Podcast appearances and mentions of ryan well

Ryan Flessner, What If I Don't Understand Their Thinking? ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 15 “What do I do if I don't understand my student's strategy?” This is a question teachers grapple with constantly, particularly when conferring with students during class. How educators respond in moments like these can have a profound impact on students' learning and their mathematical identities. In this episode, we talk with Ryan Flessner from Butler University about what educators can say or do when faced with this situation. BIOGRAPHY Ryan Flessner is a professor of teacher education in the College of Education at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. He holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in teacher education from the University of Wisconsin–Madison; a master of arts in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University; and a bachelor of science in elementary education from Butler University. Prior to his time at the university level, he taught grades 3–7 in Indianapolis; New York City; and Madison, Wisconsin. RESOURCES Nearpod Pear Deck GeoGebra  Magma Math TRANSCRIPT Mike Wallus: “What do I do if I don't understand my student's strategy?” This is a question teachers grapple with constantly, particularly when conferring with students during class. How we respond in moments like these can have a profound impact on our students' learning and their mathematical identities. Today we'll talk with Ryan Flessner from Butler University about what educators can say or do when faced with this very common situation.  Welcome to the podcast, Ryan. Really excited to talk to you today. Ryan Flessner: Thanks, Mike. I'm flattered to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. Mike: So, this experience of working with a student and not being able to make sense of their solution feels like something that almost every teacher has had. And I'll speak for myself and say that when it happens to me, I feel a lot of anxiety. And I just want to start by asking, what would you say to educators who are feeling apprehensive or unsure about what to do when they encounter a situation like this? Ryan: Yeah, so I think that everybody has that experience. I think the problem that we have is that teachers often feel the need to have all of the answers and to know everything and to be the expert in the room. But as an educator, I learned really quickly that I didn't have all the answers. And to pretend like I did put a lot of pressure on me and made me feel a lot of stress and would leave me answering children by saying, “Let me get back to you on that.” And then I would scurry and try and find all the answers so I could come back with a knowledgeable idea. And it was just so much more work than to just simply say, “I don't know. Let's investigate that together.” Or to ask kids, “That's something interesting that I'm seeing you do. I've never seen a student do that before. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?” And just having that ability to free myself from having to have all the answers and using that Reggio-inspired practice—for those who know early childhood education—to follow the child, to listen to what he or she or they say to us and try to see. I can usually keep up with a 7- or an 8-year-old as they're explaining math to me. I just may never have seen them notate something the way they did. So, trying to ask that question about, “Show me what you know. Teach me something new.” The idea that a teacher could be a learner at the same time I think is novel to kids, and I think they respond really well to that idea. Mike: So, before we dig in a little bit more deeply about how teachers respond to student strategies if they don't understand, I just want to linger and think about the assumptions that many educators, myself included, might bring to this situation. Assumptions about their role, assumptions about what it would mean for a student if they don't know the answer right away. How do you think about some of the assumptions that are causing some of that anxiety for us? Ryan: Yeah. When the new generation of standards came out, especially in the field of math, teachers were all of a sudden asked to teach in a way that they themselves didn't learn. And so, if you have that idea that you have to have all the answers and you have to know everything, that puts you in a really vulnerable spot because how are we supposed to just magically teach things we've never learned ourselves? And so, trying to figure out ways that we can back up and try and make sense of the work that we're doing with kids, for me that was really helpful in understanding what I wanted from my students. I wanted them to make sense of the learning. So, if I hadn't made sense of it yet, how in the world could I teach them to make sense of it? And so we have to have that humility to say, “I don't know how to do this. I need to continue my learning trajectory and to keep going and trying to do a little bit better than the day that I did before.” I think that teachers are uniquely self-critical and they're always trying to do better, but I don't know if we necessarily are taught how to learn once we become teachers. Like, “We've already learned everything we have to do. Now we just have to learn how to teach it to other people.” But I don't think we have learned everything that we have to learn. There's a lot of stuff in the math world that I don't think we actually learned. We just memorized steps and kind of regurgitated them to get our A+ on a test or whatever we did.  So, I think having the ability to stop and say, “I don't know how to do this, and so I'm going to keep working at it, and when I start to learn it, I'm going to be able to ask myself questions that I should be asking my students.” And just being really thoughtful about, “Why is the child saying the thing that she is?,” “Why is she doing it the way that she's doing it?,” “Why is she writing it the way that she's writing it?” And if I can't figure it out, the expert on that piece of paper is the child [herself], so why wouldn't I go and say, “Talk to me about this.”? I don't have to have all the answers right off the cuff. Mike: In some ways, what you were describing just there is a real nice segue because I've heard you say that our minds and our students' minds often work faster than we can write, or even in some cases faster than we can speak. I'm wondering if you can unpack that. Why do you think this matters, particularly in the situation that we're talking about? Ryan: Yeah, I think a lot of us, especially in math, have been conditioned to get an answer. And nobody's really asked us “Why?” in the past. And so, we've done all of the thinking, we give the answer, and then we think the job is done. But with a lot of the new standards, we have to explain why we think that way. And so, all those ideas that just flurried through our head, we have to now articulate those either in writing on paper or in speech, trying to figure out how we can communicate the mathematics behind the answer.  And so, a lot of times I'll be in a classroom, and I'll ask a student for an answer, and I'll say, “How'd you get that?” And the first inclination that a lot of kids have is, “Oh, I must be wrong if a teacher is asking me why.” So, they think they're wrong. And so I say, “No, no, no. It's not that you're wrong. I'm just curious. You came to that answer, you stopped and you looked up at the ceiling for a while and then you came to me and you said the answer is 68. How did you do that?” A child will say something like, “Well, I just thought about it in my head.” And I say, “Well, what did you think about in your head?” “Well, my brain just told me the answer was 68.”  And we have to actually talk to kids. And we have to teach them how to talk to us—that we're not quizzing them or saying that they're wrong or they didn't do something well enough—that we just want them to communicate with us how they're going about finding these things, what the strategies are. Because if they can communicate with us in writing, if they can communicate on paper, if they can use gestures to explain what they're thinking about, all of those tell us strengths that they bring to the table. And if I can figure out the strengths that you have, then I can leverage those strengths as I address needs that arise in my classroom. And so, I really want to create this bank of information about individual students that will help me be the best teacher that I can be for them. And if I can't ask those questions and they can't answer those questions for me, how am I going to individualize my instruction in meaningful ways for kids? Mike: We've been talking a little bit about the teacher experience in this moment, and we've been talking about some of the things that a person might say.  One of the things that I'm thinking about before we dig in a little bit deeper is, just, what is my role? How do you think about the role of a teacher in the moment when they encounter thinking from a student that they don't quite understand […] yet? Part of what I'm after is, how can a teacher think about what they're trying to accomplish in that moment for themselves as a learner and also for the learner in front of them? How would you answer that question? Ryan: When I think about an interaction with a kid in a moment like that, I try to figure out, as the teacher, my goal is to try and figure out what this child knows so that I can continue their journey in a forward trajectory. Instead of thinking about, “They need to go to page 34 because we're on page 33,” just thinking about, “What does this kid need next from me as the teacher?”  What I want them to get out of the situation is I want them to understand that they are powerful individuals, that they have something to offer the conversation and not just to prove it to the adult in the room. But if I can hear them talk about these ideas, sometimes the kids in the classroom can answer each other's questions. And so, if I can ask these things aloud and other kids are listening in, maybe because we're in close proximity or because we're in a small-group setting, if I can get the kids to verbalize those ideas sometimes one kid talking strikes an idea in another kid. Or another kid will say, “I didn't know how to answer Ryan when he asked me that question before, but now that I hear what it sounds like to answer that type of a question, now I get it, and I know how I would say it if it were my turn.”  So, we have to actually offer kids the opportunity to learn how to engage in those moments and how to share their expertise so others can benefit from their expertise and use that in a way that's helpful in the mathematical process. Mike: One of the most practical—and, I have to say, freeing—things that I've heard you recommend when a teacher encounters student work and they're still trying to make sense of it, is to just go ahead and name it. What are some of the things you imagine that a teacher might say that just straight out name the fact that they're still trying to understand a student's thinking? Tell me a little bit about that. Ryan: Well, I think the first thing is that we just have to normalize the question “Why?” or “Tell me how you know that.” If we normalize those things—a lot of times kids get asked that question when they're wrong, and so it's an [immediate] tip of the hat that “You're wrong, now go back and fix it. There's something wrong with you. You haven't tried hard enough.” Kids get these messages even if we don't intend for them to get them. So, if we can normalize the question “Tell me why you think that” or “Explain that to me”—if we can just get them to see that every time you give me an answer whether it's right or wrong, I'm just going to ask you to talk to me about it, that takes care of half of the problem.  But I think sometimes teachers get stuck because—and myself being one of them—we get stuck because we'll look at what a student is doing and they do something that we don't anticipate. Or we say, “I've shown you three different ways to get at this problem, different strategies you can use, and you're not using any of them.” And so, instead of getting frustrated that they're not listening to us, how do we use that moment to inquire into the things that we said obviously aren't useful, so what is useful to this kid? How is he attacking this on his paper?  So, I often like to say to a kid, “Huh, I noticed that you're doing something that isn't up on our anchor chart. Tell me about this. I haven't seen this before. How can you help me understand what you're doing?” And sometimes it's the exact same thinking as other strategies that kids are using. So, I can pair kids together and say, “Huh, you're both talking about it in the same way, but you're writing it differently on paper.” And so, I think about how I can get kids just to talk to me and tell me what's happening so that I can help give them a notation that might be more acceptable to other mathematicians or to just honor the fact that they have something novel and interesting to share with other kids. Other questions I talk about are, I will say, “I don't understand what's happening here, and that's not your fault, that's my fault. I just need you to keep explaining it to me until you say something that strikes a chord.” Or sometimes I'll bring another kid in, and I'll have the kids listen together, and I'll say, “I think this is interesting, but I don't understand what's going on. Can you say it to her? And then maybe she'll say it in a way that will make more sense to me.” Or I'll say, “Can you show me on your paper—you just said that—can you show me on your paper where that idea is?” Because a lot of times kids will think things in their head, but they don't translate it all onto the paper. And so, on the paper, it's missing a step that isn't obvious to the viewer of the paper. And so, we'll say, “Oh, I see how you do that. Maybe you could label your table so that we know exactly what you're talking about when you do this. Or maybe you could show us how you got to 56 by writing 8 times 7 in the margin or something.”  Just getting them to clarify and try to help us understand all of the amazing things that are in their head. I will often tell them too, “I love what you're saying. I don't see it on your paper, so I just want you to say it again. And I'm going to write it down on a piece of paper that makes sense to me so that I don't forget all of the cool things that you said.” And I'll just write it using more of a standard notation, whether that's a ratio table or a standard US algorithm or something. I'll write it to show the kid that thing that you're doing, there's a way that people write that down. And so, then we can compare our notations and try and figure out “What's the thing that you did?,” “How does that compare to the thing that I did?,” “Do I understand you clearly now?” to make sure that the kid has the right to say the thing she wants to say in the way that she wants to say it, and then I can still make sense of it in my own way. It's not a problem for me to write it differently as long as we're speaking the same language. Mike: I want to mark something really important, and I don't want it to get lost for folks. One of the things that jumped out is the moves that you were describing. You could potentially take up those moves if you really were unsure of how a student were thinking, if you had a general notion but you had some questions, or if you totally already understood what the student was doing. Those are questions that aren't just reserved for the point in time when you don't understand—they're actually good questions regardless of whether you fully understand it or don't understand it at all. Did I get that right? Ryan: Yes. I think that's exactly the point. One thing that I am careful of is, sometimes kids will ask me a question that I know the answer to, and there's this thing that we do as teachers where we're like, “I'm not sure. Why don't you help me figure that out?”—when the kid knows full well that you know the answer.  And so, trying not to patronize kids with those questions, but to really show that I'm asking you these questions, not because I'm patronizing you. I'm asking these questions because I am truly curious about what you're thinking inside and all of the ideas that surround the things that you've written on your paper, or the things that you've said to your partner, to truly honor that the more I know about you, the better teacher I can be for you. Mike: So, in addition to naming the situation, one of the things that jumped out for me—particularly as you were talking about the students—is, what do you think the impact is on a student's thinking? But also their mathematical identity, or even the set of classroom norms, when they experience this type of questioning or these [types] of questions? Ryan: So, I think I talked a little bit about normalizing the [questions] “Why?” or “How do you know that?” And so, just letting that become a classroom norm I think is a sea-changing moment for a lot of classrooms—that the conversation is just different if the kids know they have to justify their thinking whether they're right or wrong. Half the time, if they are incorrect, they'll be able to correct themselves as they're talking it through with you. So, kids can be freed up when they're allowed to use their expertise in ways that allow them to understand that the point of math is to truly make sense of it so that when you go out into the world, you understand the situation, and you have different tools to attack it.  So, what's the way that we can create an environment that allows them to truly see themselves as mathematical thinkers? And to let them know that “Your grades in other classes don't tell me much about you as a mathematician. I want to learn what really works for you, and I want to try and figure out where you struggle. And both of those things are important to me because we can use them in concert with each other. So, if I know the things you do well, I can use those to help me build a plan of instruction that will take you further in your understandings.”  I think that one of the things that is really important is for kids to understand that we don't do math because we want a good grade. I think a lot of people think that the point of math is to get a good grade or to pass a test or to get into the college that you want to get into, or because sixth grade teachers want you to know this. I really want kids to understand that math is a fantastic language to use out in the world, and there are ways that we can interpret things around us if we understand some pretty basic math. And so how do we get them to stop thinking that math is about right answers and next year and to get the job I want? Well, those things may be true, but that's not the real meaning of math. Math is a way that we can live life. And so, if we don't help them understand the connections between the things that they're doing on a worksheet or in a workbook page, if we don't connect those things to the real world, what's the meaning? What's the point for them? And how do we keep them engaged in wanting to know more mathematics?  So, really getting kids to think about who they are as people and how math can help them live the life that they want to live. Creating classroom environments that have routines in place that support kids in thinking in ways that will move them forward in their mathematical understanding. Trying to help them see that there's no such thing as “a math person” or “not a math person.” That everybody has to do math. You do math all the time. You just might not even know that you're doing math. So, I think all of those ideas are really important. And the more curious I can be about students, maybe the more curious they'll be about the math. Mike: You're making me think that this experience of making sense of someone else's reasoning has a lot of value for students. And I'm wondering how you've seen educators have students engage and make sense of their peer strategies. Ryan: Yeah. One of the things that I love to see teachers doing is using students' work as the conversation starter. I often, in my classroom, when I started doing this work, I would bring children up to the overhead projector or the document camera. And they would kind of do a show and tell and just say, “I did this and then I did this, and then I did this thing next.” And I would say, “That's really great, thank you.” And I'd bring up the next student. And it kind of became a show-and-tell-type situation. And I would look at the faces of the other kids in the room, and they would kind of just either be completely checked out or sitting there like raising their hand excitedly—“I want to share mine, I want to share mine.” And what I realized was, that there was really only one person who was engaged in that show-and-tell manner, and that was the person who was sharing their work. And so, I thought, “How can I change that?” So, I saw a lot of really amazing teachers across my career. And the thing that I saw that I appreciated the most is that when a piece of student work is shared, the person who really shouldn't talk is the person who created the work because they already know the work. What we need to do as a group is we need to investigate, “What happened here on this paper?” “Why do you think they made the moves that they made? And how could that help us understand math, our own math, in a different way?” And so, getting kids to look in at other kids' work, and not just saying, “Oh, Mike, how do you understand Ryan's work?” It's “Mike, can you get us started?” And then you say the first thing, and then I say, “OK, let's stop. Let's make sure that we've got this right.” And then we go to the kid whose work it is and say, “Are we on the right track? Are we understanding what you're …?” So, we're always checking with that expert. We're making sure they have the last word, because It's not my strategy. I didn't create it. Just because I'm the teacher doesn't mean you should come and ask me about this because this is Mike's strategy. So go and ask the person who created that.  So, trying to get them to understand that we all need to engage in each other's work. We all need to see the connections. We can learn from each other. And there's an expectation that everyone shares, right? So, it's not just the first kid who raises his hand. It's “All of you are going to get a chance to share.” And I think the really powerful thing is I've done this work even with in-service teachers. And so, when we look at samples of student work, what's fascinating is it just happens naturally because the kid's not in the room. We can't have that kid do a show and tell. We have to interpret their work. And so, trying to look at the kid's work and imagine, “What are the types of things we think this child is doing?,” “What do we think the strengths are on this paper?,” “What questions would you ask?,” “What would you do next?,” is such an interesting thing to do when the child isn't in the room. But when I'm with students, it's just fascinating to watch the kid whose work is on display just shine, even though they're not saying a word, because they just say, “Huh.” They get it. They understand what I did and why I did it.  I think that it's really important for us not just to have kids walk up to the board and do board work and just solve a problem using the steps that they've memorized or just go up and do a show and tell, [but] to really engage everyone in that process so that we're all learning. We're not just kind of checking out or waiting for our turn to talk. Mike: OK, you were talking about the ways that an educator can see how a student was thinking or the ways that an educator could place student work in front of other students and have them try to make sense of it. I wonder if there are any educational technology tools that you've seen that might help an educator who's trying to either understand their students' thinking or put it out for their students to understand one another's thinking. Ryan: Yeah, there's so many different pieces of technology and things out there. It's kind of overwhelming to try and figure out which one is which. So, I mean, I've seen people use things like Nearpod or Pear Deck—some of those kind of common technologies that you'll see when people do an educational technology class or a workshop at a conference or something. I've seen a lot of people lately using GeoGebra to create applets that they can use with their kids. One that I've started using a lot recently is Magma Math. Magma Math is great. I've used this with teachers and professional development situations to look at samples of student work because the thing that Magma has that I haven't seen in a lot of other technologies is there's a playback function. So, I can look at a static piece of finished work, but I can also rewind, and as the child works in this program, it records it. So, I can watch in real time what the child does. And so, if I can't understand the work because things are kind of sporadically all over the page, I can just rewatch the order that the child put something onto the page. And I think that's a really great feature.  There's just all these technologies that offer us opportunities to do things that I couldn't do at the beginning of my career or I didn't know how to do. And the technology facilitates that. And it's not just putting kids on an iPad so they can shoot lasers at the alien that's invading by saying, “8 times 5 is 40,” and the alien magically blows up. How does that teach us anything? But some of these technologies really allow us to dig deeply into a sample of work that students have finished or inquire into, “How did that happen and why did that happen?” And the technologies are just getting smarter and smarter, and they're listening to teachers saying, “It would be really helpful if we could do this or if we could do that.” And so, I think there are a lot of resources out there—sometimes too many, almost an embarrassment of riches. So, trying to figure out which ones are the ones that are actually worth our time, and how do we fund that in a school district or in a school so that teachers aren't paying for these pieces out of their pocket. Mike: You know what? I think that's a great place to stop. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. It has been an absolute pleasure talking with you. Ryan: It's always great to talk to you, Mike. Thanks for all you do. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2025 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org  

