marketing that product to them. What are some other options there for how to get data to know who to remarket to? RYAN: For simplicity purposes right now let's just focus on the Google re-marketing platform. Most companies are at least familiar with it, most people probably understand conceptually what the Google re-marketing is inside the Google Ads platform. All re-marketing is dependent on the data you're putting into these lists that you're re-marketing to. If you've got really crappy lists, you're probably going to get crappy re-marketing results. Step one is understand how you are breaking up your data. I would say as a general rule, more granular is better because you can combine those audiences into bigger groups. If you have really granular data sets within your lists in audiences, wonderful, use those, make sure that are in there. You can always make bigger groups but if you don't have the small granular groups you can't get to them. At least set them up there whether you use them or not, at least get them in there. By granular groups I'm talking about you should have a list for shopping cart abandoners. When I say list, it's an audience within Google ads. Let's have one for shopping cart abandoners, let's have one for product viewers, people that have viewed a product page. Let's have one for people that viewed a category page and people that only view the homepage, what's on the homepage and left. Site depth would be a good way of looking at that, the deeper they go on the site, the more likely they are to convert through remarketing and the messaging is probably different. What we see when we do this, when we add these in, and we add the audiences in for not only display ad re-marketing, which is an important piece to follow people around appropriately, we'll talk about some of the details on what's appropriate and what isn't later, but also re-marketing lists for search ads. If people go back and there's a heavily researched product that, "Hey, I found this one, it looks like it's good, then let me go back to Google and do a couple more searches to make sure that I'm not leaving a lot on the table as far as options or price point," you can bid on those people differently based on where they went on your site now. What we see, generally speaking, you're going to have a higher return on re-marketing the further down into the site they went. For example, people that were a shopping cart abandoner that you're re-marketing to are probably going to have a higher return to re-marketing than the person that went just to the homepage and bounced, fits the logic generally too. JON: These are all intent signals, you're looking for high intent? RYAN: Yes, to a degree. If somebody comes through a shopping ad they're obviously going to land on a product page. That same searcher could also land through a text ad on a category page. The search is exactly the same, I'm looking for a purple widget. If I click a text ad, I should land on a category page for purple widgets but I could also have clicked a shopping ad and landed on a product page. Same search, same intent that we saw on Google went to different spots on the site, but if I landed them on a category page and then they went and clicked on a product page we're probably getting the same level of intent on a purchaser as word there. If I clicked on the product image with a price point off of Google to your site, probably likely that they're looking to purchase one rather than I'm clicking on a text ad because I'm going to go to a category and do some more research. Then if I bounce re-marketing maybe a little bit different than someone that took an extra step. JON: That covers what you should be looking at to form that audience as you call it. It's not a list because you don't know who's part of that audience specifically, you can't get the individuals. Google masks that and tells you generally how many people are in that audience, is that correct? RYAN: Yes. Then each audience will tell you how many people you can re-market to on the display network and YouTube versus on a remarketing list for search ad. Because then you might have a 100,000 people in that audience but maybe only 30,000 of them you can remark it to as a remarketing list for search ads type thing. There's always going to be different numbers around those because of how Google is collecting data and allowed to present information around that as a re-marketing list. If you have medical devices of some sort or you're treating some medical problems, you may not be able to remarket at all on Google because that could potentially be personally identifiable information. If you share a computer with somebody and you don't want them to know that you may be feeling sick, you may have these symptoms or you may need-- I'm older than my wife so maybe if I need a knee brace, maybe I don't want her to know that I'm getting old and fragile. [laughter] RYAN: Google won't let people remarket it to me cause my wife might see that. That type of thing is a limitation within remarketing based on some products. JON: We both know we're getting old and fragile so we'll leave it at that. In terms of the platforms of which you can then take that audience and market to them, I heard you say Search terms, search ads, I heard you say YouTube, obviously display ads. What other mediums can be used for remarketing? RYAN: YouTube is a big one that I think most companies overlook, and there's this general opinion or thought around YouTube being complicated or difficult because you have to create a video and there's that barrier to entry there. Creating a remarketing video is really not difficult, it can even be very basic, it doesn't have to involve human or video, it could just be static images with voiceovers or image textovers. There's a lot of things you can do to make a pretty basic video on YouTube that can still be effective but the cost of YouTube is so low that your reach can go so far. What I tell people about YouTube is you do remarketing true view, which means they have to watch a certain amount of your video to be counted as a view that you actually pay for so they skip it. Everybody's seen those videos on YouTube that you skip before watching the cat video your mom sent you that you have to watch because she's going to bring it up when you're at dinner tonight. If you skip it, they don't pay anything. There's still some forced branding though because you have to watch five seconds but if you watch it, and you can do all kinds of overlays and allow people to click and go right to the site and the product that they were viewing, but if you watch it, it usually costs $0.10 to $0.12 for that view. The average click on the display network can sometimes be up over $1, $1.50, and so lots of opportunity on Youtube that people don't pay attention to as much. YouTube, email, you can remarket through email. In certain areas, you can remarket on the display network through dynamic ads or static ads that show the product you're looking at, and you can also do a list that allows you to bid differently on them based on their behavior of your website in the past. JON: That sounds interesting, it can get really complicated then. Of those, what do you think is the most powerful or has the highest ROAS, return on ad spend. RYAN: That is really going to vary, it's my most often response but my least favorite response, is it just depends. Every online company's probably going to have slightly different numbers based on their products, based on their website, and their conversion rates. Generally speaking, I really like the remarketing list for search ads, especially if you have a research product. People are going through the process are going to do a lot of searches before they buy something, finding out if that person is valuable or not to be bidding on again, and so many companies don't look at this. You can actually take this list of all the people that have visited your site before, and let's just say you sell coffee cups-- I'm staring at one in front of me. You sell coffee cups and this person searched for white coffee cup, came to your site, didn't buy, that's a list I can put in there. If they go back to Google again and they search for gray coffee cup or red coffee cup-- you don't even have to change your bids in there and you can see them because normally you'd be bidding on them again anyway because they're searching for another coffee cup, which you sell. You can see, "The people that have been to my site that searched this term either perform better or worse than the average person searching for this product off of Google." If it does better, you catch them again in the research process, and they perform better you bid up on them, be more aggressive because the return is higher, you have more you can be spending on them. If it's worse and once they've been to your site and they leave they're not going to buy on their second visit, then you just save the money, don't bid on them at all. You can actually spend that money on acquiring a new person to the site rather than somebody that's already been there and you know is not going to buy based on the data you see. There's a lot of levers that Google is now giving us as marketers that really can get creepy to a degree, but also really gives us actual leverage to push more return when it's necessary and then pull back when it's not. I think that those search ad remarketing lists can be super powerful. You can even do your past customers. Google does have an email match, you can upload your past customers into Google and create an audience around them and say, these 100,000 people have bought from me over the past decade. I upload them to Google Match generally, it's about 50%. Let's just say you have 50,000 people in an audience, you can now bid on them differently based on their search. If you sell mattresses, they're going to buy a mattress one time every 10 years on average, even though we're supposed to buy it more often than. That list of people, if they're going off and you know that they've bought in the past and they're searching again for another product you sell, maybe you can bid more aggressively on them. Because now you sell pillows, for example, and they're searching for a pillow and are like, "I really did like that mattress and they also sell pillows. That's great, I had a great experience on the mattress, now I can buy pillows." You can bid more aggressively on them even though it's a general search on pillows that maybe you wouldn't spend a lot of money on just by itself, but knowing something about that customer gives you the ability to be more aggressive than your competitors. It's a phenomenal subset of the remarketing world because you have some information about them. JON: This sounds like its own specialty. Just running ads is a specialty that you have to know a lot about, but even just going into the remarketing this is way deeper than I would have thought. RYAN: Man, we have an omnichannel strategy group now internally at Logical Position and the reason they came about largely is because of all the demands of our clients trying to figure out how to get all of the use out of remarking that they could. They were having so many of these conversations with our clients saying, we need to be doing this, we need to be doing this and the strategists having to work with all of our teams like, "Hey, we just need a department that can do this." So we've scaled internally, we've got a whole group that handles strategy across all of our accounts and a lot of it is around remarketing. JON: That's great. RYAN: Just the things you can do that are-- again, I say it's creepy [chuckles] but really fantastic as far as the marketing person's concerned on the things you can do with these levers that Google gives you. JON: On the flip side of creepy, it could be helpful because you're reminding folks of where they were, what they were doing. In terms of conversions, we see at The Good that you only have a certain amount of time to convert someone on your site and that's a couple of minutes typically if that. If they get distracted they end up onto something else. It's often even just personally I forget what I was looking to do and then I see a remarket and I'm like, "I really needed that." Then I end up going back and completing it. It seems to me, I'm hearing, that there's a ton of data that can be collected to ensure proper remarketing, and you just listed off a ton of them. It gets real intricate pretty fast. JON: Folks usually default to thinking about remarketing only on Google, what other kind of tools do you think could be used for remarketing? I know there's other providers out there, there's other toolsets that aren't Google, display ad networks, and things of that sort. Am I right in that thinking? RYAN: You are. Google is probably one of the most well-known just because if you're spending money on ads it just becomes very easy to see there's a section for remarking on display ads in Google. Everybody tries to claim that they have the largest display network on the market. When you look at remarketing a lot of it is done on the display network with display ads. As you're reading an article on a new site or something you're going to see images that are ads all over as you're scrolling down. We've been doing that for a while, most people know about it, most sites, not all, but most sites aren't going to say no to a display network that wants to put some ads on their site. A lot of these ad buys are done behind the scenes on a secondary market that most people don't even-- it's like the matrix, most people don't even know it's there but all of these ad buys are happening in this big secondary market that's an ad desk that all these networks plug into and they all compete in real-time to whose ad's going to be where. It's crazy when you start looking under the hood of the display network world. From a remarket perspective most companies are aware of Google, not a bad place to start, it covers almost everything. There's a couple of other competitors in the display space of note that we come across most often, it's Criteo and AdRoll. Both of them have some good things and some drawbacks and they have some exclusive sites that may be Google doesn't have access to. By and large, most companies should at least start with Google because it's already there with every context that gives you an idea of how remarketing is going to work for you. AdRoll and Criteo can do arguably better ads. Google's use of the HTML5 stuff now can make pretty darn good ads if you have a good creative team but from what I've seen, you do go into buckets within Criteo and AdRoll. They say, here's the return you need, this is your bucket. Here's what we're going to do for you. Done. It goes and it just does a lot of work. You don't have a lot of extra leverage to push and pull within their platform. It's kind of a, "We do it for you", scenario and it can be good. The only thing I caution people to look at when they're at Criteo or AdRoll is generally those companies out of the box are taking full credit for a sale through remarketing for an impression. If I'm scrolling through and reading a website and I happen to see a remarketing ad from a company who I was on, I didn't click on it, I just kept scrolling and finished the article and then later that day I went and bought direct. I just typed the website in, went and bought and finished my transaction, generally, the pixel for AdRoll for Criteo will say, "Hey, Ryan went and bought and we did it. Our impression generated it and we claim 100% credit for that." Their report will generally say, and most marketing platforms take a lot of credit so you just have to understand how to look and filter that data to get a real number. Because you can see in Google Analytics the click data, "AdRoll and Criteo they had 50 clicks and this much revenue." Not hard but trying to assign a value to that impression becomes complicated and usually requires conversation. All that to say AdRoll, Criteo for the display products out there for remarketing along with Google. Yahoo in the past has done a lot through remarketing but they've shrunk down and they're not as impactful so generally, I would say for display, those three. Video remarketing generally lives on YouTube, there's not a lot of video re-marketers that compete yet with YouTube and the scope and size of them. Email remarketing has become a bigger and bigger player in the space. Most people that come to your site, you can get an ad in front of them through a display network. Regardless of what you choose, you can probably find a website that they're going to be visiting and you can get an ad on. If they have an ad blocker on you're probably not going to get that cookie, you're not going to be able to remarket to them. There's been recently over the last couple years, a couple of companies that have come up with the ability to send emails based on the pixels. They have a list of-- I think the latest I heard is somewhere around 300 emails, they have permission to email these people. These people have opted in and said, you can email me and they've been able to combine that with a pixel or a cookie saying, "Hey, they went on your website, they didn't buy. We can filter that against converters. Let's send them an email and say we'll give me 10% off if they want to buy." They email themselves on behalf of one of their partners, which would be you. It's actually been gaining some good traction and it's another opportunity to get in front of people that you couldn't get in front of before possibly or in a way that they're actually going to pay attention to. It is a little bit promo heavy so you might give a 10% off discount coupon code, but for many of these companies, they're willing to do it for free for a rev share. It's just an add on, "Hey, if we're going to get a 10x with a 10% off, we're going to get a 5x at the end of the day, that's not terrible." JON: I'm pretty sure this happened to me the other day because I was on a site, I didn't give them any information and I left. Then I got an email from them about an hour later just like, "Hey, noticed you were on our site and didn't buy, here's a discount if you want to come back." I was like, "How did they get my email?" That's pretty interesting. RYAN: If you looked at the bottom in the fine details of that email, you'll probably see that it came from a company you've never heard of on behalf of that company. JON: I see. RYAN: I think if you haven't tested it and you've got enough traffic, and enough traffic would be you've got 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 visitors a month to start generating a real number through remarketing, I would at least consider it at least testing it. That's my general rule with most marketing test and measure. If it's working do it better or more, if it's not working stop it and then maybe come back and revisit it later once you understand some of the things that may have caused it to not work well. As we live, especially as Americans in a very busy, complex society, our attention is being drawn all over the place. You and I both have kids, John, we're not sitting down in the evening doing anything without an interruption, we're not alone. Understanding that as our day - as I go between three screens and I've got phone calls and emails and SMS and text messages coming on my phone that's on the other part of my desk, I'm going to get interrupted in the process of purchasing something more than likely. Remarketing, I believe, is going to have a bigger and bigger place in the overall online marketing scheme over the next few years. We're not going to get less distracted as Americans, I don't think. Understanding the appropriate way to get in front of people in the way they want to be communicated with. Text remarketing is becoming a bigger, bigger thing, especially with millennials that want to be communicated over on their phones almost exclusively. It's fun but complex. JON: I was going to ask you SMS like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, all those are platforms you can do remarketing on too, is it not? RYAN: You can. Social remarketing has been a big one. In a lot of companies, I suggest that that's the way they test social marketing. If you've not done ad buys through Facebook and Instagram yet, an easy way to test it and the validity and what return you can get is start by remarketing on them. Again, we'll go by my coffee cup example, if you're selling coffee cups and you're going to remarket them on Facebook, these people have been to your site, they've seen your product, they know who you are, they haven't bought yet. If you put an ad in front of them on Facebook and Instagram to try to draw them back and that ad does not work at a profitable level or rate that makes sense, the chances of going out and finding a broad swath of customers that have never heard of you before to buy at a rate that makes sense for you is much lower. If remarketing works, that tells me that there could be some potential to draw in or prospect new customers off of social channels through ads. There's always some ways you can do without ads, but at least through ads. It's a good way to test it all and see if that can make sense for your brand. JON: Okay. This has been really educational for me, I appreciate that. I'm now wondering what budget should be reserved for remarketing versus driving initial traffic? Is it maybe a percentage that someone should be setting aside of their total budget spend on traffic? What do you typically see there or recommend? I know it varies but is there a general rule of thumb? People should be at least trying a certain percentage of their overall budget towards remarketing? RYAN: It's my wonderful it depends answer again, unfortunately, but the bigger and more complex and the more research that is done to make a purchase of your product or service, the more you're probably going to spend on remarketing. You want to be staying top of mind. If you're selling $10 coffee cups, you're probably not going to have a huge portion of your budget on remarketing. There's probably going to be somewhere between 5% and 15%. Again, there's going to be outliers on that. 100% of the time, there's always going to be outliers. Step one is just start doing it if you're not doing it and then understand that you need to have frequency caps so that you're not blasting somebody and spending $20 remarketing your $10 coffee cup in one day because you won't stop being in front of them. Understand that you're going to test and measure your promotions, sometimes you're going to need promotions to get people back to the site to buy something. Sometimes you won't, it's just timely like, "You forgot that something was in your shopping cart," or, "I was looking at that red shoe." Also, when you cross apps, bring apps into the space, that's another big one. I tend to be a sneakerhead and so I buy stuff on Nike's app and the remarketing potential within that space for them is even more creepy and awesome. Because they have all the first-party data around what am I doing on their app and on their website and what type of products do they want to prospect me with, "Hey, you've never seen this shoe. You should think about it." I'm a huge fan of Jordan 4s so anytime there's a new Jordan 4 release coming up they know they need to let me know about that before. Even though I've never seen the product they are remarketing to me with a brand new product because they have that data of what I've purchased in the past, so much opportunity in the space that you probably need to be a little bit uncomfortable with your remarketing budget. I love saying that to people because they're like, "I'm going to dedicate 10% to remarketing." That's good but if you see it working don't be afraid to go to 20%. Why not? If it's there and you can put money in front of it and you're getting a return that makes sense for your brand there's no reason not to do it. JON: It's an awesome way to just attack the people who are already interested. They're obviously already interested so get your ad back in front of them because they were already on your site. That's a great way to attack that marketplace that is there for more conversions getting back to your site, for sure. What's the biggest common mistake you see around remarketing? RYAN: Oversimplification. I think we've got the data, we've got all the levers we can push and pull to get the appropriate message in front of the appropriate person at the appropriate time. Often I see just blanket remarketing as the name of their campaign in [unintelligible 00:28:59] one campaign, all visitors in there, they have no frequency cap then it's like, "We spend $1,000 a day on our general marketing and we spend $100 a day on remarketing, done," and they just let it run. They just think that it is what it is, like we randomly get a sale, we don’t… It is probably necessary to build multiple campaigns for multiple audiences and change the messaging throughout the time to K model. Day one you have one message for them when they didn't buy. When they don't buy. If they don't buy you move them to your three-day remarketing lists with a messaging change or the ad changes, you're staying fresh. If they don't buy then they move to their seven-day remarketing list. You're always moving converters off of these lists as they go down, you can store pixel on somebody's site for 540 days. We have a long term pixel list that we use for friends and family events or discounts online or when they want to run a big promotion. We can get more aggressive with those people that have been to the site in the past when they're searching for a broad non-brand term or something. Not getting complex enough is one of the biggest issues most companies are having, there's a lot more leverage you can put into your re-marketing starting just with all that data that you're tracking. Having the granular list that allow you to do some of that really cool/ creepy re-marketing to make your company more impactful in this digital marketing, is traffic generation. JON: Ryan, this has been a super educational experience for me, I really appreciate you sharing your experience on remarketing and re-engaging your audience. I know this is something that you have that whole I'm Your Channel team you mentioned at Logical Position that handle this. People wanting to get a hold of you, ask you any additional questions, we'll put into the show notes how they can email you directly. It's been an amazing experience, I look forward to our next topic coming up here next week. RYAN: Thank you so much, John, I appreciate it. Any time I can get into the weeds on helping clients get more success from all of their marketing in general, I'm in for it. Having such conversations individually, with anybody listening, I'd love to because it's just fun for me. JON: All right. Thanks, Ryan. Talk to you soon. RYAN: Thank you.