As entrepreneurs, we have the ability to make a difference in the world and in those we serve by aligning our  In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Ryan Pineda, real estate investing expert and author of The Wealthy Way to talk about real estate, business, and faith. You'll Learn [01:34] Getting Started in Entrepreneurship [08:07] Faith and Business [17:16] Having Impact as a Business Owner [29:50] You are What You Consume [45:35] Don't Wait to do the Work Tweetables  ”There's no more efficient business model for positively changing the world than business.” “ When you start becoming process-driven more than results-driven, your life changes.” “ We should expect things to be hard and worth it.” “ You are what you consume in all areas of life.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: There's so much wisdom in there and if you can at least just be willing to extract wisdom wherever you can find it, then you're not an idiot And so at least start there, everybody listening, just look for wisdom, be a seeker of wisdom and look for the things that are better and higher.  [00:00:16] Welcome DoorGrow property managers 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 in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:34] DoorGrow property managers 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. [00:00:54] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. 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. [00:01:13] Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:17] So my guest today, I am honored to hang out with Ryan Pineda. Ryan, welcome to the show.  [00:01:22] Ryan: Hey, happy to be here. Good to see you.  [00:01:25] Jason: So Ryan, I'd love to kick things off by getting into your background of how you kind of got into this journey of entrepreneurship. But before we do that, your company's called Wealthy Investor, right? [00:01:36] Yep. And you've worked with a lot of real estate investors. My target audience listening to the show are usually the vehicle or the support mechanism for a lot of investors. I think the audience would be interested in hearing a little bit about how you got kind of started into entrepreneurism first of all, and then maybe how you got into real estate. [00:01:57] Ryan: Yeah, I'll give the quick story. You know, I never wanted to get into real estate or entrepreneurship. I was a baseball player growing up and that was all I wanted to do. I was grateful and thankful that I was able to actually do that. You know, I ended up getting drafted by the Oakland A's and got to play professional baseball for eight years. [00:02:15] But, I didn't get paid much in the minor leagues. I never made it to the bigs. I was making 1200 bucks a month. And so I had to make money elsewhere. And that's what led me in entrepreneurship. You know, I got my real estate license in 2010. Yep. And, you know, so I've been in the game for about 15 years now. [00:02:32] And, you know, I've seen a lot. You know, started as an agent and hated it. My mom was actually a property manager. I didn't tell you that. So, I watched her do that for a little bit while being an agent as well. So she was an agent herself, but you know, watching her, I had no desire to be an agent or do anything in real estate because when I got in in 2010, she had just lost everything. [00:02:53] You know, and she's like, you need to get like a safe job. You need to get something that has a salary and a pension. That was literally her advice. Well, and I was like, yeah, maybe, I don't know. Hopefully this baseball thing works out. But while I'm playing, I can't get that. So I'm going to have to do something. [00:03:11] So anyways, I become an agent. Hate it. Do it for a few years. Ended up getting into other weird things. I started flipping couches. I was a substitute teacher. I was just doing anything that could make a buck on the side. And then eventually that led to flipping houses in 2015. [00:03:27] And that was when I, for the first time, started to make some real money. And yeah, I mean, by my third year, I had made, you know, I became a millionaire after year three, flipping houses. And it was just like, wow, this is crazy. And since then I flipped, you know, I think almost 600, 700 homes. And. You know, I've bought rentals. [00:03:47] I own apartment buildings through our syndication. You know, we've coached people, like you said, with wealthy investor. We've coached thousands of students and held really big events. You know, I've started another subsidiary businesses for real estate investors. You know, we have a lead generation company called Lead Kitchen where we help them get leads for sellers. [00:04:05] We have, you know, I had a tax firm, you know, I've kind of done almost everything you can imagine in the real estate world, but  [00:04:10] Jason: Yeah, that's a lot. So I'm curious you said your mom was a property manager and she gave you the advice It was kind of like maybe steer clear of this stuff. [00:04:19] What does your mom think now about everything?  [00:04:22] Ryan: You know what? She's still always hyper cautious so, you know, I retired my parents in 2019 I bought him a house bought him all the cars and everything and my dad actually started working for me in 2018 as a project manager. So he would oversee a lot of our flips and even to this day, he still does it. [00:04:42] Not cause he has to, because he's just like, well, if you're going to, you know, pay for us, I might as well like earn it, you know, and he just wants to support and whatever. So, You know, my dad understands the game. My mom though, obviously she's seen the results, but she's still always hyper cautious. [00:04:57] And so, she doesn't think I need to get a job now, but she does think a lot of times the big risk I take, I shouldn't be taking.  [00:05:05] Jason: Yeah. Looking back, when do you see in hindsight that there were clues that you were maybe destined to be an entrepreneur? Maybe even doing baseball. [00:05:16] Ryan: Yeah. I look back in hindsight, even as a kid and I was always buying and selling and thinking about money. Like I started an eBay account when I was like 12 years old. I remember. You know, buying stuff and bidding on stuff and getting good deals on eBay. And then I remember I was selling Pokemon cards and Yu Gi Oh cards, you know, in middle school and stuff. [00:05:37] And it's just like, You know, the signs were always there. And then even I was always attracted to just making money myself. So like I was good at poker, you know, I won poker tournaments and I played online and I made money that way. And so in hindsight, it was always very clear. I was never going to have a job. [00:05:53] Really the only true job I ever had was playing baseball. And even then it's like, yeah, there's not really a way to be an entrepreneur. I mean, you kind of are you're in charge of your career and how well you want to do and like how well you want to train and. And so, yeah, even in that sense, baseball is kind of in that same vein. [00:06:12] Jason: Yeah. So I'm sure even to get as far as you got in baseball, there was a lot of drive involved and a lot of effort involved, even though there wasn't a lot of pay, it sounds like.  [00:06:25] Ryan: Yeah, I think yeah, for me, like, I had to learn how to like win, you know, at the end of the day, losing is not an option, right? [00:06:33] It's a zero sum game in sports. One person wins, one person loses, you know, for the pitcher to succeed, you must get out. And so, dude, I'm like, I'm going to just figure out how to win. I'm competitive. And so I think competitiveness has always fueled me. It's different in business now because I understand the games that we play. [00:06:52] It's like, you know, We both can have good podcasts. We both can win in business. You don't need to lose for me to win. But that doesn't mean I'm still not competitive.  [00:07:00] Jason: Sure. Yeah. I'm sure in the different industries that you have businesses that you focus on, you have competitors and you probably want to win. [00:07:09] Ryan: I don't want to lose.  [00:07:11] Jason: Right. I want to be the best. I think that's true of most entrepreneurs. There's this drive or, this bite to win. You know, I remember early on, I think some of my first clues as to that I might be an entrepreneur is I was into music. And I remember in college, I was going around door to door pre selling CDs so that I could fund doing an album. [00:07:31] And yet I still at the time was thinking I've got to get a degree to get some sort of job to rise the corporate ladder. And I had no clue that entrepreneurism was like a path at the time. So it's interesting and Entrepreneurism sort of found me In that I needed a way to not be doing a nine to five job to be able to take care of kids because I ended up as a single father right and divorced and like went through all this stuff. [00:07:57] And so I was like, all right, what can I do? And so I sometimes joke that my kids turned me into an entrepreneur. It was just what needed to be done, but there were always clues before, right? So you know, one of the things that you've talked about a lot, I've noticed on your social media, on podcasts is you're very faith forward. [00:08:15] Like you're very comfortable talking about your faith and like the things that kind of motivate you and drive you. And you're involved in some charitable sort of, you know, businesses or charitable entities or organizations as well. How does faith sort of play into all of this when it comes to business for you? [00:08:33] Ryan: Well, you know, I grew up in the church. So, you know, for those who don't know, I'm a Christian. And you know, I grew up in a baptist church and you know, faith was always a part of my life. And I felt like for the most part, I did things the way God wanted me to. You know, I didn't really rebel and go crazy in college, got married young. [00:08:51] You know, I've always tried to put God first and everything. And You know, I think in the last couple of years, God was just pushing me to get even more deep in faith and more bold and to really embrace the spiritual and supernatural side of faith because I was always a very theologically sound person. [00:09:11] And you know, I've read the Bible many times, and, you know, I spent a lot of time, like I said, in church and serving and other things, but you just realize in everything in life, especially with faith, that there's so little that you actually know, and you know, as I've grown in my faith, I've learned to hear from God better. [00:09:29] And tune out all the noise of everything else going out in life, right? I mean, there's so many distractions in life. There's your business, there's social media, there's your kids, your family, you know, the recession, the election, it's like distraction. I think that's Satan's biggest, yeah, that's Satan's biggest tool is to distract you from the truth. [00:09:49] And so the truth was God wanted me to get more bold and to really use my platform for him, not for me. And, you know, with that, I became convicted to just really go all in because I mean, one thing I guess people would notice about my career too, is like, there's no really lukewarmness, you know, when I go all in on something. [00:10:09] It's like, yo, if we're going to throw an event, it's going to be crazy. If we're going to start this, we're going on a blitz. And so I said, you know what, we need to start something for Christian entrepreneurs and Christian business people. And so, you know, I created Wealthy Kingdom last year and you know, we're a nonprofit and, you know, we have three goals. [00:10:27] Well, I shouldn't say three goals. The one goal, the mission is to bring the kingdom to the marketplace. And what I mean by that is so many entrepreneurs just think it's the church's job to, you know, go get people saved and to go disciple people. And it's like, yeah, you know, just invite them to church on Sunday. [00:10:44] It's like, no, our job, every Christian has this goal or mission. You know, Jesus tells us right before he left, he said that the mission here is you need to go make disciples of all nations. We all have that same mission. And it's like, it's not to make the most money. It's not to do the thing that you love. [00:11:05] Like, Jesus never said do the thing that you love. Like that's another big lie that, you know, people have been told.  [00:11:12] Jason: Jesus didn't even do what he loved necessarily. Like to a degree, he said, I don't even do my own will. Yeah. He does the will of him who sent me. Right. He's like, I'm not even doing my own will. [00:11:22] And so if that's a model, then maybe it's not about just selfishly doing our own will all the time.  [00:11:29] Ryan: Absolutely should not. Our will, as we grow should be more aligned with the father's will. And that's what sanctification is. So anyways, to, to long story short. God called us to go be disciples where we're at. [00:11:42] We don't like, we need to go make disciples of all nations right now. That's in our job, in our career, in our business, at an event, whatever. And so I took that to heart. So we started you know, looking at everything that we currently do. And we said, well, let's do it for the King. And so I said, all right, well, let's get a kingdom based community. [00:12:01] And so, you know, we started an online community because that's something we currently do in business. It's like, well, let's get one kingdom based. And so we have that it's completely free. Anyone can join it. Then I said, let's throw events. We throw a lot of events. Why are we not throwing kingdom events? [00:12:14] And so we started throwing big events for the kingdom. And in fact, in my secular events, I just started throwing worship services and pastors in the middle of the event without even telling anyone. Because I'm like, look, this might be the only time they ever hear the good news in their entire life. [00:12:31] And, you know, whatever they might like it, they might not like it, but I don't really care. They need to hear it. And so we started incorporating faith into our events. You know, and then the last thing was really just discipling the current believers because I'm all about the lost. I want to get the lost at the events. [00:12:50] With our content, with our community, but also too, what about the people who are already saved? Well, we need to disciple them and make them better. And so we started running Bible studies all across the country. And I think we're close to a hundred, actually across the world right now, that meet every single week in people's offices, in their homes. [00:13:07] And we all go through the same studies together in these Bible studies, across as a body. And it's really cool. So, yeah, we're trying to attack it from a lot of different angles.  [00:13:18] Jason: It's a lot to organize.  [00:13:20] Ryan: Oh, yeah. But here's the thing, right? It's weird because I just said, Hey, don't do your will. Do God's will. [00:13:26] Right. But on the same hand, God gave us all talents, abilities and different life experiences. And so, you know, he calls us to use those to do his will and it's like all right god gave me a lot of influence online. Why am I not making videos and content, you know helping people understand what that means? [00:13:47] God gave me the ability to throw massive events. We threw wealth con every quarter a thousand plus people every quarter for years. Why am I not throwing massive events for the kingdom? God gave me the ability to organize communities and groups and all these things. Why am I not organizing and using my administrative gifts to do that? And it's like it's all the same thing, and they're all the same gifts and they're all the same skill sets, but on one hand you're putting him first and on the other hand you're putting yourself first  [00:14:16] Jason: Yeah, I love the idea of you know positively impacting the world I think business a lot of people don't realize I think business really there's no more efficient business model for positively changing the world than business, right? [00:14:31] I don't think charities don't function as well like businesses. There's an exchange of value And if there's value like behind it and there's a mission and a purpose behind it Then even the team members the employees everybody Are more lit up and excited and so business is a very efficient business model and you know, one of my past mentors, Alex Charfen, and he would say something to the effect of like entrepreneurs are the people that have changed the world throughout history. [00:14:57] They're the people that kind of think differently. And you know, you mentioned the word disciple like several times and I love the scripture where it's like, how do you know who's a disciple, right? And it's by this shall men know, right? You're my disciple. If you have loved one towards another and I think you know this spreading this message of like sharing true principles Which I think is what makes scripture, right? [00:15:20] It's that there's true principles that can be applied to things that are useful and I think a really good business book will have maybe one key principle it teaches, but then you take a book like the bible and it's just full of lots of different instances of principles that these levers that you can apply to various situations in your life or in decision making. [00:15:39] And you know, that's always been sort of my purpose, I feel is to bring principles to people and to share principles of truth to others, because I feel like that's the easiest lever to impact people's mindset or change their lives is to bring some truth or light or some true principles that they can apply, especially if it's facilitating more love or more kindness. [00:16:01] And there's so many different things different principles that apply in business in order to figure things out like related hiring related to you know running an efficient business  [00:16:11] Ryan: How do you know like a non profit is a business right? I mean, it's a non profit.  [00:16:15] Jason: Yeah, it is. It is a business. Yeah. [00:16:17] Ryan: A church is a business technically based on its designation, Wealthy Kingdom is a business. [00:16:22] It's a nonprofit, right? I mean, in many cases, well, I shouldn't say this because every nonprofit's different, but like for me, I make literally nothing from it. You know, I do it out of a, you know, I just want to do it. Now we have employees, we have staff, we have marketing, we have event costs, we got to pay for all this stuff. [00:16:38] Right. And so we got to figure out, man, how do we use the resources we have in the best way possible? Well, it's the same thing we ask ourself every day in business. We have a limited amount of labor, a limited amount of capital, a limited amount of time. What do we do, you know, to make the most of it? So it's all the same. [00:16:57] And I think too, right, you don't even have to have a nonprofit for this to be the example, right? This is just simply the idea of stewardship. You know, God talks a lot about stewardship and it's like, well. I've given y'all different varying degrees of talent. I've put y'all in different places. Y'all are going to be judged accordingly based on how you used your talent. [00:17:16] And I think that, well, I know that 1, 000, and a lot of Christians don't realize this. A lot of Christians, so, for all the Christians on the show, this is going to hopefully convict you, okay? A lot of people think that when you get saved, that's the end of the journey. Yeah, when literally that is like they've arrived they're done. [00:17:39] You just started! Great! [00:17:41] Jason: Yeah.  [00:17:41] Ryan: Now guess what you your whole rest of your life now actually begins and so many people like, God tells us that hey, guess what? Once you're saved, you know, there's a new judgment now. Because before it was like, all right, what happens in eternity, right? You're going to be in heaven. [00:17:58] You're going to be in hell. That's like the salvation question, but then there's this next question about judgment and stewardship and what you did with what he gave you because Somebody like myself and you will be judged more harshly than other christians and people are like, what does that mean? [00:18:18] Well, it means that if he gave you more resource and he even says if you're a teacher and you cause other people to stumble, you are going to be judged significantly more harshly than others. And so I take that super serious because I'm like, all right, yeah, I'm saved. I'm not worried about that, but man, I better do everything in my power to be a great steward and to understand if I have influence and I'm teaching people, I know exactly what I'm saying. [00:18:44] Jason: Yeah, it's much like the Parable of the Talents, you know, the worst was like to try and bury it and hide it, hide the money. The person that did the best with the money that he trusted with the most money, like, made twice as much money, like, he increased it significantly, right?  [00:19:00] Ryan: And he was also given the person's talent that, who buried his talent. [00:19:04] Jason: Exactly. He's like, I'm going to take it away from you because you don't know how to use this or how to deal with it. And so I think there's a nice summation of business in that for us, like where much is given, much is required and yeah, I've got a little bit of an audience. [00:19:18] You've got a little bit of an audience as well, right? We've got these audiences and people are listening, people pay attention to what we're doing And you know, we have a ripple effect. And I have a ripple effect through my clients who have a ripple effect through all the families that they support, the investors, the team members that they have. And that's significant and to me, that's exciting. Like, that's what motivates me to do what I do. [00:19:43] That's inspiring. But yeah, I could see that some people would maybe it would convict them. Maybe they would feel maybe they feel a little ashamed if they thought about it, man, you know, the energy I'm putting out into the world and in the universe here, isn't the ripple that I really feel is the best ripple I could create. [00:19:59] Ryan: Well, the other part, too, is obviously we have ripples here on Earth, but, you know, there are ripples for eternity based on our decisions for the people we help and everything else, and, you know, the Bible talks about how, you know, you store up your treasures in heaven, and if you read, you know, a lot of Christians also don't know this, they think that Heaven is this place where everybody's equal and, you know, we're all in the same thing. [00:20:25] No, it's actually not like there's hierarchies in heaven there. Like it's clear when the disciples are talking to Jesus and they're like, man, dude, I want to sit on your right hand. He's like, you don't even know what you're asking for. And. you know, they're clearly trying to be in that inner circle after this too. [00:20:43] And, you know, you could read all about it. There's hierarchy with demons. There's hierarchy with angels. Hierarchy is going to be in heaven. It's already there. And it's like, you know, you got a lot of investors on this podcast who are like, Oh man, I got to invest for the future. I got to get my net worth here. [00:21:01] I got to get my cashflow here. I got to. And it's like, we're investing trying to build for the future of this life. And once you truly understand that this life is so short in the span of eternity, you start thinking very differently. And you're like, well, I would rather invest for eternity. And actually, we just read this book in our Wealthy Kingdom group. [00:21:21] It's called Driven by Eternity by John Bevere. It's a great, one of the most convicting books I've ever read. But, he goes, alright. He's like, I learned this in math. Anything divided by infinity is infinity. And it's like, eternity is infinity, right? But if you were to try and even just, finitely say it with our brains, let's just say the next 24 hours, we're going to dictate the next thousand years of your reward here on earth, right? [00:21:48] How you spent the next 24 hours would dictate what reward you got for the next thousand years. You'd be like, that's insane, right? That doesn't seem right. That, you know, this is going to be  [00:22:00] Jason: proportionately skewed. To this moment. Yeah, it's- [00:22:04] Ryan: that's not even close to infinity.  [00:22:07] Jason: Yeah.  [00:22:08] Ryan: We spend 100 years here on this earth thinking we have all this time. In the scheme of infinity, it's worse than way where it could be 24 hours to 10, 000 years to a million years, a billion years. It's still not infinity. And yeah, people just don't, they don't think about it because it's so hard to grasp. But it's like I wish and this is why god has you know kind of got me more vocal about it. [00:22:33] So we're talking about it now But it's like I want investors because I'm an investor right now, you know, like I'm always looking for the best investment I'm always looking for the best use of my time, but I want people to start thinking about man, Invest for eternity. That's way longer than this! Your retirement is way shorter than infinity and eternity. [00:22:54] Jason: Though, could Jesus be a house flipper in the eternities? Because he says in my father's house, there's many mansions, right? And he said, I'm going to prepare something for you guys. And so I think what you're talking about is maybe we should be paying a little less attention maybe to just our real estate assets and our investing here and maybe do some heavenly real estate investing. [00:23:17] Ryan: I'm being 1, 000, that's 1, 000 percent what I'm saying. And it's changed my mindset so much in the last year that I could care less about my net worth. I could care less about how many properties I own. I could care less about any of it. Because eternity is so much greater.  [00:23:36] Jason: So some people might be saying, Ryan, come on. [00:23:38] You're wealthy now. You run Wealthy Investor. You've got money. So it's easy for you to say that. What would you say to the naysayers?  [00:23:46] Ryan: I would say that I've had a certain level of contentness, no matter how much money I had. I made 1200 bucks my entire 20s a month. Okay. So like, I understand what it is to have nothing. [00:23:57] And you know, people always make an excuse, right? It's like, I got three kids and a wife, five, five and under, man, I got a special needs son. I spend a lot of time with my kids. And it's like, well, you know, that's cause you, everybody's default is that's cause you have money or this or that. [00:24:14] It's like, no, all these things were built with nothing. They were all built simultaneously. It wasn't that, oh, this came after that. It's like, no, they were all built in the same construct. So people just need to realize it's just an excuse. It's a cop out. Right. And the other part too, is it's just a fact of not trusting what the Bible says. [00:24:33] So if you're not Christian- [00:24:34] Jason: which essentially is just not trusting God,  [00:24:37] Ryan: Yeah, and if you're not Christian and you don't believe it, that's one thing. But if you are a Christian, you cannot say that you are a Christian and then claim that. It is a lie. And it's like, if you read Matthew 6:33, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, then everything else will be added to you. [00:24:54] And so this is where it comes into play of like, if I'm seeking those eternal rewards, everything else will be added to me. Now, does that mean I'm going to be a hundred millionaire billionaire own all these prop-? No, but I do know I'm going to be just fine here on earth. Like, I don't have to worry about that. [00:25:11] Like I'll be taken care of. It'll be added to me. So I just trust that promise.  [00:25:17] Jason: Yeah. I think I've always just trusted, even when money was tight, I've always trusted in my ability to figure things out and that God's going to take care of me. I just, I bought  [00:25:27] Ryan: money's been tight for me many times after I've been rich. [00:25:30] Jason: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:25:31] Ryan: Like so many times every business owner every you know, Elon Musk, dude I mean the richest man in the world, right? This guy struggles with money like, you know Yeah, dude, he had to buy Twitter for 50 billion dollars he didn't have 50 billion dollars just laying around It was like the last hour to figure out how to go buy that thing. You know, they tell the story of how he invested all of his, like, 300 million he got from PayPal into Tesla and SpaceX and they were going to both go bankrupt and not make it. [00:26:01] Yeah. So, you know, I guess it all just is, like, it comes back to this idea that people think that there's a certain amount of wealth that prevents you from, you know, ever having to work again. And that's not true. It's just not true. Like, it can all be taken from you instantly.  [00:26:16] Jason: So, here's a thought I have that I think might convict, as you say, you know, Christians or just other people that claim to believe in God. [00:26:24] Is one thing I've noticed is you know, especially among, I guess, poor christians or people that have money issues is that I've noticed this action of cursing reality while claiming to love god. It's like oh well this sucks and this and they're kind of they're negative about everything showing up in reality and my favorite name for God in a lot of instances is reality because he says I am what is I am the truth he's the ultimate and reality always wins God always ultimately wins and I don't think it's fair for a christian to claim, I'm like so like faithful to god yet I'm going to curse my reality and complain about reality and complain about how everything is and complain about my family and my spouse and my job and the world and everything else. And there's such a difference I think in people that are at odds with reality which reality will always win. Reality doesn't lie reality is what is and those that are actually in alignment with reality, and align their will to god. [00:27:29] What do you think of that?  [00:27:30] Ryan: Yeah, I mean look god has been here way before us and here's another thing. I tell people I'm just like, all right, look, you know Even if you're not a Christian, right? I think majority of people believe there is something after this life. People believe there is, you know, some supernatural thing. [00:27:47] Most people would believe in the afterlife and whatever. And then, you know, almost everyone agrees there was nothing and then there was something right. And we would call this the creation of the world. But you know, my belief is, you know, It's based on the Bible, and the Bible tells us that there was a supernatural world well before this physical world you know, God talks about there was angels, there was all these things happening well before he created the earth, and the earth is going to pass away, and then, you know, You know, it's going to be back to how it was. [00:28:16] And you know, it's like, and you know, there's going to be a new heaven, new earth, all these things, but my point with that is God was always, that's just the best he has always been. He will always will be. He will always like he's past, present, future. He's just all present. And you know, The other part I struggle with a lot of Christians is they just don't understand the power that they have. [00:28:44] You know, they walk in weakness. And in reality, it's like, Do you realize, an axe, Jesus said or not an axe, but in the Gospels, and then it happened, an axe. He said, look it's good that I'm leaving you, because you're going to get something far better than just me being here with you physically. You're going to get the Helper, and then an axe, they receive the Holy Spirit, literally God living within them, inside of them. [00:29:08] And it's like, you have literally the same God that has always been here, that created you, that created this world living inside of you, and you're worried? What would you ever be worried about? You know, just think like back to just metaphors, you know, would you ever be worried if like, you know financially if you had just like all this money just with you at all times? [00:29:31] No, you wouldn't be worried financially. Would you be worried for your physical safety if you had the most elite killers as bodyguards around you at all times? No, you wouldn't be worried about your safety. You know, like, we have something so much better than all of those things, and we're worried. [00:29:46] We think we can't do things. We don't trust.  [00:29:50] Jason: So this is a good question. Let's bring this back to entrepreneurism. How can people, maybe they don't believe in God, maybe they, they do, but how do they bring themselves, do you feel, and how do you do this? How do you bring yourself in alignment with this greater power for those that maybe can just believe that or towards the universe or the God that created it? [00:30:12] How do we start to get ourselves in alignment? So we know we're on the right path.  [00:30:15] Ryan: Well, this doesn't apply to just God. But this is just everything in life, right? You are what you consume. So if I consume junk food and crap, then, you know, I'm going to be fat and my energy will suck and all those things, right? [00:30:30] Or like for another example, right? If I consume the news all day, 24 seven, right? I'm probably going to be a very skeptical, not trusting person. I'm going to have biases, all these things. Yeah. If I consume entrepreneur content all day and I watch all these guys I'm probably just going to be thinking about making money 24 seven, right? [00:30:48] You are what you consume in all areas of life and you know, you are the average of the five people you hang around with all of these things are a form of just what you consume And so if you want to become more like jesus you have to consume and get around people that are like Jesus. And so, you know, what does that look like? [00:31:05] Well, it looks like reading your Bible every day. It looks like praying every day. It looks like hanging around, you know, other Christians who are walking the walk. It looks like going to church on Sundays. It looks like listening to sermons, listening to worship music. You know, you just have to immerse yourself in it and consume it. And that's how you're going to become more aligned. It's crazy because like, I'll tell you this, and this could sound extreme to people, but it's like, you start to realize the rest of the things in the world that are deception, right? It's like, I used to not think rap music and things were like bad. [00:31:38] You know, I used to listen to gangster rap all the time, man. I love Tupac and all these guys. And then you start to just like, you know, they call me little Ryan. You know, you look, you listen to the lyrics, you know, from a different point of view and you're like, Oh my gosh, this is not good. This is crazy that I listened to this when I was a kid, I should not have been listening to this. [00:31:59] Right. Because you start to get convicted if you watch porn, it's like you're going to start looking at your wife a different way because you're just you're consuming the wrong things. Yeah. Yeah, and even little things start to convict you too. It's like, for the first time ever, we didn't celebrate Halloween this year. [00:32:15] Because I just became convicted that you know, its origins are demonic. And it's like, you just watch all of this stuff with it. And it's like, yeah, definitely none of this glorifies God. If it doesn't glorify God, why would I do it? You know? And it's like it glorifies demons and, you know, all of these dark things, it's like, that doesn't seem proper. [00:32:39] Jason: Yeah, like, you know, it's kind of that balance of how to be in the world, but not of the world, right? Like Jesus was hanging out with publicans and sinners and he was around people, but he also wasn't like just doing everything that they were doing. And so, yeah, I think that's an interesting concept. [00:32:53] I like, though, what you said about. And that wasn't even where my head was going, when I asked the question, but I love that you said like look at the people that you're choosing to be around. There's a consumption there and There's this book called the Dark Side of the Light Chasers it's by Debbie Ford and it's interesting because she talks about in it that we each have this golden side and we also have this dark side to us and the golden side Is the side of ourselves that we see reflected in others that we of the people that we look up to. And there's different people that kind of trigger that in us. [00:33:25] Some people, for example, like look at Donald Trump, very polarizing figure. Some people look at him and are very triggered and their dark side is triggered. They see a narcissist, they see all these negative attributes and then there's some that look at him and they're like, Oh, he's an entrepreneur or he's strong or he's masculine or whatever. [00:33:42] Right? And they look at the golden side. And I think what we see in other people and the people we choose to be around, we want to choose to be around people that we perceive as having a light. Somebody that has something that we want and attributes that we want to become more like. And I think choosing to do that, especially in choosing mentors, is important. [00:34:01] Because you're going to ultimately become a little bit more like them. And that doesn't mean every mentor that I choose is, like, ahead of me in every key area of life. But if they're at least in the area a little bit ahead of me in success in the area I'm getting coaching from then I'm going to absorb that but I'm careful not to take on everything else and to be discerning and to use discernment. [00:34:23] I think it's important like you said to be around people that you perceive as being a high caliber or people that you believe are moving towards greater light.  [00:34:33] Ryan: I agree with all of it.  [00:34:36] Jason: Love that. All right. So Ryan, what if somebody is listening to this and we talked a lot about like kind of faith, God, religion, stuff like this, and somebody who's like, okay, maybe I'm willing to entertain the idea that God exists. [00:34:54] Maybe Jesus is somebody I should like figure out, what would you say is a good first step for those people?  [00:35:02] Ryan: Well, you know, obviously like the Bible is the truth, right? That's God's revelation to us. And so a lot of people are like, well, I don't even know where to start with the Bible. I would say step one buy a study Bible. [00:35:13] So I would just go on Amazon. I would just, I would get an IV study Bible. It's very simple. So that way it has you know, just notes on the side for you to help you understand what it's saying and different questions. And so, you know, I have a study Bible right here. So this is, you know, maybe you can find this one on Amazon. [00:35:31] This is called the Quest Study Bible. Now, this Bible is like 15 years old. So maybe this one, they don't make this one anymore. But actually, I know they do make a version of it. It's not called the Quest Study Bible anymore, but just look at the NIV Study Bible. And I would start in Matthew. [00:35:44] That is the very beginning of the New Testament. I would just start in Matthew and read it all the way through. So, unlike other books where you start at the very beginning. You're going to start about two thirds of the way through in Matthew and just trust me, it'll make sense. So that would be step one. [00:35:58] Step two, I would say, you know, obviously you want to get plugged into a local church. That, that's a lot harder for somebody who doesn't know anything. So here's what I would advise is join us at Wealthy Kingdom. So it's wealthykingdom.Com. Everything's free. You can be a part of the community and you can get plugged into a Bible study with other entrepreneurs in your area or virtually. So that's going to be your best place to really build connections because you're going to also be around other people who understand the actual life that you live right now. And they're open. We have lots of non believers in our Bible studies who are there to learn, man. [00:36:34] They're like, look, I'm here to learn. I don't know. I don't believe. I don't even know what you believe, but I'm here to learn. And so we, we love those types of people. So I would, those would be the two steps I do because I don't know everybody here listening is listening to different things. So I don't know what local church you should go to or anything. [00:36:52] So come join us virtually. And then you're probably going to meet people in Wealthy Kingdom that are in your area, especially the local Bible study. And they're going to know what local church for you to go to.  [00:37:02] Jason: Got it. You know, this is maybe a controversial hot take of, mine But I feel like a lot of people get so caught up in trying even among christians or non christians trying to prove whether the bible and everything in it is factual history or not It's like facts and data. [00:37:19] They're trying to prove it and I think both sides miss sight of the most important elements, which is are there true principles that are applicable? Can you apply these things to your life? Are they useful tools? And I think that's the real measure of a principle, whether it's true or not, is you try it out. [00:37:38] You test this, try this on in your life and see if the fruit is good. See if it gives you positive results. Does it give you positive results to believe these things? Or does it cause, you know, does it take you in the opposite direction? Do you feel like you're moving towards something higher? Or is it taking you backwards? [00:37:57] Ryan: Yeah, there's biblical truth to that. You know, there was a reason Jesus performed miracles, you know, like a lot of people, a lot of people are like, well, why? Right? He could have just said all the things he said, hey, you know, don't steal. You know, follow the Ten Commandments. Love your neighbor. [00:38:13] Everybody can agree with those things. But it's like, yo. I'm going to make this person the lord of my life, which he was asking them to do, to believe that he's the son of God, to believe and give their entire life to him. It's like, well, dude, you better show me something else if you want me to commit to that degree. [00:38:31] And you know, that's why he performed signs and wonders to show them that, hey, look, I am the one. And You know, it's true, right? Like, that's why he did it. And that's why all of the disciples you know, were killed for preaching it well after he was gone, because they saw it, they believed, and they knew that the reward, you know, was going to be great eternally, right? [00:38:52] Look, Jesus says it to Doubting Thomas too, when he returns, right? A lot of the disciples believe, they're like, Oh dude, like he's back. And then Thomas is like, I ain't believing until I see him. Until I see the holes in his body. And so Jesus comes back and he's like, Look, Thomas, feel the hole, right? [00:39:08] Shows him the hole in his hands. And he's like, blessed are those who believe without seeing.  [00:39:12] Their faith is stronger, but still, it's all good that you needed to see to believe. Like, it's all good. And so. There are going to be people who listen to this and they're like, I believe all this makes sense. [00:39:26] And then there are going to be those who say no, I need to see the fruit. I need to see why I should believe. And in fact, I still believe miracles happen today. I've seen them with my own hands. I've prayed for miracles that cannot be explained other than they were miraculous. And you know, with that, it's like both happen. [00:39:43] Jason: I think that I think if we're really created in the image of God,. Then I think that is a clue that we might be a lot more powerful than we realize and you know there's even evidence that the placebo effect is getting stronger as time goes on. So like as they do drug testing and stuff like this drugs have to pass a certain test that they're stronger than placebo. The challenge is drugs are having a harder and harder time showing that they're stronger than placebo because the placebo effect is actually getting stronger. And I think that humanity worked our consciousness is raising a bit. [00:40:19] I think that people are realizing that we are creators, that we are more powerful than we give ourselves credit. And, you know, Jesus says, if you have faith, like a grain of a mustard seed, you could like move a mountain or something. Right. And so I think that I think there is something to, you know, this idea that we can create this positive future or alter our reality or alter things real time, like people's physical health or blessing people or different things. I do think that miracles can occur and there's evidence of it happening all the time. And I think in religion, see, I grew up Mormon. And I'm a very ultra conservative. [00:41:00] I was a Mormon missionary for two years and then eventually left it. I didn't even try alcohol until I was over 30. And I'm the only one in my family that, that left. I'm the black sheep and I'm the oldest of five boys. So, sorry mom, sorry dad.  [00:41:14] Ryan: I'm not happy with you.  [00:41:15] Jason: They still love me, but I think one of the things that I, and I'm grateful for all that I learned, like we, we did, I did a lot of religious study growing up and I was the one that just kept digging until I took my way out of it, I guess. [00:41:26] Ryan: Mormon apologetics is a tough thing to defend.  [00:41:30] Jason: Yeah. So I think you know, there's a lot of people think that they need to sell some sort of gospel or good news of, Jesus or the christian church by convincing people their life is going to suddenly be magical or better and that's not always true, and I don't think that's the whole point is that you don't magically make everything about your external circumstances in your life better, but I think being more in alignment with god and being more connected allows you this greater strength to weather what's happening. [00:42:02] I mean if you look at what happened to Peter or any of the apostles, like they suffered horrible deaths. I don't know that their life magically became more amazing because they followed Jesus, but they had that conviction and they knew truth. And I think in a lot of instances, becoming Christian or believing in Jesus or following his principles may make your life in some instances, more challenging, you know, maybe there's more fiery darts thrown at you by the adversary, for example, but I do believe that there's some sort of there's some sort of power and confidence that comes with knowing that your personal life and will is in alignment with God wants for you. [00:42:45] Like you're following that calling and that knowing within, and there's a strength that comes from that, that nobody else can shake. It doesn't matter like what your parents are saying to you. It doesn't matter what your spouse maybe is concerned about. It doesn't matter if you know, you're doing what is right, then you're willing to just let the consequences follow. [00:43:03] And that's different than just looking for this better life or a mansion here on earth instead of a mansion in heaven.  [00:43:10] Ryan: Yeah, and you know, Jesus said hey you got to pick up your cross and follow me. It's like picking up your cross literally means dying to your old self and giving your all to Jesus And you know somebody's like oh, but like I got to say bye and to my dad and I gotta bury and he's no. [00:43:27] No, this has nothing to do with your current family. This is about you and me You know, whether or not you're going to follow. And you know, I've met many Mormon, ex Mormons, Jews, Muslims, people who have given their life to Jesus. And you know, it's tough because there's so many family dynamics that go on to it. [00:43:46] And it's like, it ain't easy. And I feel for those people, cause that, that's very hard. But I also am a believer that, you know, through your faith and through, you know, those who make that commitment, they have the chance to impact their families. So much more and they can be sanctified through them. [00:44:02] Jason: Yeah, I mean I had a meeting with the mastermind this morning and we were talking about distractions And we were all these they're all men and we're all sharing like what's distracting us and what's holding us you know back from the things we should be doing and you know and I was thinking about you know, just how can I be a better father? [00:44:21] How can I be a better partner, a better spouse? How can it be a better business leader? And at the stage I'm at now, it's just more discipline. It's less distractions. And it's all like cutting out all of the fat and the little things that are so easily taking us. And that's kind of what you led us into here in the beginning. [00:44:39] You know, what do you, what would you say to those that are just, they're trying to run their business, they're dealing with a lot of distractions, which is common for entrepreneurs. We see shiny objects everywhere. How do they get focused and how they start, how did they start listening to that inner voice that connects them with the divine so they can start making the right moves? [00:45:00] Ryan: Well, I think it's very simple, right? You just make God the focus. You just have to trust that if you make him the focus. Everything else will fall into place. And then it goes back to Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and everything else will be added to you. And that's faith. [00:45:18] That's faith in a nutshell, because you'll be like, well, don't understand the fires that I have, Ryan. You don't understand the drama and the problems. My kids are doing this, my relationship with my wife sucks. Like I got to focus over there in order to fix. You know, well, before I can go worry about God. [00:45:35] I mean, that's like the biggest thing I hear all the time too. It's like, well, I. Once I get my life right, then I'll start going to church. I'm like, no, you can't get your life right. That's why Jesus paid the price, because you can't. It's the same funny thing I hear when people are like-  [00:45:49] Jason: it's like saying once I get abs, I'll stop eating candy bars. [00:45:53] Ryan: Yeah, well, I was going to use a health example too where I hear this actually from people because I was in sports for so long Hey, I'm going to get in shape first, then I'm going to go get a trainer and start you know, because I'm not ready to go train with them like, that's too hard. I got to like get in shape first and I'm like, dude. [00:46:09] No, that's why you need a trainer like no, And yeah, it's the same thing with faith. It's like if you follow god and you seek his ways I mean just like you've been saying from a practical standpoint. If you follow what the Bible says, your relationship with your wife will get better. Like, you're just going to be a better leader, you're going to serve her, you're going to be different. [00:46:27] Your relationship with your kids will get better. The relationship with your employees will get better. The way you act in business will be better. You know? And it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. I didn't say it was going to be easy. I just said, it's going to get better. And you know, I've had, yeah. And I had, I've had so many difficult situations in business, you know, lost millions, investors pissed, customers pissed, lawsuits. [00:46:53] I've dealt with everything you could imagine in business. And guess what? Every time I've been able to get through it and it's because of my faith and I didn't know how I would get through it. I didn't know what the outcome would be. I didn't know how I would solve it. But I can tell you I slept pretty good throughout all of it because I just knew God would take care of it some way somehow. [00:47:16] Jason: You knew it would be figured out and you felt like you had somebody on your side that's pretty powerful.  [00:47:21] Ryan: I mean, God promises to be on my side.  [00:47:23] Jason: Yeah.  [00:47:24] Ryan: You know, Romans 8, 28 says that, you know, he works all things for my good, for those who believe.  [00:47:30] Jason: Even the tough stuff.  [00:47:32] Ryan: All things, not some things.  [00:47:34] Jason: Whom God loves, he chastens. Despise not the chastening of the Lord, right? So may not necessarily be easy, but yeah, it'll be worth it.  [00:47:41] Ryan: Don't expect anything to be easy.  [00:47:43] Jason: Right. I think we go into it, we should expect things to be hard and worth it. And I think when we're, it's kind of like the old stoic adage, you know, hard choices, easy life. [00:47:53] Easy choices, hard life. We all know people that they're focused on ease. They're focused on trying to have comfort They're focused on how do I how do I avoid doing stuff? I just want to relax. I just want my weekend I just want time and I think as i've grown into adulthood and you know focus more on stepping more into my masculinity. [00:48:13] I've realized that you know, nobody's coming to save us, except maybe Jesus, right? Nobody's coming to do it for us. There's a level of work that's expected and we need to get beyond always seeking comfort because comfort is a deceptive and alluring sort of drug and we need to be willing to put in the work put in the effort and focus and put in that discipline and then life gets a lot easier overall Like life gets a lot better overall when we're disciplined. Disciplined people don't cheat on their spouses. [00:48:47] Disciplined people like, you know, take care of their kids and spend time with them on the weekend. Disciplined people you know, focus and take care of their health so they have less health issues. They're putting their own oxygen mask on first, so to speak, so they can take care of others, right? [00:49:02] And that's it. That's discipline. And I think that's important. Well, Ryan we're about out of time. I really appreciate you coming on the show. This has been I think inspiring conversation. It's got my brain sort of running in a bunch of different directions thinking about, you know, how can I be better and how can I evolve as a human? [00:49:19] What would you like to say in your final words to those listening to this podcast and maybe how they can get in touch with you or your various businesses.  [00:49:30] Ryan: Yeah, I think you know, as far as getting in touch with me, that's easy. You can just go on social media, search Ryan Pineda, wherever. [00:49:37] So that part's easy. I would say the final thing to leave him with, I mean, we've talked a lot about faith and eternity and everything else. And that's usually the final thing I leave on podcasts because I don't depending on where the conversation goes, right? You know, I'll always draw it back to faith. [00:49:51] So I would just say that, man, I mean, like, look there's a common theme for what we're saying. It's like, life's going to be hard one way or the other, you know, you're going to go through tough times. You are going to have uncertainty. You're not going to know if things are going to work out or not the way that you're hoping. [00:50:08] You know, One thing I know for sure is, and this will apply for both ways, not just faith, but also business and faith. When you start becoming process driven more than results driven, your life changes. Because you're never going to be up and down with the result. You're always just trusting the process. [00:50:28] And so, you know, baseball, we had to learn this every day. It's like, I don't know who's pitching tomorrow. I don't know. Like, I just got to trust my routine, my process, and then I'm doing the right things every day. And if I follow that, I know I'm going to get the best result that I possibly can get. In the long run, and I think you were referencing that when it comes to, Hey, you know what? [00:50:46] Even if you don't believe these biblical principles are going to change your life, that's a form of trusting the process. And if you do, you know, you'll end up getting better results just overall, whether you believe or not, and you just follow that process. And then, you know, I would say even to take it a step further, it's like, man, if you trust that he is the creator of this world and he has promised to take care of you then that's a process to choose to have faith and trust that's the case, to trust that his plan is better than your plan. And it's not easy because we all want control. We all want certainty. That's, you know, that's our human nature. [00:51:21] That's why we're trying to get financially free. That's why we're trying to you know, get enough cash flow and I teach on these things like I get it. But there's a better plan. And you know, if you just trust the process every day of following him, he will make your path straight, you know? And so I've seen that in my own life. [00:51:42] I'll tell you this. I never thought I'd be a podcaster, an events guy, a social media guy. I never thought that was going to be the thing, but. I felt like God was calling me down that path, and here we are. And I don't know where he's going to call me the next 10 years. I don't have a 10 year plan. I don't have any of that, and I don't care. [00:51:59] All I'm trying to do is whatever God's calling me to do at this moment, and I want to be flexible to his will, and be very careful not to just insert my will. And that's it, right?  [00:52:10] Jason: Yeah, appreciate it. You know, appreciate you coming on the show. I think, I agree. I think you know, even if you, For some reason don't want to be christian you don't you don't you're opposed for some reason. [00:52:23] Some people are just like opposed to the bible, just look at the bible through the lens of what are the principles that have made this book one of the greatest books of all time? Why has it stood out? Why has it stood the test of time? Why do so many people look to it for wisdom and for insight? There's so much wisdom in there and if you can at least just be willing to extract wisdom wherever you can find it, then you're not an idiot And so at least start there, everybody listening, just look for wisdom, be a seeker of wisdom and look for the things that are better and higher. [00:52:53] And that's going to eventually lead you to better and higher things and help you to weather the storm. And you can tell Ryan has, you know, he has this confidence that comes from knowing it's not all reliant on him. He trusts that there's something greater than him that's going to give him a source of power or ideas or decision making or guide his paths and to not have that for those of you listening must be terrifying. It must feel a little bit scary to just not have nothing else above you to reach up to. And so there is a god. There's somebody reach up to, go ahead and test it out. [00:53:29] My way of aligning towards God is to sit, read things that I feel like lead me closer to something better and higher. That could be scripture, whatever, or to meditate on something, but then to think, how can I align my will with that? What is that voice inside? What is that calling telling me to do and take those actions and do it. [00:53:47] If you don't take those actions, listen to it, that voice will get quieter. But if you start to listen to that voice and take those actions, it's going to get more and more clear to the point where you have that confidence to go out and make decisions. So I think that's a good ending note here. [00:54:01] So Ryan this is a very different podcast episode than we've ever done here on the DoorGrow show. So there we go. I like it. The most impactful one though. I appreciate you inspiring us to get into faith and chat about that. All right. And And that'll be it for today's show until next time everybody to our mutual growth If you are struggling within your property management business to figure out how to figure out what you need to do next in your business operationally or how to add doors, reach out to us. We'd love to support you. Check us out at doorgrow. com and that's it. Bye everyone. [00:54:33] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. 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!  [00:54:59] 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 doorgrow.com, and 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.

“White people suck!” This is a self-stated fact. White people are the only ones going around saying that shit. I mean, everyone else thinks it, it's true. Lots of people say it—just in other ways. Not exactly like that. “White people suck!” White people say this about themselves, as if they're not getting a little bit of fucking sociopathic joy out of it. I lived with a white a supremacist that may or may not have known he was a white supremacist. *may or may not have* He would say shit bordering on the brink of slight psychological torture. He'd say shit like “WE made OURSELVES the TOP RACE” Like, the fact that you're using words like ‘we' and ‘ourselves' indicate that YOU believe yourself to be a member of the so-said “top race” Not true. White people are not the top race. There are more retarded white people in the world than any other races. White people have been historically racist to the point that they fucked up their own gene pool imbreeding. Like: yes. They have held a majority of the money ans power on this planet for long enough that the entire world is programmed to think blue eyes are prettier— People with blue eyes have easier lives, period. Period. They get away with so much shit. This is a result of white dominance. It's true. But this guy. Lol. This guy would say things like “WE made ourselves the TOP RACE” And then further contradict himself by saying things like, “I don't believe in race” He was a narcissist. Yeah. Only thing worse than a narcissist? A white supremacy narcissist who doesn't know or understand he's either of those things. FUCK. I took him to my gym—but only because he let me stay in his spare bedroom for $11. Flex. More on that later. I personally think it's because he was a white supremacist trying to physiologically terrorize me by continually bringing up the effects of white power on my entire existence— BUT. He would say the most ignorant shit, that wasn't entirely ignorant—like he made decent and factual points, it was just ignorant that he was talking about it at all. To me. A homeless, black woman. It was like he was rubbing it in my face. For ten days he pretty much just came up with extremely inventive ways to approach me and be like “I'M WHITE AND YOURE BLACK AND MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND YOUR LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I'M A WHITE MAN, AND YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN!!!!l” I'm like, dude…shut up. “WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!” Okay. You're egging on a race war. I still don't hate white people. At this point I just see they're typically power tripping sadists. It's okay. Like everything he said or brought up apparently to try to make me feel better—actually made me feel WORSE to the point where I decided he was doing this on purpose. I'm like, This is the new white power movent: We make a majority of them homeless, lure them into our domiciles, and then remind them that hey don't have domiciles. Because of us. Pretend to feel sorry about it, mentally torture and disable them, and then send them back into the streets to squabble and kill each other! Perfect. But no, they are not the “top race” There are more retarded white people than anyone else— We even had one as President for 8 years! I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. I don't hate trump. He's just mentally disabled, being politically correct. I don't hate him! He's hilarious! When he's not directly effecting my existence— Hes funny. But: a perfect example of what the Caucasian's have done to themselves. And the fact that it doesn't matter, because when you have millions of dollars, you can be a literal retard, and rule the world! Wow! No, it's okay. I'm not racist. I went from his place—directly to a homeless shelter, where 99% of women there were black. I learned to love-hate everybody equally. Black people love to talk on the fuckin phone. So come lights out, everybody's on the fuckin phone, I'm like, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Everybody's on the phone. I'm like “Bro, if you actually have all these people to talk to, you should have somewhere to stay other than this dump.” I'm like, “I'm obviously here cause I'm a piece of shit and nobody loves me— You're on the phone from 11 PM till forever and you can't just go to their house and sleep there?! No! Then get off the phone cause that person ain't SHIT!” They ain't shit. But dudes are next level psycopaths. All of them. Staying at a women's shelter was eye opening. I would overhear conversations like, “BUT I LOVE YOUuuuuUu” Dudes be fucking chicks up in the head. All the way up. BITCH you're in a HOMELESS SHELTER. If he lets you sleep in this bitch even for 5 seconds he ain't SHIT. Get off the PHONE. Black people—or really—poor people, they love to talk on the phone. I don't know. I don't get it. I realized at a certain point i talked too much, and I was spending all my talking time talking to toxic people. So I stopped. Kind of. I talk to myself on my podcasts. Still can't decide if that's toxic or just what god wants so— I mean the downloads keep going up. Whatever. I should have a house. Dudes be having females out here homeless, worried about THEM. Woaaaahhhh. Anyway. But I realized: people love to talk on the phone. On the bus. At the gym. Wherever. Just “Talk talk talk/- Yap yap yap” about the dumbest shit. I realized how non bianary I am because females talk about the dumbest fucking shit. All dudes talk about is females so - I'm jaded at this point. Inequality is balls. This is how I learned the meaning of “no justice no peace” Like, the perpetual race war in this country has just created this division and unrest and it so fucking chaotic— But it's not just a race war. Dudes are fucking sick, intolerant. Greedy, destructive creatures. It's MAN WORLD so if you have a tiny dick or are an ugly female—you live at the bottom of the world. SUCKS TO SUUUUUUCK. “No justice, no peace” Colored people love to be loud—they've spent so much time being oppressed, it's apart of the culture to be like, “FUCK YOU, I'M HERE! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!” I'm like, I get it. This is the definition of “disturbing the peace” After a week of this ridiculousness, I'm like, hey, maybe they're not racist: they just want you to be quiet. Lol that's not funny. They're like, “Ugh, this guy's breaking the law, he's disturbing the peace” The other cops like, “Just shoot him; if we arrest him he won't shut up” Lol that's terrible. Whatever. Colored people have been so neglected and oppressed now they kill each other. Whatever. There's no color to that shit. It's just men. Men are killers. But of course—I'm torn. I love babies—the only way you're gonna get one of them is to love a man—and once he impregnates you he can do whatever else to you he wants. He owns you after that. And you're just—tied to him. Destructive. Honestly, though—the difference between a good man and a bad man, or even a good woman and a bad woman—is a good mother. You have to have that. So I fucked up. I'm a whole trash can. But now I love/hate everybody equally. Everybody's fucked up. I hate myself the most. What! I'm homeless! That makes me a piece of shit! I'm shitty. And I get it. It's cultural oppression. This culture has been bred on slavery and neglect and oppression and so now you have to act out and be loud and ridiculous and rowdy. Okay. I get it. I do. But at this point, I'm like “This is the apocalypse, I'm ready for the world to end.” I don't give a fuck about whose black whose white what's right what's wrong, I'm like, “Nobody pays enough money for me to be miserable for 8-16 hours a day, I don't have a place to sleep or a friend in the world, just end it already, God, “ “Just fucking blow it all up. “ I'm ready for a nuclear fuckin war. “Drop that nuke directly on my face.” I want to be ground zero. Fuck this whole place. Fuck this existence. I'm over it. I don't care about anything. My basic needs aren't being met and I'm over it. I don't even have a fucking HOME. You need a home just to have a BODY. The only shit you do In your house is because you have to take care of your BODY for it to work. You have to shower. You have to eat. You have to sleep, These are not recommendations!! These are requirements, Once I realized that a great enough evil existed in the world to allow this to happen— I got over it. I'm like “fuck this race war” Where's the real one?! Drop some bombs in this bitch. Humans are fucked up. Black. White. Everybody in between. Everybody's fucked up, yo. Greed fucked up humanity. All of it. —but I spent some time in this women's shelter and I sterted to realize: maybe it's just because it's a man's world. Half these femakes are in here talking about being hung up on niggas— NIGGAS. And they're in a homeless shelter. I had been celibate for quite some time at this point; but it seemed like every goddess I met in this place was broken—and that brokenness came from the sacrifice of loving men, and having children. Men are fucked up! Needy, greedy, selfish motherfuckers. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones— There are. They're just married. I respect marriage so much. I respect marriage so much— to the point where, I ended mine, when I realized “This is not how marriage is supposed to be.” It's fucked up. The good ones are taken, usually. And the sad thing is, Sometimes people stay in toxic relationships long enough that they become toxic. That happened to me. I stayed with the wrong person just long enough to realize, like, “Great, now I'm shitty, too—you motherfucker” FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I would rather slit my wrists up and down than ever go back to my ex. Yep. I've committed suicide 27 times since I left my marriage. You know what the first successful suicide attempt was, though? My fucking marriage. UGH. FUCK THESE NIGGAS. They'll have you fucked up. They'll have you homeless. They don't care! They have dicks! They can just fuck you up—then walk away, and fuck somebody else up. And the thing is: there's always some dumb, useless 18 year old somewhere that's gonna think he's GOD. She's useless—except in ONE WAY. To him. Then when he's done with her? Yep. Trash pile. Fuck these dudes. So I'm in this women's shelter, where of course, as if I need more of a reminder that most men ain't shit *most, not all. Done offend men. They'll kill you. They'll worse than kill you. They'll knock you up; ruin your body; cheat on you—they'll fuck you up— Then kill you. So I'm in this shelter, and after the first night, they're like “okay, you have to have a physical, then a psyche assessment, then you'll get a permanent housing assignment” I'm like “okay” So I get my appointment, and I look at it, and the appointment for the psychiatric evaluation is like 10 days away— I'm like, “Wait a minute: So you're going to make me wait 10 days in a dirty, chaotic, gross fucking nasty place—10 sleepless nights surrounded by hood rats and garbage all over the place and shitty toilets, where it's freezing fucking cold and even the cops and the staff are fighting all the time—THEN you're going to give me a psyche evaluation?” “Yeah” Fuck the system. I'm just jaded. I love/hate everything and everyone the same. You know why? Cause it's the same fucking emotion. They're not opposites. They're just opposite ends of the same spectrum of the same exact emotion. Passion. Passionate fury Passionate love Passionate rage. All really the same thing. The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is fear. Weekend on a Tuesday R3HQB & Laidback Luke Love, much like death Is just an illusion another contusion, confusion I'm a loose fuse confusious Lucius, Lucifer loosens Two tooth's, apathetic: I'm so pathetic, No sympathy for the devil No empathy for the dead SUPACREE//Chak Chel is grocery shopping at stop n shop Why stop n shop CAUSE THERES NO WHOLE FOODS IN THE HOOD. Racist ass motherfuckers. Supacree. No, Dude. No. Okay! Chak Chel! Mm. -_- I need to talk to you. Please. Step away. Wait! M—no. [she moves to the left—he moves to the left—she moves the right right—he moves the the right.] *sighs* [she removes a stone from her pouch, and throws it on the ground: it opens up into a black hole like vortex.] Where does that go. I don't know. *she gestures, waving her hand in front of the hole* Uhh— She stares into his eyes and steps into the portal, which swallows her into a void. Oh, my God! He stares off into the distance worriedly— Seconds later, just outside the storefront, a portal opens—supacree/CC is set gently at the bus stop; DILLON FRANCIS, still inside the store, stares at her out the window, flabbergasted as she boards the bus, staring back at him through the window. The bus drives away. Why Dillon Francis Idk I died and went to hell and back and back to hell again An irrelevant disheveled devil drinking a rebbl in the back of the bus Full of disgust, looking busted and fucked up I'm stuck in a nightmare, I can't wake up Where's Shia laboeoff? It's wild and rough Inspired enough By being in lust Pretending it's love But it's nothing Jimmy Fallon FLASHBACK : season 4 ANANDAR has an interesting medallion. one time I fucked this dude cause he looked just like Skrillex; like that wasn't somehow gonna be a disaster. I mean, my life was already 100% crap—I thought: Couldn't really be much worse. Might as well fuck this dude: Not like I could ever get the real thing. Turns out I was wrong twice. FLASHBACK: season 6 SKRILLEX is obsessed with SUPACREE. Huh. Oh wow, yeah. Yeah. So what does Dillon Francis want out of this? Figure it out! Uhhh!! What about deadmau5? JOEL ZIMMERMAN I want nothing to do with this DEADMAU5 …are you sure. JOEL Yes. KASKADE enters swiftly. JOEL Ugh, this dude DEADMAU5 WHAT UP, HOMIE. KASKADE WHAT IS UP. JOEL Ugh. RYAN GARY RADDON enters, nonchalantly. RYAN …am I late? JOEL You made it! RYAN Well, I promised. DEADMAU5 You are late. KASKADE Ugh, this dude. RYAN Nobody likes you. DEADMAU5 Say that to my face. RYAN Where is it. KASKADE Ooh. Burn. JOEL Oh-Kay. Let's go. Lol. Where are these dudes going. I guess we'll see. PASQUALE. Ahem. PASQUALE— Yes? What are you doing? Working on something. Working on what. Something. PASQUALE WHAT. GET IN HERE. Fine, I don't have eyes— I super sauna Flora-Fauna Outer space And out of stardust Superstardom Flawed, But by design, Align with all of ‘em Fine, I really don't find you Kind of attractive Damn, I'm damaged Do you mind Or do you plan on dying anytime Fine I can't be white, But can be tiny, That way, finally, When I'm someone's wife; I'm the right weight and height for them to like me Enough that they might— I mean just might Not cheat. Horrible. All I want is your attention— A ten A ten-tension I wnant your attention A ten A ten-tension Locker number 87 was taken and though it hadn't immediately bothered me in the same way that it had a few days before, the unsettling feeling in the moments following at least prompted me to write something down. It did bother me to think of him with anyone else—and even sensing it or seeing it had set me off in a way I could neither explain nor describe, first sending me into a whirlwind which culminated in meeting Anandar, and secondly tailspinning me into a fit of fury —and while I still loved Sonny, there was something I felt for Dillon I couldn't entirely explain, and while the world was suddenly full of beautiful people—beautiful white people, to be exact— I realized I didn't want nor was I truly fit for any of them anyway, not that something like that mattered in my time of desperate need and desperation, unable to accumulate the focus or energy I needed to move up and out from this trench I was in, whatever it meant besides falling prey to the grueling captapilism on which the country I was raised to love was built, without it benefitting me in any way besides aesthetic. GODDAMMIT, DILLON FRANCISz WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO— Yeah, that's right— I'm gonna throw up. Don't throw up in my house. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THIS IS MY HOUSE— YOU DONT HAVE A HOUSE, BITCH— Aw, shit, it's on. KAAAAAHHHHMEEEEE— Is this dragon ball Z? No, it's FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING If I hear Renaissance one more time, I might just— I might just You're right It's white power, it's alt right, I can't fight it It's alright It's just another night In the heights In the no flight list I'm on hiatus, I'm high, thanks plankton I'm pinapple, might just wine Or whinehouse, If I had my own house, despite this Whatever This records all hype, Supply and Demand I'm a Diamond For your demon Indegenous genetics yet I'm homeless, on stolen land I'm hopeless, once again I stole this l, I am Sam I'm alone in this— Here's your quest for fire, ya dumbass, It's bombastic, I'm so past it Just wanna throw a bomb at it; Used to catalogue albums Now I'm analog, all bad, I'm so mad I wanna take it all back Like all that This is Allllllll, that this is— Is she coming back? Maybe. MAYBE?! Look, just give me my 10 bands, bro. 10 bands?! ‘Ukrainian Ballerina Finds Solace In Dancing.' Oh man, they hate us Why God, do they hate us Light skinned ballerinas— Life is what you make it Raise up from this hatred Make my grave With raising canes and gravy Make the best of what you gave me Questions in my mind arising Or are racing I'm erasing pain but gazing at the TV thinking God, Why do they hate us Why do they hate us? USA Why do they hate us Why Why why Why do they hate us A master hypnotist; Why waste a wish on this— The fog, or mist obscured my vision Interest in THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, wake up. OH MY GOD. What do you want? I want to wake up from this nightmare, I want to be white, with blue eyes and long blonde hair I want to go to Long Island on the ferry, I want to be there, But clearly, I'm here, and I'm sorry But I'm growing wary That God's even aware of me I hate this. Oh shit. What, man. I just realized— we're all gonna get really old. Maybe… —or we're gonna die. Yeah, that's why I said “maybe” That's fucking terrifying. Dude, you're like 40–how are you just coming to grips with your mortality? …I don't know. *hits bong worriedly* I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER. I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER!!! Damn, Drake Bell; I didn't really think this would carry over into the 7th season, but—I gotta hand it to you; You stay fucking up. Dammit. What. I fucked up. You just stay fucking up And I stay fucking up And I say I'm over it, But I'm a stray puppy; A squirrel that's in search of a nut And you are what you eat So I guess I'm a butt Or bananas I've had it I almost miss my hammock I take that back I ________ Manhattan Hey, you gotta stay stateside. What. For what. NEWS: WORLD WAR III Ah, fucking shit. So, what am I supposed to do for mon— MILITARY: Get over here— No. Look, it's SkrillexZ. No. How about— No. Believe it or not, I want what you want, m I love what you love, and then some; Gone for a walk in the park, With my heart in my pocket, I hope she shows up soon I hope that she's all that you've always wanted Since I'm not, And when I'm gone My songs remind you of what Love was, The love that I had, And the love that I loved just to love And the love that I wrote in the songs that You offered I hope she shows up And she's all that you wanted; I want what you want, And I love what you love, I promise l I hope she shows up soon She's all that you wanted; I wanted to love you, But want what you want, hun I promise; I'm just coming off a long one I love you for the long haul, And then some // I keep on forgetting That I'm not that pretty to, Or around you So I'll just— Do what I do, And move into the room Where my room meets you, In the vacuum of time and— Collisions, and splinters Unseasonable winters and Missed kindergarten graduations, I'm assuming at least I can't move, Or can't focus, Can't write many words, Or recite all my poems There's just not enough time left That I have Imm mindless I might have to find A flight To the homeland, and I don't want to fight, in this war I was drafted; I wrote that before, Now I'm captain Disasterous… Has it begun yet? It hasn't been fun yet, Just tragic I haven't forggtten the traffic I still have the hat. I just might not be black But I'm back on the blacklist , I guess Sending signals, distress Matching sigmas, And sigils, Invested in candle light vigils Twisted like pretzels; The rest of the West is in shambles And I'm steady rambling, Scrambling What's the preamble, pastor? Last again firstly, And first again last; How's that feel? How's dinner after a hot meal, 2 days of cornmeal, I'm horny, But still won't eat honey All out of money l l Submitting to your said supremacy This, I'll remember— It's cinders and embers and ashes l The fire you search for Went out in the rain that I called for The dance that I managed to salvage From out of the past, Like the misters and masters I asked for the land that I am back And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand I should want for nothing, But I find you at the forefront, Sniffing cocaine Yelling my name In the most profane way Ah, down the alley, she goes But— WHY ARE WE RUNNING YOU DID THIS, TIMMY, DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME TIMMY CAUSE YOU'RE TIMMY, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! I'm losing control, now I can't get out of it Or into it I'm on a roll now; The role of my life, It turns out, Was just my life Now I'm lifeless inside “Yeah right” *sigh* “Like anybody loves me” *crying* “Like anybody likes me” Yeah, that's right Just lay down and die; Lay down in the street like a dog, “If you like” Attack on my psyche The love of my life was just like me He might be Are we even? What do you believe in? A seething scar on my iris. Dine in and drive ins. I'm meant to die now, that was my life, it seems; It's over for me, The American dream turned nightmare; I haven't seen this stream, I should lie here, I haven't been myself in a while, I'm liable to set the whole ass world on fire— Like I'm on a fire escape, Trying to tape my mistake At the brokenshaker; Makes sense in LA, But it's just another day here How's the weather? It's awful That's what I heard at the office tomorrow, I'll probably drown in my sorrows, A crown on and borrowed objects In my honor, No, dont't stop here This is bat country Now some Sunni blū shit Or SUPACREE, whoever she is: Nonexistent. Here's a spaghetti and shit sandwhich, Dillon Francis, I believe in magic, I swear, I just can't stand it I hate this planet; Might be nice if I could manage to— goddamnit. Captain. Where's she at? Off the map… There is no “off the map” Off the grid. Well, there's that. THE LEGEND OF SUPACREE We've been collecting data about this woman for a number of years. It's a woman? CUT TO: SUNNÏ BLŪ is not a woman. *gross stupid rapper shit* So I finally found the picture, And just stare at it I never really know what else to do So I just stare at it I used to keep it in the background, As my wallpaper, But couldn't stand it I'm just a fanatic, i-- I am Just a fanatic Damn I'm just a fanatic I never found my attic and My speaker set was stolen Just before one was about to blow (Before one was about to blow) I think I might go get my passport So I can just flee But I just don't know where to go (But I just don't know where to go) You probably hate me Or I hate me just enough for just the both of us I told you, I'm so sorry (I am sorry, I am sorry) You don't have to worry, I would never follow you; Online, or in the streets I'm just a fiend, I'm just an addict (Likeness is what you've attracted) So, there is no moving forward And there is no going back I want to go to Harvard But there is no going back And I used to think I had it, Turns out, I'm just "average" Got a job, But couldn't stand it, I I'm just a fanatic, i-- I am Just a fanatic Damn I'm just a fanatic I woke up from a bad dream And your music was so calming But I didn't really listen I was really only waking I just wished that I could listen But I wish a lot of things I wish to make this song I'm writing And wish you'd approve of me I wish that I was really pretty So I didn't have to try I wish I was so pretty that I could just look you in the eye I wish that you would stop and peep my Twitter page while scrolling by I wish that maybe I was half as pretty as my pretty vibe I wish that anytime I did something, you loved it every time I wish that when I think about you, I don't always have to cry I wish the girl who took the photograph was right here by my side; So I could ask if she or God herself adjusted all the light I want to know if she or God herself adjusted all the light I want to know not wonder why you both are always on my mind I wish I knew if she or God herself found peace where I found mine {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U. Very much so. Senator, a word. How many words? At least three. Why is it always three? MEANWHILE *in a deep meditative state VIA DILLON FRANCIS* *no, it's Hanzel* Shutthefuckup. Listen. This is a lot. Breathe. [stops breathing] I've got burning questions. That's just syphilis. I— It only stings a little; It only burns a lot— You were my love, I thought Lost, lost, at once But here you are, And not often have I wanted To imagine you a star Another catharsis Another conundrum The world is at war, And the source that we come from, Abolished, So long lost and gone from our thoughts Now, Think fondly of lust, As she fondled the heart that she clutches From dawn until dusk, After sunset, Once buried but polished, recovered And thought of more often, Than spawned in the rust of the under and all of the marvelous— What was it? What? “The Jimmy Fallon Conspiracy” That is a good band name! What was the other one? “Bad with Matches” I like that. There was one more… Uh… {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.

Welcome episode 220 of The Cloud Pod podcast - where the forecast is always cloudy! This week your hosts, Justin, Jonathan, Ryan, and Matthew discuss all things cloud, including virtual machines, an AI partnership between Microsoft and Meta for Llama 2, Lambda functions, Fargate, and lots of security updates including the Outlook breach and WORM protections. This and much more in our newest episode.  Titles we almost went with this week: Too Many Bees died for Honeycode Microsoft announces that AI will only cost you 3 arms and a leg.   The Cloud Pod also detects Recursive Loops in cloud news The cloud pod disables health checks bc who needs them A big thanks to this week's sponsor: Foghorn Consulting, provides top-notch cloud and DevOps engineers to the world's most innovative companies. Initiatives stalled because you have trouble hiring?  Foghorn can be burning down your DevOps and Cloud backlogs as soon as next week.

Welcome to the newest episode of The Cloud Pod podcast! Justin, Ryan, Jonathan, Matthew are your hosts this week. Join us as we discuss all things cloud, AI, the upcoming Google AI Conference, AWS Console, and Duet AI for Google cloud.  Titles we almost went with this week:

Welcome to the newest episode of The Cloud Pod podcast! Justin, Ryan, Jonathan, and Matthew are all here this week to discuss the latest news and announcements in the world of cloud and AI - including New Relic Grok, Athena Provisioned Capacity from AWS, and updates to the Azure Virtual Desktop. Titles we almost went with this week: None! This week's title was SO GOOD we didn't bother with any alternates. Sometimes it's just like that, you know?  A big thanks to this week's sponsor: Foghorn Consulting, provides top-notch cloud and DevOps engineers to the world's most innovative companies. Initiatives stalled because you have trouble hiring?  Foghorn can be burning down your DevOps and Cloud backlogs as soon as next week.