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.

Jon outlines what businesses should be paying attention to as they begin the CRO process, in order to make sure your commerce website's revenue continues to grow over time. TRANSCRIPT RYAN GARROW: Jon, usually my goals are around revenue, new clients, employees, you name it, but as a sub-point of some of my goals I find myself penciling in a line that's usually says something around improve website. Usually, when I'm penciling that in, in my head, I'm not articulating it correctly, but in my head, I want to increase the conversions with the traffic I already have, because I've already got some traffic going to these sites. I just want to get more out of it, how to squeeze this lemon a little harder and get more juice out of it, but given the dynamic nature of conversion rates based on traffic type seasonality, I've struggled with even figuring out how am I supposed to be setting a goal around my conversion rates other than just better. I want it to be better. It's never going to be good enough, everything make me happy that we've got this conversion rate, I just need to be better. As an expert in this field and probably the smartest person I've ever come across in the conversion rate space, [chuckles] should I even be setting goals around conversion rates, or should it be like am I going about it in the wrong way? JON MACDONALD: First of all, Ryan, I appreciate this topic. I think it is timely and it is something that a lot of people I talk to on a daily basis struggle with. The reality is, what gets measured gets improved. There should be some goals here, and you do need some data to make data back decisions about how to improve your site. With that in mind, I think it's only helpful to really be thinking about goals, but around conversion optimization improvement there. Yes, there's tons of goals you should be thinking about, but just better is probably not going to get it done because where do you start from that? RYAN: [chuckles] Good point. I always keep putting it on there, and I don't actually have anything around it. [laughter] Probably not the way I should be going about this. JON: One of the things to be thinking about here is that you really want to break that down a little more. I would think about it in terms of are you looking to increase average order value? Are you looking to increase the amount of people getting to a particular point in the site? A conversion rate, let's just start there. Overall, most people think it's just converting the amount of visitors into buyers, and overall, yes, that's true, but there's so much more underneath that. Think about, do you want to get people from a landing page to the next step in the funnel, and then from there to a product page and then adding to cart? Then once they're in cart to actually completing that process, and then what even happens after that? How do you get them to come back in order again? You really want to be thinking about all of the different steps that go into this and then just look at improving each of those steps. That is what is going to bring you sustainable growth and conversions as opposed to just saying, okay, I really need to just get more people to buy. We all want that, but unless you're improving every single step of the process that our consumers going through on your site, you're not going to see much of a sustainable growth there. RYAN: Got it. There's a lot in that statement from you. As an econ business owner myself, my goal is, click-buy. My thoughts around conversion rate is, all right, well, if I change my button from pink to blue, and test that A/B, one of those colors is going to cause people to buy more, but you're saying, yes, you could probably do that, but it's probably not a great good idea. You should probably start thinking about how people are getting down to that product page or getting into the shopping cart experience. Try to not lose people on the way and that would probably be and you can fix my verbiage, maybe there's a better way to starting your conversion optimization process, rather than just looking at the Add to Cart button. JON: Right. I think you brought up something that you've heard me rail on 100 times probably. Maybe that why it's in your mind. RYAN: Yes, just maybe. [laughs] JON: Is the button color issue. Here's the thing, changing a button color are very unlikely to do much for your site, but if you go online, and you Google conversion rate optimization, one of the first things that comes up is a case study around a brand that somebody wrote this article. It's been handful of years, now it's been out there and it's a running joke with our team, but a brand said they changed the button color on their website and got like $5 million in additional revenue because of that. I call bullshit, first of all. RYAN: Wow, I'll do that. [laughs] JON: Exactly. Second of all, it's really setting a bad precedent for conversion optimization because it's really not about button colors. You go online, the second thing you're going to find is checklists all over the place of things that you should just do to your site. Here's a bunch of checklists. The problem is, they're not based on data from your specific site visitors. Now, are there best practices, of course, but do they apply to you? The only way to know that is to truly understand your site visitors. That means collecting data. All of this, I've said already, data back decision making is what's imperative here. If you don't have the right data, you don't have good baselines for where you're at today, how do you even know if what you're doing is working? That's where you have to track every click and movement that people are taking on your site. What's that mean? Well, get Google Analytics, but Google Analytics out of the box, it's meant to help people like you Ryan, some more ads. RYAN: [chuckles] It's good for that. JON: It's all about driving traffic. It's great for that, but most people, unfortunately, try to use Google analytics as a viewpoint for how to improve their website, but out of the box, it's horrible at that. Doesn't mean it's not good for it, you just have to take a different view of the data and do a little bit of extra work. What does that mean? Well, really quickly, you could just go in if you're an e-commerce site and make sure you have e-commerce tracking turned on. There's so many sites, even some large ones doing tens of millions a year that don't have that box checked, and it's an easy win. RYAN: Blows me away. JON: Yes. I'm sure you see that all the time too. RYAN: I do it, just I don't get it. JON: It's all because again, only the marketing team that's driving traffic has really used GA when the e-commerce manager who is actually trying to get more sales out of the site really needs to be paying attention to this data too. The second thing is, get those heat maps, click maps, scroll maps, understand how people are engaging with each page of your site. You can get all of that data through a handful of tools. The one we love the best here at the Good is called Hot Jar, H-O-T J-A-R. It's a really great tool and helps you have a good understanding of how people are engaging with your site. Now, all of that data can then tell you what people are doing, but you also need to understand what they're thinking. That's where things like doing user testing can really come in. Understanding. What does that mean? We send people to the site, who match an ideal customer profile and we ask them to complete tasks on the site. While they're doing that, we record their screen and their audio. Now we could do a whole episode on user testing, we probably should because if you're real deep on this and the insights are just amazing. Really, the point I'm trying to make here is that you have to understand what people are doing on your site and why they're doing it, and then use that data to help you understand what you should be optimizing on your site. Then you can set some goals. At that point only should you be setting goals. You can clearly say, "Well, I'm having a huge problem where people can't find the right product that's a good fit for them. That means that I need to help them filter a little better, or change the content on my site or the navigation." There's a lot of different things to be looking out there already that you could set goals around. Maybe I want to increase engagement with my navigation by 20% because you know that's an issue. Look for the places that people are dropping off in your conversion funnel, and then set goals around that. That's going to be way more effective than just saying I want to increase my overall conversion rate. RYAN: Obviously, if you're an e-commerce site, your goal is to get more revenue to the site. You're saying, if I'm understanding correctly, I'm going to look at who converted and almost use the Google analytics visualization tools to work backwards and say, hey, well, they went here, here, here and then you had drop off here. Maybe that drop off where I'll make it up. I lost 70% of my traffic going through the funnel, maybe I go to that page or that area of the site and say, all right, how do I keep people flowing through the process to the next step in that overall conversion? JON: Exactly. RYAN: Got it. For most businesses that you've seen going through that process, is there a specific part of the site you say most e-commerce companies are overlooking the importance of that part of the site and the flow down the funnel to buying? JON: Well, I think everyone puts an emphasis on their homepage. It's the entry point for the vast majority of traffic, so it's a great place to start. I think though that you should really be focusing on what people do next. What's that second step they take from there? That's truly going to be where the decision is made or broken, and here's why. On the homepage, you're going to have a lot of people just bounce off the homepage that right away they weren't a good fit or they clicked on an ad by accident, whatever. If the highest bounce rate is going to be your homepage, almost always, but secondly, once they get to that next step, that means they're actually interested. At that point, you know in your funnel, those are the people that you need to start paying attention to. Now, I'm not suggesting ignoring your homepage. It's important. Trust me, Ryan, you've seen me do teardowns of websites hundreds of times probably now, and you know how many times I can rail on a homepage. RYAN: Yep. JON: I will tell you, there's a ton of optimization that's it's almost more meaningful for actually converting somebody at that second stage because people who get to that second step are actually interested in your product or service. RYAN: I would say it's almost more than likely a category page after that homepage leads in the e-commerce realm. You'd probably get to a product page from the homepage. JON: I would hope not because, at that point, you really are helping these people do one of two things on your site. They're trying to decide if your product or service can help solve their pain or their need. If they get past your homepage, they think that there's a chance you can help solve that pain or need that they have. Then so they're on a category page now. Now, you need to help them to understand which of those products is going to help them solve that pain or need. RYAN: Interesting, because one of the things I talk about in driving traffic, when I'm separating out like text ads versus shopping ads, almost across the board you would prefer searchers coming to your site off a text ad than a shopping app because it can land on a category page, which most of the time will convert better than a product page. I get horrible generalization across e-commerce sites, but even then, being able to focus on that category page could reap phenomenal rewards in the paid search realm in making that traffic channel much more effective and you can scale it quicker if they're converting or getting through that process quicker at least going into the next step. JON: Right. I've heard Ryan that when you send people to shopping to an individual product, I think I've heard this from you, the vast majority of people don't actually purchase that product, they buy something else, so why not send them to that category page? RYAN: Yes. If you use shopping traffic to get to the site, which I assume most e-commerce companies have done it at some point, when they land on that product page, you want them to find a category page as quick as possible. Breadcrumbs or other things, because really that's when the shopping of your site starts. A lot of product pages get bounced off of from shopping traffic because they couldn't get to a category page and find the product that they were actually looking for. If I'm taking something away from you, at least in this section, it's let's focus on some category pages. If you can, in the e-commerce space, leave the homepage, maybe for the second step as you're looking at conversion rate optimization. If they're not utilizing a conversion rate optimization agency like yours, which they probably all should, what are some of the things they need to be aware of now that they've got hot jar on their site, and they're able to watch people on the page and you can really, I mean, you can get lost in watching people click on your site? It's fascinating as you're in there. You can look up and all of a sudden, an hour's past and you've been watching people just click around on your site. Other than giving us a checklist, how should they be looking at this traffic now that they have some of this data that they've never experienced before? JON: Well, I think the first thing to think about here is most people will set these things up, pay attention to it for a week, and then they forget about it. Now, for all of your sites, how often are you looking at Google Analytics? RYAN: Probably not often enough because I'm not in the weeds as much. [chuckles] Hopefully, some of the people doing the marketing around there are more, but probably not. JON: That's fair. Think about it this way. Most of the people and I surveyed them when we start working with them as a customer, maybe I'm in an initial exploratory conversation, or we just decided to start working with them, the first thing I hear from them is, "I don't know what people are doing on my site." I say, "Well, you already have Hot Jar installed. You're using GA. Well, what's preventing you from understanding this?" They said, "Well, I just don't look at the data." I would say the first step here is just spend 15 minutes a day to set a timer because you can't get lost in it. I think the problem is most people do, what you just said is they dive in, they spent an hour at it, and then they're like, "Wow, I'm overwhelmed," and they just ignore it from there. Instead just spent 15 minutes and try to take away one small insight a day. That's it. Instead of trying to solve all the world's problems on your site, and right away, just say, okay, I'm only going to focus on watching what people do in my category page. I'm going to spend 15 minutes and try to have a good understanding here of how far down the page they're scrolling, what content they're engaging with, how they got to that page, and where they're leaving to go. Just do those four things and spend a few minutes you will learn a little bit more about your consumers that day. Then come back the next day and build on top of that knowledge. You will just continue to learn, day over day, a little bit more about your consumers, where they're dropping off and what frustrations they're having. I say this all the time, but it's really hard to read the label from inside the jar. What I mean by that is, if you are the one who designed or developed your navigation or outlined your part of category pages, you know your products so well that you just assume everyone else has that same level of understanding. They don't. Following what other people are doing on your site will really help you have empathy for that consumer on the other side of the screen. RYAN: Now, that's fine. I didn't quite write quick enough, but what are the four things you say I should be looking at for 15 minutes on Hot Jar or Analytics? JON: Where people came from, so how they got to that page. Where they're going next, so you have an understanding of whether they are clicking into a product or they are doing something else on your site. If they are clicking into a product, what are your top products? That will help you understand where to look next the next day. What they're engaging with on that page. Are they scrolling down and seeing a lot of products where they're dropping off? What content they're engaging with, et cetera? RYAN: I'm always worried on my businesses about distracting with additional information. I have one goal of driving traffic to my site, and that is to get products sold. I know some people go to sites to do research and there's a longer sales process. How aggressive should business owners be at creating that simplicity on their site and avoiding the potential distractions on the site, whether that's category or product pages when your whole goal is just to get them to buy something? JON: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head on me. Maybe it sounds too obvious, but avoid distractions. The whole point here is that consumers have lives happening while they're on your site. I have a three-year-old at home. I can tell you that I had this experience and I'm choosing a flight because this happened to me last week where I was booking a flight and my son interrupted me. I had found the flight out but I hadn't flung the return flight yet, and it just timed me out. I had to start the entire process over again. It didn't save anything, just took me back to the homepage, refreshed it, took me back to the homepage like I had done nothing. It didn't say, "Hey, we timed you out, because we couldn't save your seat anymore on that first flight, but here was the search you did, click here to start it again." That would have been such a great experience, but instead, I came back in 15 minutes, and I was just so frustrated, because it's like, oh, it's spent so much time finding that perfect first flight and now I don't remember exactly what it was. I got a look at my calendar and my agenda and start all over again. There's nothing that I hate more than wasting time and I can tell you that your consumers on websites are doing the exact same thing. RYAN: Got it. It's almost a rule of thumb and give them enough info to be interested maybe in your product or service, but don't overshare or don't put things in the way of them actually taking that next step and that can be almost a step one as you're looking at sites and trying to clean things up and the conversion rate process. JON: Yes. Look, consumers are only looking to do two things on your site, research and understand if you can solve their pain or need. If you can, they want to convert as quickly and easily as possible. Trust me, your goals are aligned on this, not only do you want them to convert quickly and easily, but they do too. Stop making it hard for that to happen. RYAN: Okay. As we dive deeper into this, like, what's a reasonable expectation for CRO improvement? Knowing that my end goal is to get more people to buy something, and I'm going back in those steps to move people through the process better, do I still set the end goal? Do I give it like, hey, I want to go from 1% to 2% on my site within the next six months? Is that a goal that makes sense or are you like you got to do it this way and it should be a lot different than that? JON: Well, I think the best goal to think about is what is the return on investment from the activities that you're doing to optimize conversion rates? The reason being is, I've worked with sites that if we move that conversion rate even a 10th of a point, it's millions of dollars in revenue. I've worked with sites where I'd have to double that conversion rate to even make it worthwhile to work with us. If you look at it in that way, it's going to be different for everybody. I don't think anybody would tell you they don't want to double their conversion rate, but the reality is that it's really hard to look at a conversion rate and compare to even your competitors. It's just that does your disservice. It doesn't help you, it distracts you. Instead, really just focus on showing incremental gains month over month, where you're looking for that small gain, and you're saying, I'm getting a small gain on my conversion rate, and that is enough to show a large return on investment from these activities. Now, how do you track that return on investment? Your goals around that should look at things even including ROAS, Return On Ad Spend. Now you're spending a ton of money to drive traffic, it's valuable, but once they get to your site, if you're not converting them, you're not making that money work as hard as it could be. It doesn't matter how good your ads are and how qualified that traffic is if your site is just tossing that traffic out the window because you made it too complicated for them to convert. There really is a nice synergy between those two areas. RYAN: A lot of the goal I'm hearing you say, would depend on how big is my site currently because moving the needle in one month, a 10th of a percent from maybe 1 to 1.1 could mean millions of dollars. That could also mean, you made an extra $15 and maybe that's not enough, and you had to get a larger goal to move the needle because you were spending more than $15 on CRO stuff. JON: Yes, and that's fair. Look, I think there's a point at which it makes sense to truly focus on conversion optimization and start working with somebody where it's a budget line item. I like to look at that in terms of traffic volume because typically there's enough traffic where we can start running some tests and get a nice return on that investment through detailed findings off of these tests. Now, that traffic level's generally around 40,000 visitors a month, which is probably much lower than you would think, but the reality here is anything below 40,000 visitors and it becomes really hard to prove a test out in a timely fashion and show a return on investment there. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be making data back decisions, or even perhaps doing testing, it just means that it's going to take you a lot longer to prove this test out. The best thing you can do at that stage is to have that data, start collecting it, start reviewing it, and then talking to your consumers and making changes based on what you're hearing and seeing them do. Instead of testing them, just go ahead and make those changes. RYAN: Do you see a difference at a high level between somebody that is a pure-play retailer and just selling a bunch of other people's products on their site, or a brand and the types of traffic and/or conversion rates, like if I was a shoe retailer versus a Nike or an Adidas? JON: For sure. I think that it all is about the context of what somebody is coming to your site to do. It's interesting, Amazon Prime, if you're a Prime customer, you're going to convert at an extremely high rate. I think it's over 70% of your visits are going to buy something on Amazon, because it's the marketplace. You have the widest selection of products possible. You can do all your research on that platform in theory and buy something and do that all fairly quickly that they've done a really great job of that, but if you're a Nike, for instance, people understand, I'm coming to Nike because I want Nike product. I'm not there because I'm trying to compare Nike and Adidas. You've already done that homework, you already have a brand affinity. If somebody is coming in with a brand affinity, they're going to stay on your site, they're going to purchase, but if somebody is just trying to buy something that is more of a commodity, and I'm not suggesting a shoe can't be a commodity but look, I play basketball, and I have a basketball shoe that I really like and there's different brands that I know fit my foot better. I have a brand affinity for those and I'm going to go use those brands. It doesn't matter how much the other brands are spending on their superstars to promote their shoes. That doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is okay, was my foot comfortable in those shoes? It's a little bit of a different type of approach. I don't need to go to a marketplace. I need to go to the specific brand I know fits me well and I'm going to go there, see what colors they have, what styles they have and buy that. RYAN: Okay, helpful. Is there a time in the business lifecycle outside of traffic? Where does it make sense to start doing some conversion optimization? Like if I just launched a brand, it may not make sense yet to do full-blown, maybe some Hot Jar stuff, but where do you set those different things like okay, do some of your own at this stage, find some help at this stage, and oh, you need full-blown CRO agency at this stage? JON: I would say that, again, going back to visitors to your site, you need to have some traffic to your site before it even really matters to do optimization. Get yourself 10,000 visitors a month through driving some traffic, that proves it's not a product problem because no matter what, conversion optimization of your site, it's not going to help if you have a product problem. What does that mean? Well, if nobody wants your product, nobody knows about your product, your product isn't solving an actual pain or need, then it's not going to sell and it doesn't really matter at that point. Prove out your product first and get to about 10,000 visitors a month. That means that there is a need out there that people have found it and that you can successfully drive traffic through either free or paid channels. Earned or paid. The way that I look at that is between 10,000 and 40,000 visitors per month. You really should just get a list of things to change on your site. I'm not suggesting a checklist. I'm suggesting, go get an assessment from somebody who's an expert in conversion optimization. RYAN: Like Jon. [laughter] JON: Yes. I will happily do that, and really go in there and get one or two pieces of data, be it heat maps or et cetera, and make some decisions based on that data, and then just make those changes. Don't test them, just make them because they're probably at that stage where you would see a bump from just doing that. Now that you've got your return on ad spend high and you're starting to actually convert at a higher level because of those assessment changes, you should start to be comfortable spending more money and seeing a return on that ad spend, setting some goals around traffic and generation and what the revenue should be off of that. At that point, you should be able to get to 40,000 visitors. Now, it starts to make sense to do more of a tailored program where on a monthly basis, you are running multivariate or A/B tests on your site, you're starting to see a return on that, you're continuing to accelerate month over month. At that point, you will see a much bigger gain over time. RYAN: Got it. I think one thing that people also need to realize or get their mind around is something that was foreign to me before I started working with you and seeing the results of conversion optimization, but before Jon and I kind of like the pre-J arena of my life, my vision of CRO was like I spend a couple months in the site, get conversion rates up, go make a bunch more money, then maybe revisited a year or two later, get this conversion rates back up again, but that's in reality not at all what your clients are doing. They have line items of commercial optimization and their budget, and they are paying you every month and seeing phenomenal gains consistently. You've had clients for years upon years. We've shared a few clients for probably three or four years still, and it's still going. Explain that to a lot of people and how they can start reframing and understanding what a regular constant conversion rate optimization program looks like and why they should be considering that type of process for their business? JON: Yes. The best way I can describe this as liking it to here in the United States, we have a retirement account called a 401(k). Typically, what happens is your employer takes a few dollars out of your paycheck every month, you decide how much you want to put into it, and then that goes into an account that continues to grow and compounds over time. Somebody once told me that if I put $10,000 into my 401(k) when I'm 21, that would be like putting $400,000 in when I'm 40 because it just sits there and grows and compounds over time. It's the exact same thing with conversion optimization where if you just make some changes here and there, then come back to it a year later, you're missing out on that compounding effect. You're leaving a lot of revenue on the table, a lot of customers, a lot of conversions over that time. The second thing to be thinking about here is that customer actions are always changing. E-commerce is always changing. Your products are always changing. If you're a big enough brand that's doing this for years and years and years, you're coming out with new products, you're changing your product lines, you really need to understand how people are finding those products, what they're engaging with, et cetera. In addition to that, I hear this all the time, it's like Jon, how long should I expect to do conversion optimization? The reality is it does need to be a line item, it is something you should always be doing. Now, I will tell you, you will never run out of things to test. Where you need to make the decision about whether or not you keep going is whether or not you're continuing to get a return on investment from that spent. That goes back to having the right goals and tracking the return on investment that you're seeing from your conversion optimization activities. You should be getting a return on investment that continues to thrive over time. It may ever flow over the course of a year and seasonality et cetera, but in the end, you should be seen at least a 4:1. We see about an average of a 9:1 return on investment so for every dollar that you give the good, our goal is to get you $9 back in additional revenue. RYAN: That's great. JON: That's one of the highest marketing returns on investment activities that you can do. RYAN: Now, I think there's not many e-commerce businesses that I know of or that we work with that wouldn't be excited about a 9:1 consistently. As we're winding up now, the question that always comes up with CRO is probably one of the worst questions to ask you, but I have to. What's a good conversion rate? JON: Haha. I know this. I get this question daily. Hundreds of times a day. Look, here's the reality. I mentioned this earlier. It does not matter what your competition's conversion rate even is. I get that question all the time. "Hey, I think that our competition is converting a lot higher than us, I want to get up to that rate." Look, it doesn't matter. A good conversion rate is one that is always improving. That's all you should care about, is just continually making that small investment into your conversion rate so that it compounds over time, and you will see sustainable growth in doing that. If you're just looking for that once a year pop, I can tell you how to do that. Just go discount your products heavily. RYAN: [laughs] It's like the best conversion optimization right there. Just you get a 50% off sale. JON: Yes. The reality is that's not conversion optimization in terms of how I would define it, but you will get your conversion rate up. It's one of those things where if you really want to do this, you really need to be thinking about sustainable business over a longer-term. That means investing in it month over month, looking for small incremental gains, and just tracking all of these metrics we've talked about today, in whole, and then looking at that and saying, okay, our overall conversion rate is going up, yes, but there's also a ton of other metrics that are really important here. I think that's where if I see a lot of econ managers fail to sell CRO services through to the higher management, and maybe somebody sign off on a full budget, it's because they only focus on saying, hey, we're going to just improve the conversion rate. Instead of saying, look, there are four or five metrics that really matter to our e-commerce business, and yes, they ultimately gather and combined to improve your conversion rate, overall, but all of these other metrics matter just as much, because if we're not doing those metrics, then we're never going to actually convert the person in the end. RYAN: I think that's extremely important and good point there to finish up. As you mentioned, people should be starting their CRO in assessment. Funny enough, you actually do those for a lot of companies. What's the best way to get in contact with you for an assessment if they want to take that first step in CRO? JON: For those brands under 40,000, we have what we call our conversion growth assessment. That is basically gathering a couple of points of data and telling you exactly what you should change on your site based on our experience and looking at that data, and we'll help you bring those insights to the table. If you have over 40,000 visitors, we do a more comprehensive conversion audit. This is something where we spend about a month doing this audit. We're going to help you make sure you're tracking all that right data, get some great baselines, talk to all of your consumers, do that user testing, we're going to go real, real deep to help you track every click and movement on your site. Then we're going to put together a huge report, 60 to 100 pages, and we're going to tell you, not only what you should change, but how you should do ongoing testing to continue to see that compounding growth over time. All of that you can find on our site @thegood.com. RYAN: Fantastic. All right. If you need some help, or you want to take some steps in CRO, make sure you reach out to Jon and have him take things over and look at your site, and give you some feedback, but set some goals, make them appropriate CRO goals and let's have some fun doing it. JON: Awesome. Thanks, Ryan. This is fun to talk about it. RYAN: Thank you, Jon.