“White people suck!” This is a self-stated fact. White people are the only ones going around saying that shit. I mean, everyone else thinks it, it's true. Lots of people say it—just in other ways. Not exactly like that. “White people suck!” White people say this about themselves, as if they're not getting a little bit of fucking sociopathic joy out of it. I lived with a white a supremacist that may or may not have known he was a white supremacist. *may or may not have* He would say shit bordering on the brink of slight psychological torture. He'd say shit like “WE made OURSELVES the TOP RACE” Like, the fact that you're using words like ‘we' and ‘ourselves' indicate that YOU believe yourself to be a member of the so-said “top race” Not true. White people are not the top race. There are more retarded white people in the world than any other races. White people have been historically racist to the point that they fucked up their own gene pool imbreeding. Like: yes. They have held a majority of the money ans power on this planet for long enough that the entire world is programmed to think blue eyes are prettier— People with blue eyes have easier lives, period. Period. They get away with so much shit. This is a result of white dominance. It's true. But this guy. Lol. This guy would say things like “WE made ourselves the TOP RACE” And then further contradict himself by saying things like, “I don't believe in race” He was a narcissist. Yeah. Only thing worse than a narcissist? A white supremacy narcissist who doesn't know or understand he's either of those things. FUCK. I took him to my gym—but only because he let me stay in his spare bedroom for $11. Flex. More on that later. I personally think it's because he was a white supremacist trying to physiologically terrorize me by continually bringing up the effects of white power on my entire existence— BUT. He would say the most ignorant shit, that wasn't entirely ignorant—like he made decent and factual points, it was just ignorant that he was talking about it at all. To me. A homeless, black woman. It was like he was rubbing it in my face. For ten days he pretty much just came up with extremely inventive ways to approach me and be like “I'M WHITE AND YOURE BLACK AND MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND YOUR LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I'M A WHITE MAN, AND YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN!!!!l” I'm like, dude…shut up. “WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!” Okay. You're egging on a race war. I still don't hate white people. At this point I just see they're typically power tripping sadists. It's okay. Like everything he said or brought up apparently to try to make me feel better—actually made me feel WORSE to the point where I decided he was doing this on purpose. I'm like, This is the new white power movent: We make a majority of them homeless, lure them into our domiciles, and then remind them that hey don't have domiciles. Because of us. Pretend to feel sorry about it, mentally torture and disable them, and then send them back into the streets to squabble and kill each other! Perfect. But no, they are not the “top race” There are more retarded white people than anyone else— We even had one as President for 8 years! I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. I don't hate trump. He's just mentally disabled, being politically correct. I don't hate him! He's hilarious! When he's not directly effecting my existence— Hes funny. But: a perfect example of what the Caucasian's have done to themselves. And the fact that it doesn't matter, because when you have millions of dollars, you can be a literal retard, and rule the world! Wow! No, it's okay. I'm not racist. I went from his place—directly to a homeless shelter, where 99% of women there were black. I learned to love-hate everybody equally. Black people love to talk on the fuckin phone. So come lights out, everybody's on the fuckin phone, I'm like, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Everybody's on the phone. I'm like “Bro, if you actually have all these people to talk to, you should have somewhere to stay other than this dump.” I'm like, “I'm obviously here cause I'm a piece of shit and nobody loves me— You're on the phone from 11 PM till forever and you can't just go to their house and sleep there?! No! Then get off the phone cause that person ain't SHIT!” They ain't shit. But dudes are next level psycopaths. All of them. Staying at a women's shelter was eye opening. I would overhear conversations like, “BUT I LOVE YOUuuuuUu” Dudes be fucking chicks up in the head. All the way up. BITCH you're in a HOMELESS SHELTER. If he lets you sleep in this bitch even for 5 seconds he ain't SHIT. Get off the PHONE. Black people—or really—poor people, they love to talk on the phone. I don't know. I don't get it. I realized at a certain point i talked too much, and I was spending all my talking time talking to toxic people. So I stopped. Kind of. I talk to myself on my podcasts. Still can't decide if that's toxic or just what god wants so— I mean the downloads keep going up. Whatever. I should have a house. Dudes be having females out here homeless, worried about THEM. Woaaaahhhh. Anyway. But I realized: people love to talk on the phone. On the bus. At the gym. Wherever. Just “Talk talk talk/- Yap yap yap” about the dumbest shit. I realized how non bianary I am because females talk about the dumbest fucking shit. All dudes talk about is females so - I'm jaded at this point. Inequality is balls. This is how I learned the meaning of “no justice no peace” Like, the perpetual race war in this country has just created this division and unrest and it so fucking chaotic— But it's not just a race war. Dudes are fucking sick, intolerant. Greedy, destructive creatures. It's MAN WORLD so if you have a tiny dick or are an ugly female—you live at the bottom of the world. SUCKS TO SUUUUUUCK. “No justice, no peace” Colored people love to be loud—they've spent so much time being oppressed, it's apart of the culture to be like, “FUCK YOU, I'M HERE! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!” I'm like, I get it. This is the definition of “disturbing the peace” After a week of this ridiculousness, I'm like, hey, maybe they're not racist: they just want you to be quiet. Lol that's not funny. They're like, “Ugh, this guy's breaking the law, he's disturbing the peace” The other cops like, “Just shoot him; if we arrest him he won't shut up” Lol that's terrible. Whatever. Colored people have been so neglected and oppressed now they kill each other. Whatever. There's no color to that shit. It's just men. Men are killers. But of course—I'm torn. I love babies—the only way you're gonna get one of them is to love a man—and once he impregnates you he can do whatever else to you he wants. He owns you after that. And you're just—tied to him. Destructive. Honestly, though—the difference between a good man and a bad man, or even a good woman and a bad woman—is a good mother. You have to have that. So I fucked up. I'm a whole trash can. But now I love/hate everybody equally. Everybody's fucked up. I hate myself the most. What! I'm homeless! That makes me a piece of shit! I'm shitty. And I get it. It's cultural oppression. This culture has been bred on slavery and neglect and oppression and so now you have to act out and be loud and ridiculous and rowdy. Okay. I get it. I do. But at this point, I'm like “This is the apocalypse, I'm ready for the world to end.” I don't give a fuck about whose black whose white what's right what's wrong, I'm like, “Nobody pays enough money for me to be miserable for 8-16 hours a day, I don't have a place to sleep or a friend in the world, just end it already, God, “ “Just fucking blow it all up. “ I'm ready for a nuclear fuckin war. “Drop that nuke directly on my face.” I want to be ground zero. Fuck this whole place. Fuck this existence. I'm over it. I don't care about anything. My basic needs aren't being met and I'm over it. I don't even have a fucking HOME. You need a home just to have a BODY. The only shit you do In your house is because you have to take care of your BODY for it to work. You have to shower. You have to eat. You have to sleep, These are not recommendations!! These are requirements, Once I realized that a great enough evil existed in the world to allow this to happen— I got over it. I'm like “fuck this race war” Where's the real one?! Drop some bombs in this bitch. Humans are fucked up. Black. White. Everybody in between. Everybody's fucked up, yo. Greed fucked up humanity. All of it. —but I spent some time in this women's shelter and I sterted to realize: maybe it's just because it's a man's world. Half these femakes are in here talking about being hung up on niggas— NIGGAS. And they're in a homeless shelter. I had been celibate for quite some time at this point; but it seemed like every goddess I met in this place was broken—and that brokenness came from the sacrifice of loving men, and having children. Men are fucked up! Needy, greedy, selfish motherfuckers. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones— There are. They're just married. I respect marriage so much. I respect marriage so much— to the point where, I ended mine, when I realized “This is not how marriage is supposed to be.” It's fucked up. The good ones are taken, usually. And the sad thing is, Sometimes people stay in toxic relationships long enough that they become toxic. That happened to me. I stayed with the wrong person just long enough to realize, like, “Great, now I'm shitty, too—you motherfucker” FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I would rather slit my wrists up and down than ever go back to my ex. Yep. I've committed suicide 27 times since I left my marriage. You know what the first successful suicide attempt was, though? My fucking marriage. UGH. FUCK THESE NIGGAS. They'll have you fucked up. They'll have you homeless. They don't care! They have dicks! They can just fuck you up—then walk away, and fuck somebody else up. And the thing is: there's always some dumb, useless 18 year old somewhere that's gonna think he's GOD. She's useless—except in ONE WAY. To him. Then when he's done with her? Yep. Trash pile. Fuck these dudes. So I'm in this women's shelter, where of course, as if I need more of a reminder that most men ain't shit *most, not all. Done offend men. They'll kill you. They'll worse than kill you. They'll knock you up; ruin your body; cheat on you—they'll fuck you up— Then kill you. So I'm in this shelter, and after the first night, they're like “okay, you have to have a physical, then a psyche assessment, then you'll get a permanent housing assignment” I'm like “okay” So I get my appointment, and I look at it, and the appointment for the psychiatric evaluation is like 10 days away— I'm like, “Wait a minute: So you're going to make me wait 10 days in a dirty, chaotic, gross fucking nasty place—10 sleepless nights surrounded by hood rats and garbage all over the place and shitty toilets, where it's freezing fucking cold and even the cops and the staff are fighting all the time—THEN you're going to give me a psyche evaluation?” “Yeah” Fuck the system. I'm just jaded. I love/hate everything and everyone the same. You know why? Cause it's the same fucking emotion. They're not opposites. They're just opposite ends of the same spectrum of the same exact emotion. Passion. Passionate fury Passionate love Passionate rage. All really the same thing. The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is fear. Weekend on a Tuesday R3HQB & Laidback Luke Love, much like death Is just an illusion another contusion, confusion I'm a loose fuse confusious Lucius, Lucifer loosens Two tooth's, apathetic: I'm so pathetic, No sympathy for the devil No empathy for the dead SUPACREE//Chak Chel is grocery shopping at stop n shop Why stop n shop CAUSE THERES NO WHOLE FOODS IN THE HOOD. Racist ass motherfuckers. Supacree. No, Dude. No. Okay! Chak Chel! Mm. -_- I need to talk to you. Please. Step away. Wait! M—no. [she moves to the left—he moves to the left—she moves the right right—he moves the the right.] *sighs* [she removes a stone from her pouch, and throws it on the ground: it opens up into a black hole like vortex.] Where does that go. I don't know. *she gestures, waving her hand in front of the hole* Uhh— She stares into his eyes and steps into the portal, which swallows her into a void. Oh, my God! He stares off into the distance worriedly— Seconds later, just outside the storefront, a portal opens—supacree/CC is set gently at the bus stop; DILLON FRANCIS, still inside the store, stares at her out the window, flabbergasted as she boards the bus, staring back at him through the window. The bus drives away. Why Dillon Francis Idk I died and went to hell and back and back to hell again An irrelevant disheveled devil drinking a rebbl in the back of the bus Full of disgust, looking busted and fucked up I'm stuck in a nightmare, I can't wake up Where's Shia laboeoff? It's wild and rough Inspired enough By being in lust Pretending it's love But it's nothing Jimmy Fallon FLASHBACK : season 4 ANANDAR has an interesting medallion. one time I fucked this dude cause he looked just like Skrillex; like that wasn't somehow gonna be a disaster. I mean, my life was already 100% crap—I thought: Couldn't really be much worse. Might as well fuck this dude: Not like I could ever get the real thing. Turns out I was wrong twice. FLASHBACK: season 6 SKRILLEX is obsessed with SUPACREE. Huh. Oh wow, yeah. Yeah. So what does Dillon Francis want out of this? Figure it out! Uhhh!! What about deadmau5? JOEL ZIMMERMAN I want nothing to do with this DEADMAU5 …are you sure. JOEL Yes. KASKADE enters swiftly. JOEL Ugh, this dude DEADMAU5 WHAT UP, HOMIE. KASKADE WHAT IS UP. JOEL Ugh. RYAN GARY RADDON enters, nonchalantly. RYAN …am I late? JOEL You made it! RYAN Well, I promised. DEADMAU5 You are late. KASKADE Ugh, this dude. RYAN Nobody likes you. DEADMAU5 Say that to my face. RYAN Where is it. KASKADE Ooh. Burn. JOEL Oh-Kay. Let's go. Lol. Where are these dudes going. I guess we'll see. PASQUALE. Ahem. PASQUALE— Yes? What are you doing? Working on something. Working on what. Something. PASQUALE WHAT. GET IN HERE. Fine, I don't have eyes— I super sauna Flora-Fauna Outer space And out of stardust Superstardom Flawed, But by design, Align with all of ‘em Fine, I really don't find you Kind of attractive Damn, I'm damaged Do you mind Or do you plan on dying anytime Fine I can't be white, But can be tiny, That way, finally, When I'm someone's wife; I'm the right weight and height for them to like me Enough that they might— I mean just might Not cheat. Horrible. All I want is your attention— A ten A ten-tension I wnant your attention A ten A ten-tension Locker number 87 was taken and though it hadn't immediately bothered me in the same way that it had a few days before, the unsettling feeling in the moments following at least prompted me to write something down. It did bother me to think of him with anyone else—and even sensing it or seeing it had set me off in a way I could neither explain nor describe, first sending me into a whirlwind which culminated in meeting Anandar, and secondly tailspinning me into a fit of fury —and while I still loved Sonny, there was something I felt for Dillon I couldn't entirely explain, and while the world was suddenly full of beautiful people—beautiful white people, to be exacta, I realized I didn't want nor was I truly fit for any of them anyway, not that something like that mattered in my time of desperate need and desperation, unable to accumulate the focus or energy I needed to move up and out from this trench I was in, whatever it meant besides falling prey to the grueling captapilism on which the country I was raised to love was built, without it benefitting me in any way besides aesthetic. GODDAMMIT, DILLON FRANCISz WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO— Yeah, that's right— I'm gonna throw up. Don't throw up in my house. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THIS IS MY HOUSE— YOU DONT HAVE A HOUSE, BITCH— Aw, shit, it's on. KAAAAAHHHHMEEEEE— Is this dragon ball Z? No, it's FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING If I hear Renaissance one more time, I might just— I might just You're right It's white power, it's alt right, I can't fight it It's alright It's just another night In the heights In the no flight list I'm on hiatus, I'm high, thanks plankton I'm pinapple, might just wine Or whinehouse, If I had my own house, despite this Whatever This records all hype, Supply and Demand I'm a Diamond For your demon Indegenous genetics yet I'm homeless, on stolen land I'm hopeless, once again I stole this l, I am Sam I'm alone in this— Here's your quest for fire, ya dumbass, It's bombastic, I'm so past it Just wanna throw a bomb at it; Used to cetalogue albums Bow I'm analog, all bad, I'm so mad I wanna take it all back Like all that This is Allllllll, that this is— Is she coming back? Maybe. MAYBE?! Look, just give me my 10 bands, bro. 10 bands?! ‘Ukrainian Ballerina Finds Solace In Dancing.' Oh man, they hate us Why God, do they hate us Light skinned ballerinas— Life is what you make it Raise up from this hatred Make my grave With raising canes and gravy Make the best of what you gave me Questions in my mind arising Or are rasing I'm erasing pain but gazing at the TV thinking God, Why do they hate us Why do they hate us? USA Why do they hate us Why Why why Why do they hate us A master hypnotist; Why waste a wish on this— The fog, or mist obscured my vision Interest in THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, wake up. OH MY GOD. What do you want? I want to wake up from this nightmare, I want to be white, with blue eyes and long blonde hair I want to go to Long Island on the ferry, I want to be there, But clearly, I'm here, and I'm sorry But I'm growing wary That God's even aware of me I hate this. Oh shit. What, man. I just realized— we're all gonna get really old. Maybe… —or we're gonna die. Yeah, that's why I said “maybe” That's fucking terrifying. Dude, you're like 40–how are you just coming to grips with your mortality? …I don't know. *hits bong worriedly* I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER. I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER!!! Damn, Drake Bell; I didn't really think this would carry over into the 7th season, but—I gotta hand it to you; You stay fucking up. Dammit. What. I fucked up. You just stay fucking up And I stay fucking up And I say I'm over it, But I'm a stray puppy; A squirrel that's in search of a nut And you are what you eat So I guess I'm a butt Or bananas I'be had it I almost miss my hammock I take that back I ________ Manhattan Hey, you gotta stay stateside. What. For what. NEWS: WORLD WAR III Ah, fucking shit. So, what am I supposed to do for mon— MILITARY: Get over here— No. Look, it's SkrillexZ. No. How about— No. Believe it or not, I want what you want, m I love what you love, and then some; Gone for a walk in the park, With my heart in my pocket, I hope she shows up soon I hope that she's all that you've always wanted Since I'm not, And when I'm gone My songs remind you of what Love was, The love that I had, And the love that I loved just to love And the love that I wrote in the songs that You offered I hope she shows up And she's all that you wanted; I want what you want, And I love what you love, I promise l I hope she shows up soon She's all that you wanted; I wanted to love you, But want what you want, hun I promise; I'm just coming off a long one I love you for the long haul, And then some // I keep on forgetting That I'm not that pretty to, Or around you So I'll just— Do what I do, And move into the room Where my room meets you, In the vacuum of time and— Collisions, and splinters Unseasonable winters and Missed kindergarten graduations, I'm assuming at least I can't move, Or can't focus, Can't write many words, Or recite all my poems There's just not enough time left That I have Imm mindless I might have to find A flight To the homeland, and I don't want to fight, in this war I was drafted; I wrote that before, Now I'm captain Disasterous… Has it begun yet? It hasn't been fun yet, Just tragic I haven't forggtten the traffic I still have the hat. I just might not be black But I'm back on the blacklist , I guess Sending signals, distress Matching sigmas, And sigils, Invested in candle light vigils Twisted like pretzels; The rest of the West is in shambles And I'm steady rambling, Scrambling What's the preamble, pastor? Last again firstly, And first again last; How's that feel? How's dinner after a hot meal, 2 days of cornmeal, I'm horny, But still won't eat honey All out of money l l Submitting to your said supremacy This, I'll remember— It's cinders and embers and ashes l The fire you search for Went out in the rain that I called for The dance that I managed to salvage From out of the past, Like the misters and masters I asked for the land that I am back And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand I should want for nothing, But I find you at the forefront, Sniffing cocaine Yelling my name In the most profane way Ah, down the alley, she goes But— WHY ARE WE RUNNING YOU DID THIS, TIMMY, DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME TIMMY CAUSE YOU'RE TIMMY, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! I'm losing control, now I can't get out of it Or into it I'm on a roll now; The role of my life, It turns out, Was just my life Now I'm lifeless inside “Yeah right” *sigh* “Like anybody loves me” *crying* “Like anybody likes me” Yeah, that's right Just lay down and die; Lay down in the street like a dog, “If you like” Attack on my psyche The love of my life was just like me He might be Are we even? What do you believe in? A seething scar on my iris. Dine in and drive ins. I'm meant to die now, that was my life, it seems; It's over for me, The American dream turned nightmare; I haven't seen this stream, I should lie here, I haven't been myself in a while, I'm liable to set the whole ass world on fire— Like I'm on a fire escape, Trying to tape my mistake At the brokenshaker; Makes sense in LA, But it's just another day here How's the weather? It's awful That's what I heard at the office tomorrow, I'll probably drown in my sorrows, A crown on and borrowed objects In my honor, No, dont't stop here This is bat country Now some Sunni blū shit Or SUPACREE, whoever she is: Nonexistent. Here's a spaghetti and shit sandwhich, Dillon Francis, I believe in magic, I swear, I just can't stand it I hate this planet; Might be nice if I could manage to— goddamnit. Captain. Where's she at? Off the map… There is no “off the map” Off the grid. Well, there's that. THE LEGEND OF SUPACREE We've been collecting data about this woman for a number of years. It's a woman? CUT TO: SUNNÏ BLŪ is not a woman. *gross stupid rapper shit* Very much so. Senator, a word. How many words? At least three. Why is it always three? MEANWHILE *in a deep meditative state VIA DILLON FRANCIS* *no, it's Hanzel* Shutthefuckup. Listen. This is a lot. Breathe. [stops breathing] I've got burning questions. That's just syphilis. I— It only stings a little; It only burns a lot— You were my love, I thought Lost, lost, at once But here you are, And not often have I wanted To imagine you a star Another catharsis Another conundrum The world is at war, And the source that we come from, Abolished, So long lost and gone from our thoughts Now, Think fondly of lust, As she fondled the heart that she clutches From dawn until dusk, After sunset, Once buried but polished, recovered And thought of more often, Than spawned in the rust of the under and all of the marvelous— What was it? What? “The Jimmy Fallon Conspiracy” That is a good band name! What was the other one? “Bad with Matches” I like that. There was one more… Uh… {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.

“White people suck!” This is a self-stated fact. White people are the only ones going around saying that shit. I mean, everyone else thinks it, it's true. Lots of people say it—just in other ways. Not exactly like that. “White people suck!” White people say this about themselves, as if they're not getting a little bit of fucking sociopathic joy out of it. I lived with a white a supremacist that may or may not have known he was a white supremacist. *may or may not have* He would say shit bordering on the brink of slight psychological torture. He'd say shit like “WE made OURSELVES the TOP RACE” Like, the fact that you're using words like ‘we' and ‘ourselves' indicate that YOU believe yourself to be a member of the so-said “top race” Not true. White people are not the top race. There are more retarded white people in the world than any other races. White people have been historically racist to the point that they fucked up their own gene pool imbreeding. Like: yes. They have held a majority of the money ans power on this planet for long enough that the entire world is programmed to think blue eyes are prettier— People with blue eyes have easier lives, period. Period. They get away with so much shit. This is a result of white dominance. It's true. But this guy. Lol. This guy would say things like “WE made ourselves the TOP RACE” And then further contradict himself by saying things like, “I don't believe in race” He was a narcissist. Yeah. Only thing worse than a narcissist? A white supremacy narcissist who doesn't know or understand he's either of those things. FUCK. I took him to my gym—but only because he let me stay in his spare bedroom for $11. Flex. More on that later. I personally think it's because he was a white supremacist trying to physiologically terrorize me by continually bringing up the effects of white power on my entire existence— BUT. He would say the most ignorant shit, that wasn't entirely ignorant—like he made decent and factual points, it was just ignorant that he was talking about it at all. To me. A homeless, black woman. It was like he was rubbing it in my face. For ten days he pretty much just came up with extremely inventive ways to approach me and be like “I'M WHITE AND YOURE BLACK AND MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND YOUR LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I'M A WHITE MAN, AND YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN!!!!l” I'm like, dude…shut up. “WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!” Okay. You're egging on a race war. I still don't hate white people. At this point I just see they're typically power tripping sadists. It's okay. Like everything he said or brought up apparently to try to make me feel better—actually made me feel WORSE to the point where I decided he was doing this on purpose. I'm like, This is the new white power movent: We make a majority of them homeless, lure them into our domiciles, and then remind them that hey don't have domiciles. Because of us. Pretend to feel sorry about it, mentally torture and disable them, and then send them back into the streets to squabble and kill each other! Perfect. But no, they are not the “top race” There are more retarded white people than anyone else— We even had one as President for 8 years! I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. I don't hate trump. He's just mentally disabled, being politically correct. I don't hate him! He's hilarious! When he's not directly effecting my existence— Hes funny. But: a perfect example of what the Caucasian's have done to themselves. And the fact that it doesn't matter, because when you have millions of dollars, you can be a literal retard, and rule the world! Wow! No, it's okay. I'm not racist. I went from his place—directly to a homeless shelter, where 99% of women there were black. I learned to love-hate everybody equally. Black people love to talk on the fuckin phone. So come lights out, everybody's on the fuckin phone, I'm like, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Everybody's on the phone. I'm like “Bro, if you actually have all these people to talk to, you should have somewhere to stay other than this dump.” I'm like, “I'm obviously here cause I'm a piece of shit and nobody loves me— You're on the phone from 11 PM till forever and you can't just go to their house and sleep there?! No! Then get off the phone cause that person ain't SHIT!” They ain't shit. But dudes are next level psycopaths. All of them. Staying at a women's shelter was eye opening. I would overhear conversations like, “BUT I LOVE YOUuuuuUu” Dudes be fucking chicks up in the head. All the way up. BITCH you're in a HOMELESS SHELTER. If he lets you sleep in this bitch even for 5 seconds he ain't SHIT. Get off the PHONE. Black people—or really—poor people, they love to talk on the phone. I don't know. I don't get it. I realized at a certain point i talked too much, and I was spending all my talking time talking to toxic people. So I stopped. Kind of. I talk to myself on my podcasts. Still can't decide if that's toxic or just what god wants so— I mean the downloads keep going up. Whatever. I should have a house. Dudes be having females out here homeless, worried about THEM. Woaaaahhhh. Anyway. But I realized: people love to talk on the phone. On the bus. At the gym. Wherever. Just “Talk talk talk/- Yap yap yap” about the dumbest shit. I realized how non bianary I am because females talk about the dumbest fucking shit. All dudes talk about is females so - I'm jaded at this point. Inequality is balls. This is how I learned the meaning of “no justice no peace” Like, the perpetual race war in this country has just created this division and unrest and it so fucking chaotic— But it's not just a race war. Dudes are fucking sick, intolerant. Greedy, destructive creatures. It's MAN WORLD so if you have a tiny dick or are an ugly female—you live at the bottom of the world. SUCKS TO SUUUUUUCK. “No justice, no peace” Colored people love to be loud—they've spent so much time being oppressed, it's apart of the culture to be like, “FUCK YOU, I'M HERE! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!” I'm like, I get it. This is the definition of “disturbing the peace” After a week of this ridiculousness, I'm like, hey, maybe they're not racist: they just want you to be quiet. Lol that's not funny. They're like, “Ugh, this guy's breaking the law, he's disturbing the peace” The other cops like, “Just shoot him; if we arrest him he won't shut up” Lol that's terrible. Whatever. Colored people have been so neglected and oppressed now they kill each other. Whatever. There's no color to that shit. It's just men. Men are killers. But of course—I'm torn. I love babies—the only way you're gonna get one of them is to love a man—and once he impregnates you he can do whatever else to you he wants. He owns you after that. And you're just—tied to him. Destructive. Honestly, though—the difference between a good man and a bad man, or even a good woman and a bad woman—is a good mother. You have to have that. So I fucked up. I'm a whole trash can. But now I love/hate everybody equally. Everybody's fucked up. I hate myself the most. What! I'm homeless! That makes me a piece of shit! I'm shitty. And I get it. It's cultural oppression. This culture has been bred on slavery and neglect and oppression and so now you have to act out and be loud and ridiculous and rowdy. Okay. I get it. I do. But at this point, I'm like “This is the apocalypse, I'm ready for the world to end.” I don't give a fuck about whose black whose white what's right what's wrong, I'm like, “Nobody pays enough money for me to be miserable for 8-16 hours a day, I don't have a place to sleep or a friend in the world, just end it already, God, “ “Just fucking blow it all up. “ I'm ready for a nuclear fuckin war. “Drop that nuke directly on my face.” I want to be ground zero. Fuck this whole place. Fuck this existence. I'm over it. I don't care about anything. My basic needs aren't being met and I'm over it. I don't even have a fucking HOME. You need a home just to have a BODY. The only shit you do In your house is because you have to take care of your BODY for it to work. You have to shower. You have to eat. You have to sleep, These are not recommendations!! These are requirements, Once I realized that a great enough evil existed in the world to allow this to happen— I got over it. I'm like “fuck this race war” Where's the real one?! Drop some bombs in this bitch. Humans are fucked up. Black. White. Everybody in between. Everybody's fucked up, yo. Greed fucked up humanity. All of it. —but I spent some time in this women's shelter and I sterted to realize: maybe it's just because it's a man's world. Half these femakes are in here talking about being hung up on niggas— NIGGAS. And they're in a homeless shelter. I had been celibate for quite some time at this point; but it seemed like every goddess I met in this place was broken—and that brokenness came from the sacrifice of loving men, and having children. Men are fucked up! Needy, greedy, selfish motherfuckers. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones— There are. They're just married. I respect marriage so much. I respect marriage so much— to the point where, I ended mine, when I realized “This is not how marriage is supposed to be.” It's fucked up. The good ones are taken, usually. And the sad thing is, Sometimes people stay in toxic relationships long enough that they become toxic. That happened to me. I stayed with the wrong person just long enough to realize, like, “Great, now I'm shitty, too—you motherfucker” FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I would rather slit my wrists up and down than ever go back to my ex. Yep. I've committed suicide 27 times since I left my marriage. You know what the first successful suicide attempt was, though? My fucking marriage. UGH. FUCK THESE NIGGAS. They'll have you fucked up. They'll have you homeless. They don't care! They have dicks! They can just fuck you up—then walk away, and fuck somebody else up. And the thing is: there's always some dumb, useless 18 year old somewhere that's gonna think he's GOD. She's useless—except in ONE WAY. To him. Then when he's done with her? Yep. Trash pile. Fuck these dudes. So I'm in this women's shelter, where of course, as if I need more of a reminder that most men ain't shit *most, not all. Done offend men. They'll kill you. They'll worse than kill you. They'll knock you up; ruin your body; cheat on you—they'll fuck you up— Then kill you. So I'm in this shelter, and after the first night, they're like “okay, you have to have a physical, then a psyche assessment, then you'll get a permanent housing assignment” I'm like “okay” So I get my appointment, and I look at it, and the appointment for the psychiatric evaluation is like 10 days away— I'm like, “Wait a minute: So you're going to make me wait 10 days in a dirty, chaotic, gross fucking nasty place—10 sleepless nights surrounded by hood rats and garbage all over the place and shitty toilets, where it's freezing fucking cold and even the cops and the staff are fighting all the time—THEN you're going to give me a psyche evaluation?” “Yeah” Fuck the system. I'm just jaded. I love/hate everything and everyone the same. You know why? Cause it's the same fucking emotion. They're not opposites. They're just opposite ends of the same spectrum of the same exact emotion. Passion. Passionate fury Passionate love Passionate rage. All really the same thing. The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is fear. Weekend on a Tuesday R3HQB & Laidback Luke Love, much like death Is just an illusion another contusion, confusion I'm a loose fuse confusious Lucius, Lucifer loosens Two tooth's, apathetic: I'm so pathetic, No sympathy for the devil No empathy for the dead SUPACREE//Chak Chel is grocery shopping at stop n shop Why stop n shop CAUSE THERES NO WHOLE FOODS IN THE HOOD. Racist ass motherfuckers. Supacree. No, Dude. No. Okay! Chak Chel! Mm. -_- I need to talk to you. Please. Step away. Wait! M—no. [she moves to the left—he moves to the left—she moves the right right—he moves the the right.] *sighs* [she removes a stone from her pouch, and throws it on the ground: it opens up into a black hole like vortex.] Where does that go. I don't know. *she gestures, waving her hand in front of the hole* Uhh— She stares into his eyes and steps into the portal, which swallows her into a void. Oh, my God! He stares off into the distance worriedly— Seconds later, just outside the storefront, a portal opens—supacree/CC is set gently at the bus stop; DILLON FRANCIS, still inside the store, stares at her out the window, flabbergasted as she boards the bus, staring back at him through the window. The bus drives away. Why Dillon Francis Idk I died and went to hell and back and back to hell again An irrelevant disheveled devil drinking a rebbl in the back of the bus Full of disgust, looking busted and fucked up I'm stuck in a nightmare, I can't wake up Where's Shia laboeoff? It's wild and rough Inspired enough By being in lust Pretending it's love But it's nothing Jimmy Fallon FLASHBACK : season 4 ANANDAR has an interesting medallion. one time I fucked this dude cause he looked just like Skrillex; like that wasn't somehow gonna be a disaster. I mean, my life was already 100% crap—I thought: Couldn't really be much worse. Might as well fuck this dude: Not like I could ever get the real thing. Turns out I was wrong twice. FLASHBACK: season 6 SKRILLEX is obsessed with SUPACREE. Huh. Oh wow, yeah. Yeah. So what does Dillon Francis want out of this? Figure it out! Uhhh!! What about deadmau5? JOEL ZIMMERMAN I want nothing to do with this DEADMAU5 …are you sure. JOEL Yes. KASKADE enters swiftly. JOEL Ugh, this dude DEADMAU5 WHAT UP, HOMIE. KASKADE WHAT IS UP. JOEL Ugh. RYAN GARY RADDON enters, nonchalantly. RYAN …am I late? JOEL You made it! RYAN Well, I promised. DEADMAU5 You are late. KASKADE Ugh, this dude. RYAN Nobody likes you. DEADMAU5 Say that to my face. RYAN Where is it. KASKADE Ooh. Burn. JOEL Oh-Kay. Let's go. Lol. Where are these dudes going. I guess we'll see. PASQUALE. Ahem. PASQUALE— Yes? What are you doing? Working on something. Working on what. Something. PASQUALE WHAT. GET IN HERE. Fine, I don't have eyes— I super sauna Flora-Fauna Outer space And out of stardust Superstardom Flawed, But by design, Align with all of ‘em Fine, I really don't find you Kind of attractive Damn, I'm damaged Do you mind Or do you plan on dying anytime Fine I can't be white, But can be tiny, That way, finally, When I'm someone's wife; I'm the right weight and height for them to like me Enough that they might— I mean just might Not cheat. Horrible. All I want is your attention— A ten A ten-tension I wnant your attention A ten A ten-tension Locker number 87 was taken and though it hadn't immediately bothered me in the same way that it had a few days before, the unsettling feeling in the moments following at least prompted me to write something down. It did bother me to think of him with anyone else—and even sensing it or seeing it had set me off in a way I could neither explain nor describe, first sending me into a whirlwind which culminated in meeting Anandar, and secondly tailspinning me into a fit of fury —and while I still loved Sonny, there was something I felt for Dillon I couldn't entirely explain, and while the world was suddenly full of beautiful people—beautiful white people, to be exacta, I realized I didn't want nor was I truly fit for any of them anyway, not that something like that mattered in my time of desperate need and desperation, unable to accumulate the focus or energy I needed to move up and out from this trench I was in, whatever it meant besides falling prey to the grueling captapilism on which the country I was raised to love was built, without it benefitting me in any way besides aesthetic. GODDAMMIT, DILLON FRANCISz WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO— Yeah, that's right— I'm gonna throw up. Don't throw up in my house. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THIS IS MY HOUSE— YOU DONT HAVE A HOUSE, BITCH— Aw, shit, it's on. KAAAAAHHHHMEEEEE— Is this dragon ball Z? No, it's FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING If I hear Renaissance one more time, I might just— I might just You're right It's white power, it's alt right, I can't fight it It's alright It's just another night In the heights In the no flight list I'm on hiatus, I'm high, thanks plankton I'm pinapple, might just wine Or whinehouse, If I had my own house, despite this Whatever This records all hype, Supply and Demand I'm a Diamond For your demon Indegenous genetics yet I'm homeless, on stolen land I'm hopeless, once again I stole this l, I am Sam I'm alone in this— Here's your quest for fire, ya dumbass, It's bombastic, I'm so past it Just wanna throw a bomb at it; Used to cetalogue albums Bow I'm analog, all bad, I'm so mad I wanna take it all back Like all that This is Allllllll, that this is— Is she coming back? Maybe. MAYBE?! Look, just give me my 10 bands, bro. 10 bands?! ‘Ukrainian Ballerina Finds Solace In Dancing.' Oh man, they hate us Why God, do they hate us Light skinned ballerinas— Life is what you make it Raise up from this hatred Make my grave With raising canes and gravy Make the best of what you gave me Questions in my mind arising Or are rasing I'm erasing pain but gazing at the TV thinking God, Why do they hate us Why do they hate us? USA Why do they hate us Why Why why Why do they hate us A master hypnotist; Why waste a wish on this— The fog, or mist obscured my vision Interest in THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, wake up. OH MY GOD. What do you want? I want to wake up from this nightmare, I want to be white, with blue eyes and long blonde hair I want to go to Long Island on the ferry, I want to be there, But clearly, I'm here, and I'm sorry But I'm growing wary That God's even aware of me I hate this. Oh shit. What, man. I just realized— we're all gonna get really old. Maybe… —or we're gonna die. Yeah, that's why I said “maybe” That's fucking terrifying. Dude, you're like 40–how are you just coming to grips with your mortality? …I don't know. *hits bong worriedly* I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER. I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER!!! Damn, Drake Bell; I didn't really think this would carry over into the 7th season, but—I gotta hand it to you; You stay fucking up. Dammit. What. I fucked up. You just stay fucking up And I stay fucking up And I say I'm over it, But I'm a stray puppy; A squirrel that's in search of a nut And you are what you eat So I guess I'm a butt Or bananas I'be had it I almost miss my hammock I take that back I ________ Manhattan Hey, you gotta stay stateside. What. For what. NEWS: WORLD WAR III Ah, fucking shit. So, what am I supposed to do for mon— MILITARY: Get over here— No. Look, it's SkrillexZ. No. How about— No. Believe it or not, I want what you want, m I love what you love, and then some; Gone for a walk in the park, With my heart in my pocket, I hope she shows up soon I hope that she's all that you've always wanted Since I'm not, And when I'm gone My songs remind you of what Love was, The love that I had, And the love that I loved just to love And the love that I wrote in the songs that You offered I hope she shows up And she's all that you wanted; I want what you want, And I love what you love, I promise l I hope she shows up soon She's all that you wanted; I wanted to love you, But want what you want, hun I promise; I'm just coming off a long one I love you for the long haul, And then some // I keep on forgetting That I'm not that pretty to, Or around you So I'll just— Do what I do, And move into the room Where my room meets you, In the vacuum of time and— Collisions, and splinters Unseasonable winters and Missed kindergarten graduations, I'm assuming at least I can't move, Or can't focus, Can't write many words, Or recite all my poems There's just not enough time left That I have Imm mindless I might have to find A flight To the homeland, and I don't want to fight, in this war I was drafted; I wrote that before, Now I'm captain Disasterous… Has it begun yet? It hasn't been fun yet, Just tragic I haven't forggtten the traffic I still have the hat. I just might not be black But I'm back on the blacklist , I guess Sending signals, distress Matching sigmas, And sigils, Invested in candle light vigils Twisted like pretzels; The rest of the West is in shambles And I'm steady rambling, Scrambling What's the preamble, pastor? Last again firstly, And first again last; How's that feel? How's dinner after a hot meal, 2 days of cornmeal, I'm horny, But still won't eat honey All out of money l l Submitting to your said supremacy This, I'll remember— It's cinders and embers and ashes l The fire you search for Went out in the rain that I called for The dance that I managed to salvage From out of the past, Like the misters and masters I asked for the land that I am back And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand I should want for nothing, But I find you at the forefront, Sniffing cocaine Yelling my name In the most profane way Ah, down the alley, she goes But— WHY ARE WE RUNNING YOU DID THIS, TIMMY, DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME TIMMY CAUSE YOU'RE TIMMY, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! I'm losing control, now I can't get out of it Or into it I'm on a roll now; The role of my life, It turns out, Was just my life Now I'm lifeless inside “Yeah right” *sigh* “Like anybody loves me” *crying* “Like anybody likes me” Yeah, that's right Just lay down and die; Lay down in the street like a dog, “If you like” Attack on my psyche The love of my life was just like me He might be Are we even? What do you believe in? A seething scar on my iris. Dine in and drive ins. I'm meant to die now, that was my life, it seems; It's over for me, The American dream turned nightmare; I haven't seen this stream, I should lie here, I haven't been myself in a while, I'm liable to set the whole ass world on fire— Like I'm on a fire escape, Trying to tape my mistake At the brokenshaker; Makes sense in LA, But it's just another day here How's the weather? It's awful That's what I heard at the office tomorrow, I'll probably drown in my sorrows, A crown on and borrowed objects In my honor, No, dont't stop here This is bat country Now some Sunni blū shit Or SUPACREE, whoever she is: Nonexistent. Here's a spaghetti and shit sandwhich, Dillon Francis, I believe in magic, I swear, I just can't stand it I hate this planet; Might be nice if I could manage to— goddamnit. Captain. Where's she at? Off the map… There is no “off the map” Off the grid. Well, there's that. THE LEGEND OF SUPACREE We've been collecting data about this woman for a number of years. It's a woman? CUT TO: SUNNÏ BLŪ is not a woman. *gross stupid rapper shit* Very much so. Senator, a word. How many words? At least three. Why is it always three? MEANWHILE *in a deep meditative state VIA DILLON FRANCIS* *no, it's Hanzel* Shutthefuckup. Listen. This is a lot. Breathe. [stops breathing] I've got burning questions. That's just syphilis. I— It only stings a little; It only burns a lot— You were my love, I thought Lost, lost, at once But here you are, And not often have I wanted To imagine you a star Another catharsis Another conundrum The world is at war, And the source that we come from, Abolished, So long lost and gone from our thoughts Now, Think fondly of lust, As she fondled the heart that she clutches From dawn until dusk, After sunset, Once buried but polished, recovered And thought of more often, Than spawned in the rust of the under and all of the marvelous— What was it? What? “The Jimmy Fallon Conspiracy” That is a good band name! What was the other one? “Bad with Matches” I like that. There was one more… Uh… {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.