Why is your business remarkable? What are you doing differently that gives you a competitive advantage? Why should customers trust you over someone else? These are foundational elements that every entrepreneur should consider.  Today, I am talking to John Ray, formerly of Inspect & Cloud and now part of the DoorGrow team. John is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert who helps property management entrepreneurs grow revenue and attract new customers. You’ll Learn... [01:27] Internet Marketing: Seeking clarity, relevance, and truth through so much noise. [01:57] Seed Program: Training purpose of DoorGrowSecrets, not SEO. [03:38] Keywords and Rankings: Transparency and truth, not tricks, deliver value. [05:29] Can authority and expertise be effectively and successfully outsourced? [07:35] Deliverables and Outcomes: Steps in purpose-driven SEO content process. [10:00] Who are we in-service to? Don’t write directly to a search engine.  [11:25] Micromanagement Culture: Solopreneur businesses get stuck at 200-400 doors. [14:20] SEO’s Place in Property Management: Communicate authority in community to make conversions. [18:00] Does SEO make sense, right now? Do the right things at the right time.  Tweetables The higher the level of trust, the lower the level of price sensitivity. The worst thing that you can do for SEO is write directly to Google. SEO has a place in property management, as a way to communicate authority and make conversions. Do you need SEO to grow and be great? Resources DGS 27: Inspect & Cloud: Inspection Software For Property Managers  Inspect & Cloud DoorGrow Seed Program DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowLive DoorGrow Website Score Quiz DoorGrow Cold Leads Calculator Transcript 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, impact lives, 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 the 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've got a very special guest today. He's been on the show before, Jon Ray. John, welcome. Jon: Hey, thanks for having me. Jason: Yeah. I think we're getting to a point now in terms of internet marketing and the internet where there's so much noise. People are looking for clarity, they're looking for things to be succinct. They're not looking for paragraphs and paragraphs of keyword targeted content. They're looking for relevancy. They're looking for the truth. That's a great way to stand out. Going back before, you talked about a business having a higher purpose. This is one of the things we focus on expressly in the seed program. We have a training called Purpose Secrets. I think it is the most important training in the program but it's not what people come to us for. They don't say, "Hey, I really like this." Once they get into it or want this, that's one of the most impactful things they can do—have a clear set of values, have a clear set of purpose behind what they do, and be able to relate that. It creates trust. That's ultimately what the website's job is to do, to create trust. Trust is what closes deals. Not tricking people. We also have city keyword landing pages and neighborhood keyword landing pages that will help the client I'm with input into the site to capture those longer tail keywords instead of just trying to focus on the main one market big, giant keyword. These are all things that we've thought about in our program to build out into, to prime the pond and get them started with all of these. It all helps with SEO but the program was never designed just for SEO. It's designed to create trust. It's designed to please people. The side effect is that some of our clients get rankings on some of these pages. Ultimately, for me, the most important thing was always if somebody lands on the page–whether it's through them doing prospecting, or going to real estate meetup group, or they handout a card, word of mouth, or whatever that is. If somebody goes to that page, it sells people on trusting them, and them being trustworthy rather than trying to manipulate Google and trick them into showing people the page. Jon: Right. There's a level of transparency, honesty, and alignment with truth that comes to actually delivering value versus just writing articles to hack the system. That means that in the customer's mind, maybe you're cutting corners on other things. To a certain extent, especially if someone knows the techniques that you're using and knows that you're just trying to manipulate the system, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.  One of the things that you can do to deliver real value and to understand both what your customer wants and what Google is looking for, what the search engine's are looking for, is type in the keyword phrase that you want to rank for. Then search the web the way that your prospects are searching the web. Open all 10 of those websites and actually read the content on all 10 of those websites. Then take all that content in your mind, or have whoever's writing your content look at those 10 posts. For instance, for the neighborhood-specific pages that I was talking about, let's say you want to rank for property management Far West to Austin. You would write an article. First, you would type in "property management Far West, Austin '' into Google. You would see what Google thinks the experts and authority in that particular keyword phrase look like. You read all of the pages on page one of Google, you take notes at the type of things that are in those posts.  Then, you approach your article and you say, "How can I summarize everything that I felt was valuable in these articles?" Then, you go above and beyond to deliver value. If you can effectively do that for every single keyword, then Google will start to see you as the authority but it takes more time. It means that you just can't outsource this to somebody in another country. You have to have somebody who actually understands that neighborhood, who actually understands what’s valuable to property owners in that neighborhood, and who knows how to properly amalgamate all of that content that your competition is putting out, then rewrite it in a way that provides even more value while still answering all the same questions. Jason: I love it.  Jon: The foundational elements are always asking yourself why is my business remarkable? What are we doing that's different? What are our competitive advantages? Why should people trust me over the other 10 people on page one of Google? Most of the time, when you click through the top 10 results for any search term, the website is not aligned with any kind of value structure. They don't really have a competitive advantage statement that they're clearly communicating. That leaves a huge advantage for anyone who is purpose-driven, is showing up in the community in an interesting way to differentiate, and to be able to charge more money.  The interesting thing about aligning yourself with integrity is that when you're aligned with integrity, people will pay more money for your services. Jason: The higher the level of trust, the lower the level of price sensitivity. It's been proven. As a property manager, if you're listening to this, if you're constantly butting up against people that are price sensitive, you have a trust problem or you're targeting the wrong audience. You're targeting the worst list price—the most price sensitive people which are probably the people that you're getting through cold leads that don't trust you. You get a word of mouth, high trust, referral, they're way less price sensitive. Jon: It's such a vague statement to say, “Yeah, you need to be purpose-driven." Maybe we could talk a little bit about what that looks like in practicality, and some steps maybe someone could take without giving away all the Purpose Secrets in the DoorGrow seed program. I do think that it's important for somebody to be able to unpack that word "purpose" and understand what does that actually mean. Jason: Some of the deliverables and outcomes that our clients end up with—they may not make sense to people just listening to this call—they end up with a personal why statement which is where they're getting really clear on why they're doing what they're doing. That's a really difficult thing for people to figure out.  I have some really cool processes that I take people through. I came to that conclusion for myself. Then we figure out what the purpose is for their business so that they have a very succinct mission statement that people can actually remember which means it's not some b*llsh*t piece of document that is like huge paragraphs of stuff that nobody ever looks at and never uses. Nobody on the team, if you ask them, "What's our mission statement?" Nobody will be able to say it. We want something real that is memorable.  Then, we get into creating a client-centric mission where you're getting really clear on your target audience—who you want. You don't want every client. If you're in the space right now where you’re trying to take on anybody, and anybody you talk to you think you need to try and get them on, you're in a very uncomfortable, probably negative, space running your business right now. You probably have operational costs that are far higher than they should be because you're taking on people that you probably shouldn't be taking on. That's another thing. We get them really clear on who they want to serve and how they want to serve them. This keeps the business focused, aligned. As they're doing planning, they can challenge it against this measuring stick, so to speak. Whether they're still in alignment with their values. Jon: I want to pause you real quick there. You're moving quickly through this. I really want to focus on something that you said. Whether you're running a PPC campaign or pay per click campaign, whether you're doing SEO or whether you're just trying to determine how to make your business remarkable, which is then going to add fuel to whatever fire you're trying to soak.  The one question that I think is important to answer is who are we in service to? That is going to help align all of your content. You don't own a right to a search engine. The worst thing that you can do for a SEO is write directly to Google. Google doesn't care about your business, Google isn't your customer. What you want to do, and this could be a tangible exercise that somebody could take away from this podcast, is at the top of a sheet of paper, write, "Who are we in service to?" Then answer that question as many times as you can. Now, hang that over your computer or give it to the person who is creating your content. You should write all of your SEO articles, or any article or marketing or advertising campaign that you should write should be written as a love letter to the people that you wrote—that you put on that list. If you will do that and just make that small shift in perspective where all your content is targeted towards the people you're in service to, your campaigns will convert better. Jason: Yeah, I like it.  Some of the other things we get into than finding the values of the company, everything to create the right culture. One of the challenges I see—and I guess we're gravitating out of SEO here—is that property managers, businesses, tend to fall apart when they get to about 200-400 doors. This is a really painful category for property management business owners because they are operating still as a solopreneur, mindset-wise. They now have a team usually that they built around them without culture, without clarity and purpose, and without clarity and vision.  That means they haven't attracted the leaders that support them and make their lives easier. They basically got a pile of people that they need to micromanage and tell what to do. They're trying to force trust through the veins of their company. It's a painful place to be in. It gets more and more challenging. As they approach 400-500 units, most property management business owners are massively stressed out. That's silly because if you build a team the right way, your life and your day to day should get easier and easier with every person that you add. You're just doing it wrong. When we talk about the seed program being the ultimate foundation, it not only is a foundation to be able to eventually do SEO type work properly. It's a foundation for culture for their business so that they don't get stuck in that second sandtrap of 200-400 doors. They're unable to grow because they built the wrong team and they don't have culture. They're held back and they can't expand. Jon: Yeah. I'll bring that back to SEO. What you're talking about is being able to build a little space between the business and the visionary. The visionary entrepreneur should be able to focus on developing thought leadership and authority in the community with a powerful team full of integrity that can take any assignments that are put in there. At some point, some of that thought leadership and authority has to be extracted so that the team has it for use.  One exercise that you can do as a delegation management tool so that you're not having to optimize your website yourself is find somebody in your office who can help you compile the most important questions that your prospects—those people that you’re in service to—have. Just informally have someone in your office interview you as the authority and thought leader, ask you those questions, and record it. This video does not have to go online because I know a lot of people are afraid of video, they're afraid of putting themselves out there. This audio is just going to be internal unless you want it to be a public piece.  The value of this is that now, this person in your office has a recorded response of how you would guide a prospect or someone you're in service to through a particular question. They can transcribe that and use that as the foundational basis for creating a really compelling piece of content. I think that SEO definitely has a place in the property management industry. It's definitely a way to communicate your thought leadership and your expertise and to show up in your local community with authority which will then allow you to convert at a much higher level whether you're doing PPC, SEO, or just bringing in organic leads because you're remarkable. The exercises, I guess, that I would send somebody home with is one, any keyword that you want to rank for, any keyword phrase that you want to rank for, go and type it into Google right now. Open the 10 pages that are on page one of Google. See what kind of content Google thinks is valuable around that searchphrase. Then think about how you can essentially summarize all of the key points that Google thinks that are important in your own words, adding your own level of expertise, and authority. Then go above and beyond delivering even more value. That's a really good way to think about creating content. Two, at the top of the sheet of a paper, write, "Who am I inservice to?" Make a list of all the people that you want to be in service to. All of your content should be written as a love letter to those people because if you're speaking to them and just pick one on the list and write it as a personal letter to that one person, it's really difficult to write content to a group of people. But if you can identify customer avatars, someone on that list of people that you want to be in service to, act like you're writing a letter to them. Your content will be digested so much better. It will resonate at a more emotional level. Then three, think about some of the longer tail keywords. Instead of thinking that the only thing you need to be writing content for is this top level city name, then property management. Instead, think about some of the longertail things, the neighborhoods that you can rank for, the value that you can deliver on a page by talking about some of the landmarks, businesses, problems that you know are happening in that neighborhood, and how you're going to show up as the authority in that neighborhood.  If you can do those three things, that alone will put you lightyears ahead of where most people are creating their SEO from. If you are working with an SEO professional, make sure that before they start doing the competitive analysis on what the other people who are ranking on page one are doing. If one of your competitors has 65,000 inbound links and really, really, solid content, it's going to be very difficult to knock them out of the number one spot no matter how much money you spend on content creation. Before you even start paying someone to write articles, they need to do a competitive analysis to see if it even makes sense for you to invest in SEO. There are some local markets that somebody over the last three years may have spent $40,000 on content creation. That likely means that you're going to have to make a similar investment in order to rank number one. That $40,000 might be better spent somewhere else and provide more value if you invest it into making your business remarkable. Jason: Love it. To go back to the original question, am I anti-SEO? I'm not. We built our business on SEO. We have good rankings for different things. We get customers all the time that find us on Google. I'm a fan of people doing what works. I feel like everybody should do the right things at the right time in their business, not doing the wrong things prematurely with hopes of an outcome that is not achievable.  If you are at a place where you think SEO might make sense, I encourage you to reach out to our team, have a conversation with Jon, that is something we can help you with. If you feel like you want to grow and your main goal is to add doors, we’ll have a conversation with you on DoorGrow, and figure out what's going to make the most sense for you where your business is at right now. Jon: Yeah. I've had a lot of calls with property managers over the last two months about whether SEO is right for them. Almost all of them, I talked them out of SEO because it wasn't the highest priority thing that they needed to focus on. It wasn't going to deliver enough return on investment. What I can promise is that if you book time with me and have a conversation with me, I'll be very transparent. I will be very honest. I will give you a clear indication of what kind of investment you're going to have to make and how quickly you're going to have to make that investment to make any dent in your search ranking. You will have all the information you need to decide if that's an investment that's worthwhile or if that money's better spent somewhere else. Jason: I think that's something we have a lot of clarity at DoorGrow. We know what types of clients we want to work with. We know who we want to serve, who we want to help. We know our avatar. We know what types of clients would not be a good fit for various programs. We make clients qualify. Our main seed program, we make people apply to be part of it. We're even talking about stepping up the requirements for that application to filter out even more people.  I think that's the secret in having clients you love working with that get great results, that build a good reputation in the market regardless of what business you have. You are really clear on who you want to serve and you’re picky about who you take on. Reach out and have a conversation. If you're somebody that's listening to this and you're like, "I really want to grow." Or, "I think I need SEO." Or, "Somebody's saying I need it." Or, "I didn't ever think I needed it." Maybe you do. Reach out and have a conversation with us. Is there anything else you think, Jon, before we go? Jon: Yeah. I'll just say one final thing. Tagging on to what you just said, what I see in 15+ years of entrepreneurial consulting is that the entrepreneurs who are successful are the ones who are showing up in a big way in their business and actively seeking out how they can be remarkable. Almost always, when people historically call me for PPC or SEO, it's because they're not in integrity with themselves. They want to be able to set it and forget it. They want to be able to pay for something that's going to grow their business without actually having to show up. It is a way for them to opt out of doing the real work that is required to be great.  What I'm interested in is working with people who want to be great and are willing to show up in that way. Jason: Amen. On that note, Jon, I'm so glad to have you as part of the team. I'm really grateful that you're part of DoorGrow. It's super cool that we're both now in Austin and able to get together. I really appreciate you being on the team and the energy that you bring to it. You just fit our culture so nicely. I just want to throw that out there publicly. For anybody that's listening, if you have comments about SEO, if you think we said something that was off, you're confused, you have questions, feel free to challenge us. Feel free to ask us questions. Throw these out inside of our Facebook community, it's a free group. We're very careful about who we let in. You'll have to apply to get in. You can go to the doorgrowclub.com to check out the DoorGrow Club and get into this group.  We only let property management business owners or entrepreneurs or those that are seriously considering starting a property management business into this group which keeps it clean, which keeps it very un-noisy. It's got really high quality people. We got over 2000 property management entrepreneurs in there. It's a fantastic group and resource. If you ever get stuck, you don't have to be stuck. There's lots of people who are willing to support you and help you in that group. On that note, until next time. To our mutual growth. Bye, everyone. Jon: Bye. Jason: 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 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.

SEASON 2: EPISODE 6 Performer Jon Wan argues that kids are campy. ABOUT THE GUEST  Slipping in and out of drag skin Kiko Soirée, animagus Jon Wan serves an alluring feast of emotion - sensual, sincere, stupid. Kiko (@kikosoiree) is a queer comedian, host and drag queen, performing at venues like Club Cumming, Joe's Pub, The Bell House, Ars Nova, Caroline's, Union Hall, MoCA, Caveat, and UCB. They've been named by Time Out Magazine as one of the rising LGBT POC comedians to watch. Monthly, Kiko hosts 'A+, The Pan-Asian Drag and Burlesque Revue', in the Lower East Side, and seasonally, produces the original musical advice show, 'Dear Kiko'. Their Spanish is better than their Cantonese which hasn't made their mother proud but tracks for the American Born Chinese narrative. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, Rachel Wang Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION JON WAN: I just took saxophone cause my friend was also gonna play saxophone, and I just played it through middle school. Then I just continued in high school, and then after freshman year I was like, I don't actually like this instrument. And I'm definitely not a jazz person. Cause I was having saxophone lessons with this person who was a very cool cat. And I was like, I am not understanding fundamentally why I'm here. This isn't clicking with me.  NEIL GOLDBERG: I'm going to really make a controversial generalization here. I don't think jazz is gay.  JON: Oh, no, I don't think so either. You have to be like kind of loose and like -  NEIL: Exactly, a type of casualness. JON: Yeah, and like comfortable with your body and expression, and I was not - like I was learning classical piano from an oppressive Russian teacher, growing up as a Chinese American, closeted, in a primarily white town. I did not know how to express myself in a healthy way.  NEIL: Right. JON: Right. NEIL: Hello. I'm Neil Goldberg, and this is SHE'S A TALKER. I'm a visual artist, and I have a collection of thousands of index cards on which I've been jotting down thoughts and observations for about two decades. In SHE'S A TALKER, I explore the cards through conversations with guests and responses from listeners. These days, the cards often start as voice memos I record throughout the day. Here are some recent ones: When a parent says to a kid, "Look at me," I'm suspicious and think the parent is probably a narcissist. Thick Sharpies are to thin Sharpies as water bugs are to roaches. Art project: drawing all the missing arms in selfies. Today, my guest is Jon Wan. Jon, who often appears on stage as their drag persona, Kiko Soiree, describes themself as a Swiss Army knife performer whose work weaves together musical comedy, storytelling, standup, and beyond. Jon's performed at Club Cumming, Joe's Pub, the Bell House, Ars Nova, Caroline's Mocha, and has been named by Timeout Magazine as one of the rising LGBT people of color comedians to watch out for. We spoke in February at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City. I'm so happy to have with me Jon Wan.  JON: Hello.  NEIL: Hi Jon. Thank you for being on SHE'S A TALKER.  JON: I'm enchanted to be here. Simply.  NEIL: Simply. What are the alternatives, in terms of enchantment, besides simple enchantment? JON: Oh, very complex. Yeah. Like arcane magic, you know? Not for pedestrian folk.  NEIL: Yes. Complex enchantment. What is your elevator pitch for what you do? JON: I am a drag queen, performer, comedian bopping around New York City. You might know me as my drag persona, Ms. Kiko Soiree, performing and doing shows here in this beautiful garbage city and really always aspiring to one day live within walking distance of a Trader Joe's. NEIL: I see it for you. I really see it for you. You know, a Trader Joe's just opened opposite where Jeff and I live.  JON: No, which one?  NEIL: Uh, it's on Grand Street. Grand and Clinton.  JON: Oh, wow.  NEIL: It's the biggest Trader Joe's on the Eastern Seaboard, I'm told.  JON: That's crazy. So you live near not only a Trader Joe's, but a historic one. NEIL: Yes, exactly. Uh, what does your mom, when she's talking to her friends, what does she say you do?  JON: Oh, (In his mother's accent) oh, Jon um, oh, Jon lives in New York City. (back to normal voice) And then she kinda just like shoos the conversation. I think, she knows I'm a drag queen. I don't think she publicly has the language to talk about it the way she might alternatively say, "My daughter works for a pharmaceutical company." Do you know what I mean?  NEIL: Right. Do you have a sister that works...?  JON: She does. Don't worry. It's a good pharmaceutical company.  NEIL: Oh yeah. Uh, what does your dad say?  JON: My dad, uh, is actually very vocally supportive of my creative life. He usually says, "He's a performer and a comedian, and..."  NEIL: What kind of performances does he do? JON: "Oh, (In his father's accent) Jonathan does his funny stand up in New York City." And just stuff like that and yeah, I don't think they're, they're like ashamed of anything I do, but my dad came here for college. My mom came here when she was 13. They're kind of this transition generation, you know, they, they were really straddling both cultures and had to deal with the more brutish parts of assimilation. They came from traditional Chinese parents, but they're, you know, they're open-minded. They both grew up. They were like hippies. You look at old photos of them. My mom had like hair down to her waist. But, you know, you know, I'm the first drag queen of my family.  NEIL: That you know of.  JON: Hopefully not the last. NEIL: Yes. What is something you find yourself thinking about today?  JON: Um. Today, I was thinking about how everyone is a walking advertisement. I was a sucker for the AirPods, the first ones that came out. They're just, I know when I put them in my ear, I'm going to feel very sexy, and I had this thought today as I was putting them in my ear. It's like everyone is a walking advertisement.  NEIL: So when you're wearing AirPods, you're an advertisement for...  JON: Yeah, for Apple. My AirPods now suck because I lost the original case and I bought a knock off one on Amazon for like 30 bucks and they do try to pair with everyone on the train.  NEIL: Oh really?  JON: I just kind of, but you can't do it successfully. NEIL: It's like your dog humping strangers' legs or something. JON: Truly. I can see on people's phones like something comes up and says, Not your AirPods. It goes all the time and I just keep my head down and I just. I didn't want to pay another $70 for the case. NEIL: I've curated some cards just for you. Um, first card, Jon.  JON: Okay.  NEIL: All kids' names are campy.  JON: Absolutely. Cause kids are camp.  NEIL: How so?  JON: I used to teach, um, preschool in undergraduate. so I worked with three, four, and five-year-olds. And when you talk to a kid, it's very serious. It, it's of the utmost importance. And it's also insane.  NEIL: Which is the essence of camp!  JON: Which is the essence of camp. Um, but you know, when they're just playing, they're just talking very seriously about something. Or they're telling you an opinion, something they saw today, like.  (imitates kid's voice) "Like, Mr. Jon? Today, I, I saw a dog and... Dog had a really long tongue."  (back to normal voice) And they like will drop whatever they're playing with me to let me know about this thing, which neurologically like they're doing that thing where like, they have seen a new category that they don't yet understand and they're trying to integrate it into what they do, right? So I have to be there and say, "Daphne, tell me about the dog." You know, like I want to know more. Well, what color was the dog? You know what I'm saying? "It was, it was brown." I'm like, okay. All right. It was brown. I love that. So, but then it's also insane cause you're like, this is so crazy.  NEIL: To me, it makes perfect intuitive sense how that connects to camp. But could you, could you... JON: I think it connects to, I mean, camp, I mean, treats itself seriously, but knows it's also ridiculous. You know. I mean, campy drag queens like divine, completely over-the-top makeup and personality, but acting and performing with a lot of conviction.   NEIL: The difference, though, may be being, and maybe it's a technical difference, do you think kids know that they are ridiculous? JON: No. Absolutely not. Did you - NEIL: Okay. So they're inadvertently campy?  JON: Unless they were like early stars and then they're like, Oh, okay, people are enjoying what I'm doing.  NEIL: Right, right, right, right.  (flip card) I love the smell of a drag queen.  JON: Absolutely not. If you really smelled, uh, maybe the perfume that we put on at the very end, but if you smelled any of our undergarments or any of our clothing, that's, some of that, I mean, the vintage pieces maybe haven't ever been washed. Maybe just sprayed down with some alcohol and water.  To get rid of the bacteria and the smell. Um. And I'm not washing pantyhose every single week. Are you thinking of the metaphorical smell?  NEIL: I have no idea what that is. And I'm all in.  JON: Every drag queen has a different energy and that can be very intoxicating. That's like half the fun, that someone's showing you something on the other side of the looking glass. NEIL: Aha. But the literal smell for me is always about just powdery perfume. But you're saying beneath that is just... filth.  JON: I've, I guess I've, I've done it so many times. I'm no longer piqued by just the smell of powder and, and lipsticks and things like that. Just, that's kind of smells like the entrance of a, of a Macy's, you know? You know what I'm talking about, right? You walk into a Macy's and it's always like the perfume entrance, right? NEIL: Yeah, yeah. That somehow seems like a euphemism. Smells like the entrance of Macy's.  JON: God, she smelled like the entrance of a Macy's. I'm not going back there, Charlotte.  NEIL: Um, I guess I have thought about like with padding and tucking, uh...  JON: Mhm. Machinery going on. NEIL: Yeah. Which does involve compressing the body, or, or depriving the body of air circulation, which I guess could generate smells, right?  JON: Yeah. It's tight. I mean, if you're, I mean, if you're just, even if you're putting on hips, right? Let's say you're padding, some people, some queens are wearing four or five layers of tights, right? Just to make a smooth silhouette. Um, you know, and you're hot, you're moving around, your head is hot cause you're wearing a wig. My hair lines are glued down, so everything's sleek. So when I go, you know, getting out of drag is the best feeling.  NEIL: I can imagine. Do you get out of drag at the venue or at home? JON: I am an at home queen. And I'm also a get ready at home queen, too. I just ride the train down.  NEIL: Really?  JON: Yes. I mean, I'm in drag, but have like a winter coat on, and a scarf, and I have sweatpants over my dress, so I look like just like a, a gymnast going to a meet or something.  NEIL: To a Wheaties commercial.  JON: I look like a suburban mom going to Costco. NEIL: That thing of posing people in nude photos, so their genitals are hidden by a raised knee or what have you.  JON: That's very Black Mirror to me.  NEIL: Oh really?  JON: Oh, just like it's on the cusp of this is, this is very sexy, and also, what are we doing, right? What the hell are we doing? This is insane. I think of Instagram immediately. NEIL: Oh yeah, sure.  JON: People just like, a sexy photo of themselves. It's like, "You're naked." You hid, you moved your body a little bit. We're one centimeter away from seeing whatever it is, you know? But it's like, if you cover a little bit, Instagram's like, Oh, you're not nude.  NEIL: Isn't that deep?  JON: It's crazy. It's true. It's true. It's truly wild.  NEIL: I wonder if there is a fetish around obscured - like if there are people who get off on the actual obscuring.  JON: Oh, 100% yeah. 100% think that's a fetish. I mean, in the same way that just wearing a leather chest strap, that's totally nonfunctional.  NEIL: Right, exactly.  JON: Like there's not even a function to it. NEIL: Yeah.  JON: But I'm just imagining you in a different way. I mean, you know, cause you're an artist. Marina Abramovic's, um, performance where she stood naked, right? And she had a table of instruments.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: That was, I think like the exploration of like is, is this actually like. Well, it was exploring a lot of things. Like one of the questions I had was like, is this sexual? Like, she had a feather. She had a knife. She had a gun, right?  NEIL: Uh, may have had a gun, uh, I thought she had scissors too. Or maybe I'm confusing that with Yoko Ono's "Cut" piece. Um, yeah, there were things that could do violence for sure.  JON: I think there was a gun. NEIL: Yeah, that sounds right.  JON: Um, that sounds very Marina probably.  NEIL: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.  JON: But, um, I think the reason why I thought Black Mirror at first, cause it's like we are so... We are surfing the simulacra of society.  NEIL: Oh my God.  JON: Who, Baudrillard? Is that the philosopher?  NEIL: Mhm. Society of spectacle. JON: I am really smart right now in this hour... NEIL: Oh my God. Um, it's funny you mention Marina Abramovic, cause one of the cards I have, or this is just an idea for an art project I would love to do, which is, you know, the artist is present where, you know, you would sit with and look into her eyes. But I'd like to do that with, butt warmth. You'd sit on chairs and then you would just switch. Like I could feel your butt warmth on the chair, and you could feel mine.  JON: And I'm going to, I'm going to build on this. The seats, to kind of give it some sort of like, um, sexy factor. The seats are thermo-visually dynamic. So when you sit, you can see the warmth, um, like a print? That the last person -  NEIL: The heat, the heat map.  JON: Mhm. The heat map of the last person.  NEIL: If that's what it's called. Our first collaboration.  JON: That's going to sell tickets at the MoMA. NEIL: This is a card I found tucked under my, uh, the, the sofa in my studio, and all it says is: Anus. JON: You know, synchronicity. Because we recently got a bidet. Um, which has quickly made my Top 2020 List of things to improve your life.  NEIL: Oh my God. Yeah.  JON: Um, bidet.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: Pretty, uh very affordable. There are certain models that are just like, even under 50 bucks.  NEIL: Oh, wow. Okay.  JON: Will change your life.  NEIL: Huh? I, um, I would be, cause I feel like I've seen some like bidets that border on like the geriatric medical in terms of their appearance, you know, where they look like an add-on to the toilet seat. And, I feel like I would embrace a bidet deeply, but I need for the aesthetics to be on point.  JON: I hear you. I'm also someone who is an obsessed aesthete. And also I'm very practical and functional. And I really saw no point of a bidet cause I had a, was doing perfectly fine for God knows how many years, right? But we won it in a Santa Swap, like a, you know, the white elephant thing. Um, so we brought it home. I took it through the airport. My bag was fully paused cause they thought I was carrying home a bomb. Like what the fuck is in your bag, right? There's like piping and tubing, and this big shape of plastic and a knob. So, um, so this one's pretty sleek. And a bidet is, it's like a shower just for your ass. And. And that's it. It's, it's like, it's like taking a shower, but just for your anus. I, there's no other way to feel it. And I thought, and then I, I'm, and now I've, I've talked about it in my office because if I'm excited about something, I must to talk about it.  NEIL: Oh, yeah.  JON: And I'm going to put it out there - bidets are very sexual, and every straight man who's out there is understanding the queer experience. I, or like, this is like, you understand. It's like, Oh that's right, butt play isn't just like a gay thing. It's like a universal thing. And uh, you know, the anus is a sexual region, so you let it go for as long as you want. Some people have heated bidets, and that's nice cause then it's warm water. Mine is not, we have a cheap kind. So in the winter time it's frigid. But I like it because it makes me feel like I'm alive, and it's a test of character, which I get off on. And then you're done. And then it's, and then it's like you took a shower. NEIL: Ah. But you know, you should have front loaded the part that it's not heated. That might be a deal breaker for me. Although I also, like you, I'm energized by like, as a depressive. I love winter because it really brings out, um, a feeling of like, the will to live in me.  JON: And it's good for your skin.  NEIL: Cheers. But I don't want. I don't think I want, I don't know. I've never had that experience. I don't think I want a cold-water anal shower.   JON: Uh huh. Well, you know, and neither did I, I thought it would, it would never be on my radar. And that's why it's made my Top 2020 List.  NEIL: Wow.  JON: And I know we're just wrapping up the first month, but I think it's going to be on there. NEIL: Oh, I'm so confident in that, I'm so confident in that. I think if they called it a cold-water anal shower, it wouldn't sell as many units as a bidet.  JON: It would only sell in niche markets for sure.  NEIL: Uh, next card. The way you can tell certain people won't age well.  JON: Yeah. Um, you can just tell. Uh, for me it's just like an impression.  NEIL: Yes. It's not based on facts, for me.  JON: Truly not based on facts. A lot of it really just has to do with their energy.  NEIL: Exactly.  JON: Absolutely. Like their energy, the way they carry themselves, the way they think about themselves. Did you read that Roald Dahl book, The Twits?  NEIL: No. JON: The Twits. I can't recap the entire plot in entirety, but there's this one part of like, they think ugly thoughts and then they became ugly. And it was, you know, he is an amazing writer. But yeah, that never left me as a kid. And I think that continues to apply today. Even there are people who are old, but they just. They look and appear and they feel so young. And they're aging like, “Oh my gosh, you're aging beautifully.” NEIL: Right. I love that.  JON: Right?  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: It's not about having wrinkles or things like that. There really is a disposition, the way you carry yourself.  NEIL: Yeah. I find also, I think that card for me came from like, it, it can be a strategy or it used to be a strategy for managing, like desire. Like I would see someone who was hot to me, but then I would mentally age them and be like, No, as a way to... Yeah, manage my desire.  JON: Yeah. I mean, I'm not petty, but I recently went to a high school reunion and I said, I loved that I did not peak.  NEIL: Oh my God.  JON: I'm still ascending.  NEIL: Oh, you so are. You totally are.  JON: Oh, thank you. And you are too.  NEIL: Um, I think I, I don't know where I am.  JON: You're aging gracefully.  NEIL: Thank you. I'm trying.  JON: That's, and that's the goal. Yeah. No. Cause it's like some people that were like super hot in like, in high school and you're just like, Oh wow. I think we, I think our people had a different kind of strategy. We had a different strategy.  NEIL: Yeah. It's like, um. I just read this book called The Overstory, which is all about trees. I don't know if you heard of it. It's so good. I recommend it, but, uh, it talks about the different things different trees' seeds need to become activated. Like some seeds need extreme cold. Some need to be set on fire. Um, so I think the gay seed... That sounds bad. JON: No, no, no. Perfect.  NEIL: Um, benefits from not having peaked in high school. JON: Yes, absolutely.  NEIL: Can I ask how old you are?  JON: 29. 29, my numerological golden year.  NEIL: Oh, what does that mean?  JON: Everyone has a life path number.  Okay, so mine breaks down to 29 slash 11 slash 2. If you're a, ever all my die-hard numerologists out there. Um, and so 29 is the first reduction. And so I'm 29.  NEIL: I love it. Um 29 and 11 are both prime numbers, aren't they?   JON: Mm, I studied visual arts in undergraduate, so I'm going to pass on this one. But you know, you calculate your number by just adding your birthdate across like... So mine is zero plus eight plus zero plus two plus one plus nine plus nine zero equals 29. Two plus nine is 11. One plus one is two. NEIL: I love it.  JON: And then they all have meanings. You know, there's a whole book. You can Google it.  NEIL: Yeah, I can imagine. Wait, so you were born in August? Was that what I heard? Leo? JON: I'm a Leo. Are you a Leo?  NEIL: No, I'm a Virgo.  JON: Oh! I have a lot of Virgo friends.  