“White people suck!” This is a self-stated fact. White people are the only ones going around saying that shit. I mean, everyone else thinks it, it's true. Lots of people say it—just in other ways. Not exactly like that. “White people suck!” White people say this about themselves, as if they're not getting a little bit of fucking sociopathic joy out of it. I lived with a white a supremacist that may or may not have known he was a white supremacist. *may or may not have* He would say shit bordering on the brink of slight psychological torture. He'd say shit like “WE made OURSELVES the TOP RACE” Like, the fact that you're using words like ‘we' and ‘ourselves' indicate that YOU believe yourself to be a member of the so-said “top race” Not true. White people are not the top race. There are more retarded white people in the world than any other races. White people have been historically racist to the point that they fucked up their own gene pool imbreeding. Like: yes. They have held a majority of the money ans power on this planet for long enough that the entire world is programmed to think blue eyes are prettier— People with blue eyes have easier lives, period. Period. They get away with so much shit. This is a result of white dominance. It's true. But this guy. Lol. This guy would say things like “WE made ourselves the TOP RACE” And then further contradict himself by saying things like, “I don't believe in race” He was a narcissist. Yeah. Only thing worse than a narcissist? A white supremacy narcissist who doesn't know or understand he's either of those things. FUCK. I took him to my gym—but only because he let me stay in his spare bedroom for $11. Flex. More on that later. I personally think it's because he was a white supremacist trying to physiologically terrorize me by continually bringing up the effects of white power on my entire existence— BUT. He would say the most ignorant shit, that wasn't entirely ignorant—like he made decent and factual points, it was just ignorant that he was talking about it at all. To me. A homeless, black woman. It was like he was rubbing it in my face. For ten days he pretty much just came up with extremely inventive ways to approach me and be like “I'M WHITE AND YOURE BLACK AND MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND YOUR LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I'M A WHITE MAN, AND YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN!!!!l” I'm like, dude…shut up. “WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!” Okay. You're egging on a race war. I still don't hate white people. At this point I just see they're typically power tripping sadists. It's okay. Like everything he said or brought up apparently to try to make me feel better—actually made me feel WORSE to the point where I decided he was doing this on purpose. I'm like, This is the new white power movent: We make a majority of them homeless, lure them into our domiciles, and then remind them that hey don't have domiciles. Because of us. Pretend to feel sorry about it, mentally torture and disable them, and then send them back into the streets to squabble and kill each other! Perfect. But no, they are not the “top race” There are more retarded white people than anyone else— We even had one as President for 8 years! I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. I don't hate trump. He's just mentally disabled, being politically correct. I don't hate him! He's hilarious! When he's not directly effecting my existence— Hes funny. But: a perfect example of what the Caucasian's have done to themselves. And the fact that it doesn't matter, because when you have millions of dollars, you can be a literal retard, and rule the world! Wow! No, it's okay. I'm not racist. I went from his place—directly to a homeless shelter, where 99% of women there were black. I learned to love-hate everybody equally. Black people love to talk on the fuckin phone. So come lights out, everybody's on the fuckin phone, I'm like, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Everybody's on the phone. I'm like “Bro, if you actually have all these people to talk to, you should have somewhere to stay other than this dump.” I'm like, “I'm obviously here cause I'm a piece of shit and nobody loves me— You're on the phone from 11 PM till forever and you can't just go to their house and sleep there?! No! Then get off the phone cause that person ain't SHIT!” They ain't shit. But dudes are next level psycopaths. All of them. Staying at a women's shelter was eye opening. I would overhear conversations like, “BUT I LOVE YOUuuuuUu” Dudes be fucking chicks up in the head. All the way up. BITCH you're in a HOMELESS SHELTER. If he lets you sleep in this bitch even for 5 seconds he ain't SHIT. Get off the PHONE. Black people—or really—poor people, they love to talk on the phone. I don't know. I don't get it. I realized at a certain point i talked too much, and I was spending all my talking time talking to toxic people. So I stopped. Kind of. I talk to myself on my podcasts. Still can't decide if that's toxic or just what god wants so— I mean the downloads keep going up. Whatever. I should have a house. Dudes be having females out here homeless, worried about THEM. Woaaaahhhh. Anyway. But I realized: people love to talk on the phone. On the bus. At the gym. Wherever. Just “Talk talk talk/- Yap yap yap” about the dumbest shit. I realized how non bianary I am because females talk about the dumbest fucking shit. All dudes talk about is females so - I'm jaded at this point. Inequality is balls. This is how I learned the meaning of “no justice no peace” Like, the perpetual race war in this country has just created this division and unrest and it so fucking chaotic— But it's not just a race war. Dudes are fucking sick, intolerant. Greedy, destructive creatures. It's MAN WORLD so if you have a tiny dick or are an ugly female—you live at the bottom of the world. SUCKS TO SUUUUUUCK. “No justice, no peace” Colored people love to be loud—they've spent so much time being oppressed, it's apart of the culture to be like, “FUCK YOU, I'M HERE! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!” I'm like, I get it. This is the definition of “disturbing the peace” After a week of this ridiculousness, I'm like, hey, maybe they're not racist: they just want you to be quiet. Lol that's not funny. They're like, “Ugh, this guy's breaking the law, he's disturbing the peace” The other cops like, “Just shoot him; if we arrest him he won't shut up” Lol that's terrible. Whatever. Colored people have been so neglected and oppressed now they kill each other. Whatever. There's no color to that shit. It's just men. Men are killers. But of course—I'm torn. I love babies—the only way you're gonna get one of them is to love a man—and once he impregnates you he can do whatever else to you he wants. He owns you after that. And you're just—tied to him. Destructive. Honestly, though—the difference between a good man and a bad man, or even a good woman and a bad woman—is a good mother. You have to have that. So I fucked up. I'm a whole trash can. But now I love/hate everybody equally. Everybody's fucked up. I hate myself the most. What! I'm homeless! That makes me a piece of shit! I'm shitty. And I get it. It's cultural oppression. This culture has been bred on slavery and neglect and oppression and so now you have to act out and be loud and ridiculous and rowdy. Okay. I get it. I do. But at this point, I'm like “This is the apocalypse, I'm ready for the world to end.” I don't give a fuck about whose black whose white what's right what's wrong, I'm like, “Nobody pays enough money for me to be miserable for 8-16 hours a day, I don't have a place to sleep or a friend in the world, just end it already, God, “ “Just fucking blow it all up. “ I'm ready for a nuclear fuckin war. “Drop that nuke directly on my face.” I want to be ground zero. Fuck this whole place. Fuck this existence. I'm over it. I don't care about anything. My basic needs aren't being met and I'm over it. I don't even have a fucking HOME. You need a home just to have a BODY. The only shit you do In your house is because you have to take care of your BODY for it to work. You have to shower. You have to eat. You have to sleep, These are not recommendations!! These are requirements, Once I realized that a great enough evil existed in the world to allow this to happen— I got over it. I'm like “fuck this race war” Where's the real one?! Drop some bombs in this bitch. Humans are fucked up. Black. White. Everybody in between. Everybody's fucked up, yo. Greed fucked up humanity. All of it. —but I spent some time in this women's shelter and I sterted to realize: maybe it's just because it's a man's world. Half these femakes are in here talking about being hung up on niggas— NIGGAS. And they're in a homeless shelter. I had been celibate for quite some time at this point; but it seemed like every goddess I met in this place was broken—and that brokenness came from the sacrifice of loving men, and having children. Men are fucked up! Needy, greedy, selfish motherfuckers. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones— There are. They're just married. I respect marriage so much. I respect marriage so much— to the point where, I ended mine, when I realized “This is not how marriage is supposed to be.” It's fucked up. The good ones are taken, usually. And the sad thing is, Sometimes people stay in toxic relationships long enough that they become toxic. That happened to me. I stayed with the wrong person just long enough to realize, like, “Great, now I'm shitty, too—you motherfucker” FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I would rather slit my wrists up and down than ever go back to my ex. Yep. I've committed suicide 27 times since I left my marriage. You know what the first successful suicide attempt was, though? My fucking marriage. UGH. FUCK THESE NIGGAS. They'll have you fucked up. They'll have you homeless. They don't care! They have dicks! They can just fuck you up—then walk away, and fuck somebody else up. And the thing is: there's always some dumb, useless 18 year old somewhere that's gonna think he's GOD. She's useless—except in ONE WAY. To him. Then when he's done with her? Yep. Trash pile. Fuck these dudes. So I'm in this women's shelter, where of course, as if I need more of a reminder that most men ain't shit *most, not all. Done offend men. They'll kill you. They'll worse than kill you. They'll knock you up; ruin your body; cheat on you—they'll fuck you up— Then kill you. So I'm in this shelter, and after the first night, they're like “okay, you have to have a physical, then a psyche assessment, then you'll get a permanent housing assignment” I'm like “okay” So I get my appointment, and I look at it, and the appointment for the psychiatric evaluation is like 10 days away— I'm like, “Wait a minute: So you're going to make me wait 10 days in a dirty, chaotic, gross fucking nasty place—10 sleepless nights surrounded by hood rats and garbage all over the place and shitty toilets, where it's freezing fucking cold and even the cops and the staff are fighting all the time—THEN you're going to give me a psyche evaluation?” “Yeah” Fuck the system. I'm just jaded. I love/hate everything and everyone the same. You know why? Cause it's the same fucking emotion. They're not opposites. They're just opposite ends of the same spectrum of the same exact emotion. Passion. Passionate fury Passionate love Passionate rage. All really the same thing. The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is fear. Weekend on a Tuesday R3HQB & Laidback Luke Love, much like death Is just an illusion another contusion, confusion I'm a loose fuse confusious Lucius, Lucifer loosens Two tooth's, apathetic: I'm so pathetic, No sympathy for the devil No empathy for the dead SUPACREE//Chak Chel is grocery shopping at stop n shop Why stop n shop CAUSE THERES NO WHOLE FOODS IN THE HOOD. Racist ass motherfuckers. Supacree. No, Dude. No. Okay! Chak Chel! Mm. -_- I need to talk to you. Please. Step away. Wait! M—no. [she moves to the left—he moves to the left—she moves the right right—he moves the the right.] *sighs* [she removes a stone from her pouch, and throws it on the ground: it opens up into a black hole like vortex.] Where does that go. I don't know. *she gestures, waving her hand in front of the hole* Uhh— She stares into his eyes and steps into the portal, which swallows her into a void. Oh, my God! He stares off into the distance worriedly— Seconds later, just outside the storefront, a portal opens—supacree/CC is set gently at the bus stop; DILLON FRANCIS, still inside the store, stares at her out the window, flabbergasted as she boards the bus, staring back at him through the window. The bus drives away. Why Dillon Francis Idk I died and went to hell and back and back to hell again An irrelevant disheveled devil drinking a rebbl in the back of the bus Full of disgust, looking busted and fucked up I'm stuck in a nightmare, I can't wake up Where's Shia laboeoff? It's wild and rough Inspired enough By being in lust Pretending it's love But it's nothing Jimmy Fallon FLASHBACK : season 4 ANANDAR has an interesting medallion. one time I fucked this dude cause he looked just like Skrillex; like that wasn't somehow gonna be a disaster. I mean, my life was already 100% crap—I thought: Couldn't really be much worse. Might as well fuck this dude: Not like I could ever get the real thing. Turns out I was wrong twice. FLASHBACK: season 6 SKRILLEX is obsessed with SUPACREE. Huh. Oh wow, yeah. Yeah. So what does Dillon Francis want out of this? Figure it out! Uhhh!! What about deadmau5? JOEL ZIMMERMAN I want nothing to do with this DEADMAU5 …are you sure. JOEL Yes. KASKADE enters swiftly. JOEL Ugh, this dude DEADMAU5 WHAT UP, HOMIE. KASKADE WHAT IS UP. JOEL Ugh. RYAN GARY RADDON enters, nonchalantly. RYAN …am I late? JOEL You made it! RYAN Well, I promised. DEADMAU5 You are late. KASKADE Ugh, this dude. RYAN Nobody likes you. DEADMAU5 Say that to my face. RYAN Where is it. KASKADE Ooh. Burn. JOEL Oh-Kay. Let's go. Lol. Where are these dudes going. I guess we'll see. PASQUALE. Ahem. PASQUALE— Yes? What are you doing? Working on something. Working on what. Something. PASQUALE WHAT. GET IN HERE. Fine, I don't have eyes— I super sauna Flora-Fauna Outer space And out of stardust Superstardom Flawed, But by design, Align with all of ‘em Fine, I really don't find you Kind of attractive Damn, I'm damaged Do you mind Or do you plan on dying anytime Fine I can't be white, But can be tiny, That way, finally, When I'm someone's wife; I'm the right weight and height for them to like me Enough that they might— I mean just might Not cheat. Horrible. All I want is your attention— A ten A ten-tension I wnant your attention A ten A ten-tension Locker number 87 was taken and though it hadn't immediately bothered me in the same way that it had a few days before, the unsettling feeling in the moments following at least prompted me to write something down. It did bother me to think of him with anyone else—and even sensing it or seeing it had set me off in a way I could neither explain nor describe, first sending me into a whirlwind which culminated in meeting Anandar, and secondly tailspinning me into a fit of fury —and while I still loved Sonny, there was something I felt for Dillon I couldn't entirely explain, and while the world was suddenly full of beautiful people—beautiful white people, to be exacta, I realized I didn't want nor was I truly fit for any of them anyway, not that something like that mattered in my time of desperate need and desperation, unable to accumulate the focus or energy I needed to move up and out from this trench I was in, whatever it meant besides falling prey to the grueling captapilism on which the country I was raised to love was built, without it benefitting me in any way besides aesthetic. GODDAMMIT, DILLON FRANCISz WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO— Yeah, that's right— I'm gonna throw up. Don't throw up in my house. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THIS IS MY HOUSE— YOU DONT HAVE A HOUSE, BITCH— Aw, shit, it's on. KAAAAAHHHHMEEEEE— Is this dragon ball Z? No, it's FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING If I hear Renaissance one more time, I might just— I might just You're right It's white power, it's alt right, I can't fight it It's alright It's just another night In the heights In the no flight list I'm on hiatus, I'm high, thanks plankton I'm pinapple, might just wine Or whinehouse, If I had my own house, despite this Whatever This records all hype, Supply and Demand I'm a Diamond For your demon Indegenous genetics yet I'm homeless, on stolen land I'm hopeless, once again I stole this l, I am Sam I'm alone in this— Here's your quest for fire, ya dumbass, It's bombastic, I'm so past it Just wanna throw a bomb at it; Used to cetalogue albums Bow I'm analog, all bad, I'm so mad I wanna take it all back Like all that This is Allllllll, that this is— Is she coming back? Maybe. MAYBE?! Look, just give me my 10 bands, bro. 10 bands?! ‘Ukrainian Ballerina Finds Solace In Dancing.' Oh man, they hate us Why God, do they hate us Light skinned ballerinas— Life is what you make it Raise up from this hatred Make my grave With raising canes and gravy Make the best of what you gave me Questions in my mind arising Or are rasing I'm erasing pain but gazing at the TV thinking God, Why do they hate us Why do they hate us? USA Why do they hate us Why Why why Why do they hate us A master hypnotist; Why waste a wish on this— The fog, or mist obscured my vision Interest in THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, wake up. OH MY GOD. What do you want? I want to wake up from this nightmare, I want to be white, with blue eyes and long blonde hair I want to go to Long Island on the ferry, I want to be there, But clearly, I'm here, and I'm sorry But I'm growing wary That God's even aware of me I hate this. Oh shit. What, man. I just realized— we're all gonna get really old. Maybe… —or we're gonna die. Yeah, that's why I said “maybe” That's fucking terrifying. Dude, you're like 40–how are you just coming to grips with your mortality? …I don't know. *hits bong worriedly* I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER. I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER!!! Damn, Drake Bell; I didn't really think this would carry over into the 7th season, but—I gotta hand it to you; You stay fucking up. Dammit. What. I fucked up. You just stay fucking up And I stay fucking up And I say I'm over it, But I'm a stray puppy; A squirrel that's in search of a nut And you are what you eat So I guess I'm a butt Or bananas I'be had it I almost miss my hammock I take that back I ________ Manhattan Hey, you gotta stay stateside. What. For what. NEWS: WORLD WAR III Ah, fucking shit. So, what am I supposed to do for mon— MILITARY: Get over here— No. Look, it's SkrillexZ. No. How about— No. Believe it or not, I want what you want, m I love what you love, and then some; Gone for a walk in the park, With my heart in my pocket, I hope she shows up soon I hope that she's all that you've always wanted Since I'm not, And when I'm gone My songs remind you of what Love was, The love that I had, And the love that I loved just to love And the love that I wrote in the songs that You offered I hope she shows up And she's all that you wanted; I want what you want, And I love what you love, I promise l I hope she shows up soon She's all that you wanted; I wanted to love you, But want what you want, hun I promise; I'm just coming off a long one I love you for the long haul, And then some // I keep on forgetting That I'm not that pretty to, Or around you So I'll just— Do what I do, And move into the room Where my room meets you, In the vacuum of time and— Collisions, and splinters Unseasonable winters and Missed kindergarten graduations, I'm assuming at least I can't move, Or can't focus, Can't write many words, Or recite all my poems There's just not enough time left That I have Imm mindless I might have to find A flight To the homeland, and I don't want to fight, in this war I was drafted; I wrote that before, Now I'm captain Disasterous… Has it begun yet? It hasn't been fun yet, Just tragic I haven't forggtten the traffic I still have the hat. I just might not be black But I'm back on the blacklist , I guess Sending signals, distress Matching sigmas, And sigils, Invested in candle light vigils Twisted like pretzels; The rest of the West is in shambles And I'm steady rambling, Scrambling What's the preamble, pastor? Last again firstly, And first again last; How's that feel? How's dinner after a hot meal, 2 days of cornmeal, I'm horny, But still won't eat honey All out of money l l Submitting to your said supremacy This, I'll remember— It's cinders and embers and ashes l The fire you search for Went out in the rain that I called for The dance that I managed to salvage From out of the past, Like the misters and masters I asked for the land that I am back And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand I should want for nothing, But I find you at the forefront, Sniffing cocaine Yelling my name In the most profane way Ah, down the alley, she goes But— WHY ARE WE RUNNING YOU DID THIS, TIMMY, DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME TIMMY CAUSE YOU'RE TIMMY, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! I'm losing control, now I can't get out of it Or into it I'm on a roll now; The role of my life, It turns out, Was just my life Now I'm lifeless inside “Yeah right” *sigh* “Like anybody loves me” *crying* “Like anybody likes me” Yeah, that's right Just lay down and die; Lay down in the street like a dog, “If you like” Attack on my psyche The love of my life was just like me He might be Are we even? What do you believe in? A seething scar on my iris. Dine in and drive ins. I'm meant to die now, that was my life, it seems; It's over for me, The American dream turned nightmare; I haven't seen this stream, I should lie here, I haven't been myself in a while, I'm liable to set the whole ass world on fire— Like I'm on a fire escape, Trying to tape my mistake At the brokenshaker; Makes sense in LA, But it's just another day here How's the weather? It's awful That's what I heard at the office tomorrow, I'll probably drown in my sorrows, A crown on and borrowed objects In my honor, No, dont't stop here This is bat country Now some Sunni blū shit Or SUPACREE, whoever she is: Nonexistent. Here's a spaghetti and shit sandwhich, Dillon Francis, I believe in magic, I swear, I just can't stand it I hate this planet; Might be nice if I could manage to— goddamnit. Captain. Where's she at? Off the map… There is no “off the map” Off the grid. Well, there's that. THE LEGEND OF SUPACREE We've been collecting data about this woman for a number of years. It's a woman? CUT TO: SUNNÏ BLŪ is not a woman. *gross stupid rapper shit* Very much so. Senator, a word. How many words? At least three. Why is it always three? MEANWHILE *in a deep meditative state VIA DILLON FRANCIS* *no, it's Hanzel* Shutthefuckup. Listen. This is a lot. Breathe. [stops breathing] I've got burning questions. That's just syphilis. I— It only stings a little; It only burns a lot— You were my love, I thought Lost, lost, at once But here you are, And not often have I wanted To imagine you a star Another catharsis Another conundrum The world is at war, And the source that we come from, Abolished, So long lost and gone from our thoughts Now, Think fondly of lust, As she fondled the heart that she clutches From dawn until dusk, After sunset, Once buried but polished, recovered And thought of more often, Than spawned in the rust of the under and all of the marvelous— What was it? What? “The Jimmy Fallon Conspiracy” That is a good band name! What was the other one? “Bad with Matches” I like that. There was one more… Uh… {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.

“White people suck!” This is a self-stated fact. White people are the only ones going around saying that shit. I mean, everyone else thinks it, it's true. Lots of people say it—just in other ways. Not exactly like that. “White people suck!” White people say this about themselves, as if they're not getting a little bit of fucking sociopathic joy out of it. I lived with a white a supremacist that may or may not have known he was a white supremacist. *may or may not have* He would say shit bordering on the brink of slight psychological torture. He'd say shit like “WE made OURSELVES the TOP RACE” Like, the fact that you're using words like ‘we' and ‘ourselves' indicate that YOU believe yourself to be a member of the so-said “top race” Not true. White people are not the top race. There are more retarded white people in the world than any other races. White people have been historically racist to the point that they fucked up their own gene pool imbreeding. Like: yes. They have held a majority of the money ans power on this planet for long enough that the entire world is programmed to think blue eyes are prettier— People with blue eyes have easier lives, period. Period. They get away with so much shit. This is a result of white dominance. It's true. But this guy. Lol. This guy would say things like “WE made ourselves the TOP RACE” And then further contradict himself by saying things like, “I don't believe in race” He was a narcissist. Yeah. Only thing worse than a narcissist? A white supremacy narcissist who doesn't know or understand he's either of those things. FUCK. I took him to my gym—but only because he let me stay in his spare bedroom for $11. Flex. More on that later. I personally think it's because he was a white supremacist trying to physiologically terrorize me by continually bringing up the effects of white power on my entire existence— BUT. He would say the most ignorant shit, that wasn't entirely ignorant—like he made decent and factual points, it was just ignorant that he was talking about it at all. To me. A homeless, black woman. It was like he was rubbing it in my face. For ten days he pretty much just came up with extremely inventive ways to approach me and be like “I'M WHITE AND YOURE BLACK AND MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND YOUR LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I'M A WHITE MAN, AND YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN!!!!l” I'm like, dude…shut up. “WHITE PEOPLE SUCK!” Okay. You're egging on a race war. I still don't hate white people. At this point I just see they're typically power tripping sadists. It's okay. Like everything he said or brought up apparently to try to make me feel better—actually made me feel WORSE to the point where I decided he was doing this on purpose. I'm like, This is the new white power movent: We make a majority of them homeless, lure them into our domiciles, and then remind them that hey don't have domiciles. Because of us. Pretend to feel sorry about it, mentally torture and disable them, and then send them back into the streets to squabble and kill each other! Perfect. But no, they are not the “top race” There are more retarded white people than anyone else— We even had one as President for 8 years! I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. I don't hate trump. He's just mentally disabled, being politically correct. I don't hate him! He's hilarious! When he's not directly effecting my existence— Hes funny. But: a perfect example of what the Caucasian's have done to themselves. And the fact that it doesn't matter, because when you have millions of dollars, you can be a literal retard, and rule the world! Wow! No, it's okay. I'm not racist. I went from his place—directly to a homeless shelter, where 99% of women there were black. I learned to love-hate everybody equally. Black people love to talk on the fuckin phone. So come lights out, everybody's on the fuckin phone, I'm like, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Everybody's on the phone. I'm like “Bro, if you actually have all these people to talk to, you should have somewhere to stay other than this dump.” I'm like, “I'm obviously here cause I'm a piece of shit and nobody loves me— You're on the phone from 11 PM till forever and you can't just go to their house and sleep there?! No! Then get off the phone cause that person ain't SHIT!” They ain't shit. But dudes are next level psycopaths. All of them. Staying at a women's shelter was eye opening. I would overhear conversations like, “BUT I LOVE YOUuuuuUu” Dudes be fucking chicks up in the head. All the way up. BITCH you're in a HOMELESS SHELTER. If he lets you sleep in this bitch even for 5 seconds he ain't SHIT. Get off the PHONE. Black people—or really—poor people, they love to talk on the phone. I don't know. I don't get it. I realized at a certain point i talked too much, and I was spending all my talking time talking to toxic people. So I stopped. Kind of. I talk to myself on my podcasts. Still can't decide if that's toxic or just what god wants so— I mean the downloads keep going up. Whatever. I should have a house. Dudes be having females out here homeless, worried about THEM. Woaaaahhhh. Anyway. But I realized: people love to talk on the phone. On the bus. At the gym. Wherever. Just “Talk talk talk/- Yap yap yap” about the dumbest shit. I realized how non bianary I am because females talk about the dumbest fucking shit. All dudes talk about is females so - I'm jaded at this point. Inequality is balls. This is how I learned the meaning of “no justice no peace” Like, the perpetual race war in this country has just created this division and unrest and it so fucking chaotic— But it's not just a race war. Dudes are fucking sick, intolerant. Greedy, destructive creatures. It's MAN WORLD so if you have a tiny dick or are an ugly female—you live at the bottom of the world. SUCKS TO SUUUUUUCK. “No justice, no peace” Colored people love to be loud—they've spent so much time being oppressed, it's apart of the culture to be like, “FUCK YOU, I'M HERE! WHAT YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!” I'm like, I get it. This is the definition of “disturbing the peace” After a week of this ridiculousness, I'm like, hey, maybe they're not racist: they just want you to be quiet. Lol that's not funny. They're like, “Ugh, this guy's breaking the law, he's disturbing the peace” The other cops like, “Just shoot him; if we arrest him he won't shut up” Lol that's terrible. Whatever. Colored people have been so neglected and oppressed now they kill each other. Whatever. There's no color to that shit. It's just men. Men are killers. But of course—I'm torn. I love babies—the only way you're gonna get one of them is to love a man—and once he impregnates you he can do whatever else to you he wants. He owns you after that. And you're just—tied to him. Destructive. Honestly, though—the difference between a good man and a bad man, or even a good woman and a bad woman—is a good mother. You have to have that. So I fucked up. I'm a whole trash can. But now I love/hate everybody equally. Everybody's fucked up. I hate myself the most. What! I'm homeless! That makes me a piece of shit! I'm shitty. And I get it. It's cultural oppression. This culture has been bred on slavery and neglect and oppression and so now you have to act out and be loud and ridiculous and rowdy. Okay. I get it. I do. But at this point, I'm like “This is the apocalypse, I'm ready for the world to end.” I don't give a fuck about whose black whose white what's right what's wrong, I'm like, “Nobody pays enough money for me to be miserable for 8-16 hours a day, I don't have a place to sleep or a friend in the world, just end it already, God, “ “Just fucking blow it all up. “ I'm ready for a nuclear fuckin war. “Drop that nuke directly on my face.” I want to be ground zero. Fuck this whole place. Fuck this existence. I'm over it. I don't care about anything. My basic needs aren't being met and I'm over it. I don't even have a fucking HOME. You need a home just to have a BODY. The only shit you do In your house is because you have to take care of your BODY for it to work. You have to shower. You have to eat. You have to sleep, These are not recommendations!! These are requirements, Once I realized that a great enough evil existed in the world to allow this to happen— I got over it. I'm like “fuck this race war” Where's the real one?! Drop some bombs in this bitch. Humans are fucked up. Black. White. Everybody in between. Everybody's fucked up, yo. Greed fucked up humanity. All of it. —but I spent some time in this women's shelter and I sterted to realize: maybe it's just because it's a man's world. Half these femakes are in here talking about being hung up on niggas— NIGGAS. And they're in a homeless shelter. I had been celibate for quite some time at this point; but it seemed like every goddess I met in this place was broken—and that brokenness came from the sacrifice of loving men, and having children. Men are fucked up! Needy, greedy, selfish motherfuckers. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones— There are. They're just married. I respect marriage so much. I respect marriage so much— to the point where, I ended mine, when I realized “This is not how marriage is supposed to be.” It's fucked up. The good ones are taken, usually. And the sad thing is, Sometimes people stay in toxic relationships long enough that they become toxic. That happened to me. I stayed with the wrong person just long enough to realize, like, “Great, now I'm shitty, too—you motherfucker” FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I would rather slit my wrists up and down than ever go back to my ex. Yep. I've committed suicide 27 times since I left my marriage. You know what the first successful suicide attempt was, though? My fucking marriage. UGH. FUCK THESE NIGGAS. They'll have you fucked up. They'll have you homeless. They don't care! They have dicks! They can just fuck you up—then walk away, and fuck somebody else up. And the thing is: there's always some dumb, useless 18 year old somewhere that's gonna think he's GOD. She's useless—except in ONE WAY. To him. Then when he's done with her? Yep. Trash pile. Fuck these dudes. So I'm in this women's shelter, where of course, as if I need more of a reminder that most men ain't shit *most, not all. Done offend men. They'll kill you. They'll worse than kill you. They'll knock you up; ruin your body; cheat on you—they'll fuck you up— Then kill you. So I'm in this shelter, and after the first night, they're like “okay, you have to have a physical, then a psyche assessment, then you'll get a permanent housing assignment” I'm like “okay” So I get my appointment, and I look at it, and the appointment for the psychiatric evaluation is like 10 days away— I'm like, “Wait a minute: So you're going to make me wait 10 days in a dirty, chaotic, gross fucking nasty place—10 sleepless nights surrounded by hood rats and garbage all over the place and shitty toilets, where it's freezing fucking cold and even the cops and the staff are fighting all the time—THEN you're going to give me a psyche evaluation?” “Yeah” Fuck the system. I'm just jaded. I love/hate everything and everyone the same. You know why? Cause it's the same fucking emotion. They're not opposites. They're just opposite ends of the same spectrum of the same exact emotion. Passion. Passionate fury Passionate love Passionate rage. All really the same thing. The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is fear. Weekend on a Tuesday R3HQB & Laidback Luke Love, much like death Is just an illusion another contusion, confusion I'm a loose fuse confusious Lucius, Lucifer loosens Two tooth's, apathetic: I'm so pathetic, No sympathy for the devil No empathy for the dead SUPACREE//Chak Chel is grocery shopping at stop n shop Why stop n shop CAUSE THERES NO WHOLE FOODS IN THE HOOD. Racist ass motherfuckers. Supacree. No, Dude. No. Okay! Chak Chel! Mm. -_- I need to talk to you. Please. Step away. Wait! M—no. [she moves to the left—he moves to the left—she moves the right right—he moves the the right.] *sighs* [she removes a stone from her pouch, and throws it on the ground: it opens up into a black hole like vortex.] Where does that go. I don't know. *she gestures, waving her hand in front of the hole* Uhh— She stares into his eyes and steps into the portal, which swallows her into a void. Oh, my God! He stares off into the distance worriedly— Seconds later, just outside the storefront, a portal opens—supacree/CC is set gently at the bus stop; DILLON FRANCIS, still inside the store, stares at her out the window, flabbergasted as she boards the bus, staring back at him through the window. The bus drives away. Why Dillon Francis Idk I died and went to hell and back and back to hell again An irrelevant disheveled devil drinking a rebbl in the back of the bus Full of disgust, looking busted and fucked up I'm stuck in a nightmare, I can't wake up Where's Shia laboeoff? It's wild and rough Inspired enough By being in lust Pretending it's love But it's nothing Jimmy Fallon FLASHBACK : season 4 ANANDAR has an interesting medallion. one time I fucked this dude cause he looked just like Skrillex; like that wasn't somehow gonna be a disaster. I mean, my life was already 100% crap—I thought: Couldn't really be much worse. Might as well fuck this dude: Not like I could ever get the real thing. Turns out I was wrong twice. FLASHBACK: season 6 SKRILLEX is obsessed with SUPACREE. Huh. Oh wow, yeah. Yeah. So what does Dillon Francis want out of this? Figure it out! Uhhh!! What about deadmau5? JOEL ZIMMERMAN I want nothing to do with this DEADMAU5 …are you sure. JOEL Yes. KASKADE enters swiftly. JOEL Ugh, this dude DEADMAU5 WHAT UP, HOMIE. KASKADE WHAT IS UP. JOEL Ugh. RYAN GARY RADDON enters, nonchalantly. RYAN …am I late? JOEL You made it! RYAN Well, I promised. DEADMAU5 You are late. KASKADE Ugh, this dude. RYAN Nobody likes you. DEADMAU5 Say that to my face. RYAN Where is it. KASKADE Ooh. Burn. JOEL Oh-Kay. Let's go. Lol. Where are these dudes going. I guess we'll see. PASQUALE. Ahem. PASQUALE— Yes? What are you doing? Working on something. Working on what. Something. PASQUALE WHAT. GET IN HERE. Fine, I don't have eyes— I super sauna Flora-Fauna Outer space And out of stardust Superstardom Flawed, But by design, Align with all of ‘em Fine, I really don't find you Kind of attractive Damn, I'm damaged Do you mind Or do you plan on dying anytime Fine I can't be white, But can be tiny, That way, finally, When I'm someone's wife; I'm the right weight and height for them to like me Enough that they might— I mean just might Not cheat. Horrible. All I want is your attention— A ten A ten-tension I wnant your attention A ten A ten-tension Locker number 87 was taken and though it hadn't immediately bothered me in the same way that it had a few days before, the unsettling feeling in the moments following at least prompted me to write something down. It did bother me to think of him with anyone else—and even sensing it or seeing it had set me off in a way I could neither explain nor describe, first sending me into a whirlwind which culminated in meeting Anandar, and secondly tailspinning me into a fit of fury —and while I still loved Sonny, there was something I felt for Dillon I couldn't entirely explain, and while the world was suddenly full of beautiful people—beautiful white people, to be exacta, I realized I didn't want nor was I truly fit for any of them anyway, not that something like that mattered in my time of desperate need and desperation, unable to accumulate the focus or energy I needed to move up and out from this trench I was in, whatever it meant besides falling prey to the grueling captapilism on which the country I was raised to love was built, without it benefitting me in any way besides aesthetic. GODDAMMIT, DILLON FRANCISz WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO— Yeah, that's right— I'm gonna throw up. Don't throw up in my house. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! THIS IS MY HOUSE— YOU DONT HAVE A HOUSE, BITCH— Aw, shit, it's on. KAAAAAHHHHMEEEEE— Is this dragon ball Z? No, it's FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING If I hear Renaissance one more time, I might just— I might just You're right It's white power, it's alt right, I can't fight it It's alright It's just another night In the heights In the no flight list I'm on hiatus, I'm high, thanks plankton I'm pinapple, might just wine Or whinehouse, If I had my own house, despite this Whatever This records all hype, Supply and Demand I'm a Diamond For your demon Indegenous genetics yet I'm homeless, on stolen land I'm hopeless, once again I stole this l, I am Sam I'm alone in this— Here's your quest for fire, ya dumbass, It's bombastic, I'm so past it Just wanna throw a bomb at it; Used to cetalogue albums Bow I'm analog, all bad, I'm so mad I wanna take it all back Like all that This is Allllllll, that this is— Is she coming back? Maybe. MAYBE?! Look, just give me my 10 bands, bro. 10 bands?! ‘Ukrainian Ballerina Finds Solace In Dancing.' Oh man, they hate us Why God, do they hate us Light skinned ballerinas— Life is what you make it Raise up from this hatred Make my grave With raising canes and gravy Make the best of what you gave me Questions in my mind arising Or are rasing I'm erasing pain but gazing at the TV thinking God, Why do they hate us Why do they hate us? USA Why do they hate us Why Why why Why do they hate us A master hypnotist; Why waste a wish on this— The fog, or mist obscured my vision Interest in THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE. Now, wake up. OH MY GOD. What do you want? I want to wake up from this nightmare, I want to be white, with blue eyes and long blonde hair I want to go to Long Island on the ferry, I want to be there, But clearly, I'm here, and I'm sorry But I'm growing wary That God's even aware of me I hate this. Oh shit. What, man. I just realized— we're all gonna get really old. Maybe… —or we're gonna die. Yeah, that's why I said “maybe” That's fucking terrifying. Dude, you're like 40–how are you just coming to grips with your mortality? …I don't know. *hits bong worriedly* I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER. I'M GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER!!! Damn, Drake Bell; I didn't really think this would carry over into the 7th season, but—I gotta hand it to you; You stay fucking up. Dammit. What. I fucked up. You just stay fucking up And I stay fucking up And I say I'm over it, But I'm a stray puppy; A squirrel that's in search of a nut And you are what you eat So I guess I'm a butt Or bananas I'be had it I almost miss my hammock I take that back I ________ Manhattan Hey, you gotta stay stateside. What. For what. NEWS: WORLD WAR III Ah, fucking shit. So, what am I supposed to do for mon— MILITARY: Get over here— No. Look, it's SkrillexZ. No. How about— No. Believe it or not, I want what you want, m I love what you love, and then some; Gone for a walk in the park, With my heart in my pocket, I hope she shows up soon I hope that she's all that you've always wanted Since I'm not, And when I'm gone My songs remind you of what Love was, The love that I had, And the love that I loved just to love And the love that I wrote in the songs that You offered I hope she shows up And she's all that you wanted; I want what you want, And I love what you love, I promise l I hope she shows up soon She's all that you wanted; I wanted to love you, But want what you want, hun I promise; I'm just coming off a long one I love you for the long haul, And then some // I keep on forgetting That I'm not that pretty to, Or around you So I'll just— Do what I do, And move into the room Where my room meets you, In the vacuum of time and— Collisions, and splinters Unseasonable winters and Missed kindergarten graduations, I'm assuming at least I can't move, Or can't focus, Can't write many words, Or recite all my poems There's just not enough time left That I have Imm mindless I might have to find A flight To the homeland, and I don't want to fight, in this war I was drafted; I wrote that before, Now I'm captain Disasterous… Has it begun yet? It hasn't been fun yet, Just tragic I haven't forggtten the traffic I still have the hat. I just might not be black But I'm back on the blacklist , I guess Sending signals, distress Matching sigmas, And sigils, Invested in candle light vigils Twisted like pretzels; The rest of the West is in shambles And I'm steady rambling, Scrambling What's the preamble, pastor? Last again firstly, And first again last; How's that feel? How's dinner after a hot meal, 2 days of cornmeal, I'm horny, But still won't eat honey All out of money l l Submitting to your said supremacy This, I'll remember— It's cinders and embers and ashes l The fire you search for Went out in the rain that I called for The dance that I managed to salvage From out of the past, Like the misters and masters I asked for the land that I am back And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand And we're all just grains of sand I should want for nothing, But I find you at the forefront, Sniffing cocaine Yelling my name In the most profane way Ah, down the alley, she goes But— WHY ARE WE RUNNING YOU DID THIS, TIMMY, DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME TIMMY CAUSE YOU'RE TIMMY, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! I'm losing control, now I can't get out of it Or into it I'm on a roll now; The role of my life, It turns out, Was just my life Now I'm lifeless inside “Yeah right” *sigh* “Like anybody loves me” *crying* “Like anybody likes me” Yeah, that's right Just lay down and die; Lay down in the street like a dog, “If you like” Attack on my psyche The love of my life was just like me He might be Are we even? What do you believe in? A seething scar on my iris. Dine in and drive ins. I'm meant to die now, that was my life, it seems; It's over for me, The American dream turned nightmare; I haven't seen this stream, I should lie here, I haven't been myself in a while, I'm liable to set the whole ass world on fire— Like I'm on a fire escape, Trying to tape my mistake At the brokenshaker; Makes sense in LA, But it's just another day here How's the weather? It's awful That's what I heard at the office tomorrow, I'll probably drown in my sorrows, A crown on and borrowed objects In my honor, No, dont't stop here This is bat country Now some Sunni blū shit Or SUPACREE, whoever she is: Nonexistent. Here's a spaghetti and shit sandwhich, Dillon Francis, I believe in magic, I swear, I just can't stand it I hate this planet; Might be nice if I could manage to— goddamnit. Captain. Where's she at? Off the map… There is no “off the map” Off the grid. Well, there's that. THE LEGEND OF SUPACREE We've been collecting data about this woman for a number of years. It's a woman? CUT TO: SUNNÏ BLŪ is not a woman. *gross stupid rapper shit* Very much so. Senator, a word. How many words? At least three. Why is it always three? MEANWHILE *in a deep meditative state VIA DILLON FRANCIS* *no, it's Hanzel* Shutthefuckup. Listen. This is a lot. Breathe. [stops breathing] I've got burning questions. That's just syphilis. I— It only stings a little; It only burns a lot— You were my love, I thought Lost, lost, at once But here you are, And not often have I wanted To imagine you a star Another catharsis Another conundrum The world is at war, And the source that we come from, Abolished, So long lost and gone from our thoughts Now, Think fondly of lust, As she fondled the heart that she clutches From dawn until dusk, After sunset, Once buried but polished, recovered And thought of more often, Than spawned in the rust of the under and all of the marvelous— What was it? What? “The Jimmy Fallon Conspiracy” That is a good band name! What was the other one? “Bad with Matches” I like that. There was one more… Uh… {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © -U.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Transcript: Yudkowsky on Bankless follow-up Q&A, published by vonk on February 28, 2023 on LessWrong. This follow-up Q&A took place shortly after the podcast was released. It talks more about the hosts' reactions to the episode, clears some questions about AI takeover pathways & alignment difficulties (like "why can't we just ask AIs to help solve the alignment?"); OpenAI/Silicon Valley & what should these companies be doing instead; Eliezer's take on doomerism; what would a surviving distant future look like. Let me know if you can clear up some of the [??] places (here is the original transcript alongside audio).michaelwong.eth: Good afternoon. Good morning, wherever you are. Got to be one of those, I bet. It's another Monday, minting Monday with Bankless. So I hope that you guys got to listen to the episode this morning about AI. And I have a hard time pronouncing this gentleman's name, but I think it's Eliezer. So I got Lucas on the call. I got Ryan on the call. I got David on the call. What's up everybody? David Hoffman: Yo, yo, how are you feeling? Alright? Ryan Sean Adams: Hey, still live. How you feeling? David? David: [laugs] Pretty good. Pretty good. Just you know, everyday trying to push existential dread to the background. Ryan: Yeah, me too. Especially since last Monday when we recorded this thing. Mike, Lucas, How're you guys doing? 0x_Lucas: Doing pretty good. Also kind of going through my own mini existential crisis right now and just trying to survive. One day at a time. michaelwong.eth: I'm living large. I didn't know that the Mr. Roboto part of that song was so late in the in the song. So thanks, everybody for sticking with me through that. But it's kind of relevant today. A little bit relevant. So we're gonna jump into that in just a moment. Ryan: Guys, let's can we get into logistics first. So what are we doing here today, Lucas and Mike? 0x_Lucas: Yeah, absolutely. So we are on our Monday mint number six of the year. So for those familiar, we mint our flagship Bankless podcast every Monday as a limited edition collectible on sound protocol. So you can go ahead and mint these at collectibles.bankless.com and part of it we like to host these little live Twitter spaces just so everyone has a live [??]. Ryan and David'd love to kind of do a debrief on the episode. And hopefully we have Eliezer joining us and I'd also probably butchered his name, but yeah, hopefully he is able to join us in the next few minutes here, but overall, just wanted to debrief on the episode talk about the men. And yeah, get your guys's thoughts. Ryan: Well, I'm definitely gonna be minting this one. That's for sure. And I hope the AI doesn't kill me for it in the future. This is a pretty unique episode, in my mind, David. This is one that caught me by the most surprise I think of anything we recorded. In that, we had an agenda, and then it took a different direction. It was a very interesting direction to pursue but what I wasn't quite ready for. I went and I spent the weekend actually I listened this episode again. I actually enjoy hearing it more than I think I enjoyed actually recording it, for whatever reason – some of the things sunk in a little bit better – but how did you receive it on the other side of this, David? David: Yeah, so the AI alignment problem was like a rabbit hole that I remember going down in my like, I think like college days. And so this is always like something that I had in the back of my head. And I think that's that's like why you and I have reacted differently to it. And I know you you went down the rabbit hole too. But it's like it was just something that I thought kind of everyone knew about and we just all understood that it was like, futile. It was like a thought experiment that was futile to really like reason about because there is no solu...