NEIL: I have a lot of Leo friends. Well, Virgo teaches Leo. You're taught by the sign that follows you. So Virgo is taught by Libra. Leo is taught by Virgo.  JON: Yes, yes. And. The sign before you teaches a person after to remember that they didn't have to give up the qualities that they left behind. NEIL:  Cheers.  JON: Virgos are famously the perfectionists, right? Natural at managing their immediate environments and, you know, being very meticulous and they could run the whole system, but then they forget that they're also, you know, they can allow themselves to shine. They don't have to be so critical of themselves.  NEIL: That is such a beautiful, um, flipping of the teaching thing. I love it.  JON: You know who is a prime example of a Leo-Virgo cusp?  NEIL: Who? JON: Beyoncé. So you can tell she has the Virgo energy of like, everything must be perfect.  NEIL: Absolutely.  JON: Um, and I'll think of my idea and then I'll present it to you. But then she's also, you know, still carrying her Leo energy of like, I am a star.  NEIL: Right, exactly. That's deep. You have forever changed how I think about, um, the Zodiac.  JON: And that's my time today.  NEIL: Yes. (flips card) What's a bad X you'd take over a good Y?  JON: What's a bad X you'd take over a good Y? Oh gosh. I would take a bad massage over a good meal.  NEIL: I'm with you, totally with you.  JON: I had to really think.  NEIL: Yeah, you look a little spent right now.  JON: No, I mean that, that took the, the, the final juice of my brain. Yeah. We have, we have gone to the trenches of my brain and pulled everything out. That was it. I mean, like, that's it. That's my, that's my ethos.  NEIL: Have you had a bad massage?  JON: Absolutely. And would I take it over a good meal? 100%. I'm a little, I'm a little surprised that I haven't vocalized this earlier in my life, but that's how you know this is the genuine response. Bad massages? Oh, I don't care. Someone's touching me, oh, I melt. I like, I think I'm like in a constant state of low-grade ecstasy when someone's touching me. Right?  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: It could be terrible. And I have had my share of terrible massages. You know, Chinatown massages have a spectrum.  NEIL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  JON: No frills. You can't complain.  NEIL: Yeah.  JON: Good meal? Okay. But I know I'm gonna be hungry again. You know, like... Meal goodness to me is controllable cause you could let yourself go to the brink of like, I can't see, I'm so hungry and anything will taste good. Yes. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I let myself get so hungry if I'm, if there's a meal I'm not thrilled to eat. I'd be like, Oh, I'm more vegetarian now, but when I would, when I was less, I would hang out with some of my friends, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to go to their place. I'm going to let myself get famished cause then it won't matter what I eat.  NEIL: Cause they're not good cooks, potentially? JON: Cause like, Oh, I really wanted meat. But like who knows what the vegetarian meal will be. A crap-shoot. But I'll be so hungry. It's going to taste like milk and honey from the Bible.  NEIL: You found a way to turn - you've made it predictable. You've managed it.  JON: I mean the gamble is, you do become more irritable and you have to kind of like have a lot of self-control. NEIL: Right, right, right.  JON: People want to small talk with you. You'd be like, okay, when's dinner?  NEIL: When's the shitty dinner that I'm starving for?  JON: A shout out to all my vegetarian friends. I love coming over to your house and don't stop making food from me.  NEIL: On that note, Jon Wan, thank you so much for being on SHE'S A TALKER. JON: Oh, thank you for having me, Neil. NEIL: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of SHE'S A TALKER. Before we get to the credits, there were some listener responses to cards that I'd love to share. In my conversation with Buddhist teacher Kate Johnson, we talked about the card:  I can imagine thinking as I'm dying, "Here we go again."  In response to that card, David Coleman wrote, "The one time that I ever really thought I was about to die, all I could think was, 'Wow, so this is it. Nothing more than this.' It was a feeling of peaceful surprise. This story is from 9/ 11. My building was so close to the World Trade Center that when the first tower started to collapse, it appeared as though it was going to fall to the East, which would've completely flattened my building, and I felt so sure I was about to die. Actually, for the next several months, I had this little secret thought I'd never shared that maybe I really was dead. But then again, my neurologist also said I was the only person he'd ever heard of who enjoyed having a stroke. So don't go by me." Thank you, David. If anyone out there listening has something that you'd like to share about a card on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Still Point Fund. Devon Guinn produced this episode. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card flip beats come from Josh Graver, and my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Jon Wan, and to you for listening. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

We had the opportunity to interview Switchfoot at KAABOO Del Mar!After 10 albums, multiple hit singles, millions of records sold, a GRAMMY Award and 20 years of touring, in late 2017, SWITCHFOOT put the brakes on. The successful release and tour for their most recent album, WHERE THE LIGHT SHINES THROUGH had concluded, and the San Diego-based quintet decided to take a long deserved, much needed hiatus. Their goals? To think on difficult, important questions about the band and themselves personally, including: “Why are we doing this?” The answers weren’t long in coming and are musically evident in the 14 remarkable songs that make up NATIVE TONGUE, a creative juggernaut spawned by singer Jon Foreman’s realization that the answer to “why?” was to “pursue joy.”Joy became the paramount goal in his life and music. “Joy is an incredible motivator,” says Jon: “It’s only to be found in the moment, not in the past or future. That’s what music is to us: The ever-present joy of the ever-present now.”During the hiatus, Jon’s positive immediacy inspired songs that he had to get out. Creative openness without a goal resulted in an electric, wide-ranging collection. “There was no ‘should’ or ‘ought.’ It was a beautiful freedom. Songs we wrote didn’t have to turn into anything, as long as we were pursuing joy. That’s where this record was born.”The results of that pursuit include the infectious, title track; the get-your-lighters out, sway-along “ALL I NEED”; and the edgy excellence of “VOICES.” Then there’s a trippily wonderful departure in the Beatles-esque “DIG NEW STREAMS,” a tune drummer Chad Butler calls an “odyssey. It breaks so many rules: Structure, tempo, arrangement, style. I love that.”Lyrically, NATIVE TONGUE doesn’t dwell on the world’s fraught social and political situations, rather, it’s an answer that offers an antidote to them. SWITCHFOOT observe that “we’re living in a time where it feels like hatred, fear, war, pain, anger is the native tongue of our species, that these dark words are our language. For me,” says Jon, “Holding my infant son in the middle of the night reminds me of how helpless we all start off. All of us, everywhere, were comforted, held, given a bottle; we were not hated into the world, we were loved into the world. Love is our native tongue, our common bond. And when fear and hatred are put in their proper place joy is available to us. That aligns well with joy, which is only available when fear, hatred, all those things are put in their proper place, cast aside by love.”The time off for reflection “started a beautiful season for me, of falling in love with music and songwriting all over again,” says Tim, who co-founded SWITCHFOOT when he was just 17. “I’d sneak into the band studio and write and play. But then I noticed some scribbled lyrics left by my brother. He’d been doing the same thing.” Chad, too, admits to dropping by the studio. “I ran into Jon there. He played me a couple new songs, including ‘LET IT HAPPEN,’ which is poignant lyrically, coming from the space of not having a plan or agenda.”Jon believes that where the songs arise from is crucial; “ulterior motives can ruin even the best of intentions.” The idea of “let it happen,” along with “pursuing joy,” gave a shape to the lyrical ideas and music and spirit that went into NATIVE TONGUE.  As SWITCHFOOT enjoyed the time off and, the avid surfers—reveled in the inspirational immensity of the Pacific Ocean—music flowed easily, merely for the joy of it. The band’s ‘time off’ turned out to be particularly creative and their prolific nature clicked in, writing nearly 100 songs for the project. The question arose: “Are we making an album?” The answer was clearly yes, and songs were culled to a manageable number to be produced by the band, along with OneRepublic bassist and multi-instrumentalist Brent Kutzle.The tunes coalesced quickly. “THE HARDEST ART” got a beautiful boost thanks to vocals added by Kaela Sinclair, of the French electronic outfit M83. For his part, Tim got rid of equipment and bought “old basses, new to me,” to change up and challenge his sound and approach. Jon wrote lyrics that are an oft-philosophical combination and of the personal and universal. For example, “VOICES” was inspired by a homeless man who lived at the beach. “He was a nice guy,” says Jon, “who always wore aluminum foil on his head to block out the signals and voices he heard… Looking back I think he was bipolar. But I realized there’s always voices in our heads, all of us, an inner dialogue or diatribe.”NATIVE TONGUE marks the 11th record since 1997’s debut, THE LEGEND OF CHIN, which started SWITCHFOOT on a path of critical and fan acclaim for albums including 2003’s multi-platinum breakthrough THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN, the GRAMMY award-winning HELLO HURRICANE (2009), and FADING WEST, which was also the name of a documentary on the band.    For an album that “snuck up on” SWITCHFOOT, there’s a remarkable cohesion among the songs. Of course, 20 years together can do that to a band. A band that moves easily among the world of modern rock but mystifies those who try to pigeonhole them. “Since the beginning, SWITCHFOOT never fit into a musical genre,” notes Chad. “We all come from different musical upbringings, and we believe any good playlist has diversity.”Approaching the music on NATIVE TONGUE with kid-like enthusiasm combined with the years spent honing their craft makes NATIVE TONGUE a rare gem. “We channeled Queen, ELO, the Kinks; our favorite albums from the past. Albums with guitar solos,” laughs Jon, who says, “I’d play solos over and over just because they were fun! But we didn’t want to make a throwback album, and Brent was great at marrying the sensibility of our roots with the present and beyond. We took fun risks.”Those risks paid off in songs that the listener can interact with on multiple levels. If NATIVE TONGUE’s tunes are approachable and memorable, the album also has a heady goal. NATIVE TONGUE is, Jon says, ‘An attempt to be a loving embrace of all the human souls who have been weighed down by the times. It’s a chance for all of us to be reminded of what brings us together, not what tears us apart. My hope, for this record,” Jon concludes, “is that it would be a reminder that there are new streams available for us to travel down, and that hatred is not our language, love is our native tongue."We want to hear from you! Please email Tera@BringinitBackwards.com www.BringinitBackwards.com CREDITS: Theme Song: Scott Russo  & Design: Oscar Rodriguez

To continue with the podcast relaunch on our second show, we were able to meet for a second time with Sherrif Karamat, President & CEO of PCMA as well as with Greg O'Dell, Chairman of the 2019 PCMA Board of Directors.  We caught up with them at PCMA's EduCon in Los Angeles.   This time we covered a wide range of topics, but we focused on two important topics in both the world and within the meetings industry today.  First was a discussion of diversity and inclusion, and the benefits of diverse skills and points of view in creating successful events.  The second topic was human trafficking, and how raising the awareness in our industry and can provide a huge increase in opportunities to recognize and stop this serious international issue.   TRANSCRIPT: JON: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jon Trask, I’m your host and I'm here with Sheriff Karamat, the President and CEO of PCMA, and Mr. Greg O’Dell, the chairman of the 2019 PCMA Board of Directors. So welcome, gentlemen. GREG: Thank you, Jon. SHERRIF: Thank you for having us. JON: I'm very happy to see you again. We talked recently up at WEC in Toronto, and now we're down in Los Angeles at your EduCon. SHERRIF: Yeah, the world we live in is exciting, isn't it? So now in Los Angeles, wow. JON: We're just jetting all over. And that's one of the things that I've actually always appreciated about our business is the opportunity to travel and see places and get to go, places I might not normally get to go to on my own. SHERRIF: Yes, and experience many different cultures, different cities. JON: Absolutely, yeah, it's been a great part of the business for me. And you guys are having a great event here it seems. Just to touch on that briefly before we dive into the real topics. SHERRIF: Absolutely. I, you know, I love EduCon. It's event that we actually really get to visit with people. It's just a manageable size. And this year, bit larger than normal. Our largest EduCon in history. About 950 participants JON: Very nice. SHERRIF: And we've been creating some really interesting experiences. And I've been enjoying LA as well. Look at this city, it's vibrant. So, I have this thing that I'm comparing PCMA to LA. And so, here's my comparison…I absolutely think there's a renaissance, there's a transformation, there's a revival going on with the city. And I think it mirrors with all the exciting things that are happening at the PCMA. And so that's, that's my comparison is to, to a city and an organization that's on the move. JON: Both of them coming together. SHERRIF: Absolutely. JON: Yeah, this this area, I mean, I'm a native of Southern California. And this was not an area that you would necessarily want to visit around the convention center. Even a decade ago, it doesn't seem. And so what they've done here, with the expansion and growth and the hotels, and all of that is really, really changed the whole complexion of this part of the city, GREG: I would just echo two (of) Sherrifs comments from LA’s perspective and all the partners. You know, it's interesting before PCMA EduCon started, they had another major event here with the BET experience. And so, the transformation that happened from that event to ours was seamless. And I think, you know, hats off to the LA team. And they've been amazing and supportive hosting this event as well. JON: They're very good, very accustomed to large, high profile events and working through them. I know, I did something at the event deck over here at LA Live a few years back, and it was the same time as a basketball game, and the Disney Radio Awards going on in the theater. And yet, you know, everything flowed smoothly and worked out really well. GREG: That's right. JON: So, what we were really going to talk about today, though, is when we were in Toronto, we talked about like numbers and data and things around the meetings, and I wanted to maybe talk with you a little bit more about the human side of the business. And I know there's an initiative that you started the Ascent Initiative. And I did a little bit of reading on that, and about inclusion and diversity within our industry. So I thought that would be where we could start today talking about that diversity and inclusion. SHERRIF: Sure. So, you know, you actually get an extra point on my radar today, because you said the word inclusion before you said diversity.   Because for me, diversity is an outcome of being inclusive. And so PCMA is all inclusiveness and it's about inclusiveness, because that's the way we learn, and we challenge the status quo more than ever. Without actually been being inclusive, you will never know everything. And the more perspectives the more diverse backgrounds, the more different mindsets that we bring to the table…And we grow, we learn, we create better experiences. So PCMA has started the Ascent Program for a number of reasons. And the CEO pledge.  And one was looking at diversity and inclusion, and so forth in a different lens; and we looked at SAP Users, SAP today is the most diverse company in the world, because it was the most inclusive company in the world. And it is, it's labeled that simply because not because they will be altruistic and good.  They actually had a need, and they had a need in computation, and mathematics.  And they had, they had complex mathematical problems that they had to solve.  And they couldn't find people that could help them solve this problem.  Well guess how they went about it, they actually, they went, went looking.  And then what they discovered was that people with autism actually had incredible mathematical and computational skills.  So, they started hiring people on the autism spectrum.  Today, SAP has more than 250 people working in their employment, that are on the autism spectrum.  And talk about inclusion…But it was this notion that you can do good, but it's good for business.  And that has actually served their pocketbooks and they're bottom line, much better than then just you know, going to some traditional route.  So, inclusiveness has many forms, many, many ways that you can be inclusive.  But we've got to look beyond race, and gender and so forth, and really truly think of what inclusiveness is all about.  So that we can bring different perspectives and different ideas. JON: That's, that's been something that, that I've got a personal education on a little bit over the past few years, because I've been, I had some surgeries on my back.  And I've been getting around with a cane and had some mobility issues. And you, you start to learn a lot of things you didn't realize, when you're not exactly the same person that you were a year before.  And you have these challenges of maybe walking a long distance or something, and you get into a huge facility and signage and things like that.  So, it really opened my eyes personally, few years back, and I've talked to someone who's shown up in year convene magazine, Joan Eisenstodt.  I've interviewed Joan a few times about that, and actually taken her class where she will put people in the experience of having some challenge, and let them kind of walk in those shoes.  And I think doing that is very eye opening to people.  So that's one thing that I recommend is trying to look at the world from some other perspectives.  And thinking about that. GREG: I mean, I agree.  Everything with Sherrif said and I think inclusion so important.  But you know, the reality on the last point you just made, you know, there are there are real diversity issues.  And I think people's bottom line or company's bottom lines are better serve when they actually serve that diversity audience. The best way to do that is to have diversity within.  And so, I think we had one of the most powerful, amazing speakers today, Tamika Catchings, who happened to be African American and happened to be a woman.  But I think everyone in that room who experienced it today saw her compelling story first.  But there are those who resonate with her for those reasons as well.  And so, I think it's important that we recognize that but also in an inclusive manner. SHERRIF: So, I'm just going to add to that one as in terms of performance of companies.  Companies that are inclusive and are diverse; as a result, performed 41% better than companies that are not; return on investment, return on equity.  So, it is just it is, you know, the data is there to support the fact.  So, I also want to touch it, but your issue and your back. And so, we want what I like about the nomenclature today that's changing is sort of, we used to say people with disability. Right, and it's such a terrible term.  What about people with special abilities?  Right?  Because they do have; so, think of the autism spectrum.  We would (say), oh, they’ve got a disability?  No, no, no, they've got a remarkable ability.  And it's, it's just about being inclusive and understanding that we understand that these people Tamika this morning that you reference her, and her hearing challenges that she faced and that created a lot of other adversities for her.  And it's, it's so I mean, how she broke those barriers down. I mean, it takes a very special person. But you know, I don't know, I think that we, shedding light to these issues is so important, talking about them in a non-threatening way. And, and I go back to the old line, you know, when we meet face to face…So, I think that…I wonder what if people never saw to Mika if they only saw a black woman. And when you saw her today, actually, you just saw just a wonderful individual.  You couldn't give it any care about race or gender, just a person. JON: Right, someone who's done amazing things. SHERRIF: Yeah.  And you want to, you know…just love this person, because of just that. You're just a wonderful… So I think that it just allows you to break down those barriers. JON: And so in in a perfect world, I was trying to trying to come up with a way to put a bow on this and put it together into something what does an inclusive event look like in a perfect world?  To you?  How would you describe that?  How do people do the best job to do that? SHERRIF: Well I, first of all is be open to different ideas.  And we have different, doing different things, but also be open to different people and different cultures and different…but different geography as well.  And so, just allow that to happen so that those ideas can come.  So, one way you can do that is by crowdsourcing ideas, just understand.  So just a simple using technology as one way; two is just actually being very deliberate about it.  And I think we do have to do, I'm a person that don't believe in quotas, but if we need them to just to get to where we need to go with them.  Maybe that's something that you do.  But I think that if we're deliberate, very deliberate, we’ll realize that we maybe don't need the quotas, because we're seeing the benefits of, and then suddenly we’ll be diverse.  But sometimes we've got to go to extreme measures in order to make things happen. JON: Kind of have to swing the pendulum far to one way? GREG: I just want to add to that, because I think it's a compelling point.  You know, one of the things, I'll give you a great example, this morning, we had our nextup, which was a mashing of our legacy society and our board members with our 20s in their 20s.  And, you know, in a traditional sense, you would think this is an opportunity for the 20s in their 20s.  To hear from the more tenured members.  But in fact, you know, what we talked about, and that we were very explicit about is that we learned as much from them as they learned from us.  And a great example that I gave was technology.  So, we all had to adapt, the three of us had to adapt to technology, whereas it’s all the known in certain aspects of technology.  And so, if nothing else, we learn quicker from them about how to utilize that technology in events, or how we're going to educate people leveraging that technology.  So, I think its diversity of thought, but also an age demographic, but also geographic, all those things that I think PCMA is being very deliberate, whether it's matched up, or whether it's seeing people of color, who giving, providing the content, or otherwise I think, it's very deliberate, and very compelling.  And that was what I think is success from what I would define a success. JON: Excellent. Um, the other part of this conversation was really around the human trafficking that you guys have pledged on.  So that's with ECPAT?  Yeah, ECPAT USA.  And there was something called the CODE. SHERRIF: Yes, absolutely. JON: So talk a little bit about that. SHERRIF: So, let's just first talk about ECPAT, and it's, it's, it's one organization, but it's one that we really have vetted, and just look at what they're doing to raise awareness and curb human trafficking, if not completely eradicate it.  And, and what PCMA has done is that with Maritz Global Events, we actually, they have been this been a big cause.  And big initiative on behalf of America global events.  And, you know, that they thought that our industry could actually play a key role in in driving the goal.  So, I want to give them a lot of credit for starting this. And PCMA, said, you know, you're absolutely right, why couldn't we help.  And so, we really got behind it, our foundation actually donated monies towards ECPAT.  We have done projects around human trafficking.  And we did the code, signed the code, and then actually did training for our employees.  And we're going to take that on the road at our events so that we can train people, so they can understand how to recognize the signs of people that are in distress.  And so, David Peckinpaugh, the president of Maritz, when he approached us and approached me, I said to David, that PCMA will get fully behind and fully vested in this providing Greg and our board was behind it.  But it was a no brainer for them.  They just said, of course.  But I said, you know, what, it's bigger than all of us.  So, we should get more people involved.  And, we went to the EIC, the events industry council and said that all the industry organization should be involved, this should be this should be a plank of the EIC.  And it should also though be a plank of others.  So, Marianne signed the code, Arnie Sorensen signed the code.  We are doing activation as a part of one of the trends that we are bigger than oneself, we have used the human trafficking issue, to show that we can have a bigger impact than just one individual on human trafficking.  So, let me put that into context. company like Marriott, Maritz, Events, DC, PCMA, with all the employees and all the people that we bring together, think of the eyes that we can bring to the issue.  And thus, we can recognize if there's something going wrong, if we make them aware how to recognize those issues.  So, that's, we want to amplify this, we want to raise the awareness level as much as possible, we actually think of human trafficking as happening in Bangkok, and other areas, but it's happening in our local communities all around the country.  And we actually, every community needs to pay attention to this. JON: Makes sense? I know, when I was doing some research on this, that there are some resources and things if you can go to like the code.org. And pull up things like contract clauses to put into your RFP’s is to make sure that you're discussing this with your properties and your vendors, when you're coming into something.  And I discovered a lot of that through this research with PCMA.  So, it's helped me already start to think about things a little bit different way. GREG:  And you know, and I was going to say, and I, you know, from my perspective, and I'll confess, I wasn't well versed on this topic.  And so, I'm glad when Sherrif brought this to our attention.  But, in many ways, it's not even about pressuring people…people just aren't aware of this issue, right?  So, I think it's an awareness campaign in many respects.  And I think we are the most compassionate industry I know.  And I think once people understand the problem, and they're willing to solve a problem, I think it's been great to build that awareness. And then people are compelled to act.  So, I've been personally humbled by learning first about it, because I wasn't aware.  But also, to be proactive, and what we can do about it as an industry.  So, it's been, it's been great to see the proactive behavior of our industry, and certainly a credit share for leading PCMA, not just jumping on the bandwagon, but having to lead this. JON:  And we really do have a lot of eyes in this industry.  There's a lot of people who can be watching out for this issue.  And just bringing an awareness of it, it's kind of interesting, because I think both of these topics that we've talked about are really about awareness, and how, as an industry, we've started to pay attention to some things that we just didn't think about before. SHERRIF:  Well, you know, we also did the hackathon here for homelessness.  And as we talk about homelessness is a symptom of a deeper societal issue.  Right?   Or, and or a human issue.   And so how are we treating the deeper, deeper issue, but being aware of what the symptom is, is helps you to dig deeper, and PCMA really, really believes, this is our DNA that business events are going to drive business, no question about it.  And it needs to.  We need to have better employment opportunities for all our people.  But business event should also do good for people, and our communities or local communities.  And so, we're going to take every opportunity to inform, educate…not tell people how to get there, but actually highlight the problem and sort of because different people might choose different avenues to get there.  And we want them to choose the vehicle that's best for them.  But we want to make sure that we're all sort of saying, “this is the end goal”.  But we can get there differently.  And so, there are many other issues that we need to deal with. I want to highlight and I think it's something that you and I talked about previously was about the HIV AIDS issue and in Australia, and the fact that we use the business event to actually make them change their laws in their country, to allow people with HIV and AIDS to come into that country.  I think it's pretty phenomenal. But what was even more exciting and interesting is that the country and the government and industry has made a commitment that they want to eradicate HIV and AIDS by 2030.  And they're working.  And that's creating new jobs and creating research, and all sorts of different industries because of their commitment; and because of an event. JON: Because of an event that started it all. So, we can be a real catalyst for change within this industry by starting something… SHERRIF:  We are, we are, and we've got to recognize that this is what we, this is why.  And this might be changing our conversation a little bit.  But this is why we need to focus on why we do what we do, not what we do.  And when we focus on the why we’ll understand that; yeah, we might be bringing people together…but why were we bringing them together?  And we are bringing together where we are, maybe look make maybe using simple lenses to solve complex problems. But when we come together, we can do this.  I am convinced, and I am convinced that science alone is not going to solve human issues.  It’s people, it’s science, it’s data; it takes it all…And inclusion, right? JON:  Yeah, those diverse perspectives, those people coming in from different angles are where you get the best ideas sometimes.  So absolutely.  But this is exactly what I wanted to talk about. Because I came out of the last talk with you so inspired, and I just had a feeling that this area would be the same.  Same inspirational feeling.  And it's just really nice to consider the possibilities.  And see that PCMA is behind this idea of moving us forward not just as a business, but as humans and as people and making things work better for everyone. SHERRIF: I, categorically believe that we have a responsibility any leader, whether you're the leader of events, DC or the chairman of PCMA, or you are a local community leader.  If you're going to be a leader, then you need to be responsible.  And you have the opportunity in front of you to make a difference.  And we've got to do it.  And we actually bring together more than any other industry people in this world, that can make a difference. So, the opportunity is limitless.  And we need to create better jobs for people.  We need to create better lives for people.  And we all need to grow, all those things the business events industry can do. And PCMA is committed to that. JON: It's an amazing legacy to leave. And I hope we can all do that.   SHERRIF: Jon, thank you so much, as always. JON: Thank you, I appreciate you both being here today. And it's been great talking to you. GREG: So nice to talk to you. JON: And until next time.  We'll see you on the podcast.  Thank you for listening 

Jon Ferrara is a successful entrepreneur and firm believer that we’re all on this planet to grow. He builds products that help people achieve their passion, plan, and purpose. He launched Goldmine back in the 90’s and launched Nimble CRM two decades later. John is a noted speaker who’s been recognized in Forbes. Jon talks to your host Travis Chappell about how he innovated an entire industry and became the genius behind CRM’s. Episode Highlights:  Jon was born and raised in L.A. in the 60’s and spent his time on the car lot where his dad was a salesman. He worked his way through a computer science degree and then after a few jobs he got put in a sales role. He created Goldmine which was essential Outlook and Salesforce before either existed. Jon was different because he had two entrepreneurial mentors. You can always go get a job with another company, so be brave enough to try something.  When you do have responsibilities it’s harder to jump off the cliff, you have to take into account how things will affect your family. What holds people back is not knowing how to get started. How Jon made Goldmine scalable and they got to $100 million in revenue. Jon learned things in his jobs that he worked his way through college with. Jon learned how customers buy software by working in a computer store and in software sales. You have to tell stories and get other people to tell those stories to spread the gospel of the technology. Service is the new sales. The difference between competition and collaboration. You have to listen to and iterate with your customer base. Jon came out of retirement to unify social and CRM with a new product. Why building software is a lot like writing songs. If you don’t know any what then it doesn’t matter who. The most effective way Jon has connected with people: humanness. LinkedIn is like a lobby or business persona. Your personal brand and network will help you achieve your dreams in life. Figure out who you want to network with and build a good identity, share relevant content, then listen and engage.   The Random Round What profession other than your own do you think it would be fun to attempt? Professor If you could sit on a park bench with anyone past or present and talk with them for an hour, who would it be and why? Sidarthur, Jesus, or any of the prophets How do you like to consume content? Books Audio Jon’s favorite audiobooks: Think and Grow Rich Jon’s morning routine: Get up and wash face Make some coffee Meditation time Reading and content curation Help kids with breakfast and get them out the door Quality time with wife Head to work What is your go-to pump up song? Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon What is something you’re not very good at? Artistic endeavors - writing, English, art What is one place online where we can find Jon the most? Instagram @JonFerrara 3 Key Points: Figure out what your passion is, build your plan to achieve it, and make steps toward it every day. Enter into every relationship with the intent to serve and grow them. The best thing you could do in any relationship is to listen. Tweetable Quotes: “We’re on this planet to grow by helping other people grow.” -Jon “No one hands you success, you need to go out and earn it every day.” -Jon “It’s the commonalities in life that build trust between people.” -Jon Resources Mentioned: Visit Travis’ website at acast.com/privacy (https://www.acast.com/privacy)

Jon Drew shows us how he's been using the internet to grow his downline...   I'm very excited and privileged to have a complete rock star!    Honestly, you’re in for a treat.   I recommend you get a piece of paper out and take notes.   I've really enjoyed watching the story and the journey of our guest today and it’s an honor to have him on.    Welcome to the show Jon. Thanks for being on man.   WELCOME SECRET MLM HACKS STUDENT, JON   Jon:    Hey, thanks for having me. Pumped, excited for this all week.   Steve:    It's pretty awesome.   Jon:    Let's do it.   Steve:    You came into the the Secret MLM Hacks group and started using the stuff. Then all of a sudden I started seeing you in pictures on stages and you're a celebrity now man.   Jon:    Living the dream.   Steve:    It's crazy. What were you doing in that picture?   Jon:    I got recognized by my company as a top 50 income runner. it was in my second year and I was up there and I made it in.    I was number 50 working my way up, but it was a huge honor. So that was cool. That was probably the best moment of my professional life. It was awesome.   Steve:    Dude, that's so awesome. That's so cool. How long have you been in MLM?   Jon:    Almost three years now.   Steve:    Three years now. That's cool.   I guess backstory, how'd you get into it? What made you get into it at all?   FROM CORPORATE AMERICA TO SECRET MLM HACKS   Jon:    I was a certified public accountant. I had done that for a few years out of college. So I started off the normal path. I didn't think I'd end up here.    But I did that and I learned a lot in the corporate world... But I also learned that it wasn't for me long term.    Got a lot of promotions. I worked hard.    Every time I got that carrot on the stick and the money didn't always come with the promotion.    I'd be doing the job but wouldn't be getting paid for it. And after a few years of that, I kind of crushed myself.    I got so obsessed with trying to force it to happen, that I worked myself almost into the grave. It was crazy.   I was the guy that was crazy enough to jump into an MLM that was not available in my own state.    So, no family and friends. That thing you're supposed to do. Those weren't available and I was crazy enough, and I don't recommend this necessarily, but I went full time in it a few months in.    I went feet to fire and I think that's part of why it went well. It forced me to go learn what you're talking about on Secret MLM Hacks.   Steve:    What happened when you did that? I'm sure everyone condones your behavior.   USING THE INTERNET TO GROW YOUR DOWNLINE   Jon:    You get the haters on one side. And there was curiosity. I can say there was some curiosity on their side, but there was no path.    My upline didn't really get what I was trying to do.    It was hard to be the one person to be like, "I'm going to make this happen. I want to make this happen."    Being part of the community, being into Secret MLM Hacks, following what you were doing, what other people out there building online, that's what kept me going.    I needed that tribe to cling onto because I didn't have it in my own company.    I had a lot of great friends, but not to keep me motivated on this path of what I wanted to do and the way I wanted to do it.   Steve:    It's not like we're throwing rocks at the man or we’re anti upline. Neither of us are that way at all.    But the internet's here and there's not that much training out there when it comes to how to use MLM online.   What's been most helpful to you so far about it?   Jon: PUBLISHING - 100%.   Steve: Right! I'm not gonna lie, man. I'm sorry. I just totally cut you off, but I'm just EXCITED about this.    I got on iTunes and looked at  the MLM category. And I saw my show and I saw other people's shows... And all of a sudden I see yours right there. And I was like, "Oh my gosh."    I’m sorry. I just interrupted you.   HOW PUBLISHING HELPED MY BUSINESS EXPLODE   Jon: It's been huge for my business. If you listen to the very first episode I did, I modeled it off of how you did yours.    The very beginning where you say, "I'm going to swear," and I did something similar.    I said, "I have a confession to make."   And my buddy who listens to your show, he goes, "Oh, you totally just ripped that off."   I was like, "It's just one line. Come on."    I needed that icebreaker to get it going, but that podcast has directly and indirectly done more for me than anything else.   People reach out. Someone reached out to me this morning. "I really want to connect because of the podcast."   People want that immediate gratification. Like, "Oh, I started my podcast. It's been a month and no one joined my team yet." It's like, "That's not how it works."    It's those connections that leads to something else. Someone might ask you to do an interview.    Interviewing on this show is such an honor for me. And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone and put things into action.    Publishing - 100% - and the confidence you get from doing it.   I started with the podcast I then went into Facebook Live. Those have been the two big things I did that have really grown everything.    I'll tell you right now, when I got to that unit in Secret MLM Hacks where you said that, "We're going to have to publish," that was the closest I ever was to quitting.   I was like, "Nope. I'm not doing it."    OVERCOMING MY FEAR OF PUBLISHING   I remember, I was up in bed that night, heart racing, and I go, "I can't do that." I go, "I'll do everything else he's saying. I'll make these funnels. They'll look awesome. People will come to my page and they'll buy from me. Wait a minute, I got to go on camera? I got to get on a mic? No way. Not this guy. Not this introvert."   It's funny how that happens. We all end up in a totally different place.    Publishing, all day, every day. That's what got me there for sure.   Steve: That's so funny. That's the thing that I also said I would never do. "I'm never going to publish. No way. Not going to be a talking head."   What got you over that hurdle? That's a big deal for most people. It's the scariest thing that I tell them to go do.   Jon: I had to. Honestly, I sat down and I said, "What would you rather do Jon?"    "Do you want to go back to a world you know you didn't like? Where you can't go out there and use your energy to get that unlimited return because you like doing this? Or do you want to let your fears get the better of you?"   I picked the option of get over my fears and just go and try.   