DISCLAIMER: We had some technical issues with our new microphones on this episode so the audio is a little scratchy.  Thank you for your grace and forgiveness on the audio quality of this episode.  Please don't allow that to distract you from all of the good that Hud offered up.  Always be cool!Rex and wife, Jennifer have four children — Alyssa, Cade, William and David.Challenges of moving to TV? - Preparation to make a move to TV? Speech? Used to being on TV, up close and personal?Played every position but Pitcher and CatcherFootball at Notre Dame?Motivational Speaking: How and Why? What overarching message does Rex Hudler convey when speaking?Brain aneurysm in 2001? - Adversity of coming back from health scareAlong with WIFE, Jennifer: Team Up for Down Syndrome“Cade was a gift with a special purpose in life.” - Hudlers founded Team Up For Down Syndrome to help support the Down syndrome community and those with special needsReasons for Optimism of Young Royals? - Bobby Witt Jr, Pasquantino, Nolan Ryan stories?MLB Rules Changes: Pitch timer, shift restrictions, bigger basesAre You A Baseball Guy? - Children's book with PhysiocPower of Positivity - One of most positive guys not only in baseball, but in LIFE. How and Why did you adopt that attitude?Always that way -OR- events in life gave another level of gratitude and humility?Hud-isms: Be a fountain, not a drainEverything went well but the loss.Rex: It's a beautiful planet.Ryan: Well, it's a moon…Rex: Looks like a planet to me.Let me show you in fast motion -- if you can watch my hands. They used to call me the Thief of Baghdad.I've sampled several types of insects. Moths are a little dusty.It's bad to get hit on your chin. Because it's attached to your head.ABC PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alwaysbecoolpodcastTwitter: https://twitter.com/thebobbykerrInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/alwaysbecoolpodcast/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebobbykerrYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alwaysbecoolSummit LendingFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SummitLendingUSATwitter: https://twitter.com/SummitLendingUSInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/summitlendingusa/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/summitlendingkc/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/loantipskc

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

Psychology plays an important part in business no matter what business you’re in or how you’re getting sales. The best tactics to convince us to spend money are the ones we’re not aware of. Retail stores have been using music, scents, and merchandising to get us to spend more money for decades if not centuries. Those tactics online now have a name and its Dark Patterns. Jon explain just what Dark Patterns are and why your brand should avoid using them. Read more about Dark Patterns: https://thegood.com/insights/dark-pattern-ecommerce-ux-design/ Transcription: Ryan: Jon, psychology plays an important part in business, no matter what business you're in and how you're getting the sales. Now, the best tactics to convince us to spend money are the ones we're not really aware of. And retail has been doing this probably for hundreds of years, even though I haven't been involved in it, using music's sense merchandising of how they put products on the shelves to get us to spend more money. And all of that research and data is out there for the taking, but I would venture a guess that most of the public is unaware of actually what's happening in those retail environments to commit us to spend money. When it comes to e-Commerce though, and the way our economy is moving to transacting online, I'm finding a lot of these "psychology tactics" are much more in your face, or at least I'm more aware of them. And maybe it's because I'm spending too much time in front of my computer talking to e-Commerce business owners and looking at e-Commerce sites. But I see it all the time, and a lot of times it just bugs me and you have a term for it called dark patterns. And that's a new term to me, but probably not to you because you work in the CRO world, but you recently mentioned it on LinkedIn. And I wanted to learn more about it because it fascinates me, the intricacies of psychology because studying sales my whole life and now having a retail store with my wife, it's just always there. And I think most of them I see online are garbage, some plugins on Shopify sites that maybe should never have been put on in the first place, but I want to learn about dark patterns. And I learned from one of the best in the world, who should be you. Jon: Awesome. Ryan: It sounds evil, but I just want to know more. How do we use our powers for good? Jon: I'm looking forward to it. Ryan: Jon, why don't you just take a moment and give me a high level of what do you mean when you say dark patterns when it comes to e-Commerce and e-Commerce sites? Jon: So when I talk about dark patterns, what I'm talking about is similar to, if you think about hacking and in a way that there's white hat and black hat, right. And black hat hacking is when you're doing something intentionally for a negative outcome, it might be a benefit to somebody like it's going to be benefits to the hacker, but you're hurting somebody in that process or you're creating a problem in that process. Where a white hat hacker is really just trying to help. They're trying to do things for positive. Maybe they're looking for bugs, but they're going to report them to the software maker before they do anything to exploit it. So you think about that. Exploitation is really what comes in here to my head when I think about this more than anything else. So, what we're talking about here today is really when an e-Commerce store makes something difficult because they want to influence the outcome that they're trying to do. So whether that's something through psychology, you talked about in a retail environment, the type of music they play in the background that calms people down, or how they price, where they make things $2 and 99 cents instead of $3, right? You start thinking about all these psychology tricks that come at play well in e-Commerce there's all those psychology tricks. Plus there are ways to actually increase barriers intentionally on a website so that the consumer can't take the action that they're trying to take, instead, you've made it more difficult. Some examples of this really easy one, an email pop-up pops up when you come to the site to sign up for email lists and there's no way to close it. So the only way you can get back to what you were trying to do is to give them your email address, or I like to call this negative intent shaming. So where the button in that pop-up says something like, no, I don't like discounts or I don't like saving money, right? There's all these types of dark patterns. And it can go even more, really sinister and you make it just impossible to unsubscribe without calling, right? So for years, and it may still be this way, but Skype was an amazing case study of this, where they would claim massive retention rates, but their user rate was super low and usage. And the only reason they had retention rates that were so impressive is because the only way to actually cancel and delete your Skype account was to call a phone number in the U.S. So, if you're an international user where Skype was way more prevalent than in the States, you had to call international, talk to somebody in English only, and say, I need to cancel my Skype account. Please delete it from your servers. Why won't you just do that when a click of a button? So this is a good example of a dark pattern where the brand really valued retention, so they made it near impossible, right up, maybe to that legal limit. And one of the things you saw on LinkedIn was I had posted to an article it had run in what's called The Hustle, which is a great entrepreneur email. If you're no signed up for a free email, it comes out every morning, just around entrepreneurship and the tech industry and whatnot. And they were saying that there's new legislation coming in that is all about making these dark patterns illegal. And that most things need to be self-service, and it shouldn't be a challenge. So that's really where I was going with this was not only is this just bad to do and lead to a horrible brand image in the longterm, but it's also going to become illegal fairly soon. And I hope it's sooner than later, I have my doubts that would happen anytime in the near future, but I hope it's sooner than later. Ryan: So could you also bundle in to that broad, I guess I would probably try to broaden dark patterns a little bit and say it also includes what people think is helping from a psychological perspective, but it's actually just stupid. Well, one of my, I guess, favorite, least favorite was the one that I noticed the most is there's a plug-in on a lot of sites that says, Oh, little Jimmy just bought the pink t-shirt and Oh, look over here, Susie just bought this vase. And Oh, people are buying all over on the site and I can go to some sites and I've seen maybe the analytics behind the scenes and maybe some of my audit. And I know for a fact, there's no way that five people just bought something in the 30 seconds I was on their site. Jon: That's exactly it. Fake social proof is a great example of this, right? So it's having a random number of view, people are viewing this product right now, having X number of people who just bought this product from wherever in the world. And consumers always distrust that now, because it's been abused. Right. But it's a dark pattern because what are they trying to do? They're trying to influence your psychology around social proof and having fear of missing out. And you want what everyone else wants and, Oh, well, if so-and-so just bought that product, then it's probably legit and I should buy it too. And we see this more and more, a really good example is well, and we're getting through a lot of good examples. I could go on for days for examples, but another great example is a fake countdown timer, right? They're introducing scarcity, but it's false scarcity. What I mean by that is sign up within the next five minutes and we'll give you something or okay, we've talked about this in other shows, we did a discounting episode, not too long ago. And you were talking about how your wife just leaves products in the cart, abandons the cart, waits 24 hours and knows there's the discount email coming. You know that that clock is no good. Okay. Reminds me of the old TV commercials call within the next five minutes and you get this free bonus. They have no idea when that commercial is going to run, down to the minute, they don't know. And if you think about it, especially when you see these on news stations, right? News stations have somewhat of a cadence for ad timing, but it's never down to the second, to down to the minute. So there's no way you could start a clock and say in five minutes, right? I guarantee you, if you called them in a week, they'd give you that same price. And it's the exact same thing happening here where there's a whole bunch of these dark patterns that are playing on people's psychology or making it really complicated for them to actually take an action they want to do in order to benefit the brand. Ryan: So what we're not talking about though, is actually having your inventory show on the siting. I actually only have three of these left because Amazon, I see doing that. And based on some of my experience in Amazon, on my brands, I feel the trust that at this point they might change, but that's not what I'm talking about as far as scarcity. Jon: No. Ryan: Okay. It's the manipulation of faking scarcity or faking a countdown timer. Jon: Yes, exactly. Now, if you're just always going to say that there's only three of these left, in order to have scarcity when none exists, then that's a dark pattern. But if you're actually trying to help the consumer, get the product they want and know that, Hey, if you don't buy it, now you're going to have to wait for the next batch to come in. And that could be six weeks or whatever. Right. Then I would put that under the white hat, right. You're really trying to help people and you're giving them more information to make a decision. And that's why this is such an interesting topic. How do you prove what's dark and what's not? Right. If you look at a brand, you mentioned, well, I've had experiences with Amazon. I trust that based on my experiences there. But if you just saw that on some random new e-Comm site that you've never been to before, how do you trust that for sure. How do you know for sure that, that's the reality? Ryan: I personally would have trouble with that. Just knowing as much as I do about e-Comm. Jon: Yeah. You've been burned before, right. There was a great Twitter thread, a few weeks back. It was what is one thing about industry that you work in that the general public doesn't know? And this falls under for e-Commerce that I saw somebody posted, well, I run an e-Commerce brand. And we tell people our products are selling out, when they're not. I was like, okay, well, there you go. That's a dark pattern, right? Ryan: Yeah. Happens often. Ryan: Obviously we don't like them. And I would believe they're hurting brands to a degree, but I bet you probably have some data about how does some of these products that you've seen actually do opposite of what this business owner probably intended for it to do, this countdown timer or, Hey, everybody's buying this all over the world. You need to buy now. Jon: Right. Ryan: Do you see it actually hurting the conversion rate? Jon: Well, I will tell you this, first of all, does it work for the initial conversion? Sometimes, perhaps, right? It might, probably not as well as people think, because if you have to get to that level to get people to buy, you probably have other systemic issues that you need to solve. A product issue, a pricing issue, a brand trust issue, right? There's a lot of other things that you should work on solving instead of trying to take the shortcut. So let's say you get that original purchase, right. Then the person comes back to buy again and they notice that, okay, well now I've got another countdown timer, or maybe it happens where like your wife, you wait that timer out every time. And you know, it's not happy now you trust that brand a little less, right? So I would say that on the first purchase, it might work, but for the longer term customer lifetime value growth, and maybe a brand perception angle, no, it's not going to work. I argue that it's going to hurt you more in the longterm. Ryan: Yeah, I guess an argument could be made based on that. But if you only get one sale ever you're selling mattresses, you don't care if they ever come back. Jon: Boom. That's a great example, right? A mattress store, you go to any mattress store. They're always having the best sale ever, always. And you walk into a mattress store, I guarantee you, you're not going to pay the price that's listed there. You can talk them down because they're going to give you a price that is just a random price. And you're going to be able to go in and just say, okay, well, last week it was this other price or, Hey, well, what if I give you a $100 less? And they're probably be like, okay. Yeah, that's true. If the goal is to get that first sale and that's it at all costs, and you're never going to sell to them again. And you just don't care about your brand over the longer term of, with that customer or even your reputation perhaps. Then I would argue sure. Have at it. Still, not ethical or moral in my point of view. But if you don't want to grow a sustainable brand and revenue, then have at it. Ryan: Yeah. And I would argue though, that even if that is unethical, not great, your business won't be around anyway, because people are going to see through it more and more, I think. And then the marketing costs of getting traffic to your site, necessitates at this point, a lifetime value on a customer. Jon: Right. Ryan: If you're not playing the lifetime value game in e-Commerce, I don't think you're going to be hearing from me and Jon in a couple of years. Because you won't be in commerce at the end of the day. You've got to have that. No matter if you're a retailer or if you're a brand that's selling through retailers and on your own site, you have to have a plan for selling to that customer multiple times in the future. Jon: Right, right. Ryan: Building trust, obviously we focus on that on both of our ends of marketing constantly and dark patterns can interrupt that even if it's short-term creates commercial rate increase, but are there some areas in this that you say are valuable on both of those counts? Like increases conversion rates and while some people might think this is maybe in that space, it actually does good as far as building the lifetime value as well. Jon: Well, I would say that if your intent is to put up a barrier for the consumer, that there's no positive, they can come of that in my point of view, right? People are at your site because they're there to complete a task, right. They think that your product or service can help them complete that task. And now if you are trying to actively prevent them from completing the task, they want to complete only because you want them to complete the tasks you want them to do. There's no positive that's going to come out of that. Right. For instance, you're in a checkout and the default check is yes, subscribe email list, right. How many times do people just leave that checked, right. Or you use confusing language check here to not receive our emails lists each week. Ryan: I love that example of yours. Like, wait, what do I... Is it checked? Jon: Exactly. Yeah. All of that stuff is where I end up getting really, really frustrated. And when I see that stuff often, quite honestly, I choose not to work with that brand. I just say we're not a good fit because our mission to remove all of these bad online experiences is not going to be further long by working with them because they don't really want to help the consumer. Right. Maybe it's a mistake if there's one of them or maybe they got some bad advice at some point, if it's just one thing that's happening, or they using an app that makes it too easy to do that. Like one of those purchase apps you were talking about that come up out of the corner and telling you that somebody purchased recently, but they didn't. But I would say, at that point there's really not anything I can do to change the ethics of that company. And that's, I think what this really comes down to. And there's too many brands out there that want to help consumers and do the right thing that they don't... We don't need to work with the brands who are only just trying to use psychology to trick people into purchasing. Ryan: Yeah. I think both of us have been as long enough. We know there's a lot of people in our industry that loves selling some snake oil and there are a lot of them giving bad advice and I come across constantly. So that's why my mission's probably not as holistic or maybe pretty as yours. I'll say mine is like, I just want to put all my competitors out of business that are selling snake oil and then sell [crosstalk 00:17:04] behind me. Jon: Exactly. Ryan: Save e-Comm brands from stupid advice. Jon: Hey, that's a good moral lesson in that though. Right? Just making it happen. Right. And I think the reality is, is you guys have won it Logical Position, and you've gotten as big as you have because of the way you treat people and handle these accounts. Right. You would never be serving 6,000 clients if you tried all these tricks because there would be a handful of people out there who would be okay with it. But the vast majority of brands are good. And I wholeheartedly believe that, but unfortunately, what do they say? That one bad Apple spoils the whole bunch. Is that the phrase? Ryan: Yeah. At least it does on my phone. Jon: Yeah. I've been apple picking once when I was a kid maybe, but I can't claim to have much farm experience. Ryan: So, just as in most things in business, as long as you filter through some type of lens that says, is this something I would be comfortable with my mom getting or being presented with like, Hey, if I'm lying that somebody is checking out and there's an app for that. Why on earth would it make sense for me to put it on there? If I know that, Hey, this might convince my mom to buy something she doesn't need and be a good human at the end of the day. If you do that as a business owner with an e-Comm site, you're not going to be putting these things on there to do this. And hopefully we're going to help you put your competitors out of business who are trying to do those things. Jon: Well, I think that's a great lens to put this through the mom test, right. Be thinking about this. If you are doing something that you wouldn't want done to your mom. Then don't do it. Right. And I think that, that's a really good way to look at this. If it would trick your mom into doing something that she really didn't want to do, then just get rid of it. Would you want your mom automatically opting into this privacy statement or would you want your mom to automatically get these emails? And you know she'd be frustrated if she just wants to purchase a product. And all of a sudden was getting marketing emails every day. Or if she got tricked into doing an upsell on a product, because it was default added to the cart, the highest, most expensive shipping option was chosen when there were way cheaper options. There's a lot of things like that that happen all the time. And the problem is, it's really something that would frustrate most people. But I think I see it more than probably the casual online shopper, but I also have [inaudible 00:19:40] and obligation to resolve those problems when I see them as much as possible. Ryan: Yeah. And if you do convert optimization, right, you don't need them. Jon: Right. Ryan: And that's the crazy thing. You don't need gimmicks, if you've got a solid business, good products, and you've worked with Jon, or if you're not quite to Jon's level, you're doing just good things at the end of the day. And I think the example of shipping is a phenomenal one that I didn't even think about until you said it that as a business owner, you're like, Hey, shipping, we make margin on this shipping or not this shipping. And we have free shipping here or not, but you can just check this one because it just makes sense maybe from a business perspective where is, we need more margin here because we're giving it up here. But at the end of the day, if you just do what is right, that you would want done to you, you've got that potential for customer lifetime value. Jon: Right. Ryan: And that's where your profit can come from. Jon: Yeah. I really like your approach of, if you've wouldn't do it to your mom, don't do it on your set. I think that's great. I wholeheartedly believe in that. And I think all of these things would fall under that. Right. Would you really want to do face fake scarcity and make your mom believe there's only one item left when there's not? Ryan: I'll tell you your mom, she's an idiot that she doesn't want to save money. I know my mom wants to save money, believe me. I'm not going to call her an idiot for not- Jon: Exactly. She doesn't want your emails. That's why she's clicking no. But... Ryan: Yep. Jon: Yeah. Well, I think this has been great conversation though. Ryan: Yeah. Me too. So is there anything anybody needs to know that we haven't touched on when it comes to dark patterns or things you can or might do to your site even by accident that you just want to be aware of? Jon: Yeah. I would think the first thing you should do when you add any app from the Shopify app store or any of those is give it a good look. Don't just use it because you see a competitor using it. Don't just assume they have positive intent here, go install it and then really dig in. Do some user testing on it, get understanding from consumers. Is it really being helpful for them or is it causing a another barrier in their road to conversion? And if it is ask yourself, am I putting up that barrier because it's better for me, or am I putting up that barrier unnecessarily? And it's actually making it hard for them to complete the purchase, which is what you ultimately want. And I have yet to hear an example that fits into both of those. Again, it's either black or white, it's either white hat or black hat, and there's really nothing in between that I can find. And if somebody listening to this has a great example of that. Please let me know. I would love to have some good examples of that. Ryan: Put it on LinkedIn, share it with Jon, so we can all see. Jon: Yeah. Tag Ryan and I. Ryan: Well, thanks Jon. I appreciate you giving me an education and anybody else's listening for that because it's very helpful. Jon: Awesome. Thanks Ryan. Appreciate the conversation. Ryan: Thank you.