And I found that I really liked doing audio and then I warmed up to video.    The confidence that audio gave me then gave me the confidence to do video.    Then I found that I loved doing video, which is so weird. I even train my team on video.    That's what really got me going. It was that stepping stone, that gradual process.   MARKETING IS THE CORE OF SECRET MLM HACKS   Steve: That's so awesome. So it's just piece by piece, not taken all at once. I have to agree.   I would not have done video from the get go because then you need to entertain the camera as well as get across what you're saying. It's a lot.    Just doing audio at first was the way I had to do it.    What's happened to your own teams and down lines as a result of you, not only publishing, but everything else you've learned inside Secret MLM Hacks?   Jon: It was the marketing, the core of the training.    And if I can just give you applaud while I'm on here. Honestly, it's underrated. People want the funnels and they want the specific instructions. But it's the overall marketing education.    That was worth the whole class alone because that's what I teach my team. I've taken different things and I put my own spin on them. I started with what you taught.   I found what worked well for my team. Every company is different. We just have one product. It's a little bit different.    I twisted a few things and then I tweaked them to use them on Facebook. The core of the marketing training is what duplicated in my team.    It gave them confidence to see several of us having success. That made them want to go out there and duplicate it.    Nothing's a magic pill.    When I joined Secret MLM Hacks, I had some success, but I was stuck. I was stuck in a box and I had a few hundred people in my down line.    Right now I have over 2,700 just a year later.   MLM AND THE INTERNET IS MAGICAL   Steve: That's awesome.   Jon: Almost 7,000 customers. And we're trying to scale now, finally.   Now I'm finally like, "I get it. I see the picture."    It can change lives and people just have to be willing to give it time.   It's not 30 days, not 60 days. What I found is, after about 90 days, I finally got that gratification of having some results.    I gave it another 90 days and the thing took off like a rocket.   Steve:    That's so funny. Somebody reached out to me once and they said, "Steve, what ROI can you guarantee that I will get from this course?"    And I was like, "I don't know you and I would never do the displeasure and the dishonor."   He's like, "You can't give me an ROI guarantee."    I said, "Absolutely not. Nor would I ever dare. I don't know how hard you work."    It's not a magic pill, but it's way better than the old school ways.    So you went from a couple of hundred to 2,700 people and that's amazing. I mean, 7,000 customers… GEEZ!   It's safe to say, this is your full time thing now?   MLM AND THE INTERNET AS A FULL TIME BUSINESS   Jon: Yeah. This has been full time now for a couple of years. And it's just going up and up and up.    I've been able to retire my wife this year. She's worked retail for a decade. She's going to be done.    Residual income covers everything in our life. It's truly amazing and we still have a long way we want to go.    I have a lot of goals I want to achieve but now I want to help more people get there.    My team has over 20 people now full time and a lot of that is from this stuff because it gives them a platform.   What's funny is, people are trying to figure out what's going on. Because a lot of us were making those producers trips and everything. I'm going to Costa Rica in a week.   It's gonna be amazing. And people are like, "How is this happening?"   They're looking at where we live and my whole team is in dead areas. No one can sell to family and friends and we're crushing it.    People are like, "How are you doing it?"   I'm like, "This thing, the cell phone, the Internet. That's what we're doing."   We're connecting with people online and we're following the system.   Steve:    That's so cool. You're recruiting like crazy and then afterwards you teach them how to do the same things you are, which is awesome.    Walking them through how to go sell and make more customers after that.    Jon: Yup. Customers are king. I teach them how to get a lot of customers and I say, "You'll be attractive to work with if you can help people."    Customers are to what's going to get you paid, right?   HOW TO USE THE INTERNET TO GROW YOUR DOWNLINE   Steve:    Yeah.   Jon: And I’m like, "If you can learn how to do that, and I'll teach you everything I know on that, then we'll go out there and duplicate and build a team."    That's what I found has been really effective.    Like many things, you have to go through a lot and you'll eventually get those few. And those are going to be your good friends too.    You bond with people in this industry so well because we all fight through the, "It's a pyramid scheme." And, "It's a scam."   SCAM in all capitals everyone's favorite thing nowadays.    And we all fight through those waters together to become successful. You make really good relationships with people in this too.    That's one of the things I really like about it. I feel like I got some friends for life that I met through the internet doing my MLM.    Now we know each other, each other's families. There's power to that for sure.   Steve:    Oh definitely. One of the things that people will say to me when they're hesitant of using the internet is, "Steve. I'm not a coder. I'm not a programmer. I'm not techie."   What would you say to that?   EXCUSES ABOUT MLM AND THE INTERNET   Jon: I would say, "You don't need any of that."    Have they not seen ClickFunnels. You don't have to know how to code.    You need to learn how to market. That's what you gotta do.    If they come to me and they're like, "Jon, I want to be successful like you, but I'm not willing to publish. I'm not willing to learn marketing."    Then, "Okay, you're probably not going to be successful in the way that I have."    But if they come to me and say, "Jon, I need to be a coder. I need to be able to program. I need to be able to build stuff."   I don't know a line of code. I wouldn't know where to start other than knowing that it's a thing that exists.   Steve:    Me either.   Jon: I use the services provided and it's so easy. Anybody can do that.   Steve:    It's drag and drop.    Jon: Point and click. Microphone. To get my podcast started, I don't even think I spent more than $150 total.    Steve:    Which was on the mic.   Jon: Exactly. It's a microphone.   That's it. And you're good to go. That's what I tell people. They see me reinvesting in my business. They go, "I don't have that kind of money."    I was like, "Do you think I did?" You probably didn't either when you first started.    That's why you bootstrapped it. Like you're Funnel Hacking Live story. I share those kinds of stories with people because that's what they need to hear.    That's what I find is the biggest false belief.    In reality, it was not a pretty process. I was scared and it took a lot to do that. I'm like, "You'll get there too, but you gotta jump. You gotta jump."   THE COMMUNITY WITHIN SECRET MLM HACKS   Steve:    No, absolutely. Absolutely.    How is it that you've been able to go and train other people on how to do this?    Jon: Community groups. Similar to how you created a community for all of us to interact.   I found that creating a community, I'm really partial to Facebook groups just because I think that's the place most people congregate.    You can pull the stragglers in and I just get them all in there. Then you create a system like the way units are created or some sort of system to train. Keep them plugged in and keep them around all the success going on.    You've got to make them want to duplicate. I repurposed a lot of the training that you gave us. I did it back in my own videos, let them connect with me.   But you know what happened? None of them use it at first. I'm like, "This was the big brain moment."   Like, "This is the thing that changed everything for me. What do you mean you guys aren't interested in this?"   That made me feel nuts. Like, "Am I the only one that gets how big of a deal this stuff is that we're doing, how big of a breakthrough?"   I found later, if I couldn't connect them to what the outcome could be or why they'd want to do it, it didn't matter how good the training was.    Once I figured out how to surround them with, "This person promoted, this person promoted. Congratulations. Look at these things these people are doing."    Then they were like, "How are they doing it?”    “Okay, well go get the marketing training. Now go watch the stuff we made."   That was the wall I faced in between learning this and having the results for six months.   WHERE WILL MLM AND THE INTERNET TAKE YOU?   Steve:    What does the next little while look like for you then?    What are you working on now?   Jon: Right now what I'm trying to do is get some of my team leaders to do their publishing.   I'm trying to get some of my top level people to get out there and do a podcast or do a weekly Facebook Live series.    There's so many great ways to do social and get out there and build their audience.    It's not just myself. I have myself and one other person that do a lot. Everyone else is still on the fence. They're a little nervous.    They're having success, butI can see they're going to get stuck or maybe they're starting to.    And I'm like, "This is how you get unstuck."    We're ready to scale it big.   Steve:    Any parting advice you have for anybody who's like, "Does the internet plus MLM actually work?"   DON’T MISS OUT ON UTILIZING MLM AND THE INTERNET   Jon: My parting advice is just get in with it.    Some people are always going to be skeptical to MLM, direct selling, whatever you want to call it.    With the way things are decentralizing, more people are doing what I did. Leaving a career to go do this. To go build this magical internet business that people don't quite understand at first.   Social marketing is also on the rise like crazy and we're riding both at the same time.    The people who are riding the network marketing and social marketing over the next 10 years, I believe, and I know I'm not the only one, that is going to explode and it already is.    With the way things are heading, it's only going to put us at a bigger advantage because people don't want to do things the traditional way as much anymore.   I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm not saying I have a problem with it. I'm just saying that top producers are very active, they're publishing, they're on social, they're using the internet.    If you choose not to, then you're already behind right now. In three years, your chance at making producers trips and being onstage is going to be really slim because people are blowing up right now.    You can reach anybody, anywhere, truly.   USE THE INTERNET TO GROW YOUR DOWNLINE   Steve:    So true. It's totally possible to blow it up the old way. It's just not very probable, which means it's crazy risky.    You can't measure it. It's not a likely success.   Jon: It's harder to duplicate.   Steve:    It really is. And you can't go back and train everybody. I'm trying to not be offensive to anybody reading this.   Jon: You're safe here.   Steve:    You go from being a business coach to a life coach because the quality of individual that you go and grab, not to judge their self worth, but their readiness to actually perform.   You start grabbing people who are just not ready or in a place where they can take action.    Totally agree with that. Dude, thanks for being on. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.   Jon: Thanks for having me.   Steve:    You're kind of a celebrity now man. You're all over the place.    There's many of you guys from Secret MLM Hacks that are out wrecking the stage and I love it.    Thanks for taking the time to catch up and share it.   Jon: Any time. Happy to be here, Steve.   Steve:    What's your podcast?    Jon: My podcast is called MLM Automation Radio.   START PUBLISHING IN THE MLM SPACE    I talk about a lot of the same stuff and I get a lot of listeners that reference you. They don't know that I was a student in your class.   They go, "Have you listened to Secret MLM Hacks?" Like, "You guys seem to have a lot of the same ideas."    I'm like, "Well, that's where I learned a lot of ideas from."    You guys could check that out,  MLM Automation Radio. I have a lot of new content coming out this year. I'm doing a big revamp right now, going to give away some new stuff. Definitely check it out.   I know it's tough to find people to pitch after your warm market dries up, right?    That moment when you finally run out of family and friends to pitch. I don't see many up lines teaching legitimate lead strategies today.    After years of being a lead funnel builder online I got sick of the garbage strategies most MLMs have been teaching their recruits for decades.   Whether you simply want more leads to pitch or an automated MLM funnel, head over to secretmlmhacks.com and join the next FREE training.   There you're gonna learn the hidden revenue model that only the top MLMers have been using to get paid regardless if you join them.   Learn the 3-step system I use to auto recruit my downline of big producers WITHOUT friends or family even knowing that I'm in MLM.    If you want to do the same for yourself, head over to secretmlmhacks.com.   Again that’s secretmlmhacks.com.

GUEST BIO: Jon Skeet is a Staff Software Engineer at Google, working from the London office on the Google Cloud Client Libraries for .NET. He's probably better known for his contributions on Stack Overflow and his book, C# in Depth. Jon is married to Holly Webb, a prolific children's author, and they have three children together. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode Phil interviews Jon Skeet who is a senior software engineer for Google. He is the author behind C# in Depth, a book that made him something of a C# legend. Jon is also a well-known Stack Overflow contributor who has a reputation for providing descriptive answers that solve the toughest challenges. Some go as far as calling him “the Chuck Norris of programming”. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (1.00) – So Jon, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? In response, Jon explains that he is a big fan of working from home. So, he does not spend very much time at Google’s London headquarters. Instead he works out of a high tech, air-conditioned shed, complete with an ice-cream maker and surround-sound. Jon is a feminist, a Methodist and a local preacher who has a passion for musical theatre. (2.03) – Phil asks Jon for a unique IT career tip, something the audience should know. Jon replies that it is important to remember that “you will make far quicker progress in the long run, if you take one step at a time. Work through the problem in a structured way using a language you are really familiar with. If you are learning a new language, start by doing really simple things. But, don’t be afraid to “step into the dark” to try something totally new. Just do so consciously and accept that failing, at first, is fine. You will learn a lot that way. Spend most of your time working in a familiar way and try just one new thing at a time, so that you are always making progress. (4.14) Phil asks if Jon would describe that as a sort of incremental process. Jon said yes, “it is really don’t run before you can walk.” (4.38) – Phil asks Jon to share his worst career moment and what he learned from it. For Jon his low-point was not directly related to coding or a technical issue. He was working on a product launch with a looming deadline. As a result, he ended up working very odd hours to get the job done. Instead of arriving at the station at his normal time of 6.45 he was getting there at about 3.30am. He was compensating a bit by going home a little earlier than normal but he was actually working long hours. Plus, even though he was going to bed earlier he was not sleeping well. People were telling him he did not look well, so he was clearly stretched. But, he carried on working that way, until one morning he was mugged. The mugging probably would not have happened if there were more people around. Being mugged stopped Jon in his tracks and he realized that he needed to take more care of himself. He decided to stop putting in a lot of hours at the wrong times of the day. He no longer pushed himself so hard or let others do it to him.  Jon realized that he had to take care of himself. (7.18) – Phil wants to know what Jon’s best career moment was. Jon starts by explaining that he is proud of helping thousands of people and being at the top of Stack Overflow as well as his book and software. But, his career highlights have come while talking with other people. For example, in June, Jon spent several days talking with and teaching alongside a lead designer on C#. During that collaboration he learned a huge amount about why C# is designed the way it is. Talking and working with others teaches him a lot and is very fulfilling.  (9.18) – Phil asks what excites Jon about the future of IT. To some extent for Jon it is how little we know about it. “We are now in an age where when you go to university half of the jobs the student take up don’t exist yet.” The fact that we cannot really tell what tech is going to look like in 10 years time is exciting. Potentially, a whole area that nobody is even considering now could easily come to the fore. (10.56) – What drew you to a career in IT, Jon? From the age of 8 Jon played games on a ZX Spectrum 48K. Eventually, he started programming on the Spectrum. For his first project, he created a logo interpreter. He was motivated to do so because the BBC microcomputer at school had one. His innocence meant that he did not know that you could not implement the code yourself. So, he did not see that so-called impossible barrier. As a result, he just kept working at it until he got it done. By age 9 or 10 he was in love with programming. (12.32) – What is the best career advice you were given? “Be good at one thing” – make sure that there is one thing that you are really comfortable in. It is good to have several strings to your bow. But, be the go-to person for at least one topic or discipline. (13.36) – If you were to start your IT career again, what would you do? Jon said that because things are changing so quickly he has no idea. It would depend on what would hook him. “I am a big fan of doing something that you are interested in for whatever reason you’re interested.” He explained why this is so important using an example.  Someone could be inspired to help out in a soup kitchen and while there wonder if they can automate the rota. That leads to working out what the best way to organize it is. This in turn leads to them falling into all kinds of optimization things. Suddenly, you are having fun developing and optimizing things and you become an inspired developer.  (15.29) – Phil asks Jon what career objectives Jon currently focusing on. Jon’s response is “Having a good time.” He has never chased money or power. Instead, he has chased having a good life. Right now, he enjoys writing in C#. Jon also relishes the fact that he can work from home and spend plenty of time with his family, which he loves doing. (16.52) – What is your most important non-technical skill? Jon’s short answer is “empathy and compassion”. We have done a great job of solving the problems of straight white men, because that is the demographic of most software developers. That needs to change. We need to solve the problems of the people that are not represented in the software community. Jon is finding that being a novice feminist is changing the way he works. Feminism is all about seeing things from multiple perspectives. It teaches you that people’s problems and challenges are different, so they need to be answered and solved in different ways. (18.24) – Phil asks Jon to share some final career advice. Jon’s reply is– “really just focus on your life, think about what is genuinely important to you and pursue that.” That might mean switching from IT to solving an environmental issue you believe you can solve. If you think you can make a difference, just do it. You only have one life. BEST MOMENTS:  (2.20) JON – “You will make far quicker progress in the long run, if you take one step at a time.” (2.55) JON – “If you are learning a new language, start with really simple things, just so that you feel familiar in the language,” (6.59) JON – “I was just putting in lots of hours and the wrong hours, and you've got to take care of yourself, basically.” (9.20) JON – “It's really the people I've worked with that have provided the highlights rather than the code I’ve written.”  (13.42) JON – “Have a balance between knowing plenty of things to just as much as you need, but have one thing that you're the expert on.” (17.32) JON – “The ability to look at the world from other people's perspectives is absolutely crucial for software.” CONTACT JON SKEET: Blog: blog.jonskeet.uk Blog: codeblog.jonskeet.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonskeet @jonskeet