It seems most brands are using email popups on their website. Today Jon dismantles this practice with passion, explaining why they're bad for everyone, and offering better alternatives. TRANSCRIPT: Ryan: Jon, we've spoke together quite a few times around the country, and then recently just around the internet, since we can't leave our houses. And almost every time we talk, you ruffle quite a few feathers when you're answering questions about email pop-ups. It seems that most retailers and brands out there on their websites, they are absolutely in love with their email pop-up campaign, they think it can do no wrong. And I personally don't like them because they're just annoying and I close them immediately because I'm trying to look at something else. And, but you're distaste, some may say hate, goes a little bit deeper within this space, but so many, again, so many brands are using these. It's just making me crazy. So, I want to talk about these and get your opinion, the backend and the numbers that are guiding your distaste for these. But even to start with, what do you think is pushing this trend and what data are these merchants seeing that's causing these email pop-ups for discounts or anything just to become the norm? If you don't have it, you're weird almost at this point. Jon: Brands, what they're doing is they see another successful brand they look up to have email popups and they say, "It must be working for them. We need to do this as well." It goes in line with all the little Shopify apps that are out there that just spread like wildfire overnight, and then they'd disappear just as quickly once everybody realizes they don't actually move the needle, but they saw their competitor trying it out, so they thought they showed as well. Tons of examples of that. I think that's generally what happens here, first of all. Second of all, the brands see that email is their highest revenue channel, most likely. And so, they say every time I send an email, it's like printing money. So I should collect more emails. And that sometimes even comes down from the executive level, down to that marketing manager who is needing to implement that, whether they think it's right or not. And third, I think what happens is that brands look at a success metric of how many people do we have on our email list. And they see these pop-ups collect email addresses. And so, they assume they are working. And I guess the goal that they usually have is just to collect email addresses at all costs, right? And they're thinking, "If I get someone on my email list, I can then continue to market to them and the rest will fall into line." And that just is a huge problem. It's, to me, it's the wrong way to be thinking about it. And after optimizing sites for 11 years, statistically, it's not accurate. Ryan: Being an e-commerce brand myself, I know that if my email list goes from 10,000 to 20,000, I'm probably making more money from email. So, where are brands missing the logic behind these pop-ups and not equating to larger email database equals more revenue from emails every time I send one? Jon: Yeah. I think, I don't have an issue with collecting email addresses. As I said, it should be, and looking at 10 decades of content and data around emails, it definitely can be your highest revenue channel. The problem I have with is the method of collecting, right? So, let's just start with that. I mean, we could, there's lots of directions, we'll, I'm sure we'll go today about the method of doing it around discounts and everything else, but let's just talk about the pop-up form in itself. And what I mean by that is just there are multiple ways to collect email addresses. You can start with those who have ordered and how you have the actual customer contact information that you own, right? If you doing an owned to sale, as opposed to something like an Amazon, then you have that information, people you can remarket to and continue to sell to. However, if you just put a pop-up on your site versus maybe even baking a form into the page, right? Where customers who are actually interested, will scroll down to your footer and they'll enter their information because they're super interested. Right? I would almost encourage anyone listening to this to set a separate form up in your footer and tag people who fill that form out as higher intent, because they actually are interested in what you had to say. Now, the problem with a pop-up, let's just talk about straight up pop up, not an exit intent, right? Ryan: So, you're categorizing your email pops up into different buckets? Jon: Yes. Yes. There's different types. And I think that's important here because the one that I want to eliminate from the internet is just the pop-up. As soon as I come to a site, or maybe as soon as I start scrolling or even the timed ones that come up within a couple of seconds of loading the page, those are the ones I want to eliminate. Now, exit intent. Let's put that in a different category. I'm not as opposed to those. But what I'm talking about here is the disruption to the consumer experience, the interruption factor as well. Think of your site like a retail store. Now I know your wife has a retail store, right? If I walk into her store and she jumped out at me and said, "Here's a clipboard, give me your email address." I'm going to probably have a negative reaction to that. Right? Ryan: At least she's cute. That does help. Jon: Well, Hey. Ryan: Popups, aren't as cute. Jon: Hey, you know what I mean? You could make, you could put a nice looking picture on a pop-up, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm there because I have a problem that I'm looking to solve. And I'm at the website because I think that their product or service can solve my pain or need. And all of a sudden now, before I know anything about the brand, something led me there, was it I clicked on an ad or a Google search or someone told me about it, so I have idea that they can help me solve my pain or need. But then all of a sudden I just get there, I still don't know about the value proposition of the brand, I don't know much about their products yet, but then I'm getting hit up right away being asked to give them information. And I think that that's just disruptive and I can promise you every test we've run where we've eliminated that pop-up conversion rates have gone up on the site and sales and revenue. Now yes, you will collect less email addresses. But I argue that's not a bad thing in this case, with this type of pop-up. And the reason is a couple of faults. So, first of all, the email addresses you're going to collect out of those pop-ups are going to be very, I would argue they're not going to be very effective, right? Because you're getting a consumer who is entering their email address into that pop-up specifically to get rid of the pop-up in a lot of cases, because they... This goes into more things like negative intent shaming, because maybe in that popup, it's a pretty common trend now for a company to say something like, "No, I don't like discounts and offers." Ryan: Gosh, I hate that. I had that happen a couple of days ago. And I was like, "Of course I like discounts. I'm not an idiot, but I just don't like you telling me that I don't like discounts." Jon: Right. You're you're hurting the brand, right? And you're hurting your customer experience and that's damaged that you now have to repair. So, within the first five seconds of getting into the website, you're already have dug yourself a hole you have to get out. Ryan: Yeah. And I think brands are getting kind of like, "Ooh, we're kind of that little unique, give it to the man brand. And we're going to use that humor." [crosstalk 00:07:34] That doesn't necessarily come through because I actually don't know you yet. And maybe that's my first... I don't know that that's the type of brand you are. I was looking for a pair of board shorts. And now all of a sudden you're telling me I'm an idiot before I even know that you're, that's the voice of your brand. Jon: Exactly. Okay. This is another great example of real world for this, right? Popups are just like those people who canvas on the street corner, who come up and you're just trying to walk by and get to your next location, right? You're trying to get some job done in your life, going to the coffee shop or whatever it might be, you have a meeting you're walking to. And Greenpeace, not just to pick on Greenpeace, but they're out all over in Portland. They run up to you with a clipboard and they say, "Hi, can we chat for a minute?" And it's like, "No, I'm trying to get something done. This is not a good time for me." And then they follow you, "Well, did you know that this is happening with the environment? And this is happening." And it's like, "Yeah. You know what? That might still be important to me, but now's not a good time." And they're like, "That's fine. Just give me your contact information. We'll follow up with you." And it's like, "No, no, no. I don't know who you are." Right? I don't want to just give some random person my contact information. And then what are you doing with that contact information? So, I think the problem is, is that marketers stop having empathy for what the consumer is going through on the other side of the screen, and they just feel like it's okay because they can't see that person to do these really poor consumer experience activities on their site. And that's what I try to fight against with this. And unfortunately pop-ups is the worst example of this on the internet. And so, that's why I ended up fighting against it. Ryan: Oh yeah. And it's people like me that are probably helping give them bad numbers since my computer saves the email address na@na.com for all of my form fills that I don't want them to email me on and I'm like, "Yeah. Yeah, here you go. Have that." Jon: Well, that's exactly it. So, now let's talk about the data that a marketer's going to get back out of this pop-up, right. So, a new site pop-up, you just came to this, a new visitor pop-up I should say. I get a form. Sometimes it just says, "Give me your info and you can stay up to date on the latest product releases, et cetera." So maybe they're not really dangling a carrot there. Right? I can't figure out how to close it. Maybe there's no close button and it takes over the entire screen and it's really annoying. So what happens? You put in an email address that like na@na.com, right? So now the brand has pretty muddy CRM, right? Their customer data, their marketing data is pretty horrible. Now what's going to happen there is, they're going to start using all that data. Some will clean it, but I guarantee you most don't based on our experience and what happens is they're going to use those email addresses that are uncleaned. They're going to start sending them through their email platform. And then they're going to get a ton of bounces, a ton of spam complaints for those who might be okay, it might be good, or they're going to get a bunch of generic Gmails that never get opened. And I promise you one thing that's happening with your emails and large providers like Gmail, MSN, et cetera, is they're tracking when you send an email out to a thousand people, Gmail knows that at that same email is going out to a thousand people on their platform, and they're looking to see how many people are opening and clicking on that. And they're tracking that data to make sure that spam doesn't get through. And if nobody's opening it, nobody's clicking it, it's more likely to end up in that dreaded promotions folder or just directly into spam. [crosstalk 00:11:07]. And that's not even without people who are actually seeing that email and marking it as spam, which is only going to hurt your deliverability. So, over time what's happening is the quality of your email list is going way down only because of how you collected that as emails and the methodology you went through. And so, what happens then is you've turned what should be your highest revenue generating channel into something that is no longer producing at the level it used to, even though you have more email addresses on it. Ryan: Got it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense there. And you can kind of send yourself in a downward spiral. But I can also see the logic behind getting to that point. If logic states that me as a brand or a website, I'm willing to break even on my first order from Google ads when I'm buying traffic to my site, and then if I don't have an email up and I put it on, I'm like, "Oh, 10% discount. That's only going to increase people's conversion rates because I'm giving 10% off. But then these are people that maybe weren't going to buy, but now are because people that were going to buy, maybe they would anyway without the discount." So, I understand that logic to a degree, but how do you see that logic break down when somebody actually starts going through with that execution? Jon: Well, so now we're combining two negatives. We're taking an email pop-up that's disruptive and we're making it a discount. Now what's happening is same thing. As you said earlier, I just got to the brand, I don't know anything about the brand or their value proposition, et cetera, but now you want my contact information, and also you're already giving me a discount. Now, why are you offering a discount to somebody who just got to your site? They haven't exhibited any signs of intent to buy just yet, other than showing up at your door and you're giving up precious margin and you're creating a discount brand right away. Where it's the first thing I know about this brand is, they're going to give me a 10% off for giving me an email address. It's like, "Well, okay." And what's going to happen here is a couple of things. One is, you're creating a discount customer who sees your brand as a discount brand forever, just because that's the first impression they have. And the problem with this is you've done it just to collect an email address. Well guess what? What's going to happen now is that person's going to put in their junk email address again, the one they use just for discounts and pop-ups, right? Ryan: Everybody's got one of those. Jon: Exactly. We all use Gmail for that, probably. Right. So, then what happens from there? Well, perhaps they might open the email, maybe not, more likely not. They just wanted that discount code. And the worst offenders in these popups are the ones that, where they collect the email address without any verification, they don't email you the discount code. They just show it in the box in the pop-up. So, they just give it to you right away. Well, then that's even worse because you're putting in whatever email address you want and you're still going to get the discount. The other thing here is that, now every time I come back to buy, I'm going to want that discount. And I know I don't need to pay retail. I know that you're going to offer 10%. So, what am I going to do? I'm going to open your website in incognito, and I'm going to give you another fake email address just to get another discount code or another junk email address, or I'm going to do that Gmail trick, where you can put a plus sign and then anything you want after the plus sign. So, it's like Jon+, whatever I want @gmail.com and it ignores anything with the plus sign and after that. Ryan: That I did not know. Jon: So, you can create [crosstalk 00:14:31] a million email addresses just out of your one Gmail address. And most email platforms allow you to use a plus sign because it's a valid email character. And so, it's really interesting when we start working with brands, one of the first things we do when they put up a fight about removing their pop-ups, or at least running a test around it, is we go into their email database and check for the plus sign and see how many emails have a plus sign in it. And most of it it's like, plus spam is what people put, right? Or they'll even get more tricky. People who are really, want to know if you're selling their email address, or if you're giving it away or if you're abusing them and they do plus in the brand name. And then it's like if you sell that email address or share with a partner, do anything else, they now know where that came from, and they're even more upset with you when that happens. So, I think it's really important here that people, brands really need to think about not discounting because you're basically taking what is a bad consumer experience and you're making that a bad experience for your brand too. And you're just doing that to collect an email address. And now you've created a discount customer right up front, who's forever going to look at your brand as a discount brand. And that's a really hard hole to dig out of in the future. Ryan: Well, and I think a lot of brands don't give consumers enough credit, and I think people pick it up pretty quick, where they know the strategies to try to get discounts. Especially people like me that just because I can, I'm not going to give up 10% of my money to a brand just because I like them. If I can keep 10% in my pocket, I will, even if I can afford the full price, which generally is the case, if I'm shopping for it. And so, my wife knows that I'm the cheap one in the relationship. And if she's going to go buy something, she knows that if she can tell me she bought something, but got a discount, and I'm like, I'm much less likely to put up a fight about that. And so she knows the strategy. It's like, "Okay, all I need to do on my computer is start to move my cursor towards the navigation bar and boom, exit intent pop up." Or she even tells me now, she'll just, if she's interested in something, but it's not a need, it's a more of a want, she'll go put things in shopping carts, and then just wait a few days. She's like, "I don't need it right now. They're not going to run out of inventory. I'm going to go set up a shopping cart, I don't care. See if they sent me a discount." [crosstalk 00:17:29]. Almost all of them do. I mean, just people figure it out. It's not complicated. Marketers, I think sometimes think too much of themselves like, "Oh, we're going to do this. And we're going to trick all these people into spending so much money with us." And I'm like, "Nah." Jon: Well, I think that's exactly where having empathy for the consumer really comes in, right? And just saying, "If you, if this is happening to you, what's the experience you want to have?" And I think this goes back to a whole nother episode we can record on discounting and why that's a challenge. I mean, we just did, you and I just did a webinar yesterday and a big portion of that was about discounting with one of our partners. And I thought it was really interesting because so many brands are discounting. And when you think about this, you could be doing so many things that are and offer and not a straight percentage or dollar off discount. And I'm okay with doing an offer in an email. And there's a lot of other ways to collect email addresses that tie in with offers, right? I mean, you could do "Coming soon, get on the list to be first notified," and that's providing value for an email address that they wouldn't get unless they gave you the email address. But it's also valuable to them. You could do, something where it's like, "Hey, if you sign up for our email list in checkout, you get free shipping." Right? So, you're giving some value. It's not a straight dollar or percentage off discount. You're doing an offer and there's scarcity. You could say, "Hey, these products sell out. It's sold out right now. If you sign up for this list, you'll be notified." And we have a brand we work with, a really high end camping brand, that a lot of their products, they sell out before they've even landed in the United States for manufacturing, where they just have a running list on their product detail pages that say, "Hey, this product is sold out. We have a new product coming in soon, get on the list, we'll notify you. And it will be presale before it goes up on the site." Now there's a lot of value to a consumer who wants a product and is interested in that and giving their email address for that purpose. And it's a much better way to collect an email address over offering a discount. So, now they're selling these products before they've even hit the site. They're selling them at 100% margin or, well, not 100% margin, but without draining their margin by discount, right? Ryan: Or marketing. Jon: Or marketing costs. [crosstalk 00:19:54]. Yeah. What? Fractions of a penny to send that email. So, I think it's really interesting that brands immediately go to this discount right upfront and present that discount through such a disruptive manner that they have to use an email pop-up. Ryan: I think it's just, I mean, it's the easy button that they're thinking about. They're not taking that next step and actually having conversations with people, strategizing what could my options be? Because even me, having you as a friend and a business partner and various things, I come to you and I'm like, "Okay, Jon, I know you don't like discounts, but I know that there's value in somehow doing something like that, that maybe is not a discount, that keeps me from being a discount brand." And you've got phenomenal ideas for ... Now, we should probably do one, a thing on that. But you don't have to give a discount to give a discount type thing, which is a difficult thing. You have to really think through it. Jon: Right. Yeah. And you got to be creative with the offer, right? And sometimes people, like you said, it's the easy button. There's so many Shopify apps, for instance, that do these pop-ups and do discounts. Then there's apps that are really cheap to free that will do customized discount posts for email address exchange, stuff like that. It blows my mind because they see other brands using them and they think it must work for them, so we're going to do it too. Or they just, they think discounting is the only way. And I really argued that as soon as you get into discounting, it is impossible. It's like a drug, a really bad drug. It's really hard to get off of that. You got to wean yourself off of it because now everybody is expecting and they're not going to pay retail price. I mean, we talk about how your wife sends you to Michael's to pick up stuff on the way home. And you know that she's going to have a 50% off coupon, no matter what. And if she didn't, for whatever reason, she couldn't find one right then, or whatever, you just ask the person at the register when you're checking out, like, "Hey, what's that? What's the coupon that went out in the mail last week? Do you have it?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, it's right here. Here you go." And they just scan it [crosstalk 00:21:55]. Ryan: Yeah. That actually happened a couple weeks ago. [crosstalk 00:00:21:58]. I was, I got in line, she was like, "I couldn't find my code. Can you just pull one up on your phone and do a search?" I'm like, "Okay, yeah. I'll figure it out." Jon: Exactly. So, they're a discount brand and you go to them because they're a discount brand. There's nothing wrong with that if that's how they want to do it. But I would argue that, they're never getting out of that, right? They're just going to have to slash all their prices if they want to stop doing discounts. Then what promo or offer can you run because you've got razor thin margins at that point? Ryan: Yep. No. And I think one of the points you hit on too, is part of that other bucket of email popups, which you don't hate, those exit intent things. And this one works phenomenally well, for me at least, with one of the clients you've worked with in the past is Nike. One of the shoe companies you're based in Oregon. And I have an affinity for Jordan 4's. I'm not a sneaker head, but that's the one shoe that I grew up always wanting and I couldn't get them because didn't have enough money for them when I was a kid. But now I can. And so, I do keep up on the releases. And so, in this case, I gave Nike all my information to avoid the FOMO, the fear of missing out scenario. And I went to Nike site today just to see what they were doing, saying, "Okay, Jon worked with them. Did they get the message when he was working with them?" And they use only exit intent, no discount. Do you ever advocate for discount at... Well, I already know the answer. But exit intent, how should brands be looking at that? Is there anything besides FOMO or anything to do besides offering a discount that you've seen be successful? Jon: Well, I think that there's a lot of options that you can do in these pop-ups. But specifically in exit intent, this is where it's one of those things that you should really be looking at segmenting your audience and tailoring the message with those pop-ups. So, for you, let's think about the journey you just mentioned you went through. You were, you love Jordan 4's and you were looking at those on the site and they popped up with an exit intent and you were like, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that because I want to be the first to know when new ones are released." There's value there for you in that, right? And they knew, this is a collector shoe, if you will. And most of the people, you claim you're not a sneaker-head, but let's be honest, you probably are if you're into Jordan 4's, right? Ryan: Probably. Jon: And so, the reality here is they know that. That people who are looking at this shoe aren't discount motivated because for them it's all about having the Jordan 4, that they don't need the discount. They could sell those out, no problem without ever discounting them. And in fact, you and I living in Portland, Oregon, we're blessed that we get to go to the Nike employee store occasionally. And whether we're working with them or, somebody who does work with them is able to share a pass with us occasionally. And I can tell you that they have some Jordan's there, but it's not their top sellers. I say that because at the employee store, there's a large discount when you shop there because you get employee pricing, but they don't have their top sellers, usually, in the collectible ones, like Jordan's et cetera there, because they don't need to discount them. If you want them, you're going to just go up on the site and buy it at retail. So, I think that too many brands skip right away to the discount when there's other value adds you could provide. And that's where, again, you got to do a little bit of thinking on that. It can't just be the easy button. Ryan: Okay. So, pop-ups, avoid coming to the site pop-ups. Exit intent could be worth it, but you make sure you're adding some value to that, that customer that causes them to want to give you a real email address and not necessarily just throw a discount out. So, all companies want more emails. Do you have any strategies that you've seen be successful in your experience over the past decade in the e-comm world for brands to get more emails? Jon: Sure. I think there are some great ways to do, I mentioned earlier, some segmenting. So, let's say you run somebody in to your site from a Google ad that has a specific message, your value prop in it, aligning that with the message that you share for an email signup, right? So, maybe they're searching for a specific item and they get to your site and it's out of stock, well, there you go, now you should do not a stock email collection. I think that the biggest mistakes I see around email forms are that they're missing some key information. The first is you really need to set expectations on this email form. What does that mean? Well, you need to tell people what they're signing up for and how often they're going to hear from you. Pretty simple. But most brands say stuff like, "Sign up for updates." It's like, "Why do I care about updates from your brand?" Right? "I don't need more updates." Nobody needs updates. But if you me, I'll be the first to know when Jordan 4's are released, I'm in, right? That's what I'm here for. That's what I want to know. So, it's all about saying, "Okay. Well, how often are you going to hear from me?" Well, maybe it's, "I'll email you once a month." Okay. I'm okay with that. If you say, "I'm going to email you every week," I have to think twice about it, but if I really am into your brand, maybe I'm okay with that. Or maybe it's where we have special product bundles that are only for email subscribers, "Sign up and you can learn about our bundles, exclusives." Right? Things of that sort, that aren't straight up discounts. Ryan: Almost like a merging some of this email acquisition with your loyalty program. Jon: 100%. That is a great way to build email is through loyalty. It's through having, whether you want to do something as complicated as a point system, or just as simple as saying, if you're on an email address, you will get access to things that people who aren't on the email address. Ryan: And people are willing to give you more information, generally, when you're providing value outside of discount. For example, Nike, I give them my birthday. No other company gets my birthday. [crosstalk 00:27:51]. But they're telling me I'm going to get a special reward on my birthday. And I'm like, "Cool." I like Nike. They do have some trust. They built a brand that says, "I can trust them with my data already," just because I have an affinity for them and I've been wearing Nike's for, geez, 30 years. So, there is some of that that maybe not every brand is going to be able to get to, but you can probably do some pretty solid segmentation in your customer database if you had everybody's birthday. Like, Hey, this person's 20, this person's 40, they probably need different messaging. They probably have different interests, different disposable income level. Jon: Yeah. Yeah. The 20 year old is aspiring to get the Jordan's. The Ryan Garrow age folks are really out there to [crosstalk 00:28:35]. Ryan: 22. 22. Jon: Okay. Okay. If you say so. And so I think it's, now you can afford the $300 pair of Jordan's and you're excited to buy them because you've earned that right over all these years of hard work, right? And so, or those two years of hard work, if you will. But I think it's one of those things where most brands aren't even segmenting. They're just doing that really clear scatter shot, hoping to collect email addresses, just to build their list. And I just, again, that's the wrong philosophy, whole-heartedly, full stop. Popups are not the way to do that. And I just, it pains me when I see brands do that. Part of me is because our mission at The Good is, I say all the time is just to remove all the bad online experiences until only the good ones remain. And email popups are such a bad online experience. I'm on a crusade to eliminate those. And part of that is to help brands understand what damage they're doing with these initial email pop-ups. And it's true, I don't hate them just because they get in my way as a consumer, I hate them because of what they do to the brand over time. And the experience that you're putting consumers through is really negatively affecting the brand and the brand perception. And then most brands are applying a discount on top of that, so they're kind of adding fuel to that fire of just negativity and it's really just going to hurt them. Ryan: And the one thing I'll leave with would be the best emails you can get are from people that have purchased from you. So, if you just got more aggressive on getting more customers through marketing or driving people to the site, those people in your email database are going to be infinitely more valuable than anybody that just wants a coupon code or signs up just to have you go away or an email pop-up. So, I would challenge a lot of brands just to say, if you're comfortable giving an additional 10% discount, so you're taking 10% off your top line for somebody, why don't you just get 10% more aggressive on your marketing and get that customer to actually buy something and get more of them and increase your market share because that's the type of emails in my database that I'm going to be in love with. Jon: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned right up off the top that you're happy to spend your initial margin on that first purchase to acquire the customer through Google ads or whatever advertising you would do to get them to the site, so that you can continue to market to them and go after that customer lifetime value. And that's the right way to approach this because that's sustainable. Where if you're just going to give a discount and someone's only going to purchase once, because they can't get that discount again, or maybe they just see you as a discount brand, then you're going to have a bigger issue. So, I'm all for paying to get people to purchase, but I'm not, I don't think you should do that through a discount upfront. Ryan: Yeah. Don't go the lazy way. If your marketing team or your agency is telling you, "Use discounts or we can't do our job." It's time to maybe look outside that. Jon: Yeah. Find a new marketing agency. People come to us all the time and they say, "Well, we've been doing optimization on our site." And I say, "Okay, great. Let's talk about what you've been doing." "Well, we put a pop-up on, we offer discounts and our conversion rates went up." I was like, "Well, yeah. You know what? Every house will sell at some price. Ask any realtor. And they'll just say, 'Well, we'll just keep reducing the price until it sells.'" And it's like, well, eventually you're going to sell it for less than you bought it for. And that's exactly what's going to happen with your brand too. Ryan: Oh, and didn't you, you have some stat around, you give a small discount, your conversion rate has to go up just some astronomical percent. What was that number? Jon: Yeah. Mackenzie did a bunch of research on this. They surveyed and did a bunch of research on the, it was like the top 1000 e-comm sites. And what they found was that for every 5% that you run a discount on, you have to acquire, it was like 19% in additional sales just to break even on that discount. Ryan: And most people are not only giving 5%. Jon: Right. It's way more than that [crosstalk 00:32:36]. Ryan: It's usually 10, 15, 20%. Jon: And so, you really have to think about this. Now for 5% discount, is that 5% discount going to get me greater than a 19% additional sales? Likely, that's not the case. And, in fact, the article that I read on that said, and I'll have to quote it, but it said "This rarely to never has ever happened." And I was like, "Okay. So, they said rarely, never, and ever in the same sentence." Ryan: Yeah. Having done this a decade, I can almost guarantee you that that has not happened. I mean, because you would just double that maybe for 10%, you have to get 38% increase in revenue for a 10% discount. There's no way. Jon: If, I mean, if that's how the math works out on that, then yeah, you're screwed if you start discounting at that rate in reality. Because yes, you've collected email addresses and markers will come back to me and say, "Jon, yeah, sure. That's if I only do it on that first sale, but now I'm going to have those customer in my database for a lifetime." And I'm like, "Yeah, but what are you going to have to do to get them continue to buy? You're going to have to give another 5% off and another 5% and another 5%. where do you get out of digging that hole? Right? How do you fill that hole so that you're getting your margin back and your customer lifetime value and your average order value keeps going up? How do you make that happen?" You're better off it doing an offer. And, yep, it may equate to 5% off, but in the mind of the consumer, you're giving them an offer, not a straight dollar or percentage off. And then you come back the next order and you're not having to fight on a discount, you can give them some other offer, perhaps if that's needed. So yeah, we should definitely do a whole show, Ryan, on discounting. I think that could be another way to share one of Jon's things he hates on the internet. Ryan: Yes. I think we for sure should do that. Man, there's so many, so many good things in this. Jon, thanks for the time. I appreciate it. And I come away learning lots of things, including just adding a plus sign to my emails now. [crosstalk 00:34:30]. I can track where I'm being sold. Jon: There you go. Well, I appreciate you bringing the topic up and helping me share one of my missions. So, thanks for doing that. Ryan: Thank you

We know that internet traffic doesn't operate in silos. No matter what method you are using to drive traffic and sales, there's always going to be a halo effect. Today Jon and Ryan chat about Google Shopping, but more specifically the effect it has on other channels. TRANSCRIPT: Jon: Hey, thanks for listening to Drive and Convert. Before we jump into this episode, just wanted to take a quick second and let you know that during this episode we had some recording issues and the audio quality is nowhere near where we would normally like to see it. But because the content was solid, we decided to keep it as is and get it out to you. Hopefully you can see through this less than perfect audio, but a big shout out to our editor, Josh, for helping make us sound pretty solid, despite all of the technical shortcomings. We do have some improvements in audio quality on the way, so thank you for listening and on to the show. Jon: Ryan, we know that internet traffic doesn't operate in silos. No matter what method you are using to drive traffic and sales, there's always going to be a halo effect. We've all heard this famous quote from 120 years ago, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half." That is still true today, even with all of the attribution and digital advertising tracking we're able to do. But the good news is that with all of the data we have these days, it allows us to know that there is a halo effect and to know how much that halo effect is worth to each brand. I was recently checking out a presentation you gave [Aclavio 00:01:44] and you showed data for some real clients that blew my mind and I actually just found out one of them is a shared client of ours, which made me even more excited. Ryan: Yeah, maybe some of that's due to you. Jon: Hey, I'm not going to take credit for this, but the data was a comparison of revenue and performance before and after implementing Google Shopping. I'm talking 1800% increases in revenue in both of these cases. Tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars in newly found revenue. Now, it seems to me that Google Shopping itself didn't account for most of this revenue gain, but rather that it could be attributed to the halo effect of implementing Google Shopping correctly. Today I wanted to chat about Google Shopping, but more specifically the effect it has on other channels. Ryan: Oh, man. It is such a unique topic that doesn't get brought up enough. I'm exciting to really dive into this. I don't even necessarily know if halo effect is a technical term that anybody really uses. It's just kind of how we refer to it internally at Logical Position and what we're seeing. Jon: But I do think it makes sense though. You said halo effect originally when we started talking about the topic for today and I immediately got it. Here you are inventing another term, perhaps, that makes a lot of sense. Ryan, tell me. What is the benefit of understanding the halo effect of Google Shopping? Maybe we just start there. Ryan: As you're understanding conceptually, and most I think business owners, marketing teams understand that attribution paths generally look like bowls of spaghetti at this point in time, as people can really easily do research and understand what they want from a product as they're finding it and then coming back to business that they had maybe found it somewhere on. What I've learned, through the last decade plus in digital marketing and a lot of that in eCommerce, is that I'm weird in the eCommerce transaction space. I have a very linear conversion path. I see it. I click it. I buy it. Every company on the planet can track my conversion. It's just very simple. If I've bought from you, you know exactly how I found you. Maybe I don't do enough research or I do enough research before I actually go search for the product. I haven't done a lot of analysis on myself, but that's not normal. What's more normal is my wife buying something, where she'll do research over probably a week and a half and she's got a pretty low threshold for extensive research. If she's going to buy something for $25, she does a decent amount of research to make sure that that's the best deal. But she'll click on multiple shopping ads, multiple social ads, multiple things throughout the process as she goes back and forth between different sites to figure out where she should buy something. Through that process, what we've seen is that the Google Shopping click, for somebody that is more normal like my wife, is how people are originally going to find you, but it's not how they're, at the end of the day, going to buy from you. It's more of a discovery tool for a lot of people because Google is a research entity for most people in finding the product on eComm. They're very good at it. Google is just phenomenal at product discovery and helping people figure out what they need or want. Knowing that, most business owners still look at Google Shopping based on last click, because that's what Google Ads has set them up for. Google Ads tracking by default is last click. You can change it to be linear. You can change it to all these other things, which can make sense, but I don't necessarily think it's bad to be looking at that way, but I think you have to understand as a business owner or marketing team that it's doing other things and that attribution conversation... I've been in digital marketing for over a decade, just like you, and attribution just makes my brain hurt. Jon: Yeah, there's too many models. None of them are ever accurate. Ryan: Yeah. You conceptually know it's there, but you never really want to be like, "Let's really dive into attribution today." That has never come out of my mouth and probably never will. Jon: I'm pretty nerdy, but it's never come out of my mouth either. Ryan: Yeah. That just doesn't sound fun. No. No, not going to do it. The halo effect is something we've seen and it's an easy way to explain the fact that attribution is happening and we want to be aware of it and know it's there and that helps direct a lot of our goal setting, I think. Knowing that, from a very simple perspective, the more you spend in Google Shopping, the more the other channels on your site are going to increase even if you're not doing anything else to increase them. The easiest example, I think it happened in May of this year. We were in the middle of COVID and pretty strict lockdown at that time. This company is a B2B company and they came to me I think through a partner of ours and we were talking just general strategy and marketing, what were they trying to accomplish as a business. They sold on Amazon. They sold on Walmart. They sold on Ebay. They sold on their website, but it was very small. They didn't really care about the website much at all and they had an agency that had told them that buying on Google was the best place for them to be, which the Google Shopping actions. At that time it was I think they were the 12% mark, based on their product mix. Then, they had another agency tell them that, "Hey, your product makes us too big. You need to shrink it down because it'll never work with that many SKUs." So, they shrunk down their product mix on their website. All these things are coming together. Before they kind of have to look at their company now like a before LP and after LP because it was so dramatic, the change. Their website, in the month of April, did $16,000 in revenue and their buy on Google entity did $34,000. They combined did $50,000 in total revenue from Google and their website and they paid $4,000 for that buy on Google, $34,000. That was their total cost of doing that. By no means bad. There's not many business owners that would be like, "Ah, that's a bad idea. Don't take it." When I told them, I was like, "I think you're leaving a lot of money on the table," because we as an agency have done a lot of pretty advanced analysis on the buy on Google entity. When you run that, generally you're losing about 40% of the volume that you could be getting if you didn't use buy on Google. So, I just said, "It's probably worth a test. It's a very small piece of your business at this point. Let's just go. Give us three months. We'll go with Google Shopping instead of buy on Google and we'll see what happens. If I'm crazy and it's not more volume for you, you can very easily just flip the switch and go back to buy on Google." They thought, "Okay. That's a reasonable test for us. If the website evaporated tomorrow, our business doesn't materially change. So, let's try that." We decided to start May 1. Takes us a week or so to get campaigns up and running, but what happened in the month of May surprised even me, and I've seen lots of things in the digital marketing space. The first month, getting out of the gate, we weren't hyper aggressive. We were getting things in position. We spent a total of $2500 in Google Shopping for this business. They're a multi-million dollar business, so $2500 still wasn't a big number. The data in May, the site did $192,000 in revenue as a whole. That $2500 of spend was given attribution credit in Google Analytics of $115,000. So, they spent less, $1500 less, and they gained a 3X increase in revenue on their Google Shopping by moving from shopping actions to shopping on Google. Which is good and that return is not normal. Nobody should ever reach out to me and say, "I expect you to get that type of return." It would just be- Jon: Well, now that you say it, Ryan. Ryan: ... Yeah, it's out there in the public. Don't say that that's going to happen. It can happen, lightning can strike, but what was really surprising to them is they, on their organize traffic and analytics, they weren't doing any SEO by the way. Their organic traffic, their channel and analytics in the month of April did $10,000 of their $16,000 in revenue. In the month of May, again no SEO, that organize channel and analytics did $45,000. It was up 350%, from $10,000 to $45,000 with no SEO. That's an extreme example of that halo effect, where you spend more in Google Shopping. They find you. They didn't convert through that Google Shopping click, otherwise it would've gotten the attributed revenue and analytics. They came back and bought later, after doing research through your organic links and your organic rankings within Google. Same thing happened on direct traffic. They didn't do any other external marketing and their direct traffic went up 250%. Their email went from, I think, two or three clicks to having $4500 in revenue. Again, no changes in those things to justify that type of increase, but just starting to spend on Google Shopping. The numbers are cool. It's an extreme example that shows the value beyond just looking at the results in Google Analytics or even Google Ads, but just having that understanding that there is more going on. When I'm looking at my businesses... and I talk to business owners regularly and tell them that I am a fairly aggressive marketer, a fairly aggressive business owner, I want to win... I will spend to break even on Google Shopping all day long. It's not exciting for business owners to hear this from me because every business owner usually goes into business to make money and to have profit, but when somebody's looking for your product on Google Shopping and they haven't put another brand or competitor along with that product search, they're a free agent. That's going to go generally to the more aggressive marketer. If I have a competitor that is shooting for profit on Google Shopping and I can break even, I can be more aggressive on there. I can pay more per click than a competitor, so I can get that traffic. I can get that buyer to my site and I'm going to have a good product. Part of my model is I have to have repeat business and lifetime value, but even if I didn't, by spending more on Google Shopping and breaking even, I know about this halo effect and I know that I'm going to get profit from my organic rankings and my direct traffic will increase. So yeah, I may not see the profit from my spending $1,000 to get $2,000. That may not be profitable for many businesses, but understanding that there is profit coming is a pretty big light bulb for a lot of business owners. And a lot of agencies don't talk about this because it is a little more advanced and somebody that's only been in the space for six months to a year may not have understood that this is there. Jon: Well, and it's harder to track, right? Because you can't give a straight answer and just say you tell a client halo effect and they're like, "Well, I'm doing a lot of marketing things." So, any of those could've been the halo effect. Jon: Let me ask you this, what are some of the common challenges to understanding these halo effects? Obviously, you have to have the right data, right? And some attribution. But where do we go from there? Ryan: Step one is just knowing it's there. Okay. If we know it's happening, then I can go look for the data to help explain what the magnitude of it is. I kind of go back to GI Joe growing up, knowing is half the battle. Once you at least conceptually understand that it's going to be there, then we can start looking for examples of it. I keep my analytics investigations pretty simple. I'm by no means one of the experts at Logical Position. There are people that can make my brain hurt in attribution and analytics, so I like looking at the attribution tabs within analytics and seeing, okay, I want to know what is it looking like as far as last click and assisted conversions? I'll click into the attribution and assisted path portion of the conversions tab and I'll click on the top for Google Ads. Then, I want to see the campaign names and I want to filter for campaigns that are shopping. In Logical Position's structure, it's pretty easy. I can just put in the keyword shop and it'll find all the shopping campaigns. Then, I can easily sort for assisted conversions. I can sort for last click. So, people just have to basically understand analytics, by default... and probably 99% plus analytics accounts are going to be setup by the default stuff... it's last non-direct. If somebody clicks on a shopping ad and then comes back later that day, tomorrow, whenever, directly by typing the URL into the browser, that attribution or that credit for the sale is going to go to the channel that was right before that direct. You look in there and you can see, okay, if my shopping campaign did $10,000 in revenue that analytics is telling us it got credit for, it did this work to do this, as far as a last click attribution, you'll see right next to that what did that shopping campaign do for assisted conversions. It's basically telling me, as a business owner, if that shopping campaign wasn't there, if I didn't spend that money, I would for sure lose the $10,000 that it drove in analytics. That would just not be there probably. I can't say for sure, but the majority of that would just evaporate. But what you'll see in assisted is often in shopping, that assisted conversion number is much bigger. It assists on a lot more sales than it closes. That's just the patterns of people shopping and doing more research and making it so easy to click into a site, see what it is, go back to Google, search for another site, see what they're doing. It's very easy. People are using tabs a lot, especially me. I'm a tab-a-holic. I have multiple tabs open as I'm researching. But that assisted conversion, that's where it's just pushing the process forward and something else in analytics is getting credit. So, if you take away that shopping campaign, there's a lot of other revenue that's going to be impacted. Will 100% of that assisted conversion revenue go away? Probably not. But there's no reason you'd want to take that away and you want to keep emphasizing it. By spending more in shopping, there's a lot more of this assisted conversion revenue coming, which is where you're seeing the evidence of this halo effect in the process. Then, you can also do... I like looking at the conversion paths. There is a conversion path report in Analytics and I like going by source medium so I can see if it's Google Ads. You can even get into some of the campaigns and finding out where the campaigns are in the process. This is more advanced, so a lot of people probably aren't ever doing this, but you can download it into Excel and pivot against it and you can actually see which channels is it helping the most, what's getting the credit often, is it coming back through organic from the shopping campaign, is it coming back from an email. Maybe abandoned cart emails are a big deal for your brand. You can see a lot of that and who's getting credit in Analytics. Jon: This is my favorite view in Analytics, by the way, because it really tells you were people are dropping off in the funnel, how they came in. It really shows you a great view of what are the different challenge points along the way, based on where people came from. Ryan: Oh, yeah. When you're looking at it, where are you seeing for most businesses? What channel's often falling off that you're able to help with or that you're able to direct them to and like, "Hey, they seem to be breaking right here." Jon: Usually what we see is when an ad campaign is setting some type of expectations that aren't being met on the site, people then start clicking around a little bit. Maybe they end up on a product detail page eventually that doesn't align with that expectation the ad set. So, the messaging there is usually the case, where the alignment is off between the two. But also, it's just really helpful to understand, from a purely conversion standpoint, where people are leaving the funnel who maybe in come in via organic or non-attributable methods. The whole point there is just what's causing people to bounce at that particular page or point in the process? Ryan: Yeah, and if you can minimize that friction, then conversions go up. Jon: Exactly. Ryan: And Jon looks even smarter. Dang it. Jon: Well, it's easy when you drive good traffic and you have all these halo effects for me to solve the problems and move forward from there. This has been great, Ryan. Anything else that you wanted to touch on on this that we haven't yet today? Ryan: I just think it's important, if you're going to get more aggressive in shopping, and you also are doing SEO, you have to understand that, okay, the SEO work is probably doing good, but if there's a huge jump it's probably not necessarily 100% attributable to the SEO work being done. That's where this does get really messy. You don't want to stop doing SEO because you're doing shopping stuff, but understand that there's going to be a bump and you're going to enjoy that, but there's a lot of things probably contributing to that. Just be aware that there may be some more analysis needed, but also don't get analysis paralysis. Just understand there's a lot of good things happening. You'll find getting aggressive in Google Shopping, knowing that there are some side benefits that you're getting, that even if you can't put a number on it you know it's going up. So, breaking even on Google Shopping on non-brand searches is never a bad thing if you have some lifetime value and you just want to get market share and be more aggressive than your competitors. Because there's very few companies out there that are willing to consistently break even on some of that traffic. And a lot of companies aren't breaking out brand and non-brand shopping, which still surprises me that companies aren't wanting to do that. If you've got a campaign that is just general shopping and if you can see search queries so that you're not using a smart shopping campaign, you should go in there and see how much of your shopping revenue is actually people looking for your brand. I think too few business owners look at that. If you're getting more of your shopping revenue from brand and that's what's causing the results that you're seeing that are exciting you, you've already done the work for those companies and for those searches. You've got the brand you've built up. You need to separate that goal off on its own and you're not going to be able to set a goal specifically around what do you want to get for your brand search, as far as a return. It's going to fluctuate with things that you can't control from a Google Ads perspective. Google search results pages being tested and changed, competitors coming in and out of the market place. The brand is just going to fluctuate. It's going to be profitable, unless you have an odd brand name that is more like a Kleenex, when people just search for the product you come up because of the way your brand is named. You can be assured that your brand search is going to be profitable. Put them in their own shopping bucket and in the non-brand is really where you set your goal. That's where you decide, hey these people don't know me yet. They're going to find me. If I'm breaking even, if you're in certain competitive industries on Google, baskets, there's a lot of money to be lost on that first order because lifetime value is so high. So, sometimes you may lose money on that first order on non-brand searches, but unless you're tracking that data you won't necessarily know what you could or should be losing to get that customer, what you could be shooting for to get market share. That segmenting is important when you are pushing in shopping and you're doing that because of some of the halo effect. Jon: Yeah. If there's one big lesson I've learned from you recently, and you keep hammering this point home so hopefully everyone else is learning this as well, but it's your goal on spending with ads, it's okay to just break even because of the customer lifetime value you're unlocking there. There's other things besides just return on ad spend or just revenue that comes from that initial order from those ads. There's value in emails. There's value in all these other things that somebody knowing about your brand now and having actually validated your brand by giving you revenue. There's a lot of value here outside of just getting a high return on that ad spend. As much as that should be your goal, it's also okay to buy that first customer by breaking even there. Ryan: Well, yeah. The thing you've talked to me about, enlightened me on, about the post-conversion CROs, things I never thought about. If you're breaking even right before but you've got a great process after the fact to just increase sales immediately after a sale, wow. You've got the halo effect on the front end as well and then you've got additional revenue coming back through a better conversion process to keep that a happy customer. There's just so many wonderful things that happen when you are pushing more traffic as well. Most business owners, I need to tell you and preach to you, don't be timid. Jon: Yeah. Well, Ryan, I definitely feel more comfortable today about knowing half of the money I'm spending on advertising is wasted, but also understanding that I now know that halo effect is helping to ease some of that spend and pretty excited about that. Thanks for walking us through some examples and showing us the value here in doing some of these digital marketing things like Google Shopping, that you might not see a huge return on ad spend immediately, but are increasing your revenue overall. Thanks for your time today, Ryan. Ryan: Oh, yeah. Thanks for the questions.

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 every business there are tools specific to that industry or type of business that will help them grow. Ecommerce is no different. CRO is one of the most important tools to grow an Ecommerce business. Today, Jon dives into the role CRO plays in Ecommerce businesses. For help with your CRO: https://thegood.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Ryan: Oh Jon, most people start businesses because they've got skills, knowledge, and the desire to control their work and what they're actually doing on a day to day basis. I would also guess most business owners want to grow and in every business there are tools specific to that industry or type of business that help them grow. E-commerce, as we know, is no different. You and I both know CRO is one of the most important tools to grow an e-commerce business and it's never a bad time to grow. Ryan: Today I'm really excited to dive into the role CRO plays in e-commerce businesses. You, Jon McDonald, knowing more about CRO than anyone I know, can you start us off today by giving us your thoughts on CRO and the growth process of an e-comm business, at a high 30,000 foot level? Jon: Yeah, sure. Well I think the best way to think about this Ryan is that there's only a small number of ways to grow your company just at a high level before even thinking about conversion rate optimization. You can get more new customers, you can get your current customers, or even those new ones, to spend more with you, and you can get your average customer lifetime value up by getting those customers that have purchased to come back and purchase again. Those are really the only three mechanisms you have for earning more revenue out of your business. Jon: So, of course, traffic generation can hit that first one really well. We might argue, and maybe you could fill in on this a little bit Ryan, but traffic generation, when done well in digital marketing, can help you also increase average order value. Then remarketing, you can resell to the people who have already purchased perhaps and you can run campaigns around that. Jon: But I think if you're really looking to impact the first two of those in a major way, conversion rate optimization is really going to be how you're going to get a higher return on that ad spend and how you're generally just going to convert more of your visitors into buyers. So if you're thinking about growth the biggest lever with the highest return on investment, and of course, I'm biased, but I think that the highest return on investment is going to be conversion optimization because with a small investment in making it easier for people to purchase on your site you're going to get a high value back that's going to be sustainable over time. Ryan: Well yeah and I think even on a previous podcast we talked about CRO after the sale even and increasing some of that lifetime value in areas I hadn't even considered actually being CRO. Like even some of the things in the shopping cart post purchase which would increase lifetime value had never even occurred to me. Ryan: I think it does play in all three, but I think for most people as they're thinking through their entire e-comm business they're going to probably see CRO in those first two buckets of growth. As you're looking at e-comm businesses and you analyze tons of businesses, is there a place in the growth curve of an e-comm business where you really see CRO as being the most impactful? I'm thinking in my head of a bell curve and growth or maybe you're growing up to a plateau like where would you in a perfect world insert CRO? Jon: Well I think that you need to have enough traffic to effectively do certain types of CRO. Let's break this down a little bit. Let's look at this bell curve in three chunks. The first chunk would be the folks who are just getting started, maybe we'll just say less than a million dollars in revenue, which is a pretty big gap there. But that first million what you really need to be focused on is making sure people know that you exist. Jon: They need to have an easy to use website but normally you're going after those early adopters who are willing to put up with a little more complications on your site than the average customer. So it's really important for that first third of that curve that you are mainly focusing on driving traffic that is going to hit a very specific segmented marketplace that is going to be your key customers that are going to stick with you no matter. Jon: You probably aren't going to be converting much on branded terms because people don't know who you are, so when people do find your site, at that point, you want to make it as easy for them to purchase but you're not going to be able to do things like AB or multivariate testing because AB testing and multivariate testing, et cetera, require enough traffic for you to get results in a meaningful timeframe. Jon: So in that first third what I usually would want people to do is when I'm looking at these companies I want to see them collecting data. What do I mean by that? Well are they actually looking at great analytics data? Have they actually ever dived in there and customized it a little bit or is it just they just put the snippet from GA on their site and that's all they have. Jon: Couple other things to be thinking about there, like you could easily pretty cheaply get things like heat maps and movement maps. You can do that type of stuff to start understanding how people engage with your website and just make changes based on data. You don't have to test it, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: Just make the changes. The best way to test there is just to do week over week or month over month. Now if you're making changes every day that's going to be hard to really know what worked well, but I don't want that to stop brands. They should still be tweaking their site as much as possible and then sticking to perhaps even larger changes in that first third. Ryan: In that space, in that first third, a lot of times the business owners generally don't know best practices on website. They know their industry, they know their products well. But how much would you as that business owner trust your gut looking at small pieces of data like that on a daily, weekly basis where you can't actually get an AB test and have full confidence that this is what is better. You just say hey, go with your gut on that because it's probably better than not going with your gut? Jon: Well I think that it goes back to the phrase I say quite often which is it's really hard to read the label from inside the jar. I think that with that in mind that it's still as an owner of a site and a daily operator you're still too close to it and you really still need that consumer feedback. Collecting that data and paying attention to it, even if it's only 100 visitors a day or a week, that's still data that you should be looking at. Where are people leaving, what pages are they getting stuck on perhaps, where are they dropping off in the funnel, that's all good information to know where are the holes in your bucket because they're flowing right through that bucket instead of collecting them as revenue. You really need to know where those holes are and that's really what I'm getting at here. Jon: The other thing you can be in this first third of that curve, go talk to consumers. You should email every single person who buys personally. There's not a volume at that stage under a million where you can't email every single person individually and just ask them, "Hey, this is me, this is actually me," just start the email that way. "I'm sending you a personal email. I want to know why you purchased and what your experience was." That's it. Jon: I have never gotten an email like that and I purchase online almost exclusively now, that's my job. I have never gotten a personal email from a brand. It's always an automated give me a thumbs up or thumbs down, or what's my net promoter score and they're doing it in a really horrible way. I don't want to rate you on a scale of 1 to 10, that's not what this is about. I'm not going to waste my effort there. If you sent me a person email and said, "Jon, thank you so much for buying from me, we're just starting out, as you likely know. If you didn't know, well hey, welcome to the small club. Excited you're here. Jon: I want to know about your experience because we want to continue to improve our site. Can we chat for 10 minutes at some point or can you just spend 10 minutes right now just write down your thoughts? Nothing is going to be better than that." There's a lot you can do in that first third that people just aren't doing and that's what I'm looking at these businesses if I'm going to give them a passing grade they're doing at least some of these items and most aren't. Ryan: No, I think that's important as somebody that's launched my own brands. You get, as a business owner, so many different directions that many times it's difficult to I think step back and think about okay, if I am selling online what's the most important thing to me right now. If I'm acquiring traffic I need to make sure it's doing the best. I don't like wasting money. Ryan: So I think most business owners probably need to do a little more of what I would consider some of that grunt work on their own where maybe it's not going to be your most favorite thing to do, but it's highly important if you really want this brand to work. Jon: Right. I think to get to that next level, and I would say that middle of that curve is generally a million to 25 million, big gap. But you can get easily get over a million by just doing what I mentioned. If you put in all that grunt work you will get over a million dollars a year in revenue of your site. Then once you get over that point you will likely start having enough traffic, and by enough traffic, let's just say 40 or so 1000 visitors per month. At that point, if you have 40 or so 1000 individuals hitting your website, and I should say users instead of visitors, there's a difference there in analytics. But when you have that 40,000 users on your site you can now start running AB testing on your site and actually get things to hit statistical significance, which is the mathematical formula that's going to tell you that this is proven with math that it's going to improve the metric you went after. Jon: I think that's what's really important here is that once you hit that middle part of the curve that you are really starting to invest in data-driven decision making that is run by testing ... and usually in this part when I'm looking at these businesses, these are the ones who have some money to start growing and reinvesting on a regular basis. It's usually no longer just the owner spending their own money to grow the company because when they got over that million mark now they have some employees, they start having enough margin, ideally, that they can reinvest. Maybe the owner is still involved, but they also might have hired a digital marketing manager or an e-comm manager. Jon: So at that point, that's when you really start to see some rapid growth and that's why that band is typically a million to 25 million because you can really grow pretty rapidly in there if you're AB testing in each of these 3 points we talked about earlier, which is the first time visitors, getting people to buy more, and then also a repeat customer. You can start optimizing all three of those because you have enough traffic going far down the funnel where you can even run tests in the checkout, which typically is going to be one of the pages that has the least amount of visitors to it because you're only in checkout if you're actually going to buy something. That gives you a wide range. Jon: Now if you're over 25 million, what I really start to look for there on that growth curve at that point is these people have in-house teams, generally, focused on optimization. They've proven out the value in that middle tier and now they've moved up to the top tier and they can start having a whole team centered around this, and if they don't, they realize that they're missing out. They know that they're missing out but there's something else holding them back from doing that. Jon: Generally, that's when they also either start to outsource that or they're looking to augment their team and come up with some additional new, fresh ideas because at that size they start to realize that they're too close to their site and they need some outside ideas. It could be as simple as they're just looking for test ideas or it could be as simple as they want to accelerate their testing and do more of it, or they want to train up their team and refresh the skillset there. Ryan: Got it. So grunt work "CRO" what we termed an earlier episode CRI where you're just making improvements to the site that are removing some friction even if there's not tests to back it up, you're just seeing some of the friction. Really it's 40,000 visitors, million dollars plus in revenue, really want to take the next step and grow. If you don't want to grow you're probably not even listening to this podcast. Jon: Right. Ryan: So you're probably not appropriate for this anyway. But here's something I don't think I've ever asked you about this, and I don't know why. Obviously when you're doing CRO on a site it's impacting everything all the site, all visitors are going to convert better once CRO process is going. What traffic channels generally see the biggest uptick in conversion rates once you've started the process and you're really seeing some good improvements going on? Is there a certain part of the site or type of traffic that you're seeing as just takes off really, really well? Jon: Well I think that it can affect the entire lifecycle of the customer, as we talked about earlier, and thus all the different types of channels once they get to your site. Now in terms of traffic generation channels, I think that generally what we see return on ad spend does improve because you're getting more people to convert. Now at The Good, we focus exclusively on onsite test, so we don't do any testing offsite, so we're not testing ads or any of that type of stuff. Jon: That's where Logical Position in your team comes in. But what we do see here is the match between having a successful ad campaign direct that visitor to an optimized portion of the site, that is like adding fuel to a fire. At that point they both become way more effective. So there's definitely synergies there. Jon: Now in terms of overall channels, generally, we see organic go really, really high. This is because people are already looking for you. They already know you exist. At that point, they've made their mind up that they likely want to purchase, maybe they heard about you through a friend, or it's all those channels that are going to have the people who are going to clearly fit your ideal customer profile. Jon: Now you're going to see those organic numbers really start to increase and improve because you've made the site easier to use. You've reduced all of the barriers that person who already really wants to buy that they're not going to get as frustrated. They're not going to have a reason to desert like they had prior to optimization. Jon: So that's one of the benefits because at that point you can get your cheapest traffic to be optimized and convert higher, then that's where you're going to see a massive return on your investment. But that's not to discount that you would see higher conversions from people who come by clicking on an ad and I think that's really going to be valuable in terms of return on investment. So there's a couple ways to look at that. Ryan: For a business's initial foray into CRO do you recommend their focus be on increasing the number of conversions, increasing the average order value, something else, or all of the above at the same time? Is there an order that I should be looking at those as a business owner? Jon: Yeah. I think that unfortunately The Good is in an industry called conversion rate optimization, so a lot of people come in with the expectation that conversion rate's the only metric that matters. Now I totally understand that 100% matters and if you can move that lever then you're going to see a massive return on your investment in it. But there are a ton of metrics that you do want to be looking at that are I would argue as valuable, if not more valuable and more sustainable. So if I get your conversion rate to double or I get your average order value to double we're going to have this very, very similar outcome, mathematically. People spend twice as much or let's just break it down, I get 100 people to spend $2 or I get a 100 new people to spend $1, we're going to make the same amount of revenue, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: So I think you want to look at these metrics more holistically and then develop a plan to one, analyze where your weakness is. Maybe you already have a really strong steady conversion rate and it's more about getting your average order value up, or maybe you notice that your cart abandonment rate is really, really high, or maybe there's not enough people even adding something to a cart, so there's all these clues, there's all these clues around why people aren't buying. Jon: If you just focus on conversion rate you're going to be, as a consumer, an untrained eye or maybe just somebody who's in that first band of up to a million dollars. They're going to go online and read a bunch of articles about improving conversion rates, and the reality is, a lot of them are just going to start running discounts, do pop-ups. Do all these that will show you an immediate boost of numbers but it's not sustainable in any way. And you start having long-term systemic issues where you're stuck on the discount train and once that discount train leaves the station your consumers are always going to be expecting discounts at every single purchase and every single stop, and that's really hard to get off the tracks once that happens. Ryan: And that's not a fun business. Jon: Right. Nobody wants to be in the business of, how do I put this, of giving everybody free stuff. It's basically what it is if you over discount. So I think you really want to be thinking about what metrics are most important to moving the needle for your business. The only way to do that is to go back to what I said earlier, which is early on in your business you need to set up the right tracking. You need to get used to looking at the numbers and you need to start making data-backed decisions. If that guides you into understanding where your metrics could be improved then that should be where you're going to start working on your optimization moving forward. Ryan: Oh man, and I will double down on that statement. I have talked to so many businesses in the startup process or they've been in it a couple years even and they're with a platform like a Shopify or a Bitcommerce and they don't have Google Analytics. How are you looking at your business, oh I just look at the back end of Shopify or Bitcommerce. It's like wow, there is so much more available in a more robust analytics platform than just your shopping cart or the web platform that you utilize that I think both can be important for various things, matching each other up, verifying certain things are working, but for sure make sure your analytics is working and tracking reasonably close. Because even with the Shopifys and the Bitcommerces of the world that have 1000s, millions of users if you're Shopify, the implementations of analytics do not work the same on each one of those. They don't line up correctly all the time, so you got to make it at least line up as close as possible. Jon: Yeah and there's one thing that one of your team members at Logical Position, Brian Aldrich, he really hammered into my head over the years. I've seen him speak at the same events all the time, and stuff. He always says, "You need a single source of truth." Unfortunately, if you the e-commerce platform be your single source of truth you're missing out on a full picture. Jon: So just getting started early on using Google Analytics, or some analytics package, I mean I don't know why you wouldn't use Google Analytics for this, but make that your single source of truth because no two analytics packages are going to line up exactly, and I think that's the point you're making. Jon: But if you just look at one of them like Shopify's built-in analytics that's great for at a glance how did I do day over day, et cetera, but the reality is, it's not going to help you optimize your site so you really need to have that real truth, source of truth, be something that is a full picture of the consumer experience. Ryan: Funny enough, analytics is top of my mind because I had a contact from another one of our partners. He's going off to look at other businesses to get involved with and one of them was an analytics company, so he had me sit down and talk with him to see what it was about and if it had some validity. They started their pitch at me was, "Well you already know analytics is bad, right? Google Analytics?" I was like, "Well, no." Ryan: Their whole thing was like oh yeah, Google's just bad. Google Analytics is bad because it gives itself too much credit and doesn't actually let you see the full attribution of everything. I'm like, well, I mean I don't believe that. But you see it's probably more in depth analytics products across the board. Does one in particular stand out as a business owner when you're looking at things? Is Google Analytics okay but actually bad or is it Adobe is way, way better, or something most companies haven't heard of that they should be looking at in addition to analytics, or instead of? Jon: Well I think you make a good point here and that's that every analytics package is going to be a little different. The thing is it's all in how you use it and the consistency in which you use it, it doesn't matter which platform you use. Also, a startup doing less than 10 million, they have no business looking at Adobe. They can't afford it, just be upfront about that. So it's also what is your return on your investment going to be? Jon: If you are spending a ton of money to get some data but you're not utilizing that data to get a return on that spend then don't do it, what's the point? This is where Google Analytics really serves in a great need is yeah, look, you're giving data to Google, if you're not paying for it you are the product. So the reality is it's a trade off. A lot of people think there's privacy issues in giving that data to Google, and whatever. Jon: Reality is that if you're a site doing under a million dollars a year, or even way more than that probably, Google doesn't care about your data, quite honestly. They've got bigger fish they're working with. The reality here is that out of the box Google Analytics is a great tool to get started with. Then if you don't ever touch it and you don't customize it, yeah, there's going to be better tool sets out there that come customized out of the box. But what I highly recommend is that you start learning early about Google Analytics, you learn how to set up custom dashboards, you learn how to feed information into GA through events on your site. Jon: There are limits on what type of personally identifiable information you feed in, but you can still feed in stuff without tying it back to a user pretty easily. You don't have to send a user's email, or an order number, or a phone number, or any of that kind of stuff into GA to warehouse it there, but you should be able to feed in whenever someone buys a product you can event that says this product was sold and this is the dollar value. That's not tied back to anybody. Jon: So I think there's a lot you could be thinking about there that could extend the Google Analytics to do everything you need and it's going to happen pretty easy out of the box. Now if you're looking to do segmentation that's really drilled down and have a lot of other information, you're going to need tools on top of Google Analytics to do that. But quite honestly, Google Analytics is great for the vast majority of brands out there. Ryan: Good insights, I appreciate that. As we're winding up I do have one more question that maybe it's interesting for people or not, but what's been the longest CRO engagement you've been a part of? Jon: Yeah, it's a great question. If I understand why I usually get this question it's because people want to know how long can conversion optimization influence growth. Is that basically where you're going with this too? Ryan: Yeah, it's like is it 2 years, is it 10 years, is it 6 months. Jon: I have a couple of answers to this. The first is that we've been in business over 11 years and if conversion optimization was not a sustainable thing then there'd be no way we'd be in business this long. I think the longest that we've been, I would say, we had a customer for four or five years and the engagement ebbed and flowed over time, meaning that we would sometimes be launching a lot of tests and sometimes just be holding their hand as they went through changes and coming back and forth. But they were a paying customer of ours for a handful or quite a few years, however you want to look at that. Jon: Now an average, an average goes about two years. Right around that timeline is when I see an average customer that we've helped them get to that next level where we have helped proven the value of conversion and optimization to the point that senior management decides this line item, that's not going away, so we should probably hire and bring that team in-house. I applaud that. I think at that point it makes sense. Jon: If you have a brand that has grown and you've used optimization, and you know that you're going to continue doing this, and you have successfully changed how you think as a brand to where you know that you are going to use data to make decisions, that you're going to put the consumer interactions on your site first, that you're going to really, truly care about your consumer's user experience on your site and the customer experience over all, then great, we've done our job. Jon: We have fulfilled The Good's mission of removing all of the bad online experiences until only the good remain. If I can do that at a brand and help them eliminate all of that, and want to have that same mission, and carry the torch, then I applaud that. So I think after about two years is generally when I see brands start to take that in-house, but there's a lot of brands who decide not to and continue to work with us beyond that. Ryan: In the CRO process does it ever work where you can start and stop constantly like hey, I want to do a three month here, stop for six months, do another three months, six months, stop, does that ever work or is that just more butter and can't finish the process when you start and stop constantly like that? Jon: Yeah, look at it this way, if you want to run a marathon are you going to train to win a marathon by one week running and then taking a couple weeks off and then running again? No. You need to build up [crosstalk 00:27:03]. Ryan: Did you get my training schedule? Jon: Yeah. I'll leave that one. Ryan: Yeah. Jon: But I think it's interesting, a lot of brands and business owners approach it the same way, they just feel like hey, well I can go optimize my site right now and do this once, and be done with it. That's not how it works. I think anyone can go out and do this checklist but that's just step one, that's really just the beginning. So I think all in all that when I see that and I try to set that expectation upfront and when somebody says, "Yeah, I'm going to do this for three months and then reevaluate," it's like well you know what, we can always reevaluate. We can just have that conversation at any point. Jon: But if you're only truly going to do this for three months then we're not going to be a good fit. In fact, do not spend your money on optimization at all because it's not going to have a sustainable long-term impact. You're better off just taking that money that you are going to spend and just running a bunch of discounts on your site, or spending it to drive a lot more unqualified traffic, or doing a lot of other things just to get your brand out there. Jon: But if you really truly want sustainable investment and optimization it needs to be a small amount spent on your site in a regular interval over time and it needs to be a long-term line item. So spend each month and compound that growth very much like a retirement investment account. You need to put a little bit in with every paycheck and then eventually you're going to start getting a lot out of it that it's going to just grow and grow and grow over time. Ryan: That is a phenomenal analogy, I think, for what CRO and what you should be looking at it as. Thank you Jon, I appreciate all the insights today. Ryan: Is there anything I didn't ask that I should have or a point that you wanted to get across in this topic that you couldn't get in there? Jon: I think I wanted to emphasize that CRO can be done at a company of any size, it's just the methodology in which you're going to do that. So I think you have the option to look at getting some data and making data-backed decisions at any size company. How you might use that data and approach, are you going to use that data to run AB testing? No, not for every size company. Jon: But I do think that there are options for every size company. So the mistake I see small brands make is that they feel like they can't do optimization because it's just too expensive and they look at it as an expense instead of investment, and perhaps they're intimidated by the data. But I think that there's a lot of options out there. Ryan: Jon, thank you as always for enlightening me and teaching me something new. I appreciate it. Jon: All right, looking forward to the next chat Ryan.

Ryan unpacks the different social media platforms and how you can use them to sell your product. He explains where you should start and then where you can test the waters next. Jon and Ryan also provide an update about what you need to know about the recently released Facebook Shops. TRANSCRIPT: Jon: Hey everybody, just a quick note before we jump into this episode, we recorded this episode on Selling on Social before Facebook Stores was launched, but everything we discussed still applies and is relevant. But stick around until the end, we are going to record an update on selling on social media with some details on Facebook Stores. So enjoy the episode and be sure to stick around towards the end, and you'll get an update. INTRO MUSIC Jon: So Ryan, it's probably a bit maybe cliche to say that everyone is on social media these days, but as a digital marketer, it's true, right? If you're not selling on social media platforms, are you really even trying to succeed? The more I thought about this, the more I thought at The Good we don't do anything around driving traffic, which obviously would include advertising or selling on social media. So I thought, "Why not learn a thing or two from Ryan and your 6,000 clients experience at Logical Position today?" So Ryan, I'm excited to have you, to school me on selling on social. Ryan: Oh man, it's such a big topic and such a big opportunity, I think, that so few brands are capitalizing on, fascinates me. Jon: Well, this will be fun then. So Ryan, let's start with the big picture, when I say social, what channels does that really include? Ryan: I would say when most people say social or selling on social, social advertising, they're most likely referring to Facebook and Instagram, it's the big 800 pound gorilla in the industry. But there are quite a few other platforms that I would probably bucket into that social platform and the advertising and traffic driving that you can execute there. You've got one that a lot of people forget, and it's probably unfortunate there, but Twitter, you can still advertise on there should you want to. Pinterest has some advertising, Snapchat, you can advertise on. LinkedIn is a social channel that a lot of e-commerce companies forget about, there's still some value to be gleaned out of there for e-commerce, but it is pretty lead gen heavy. Jon: Yeah, I love LinkedIn. Ryan: LinkedIn is great for our prospecting and finding just people that talk about it, there's a lot there. And I think it's under utilized for a lot of companies, but it's also, I think, confusing to a degree on how you sell on a business social tool. Do you have any e-comm clients that are doing anything on LinkedIn that you know of? Jon: No, I don't, but I thought that's such a great one that you could run some highly targeted ads on, pretty easily. Ryan: Yeah, if you know who your target market is, and if it's a... Just a conversation with a guy that was selling to doctors today, and I was like, "Well, if you're selling it to doctors and you know that there is a certain role at a doctor's office that always is responsible for finding your product or deciding to buy it, you could target all of those people on LinkedIn very easily." So I think there's opportunity there, I don't think it says much about, on LinkedIn at least, getting click-buy, it's part of the process generally. But with some of the other platforms too, like TikTok, for some reason has just jumped out at me over the last, just two weeks. We've actually had a bunch of clients reach out and say, "Hey, we want to get onto TikTok and do some advertising, how can you help us?" That came out of left field for us, we're like, we know it's there, but we were so focused on Facebook and Instagram with them that we hadn't been pushing for other channels. So, that was on us to a degree, so I think there's some opportunity on TikTok. And then the other one that I think a lot of people maybe think of differently, YouTube has a very strong social component. But it's because it's run through the Google Ads platform, most people don't bucket it under social, but I think there's a component there that, to a degree, could be looked at that way. Jon: Yeah, a lot of people are sharing YouTube videos, right? And it's got a massive comment thread on videos, and they do make social sharing on there easy so that's a good one to think about. Okay, so I had never thought about LinkedIn in the way you're talking about and really hadn't thought about YouTube, so that's really interesting, that's good to hear. And TikTok, I just feel like maybe I'm too old for it, but that's a whole different situation. Ryan: You and me both, that's probably why I didn't have it top of mind. I was like, "TikTok, what are you talking about? That's just Gary Vaynerchuk trying to get people to like his social stuff. Jon: Yeah, but I mean the minute he's talking about it, it's probably the immediate time to jump into it. Okay, so when I'm thinking about selling on social, are we really talking about advertising or actually selling, right? So for instance, I've seen brands that do Instagram Ads, right? And I've seen brands that actually make their posts shoppable, and you can actually complete a transaction on Instagram now. So are we really talking here about advertising or are we talking about actually selling? Ryan: Well, I think it's both. I mean, I like the old adage, always be closing, always be selling. Like if you're an e-comm site, you need to constantly be thinking about how are people going to find me and buy my stuff. And I think if you have the ability, because not everybody can check out on Instagram, or every brand doesn't have that access, let me put it that way, not every site can just flip a switch and automatically be selling on Instagram without leaving the platform. It's still in controlled level, you have to have enough followers or you have to be invited into betas to a degree. But you want to sell as often as possible, and I think having that extra channel, if you can get that conversion on Instagram without them leaving, you do it. But all of them I think you're going to be advertising on, even if you can have the checkout on Instagram rather than your site, you're still going to be advertising to draw people to that checkout or to your page, and constantly try to find new users. And I think Facebook and Google both have a lot of creepy data, it's not a surprise to anyone, and I think Facebook even gets slightly more creepy, but it is phenomenal for marketers. We can upload a list of our clients, and then Facebook's algorithm can go find everybody on the world that looks like your current customers because they're more likely to be buying. If I buy your product and like it, you go find everybody else that has the same demographics as me, whether it's on a farm, has four kids, has too many businesses, there's maybe 10 of us out there. Jon: But all of them will buy. Ryan: But all of them will probably buy your product. So be thinking about both, I think, because of the algorithm. A lot of people forget about this, but the Googles and the Facebooks of the world, the dominant ad platforms, they've created a free platform for everybody and they make money by ads, and so they have an incentive to get people to click ads. And so on Facebook, not everybody that follows your brand, Facebook and Instagram, not everybody that follows you will see your post. And so promoting posts, getting your ads out there, you have to feed the beast, to a degree, and make sure that you're leveraging the ad platform appropriately to get the right content in front of the right people. Jon: Got it, okay. So where do you recommend brands start then? What channels and how would you best utilize those channels if you're just starting out? Ryan: Some of it depends on the size of the organization and the budget to start with. If you're already a $10 million online brand and you hadn't advertised on social, that would surprise me, but it probably exists somewhere. You could probably start a little more aggressively than somebody that hasn't hit their first $100,000 in online revenue yet, but the general rule of thumb that I have for most brands is start with remarketing on Facebook and Instagram. It's all done through the same platform on Facebook, since they own Instagram, and if you're remarketing to people that went to your site and didn't purchase, you'll get a good gauge of what kind of potential Facebook and Instagram have. So if people that went to your site didn't buy, come back and buy through remarking ads at a rate that makes sense for your company and your products, it indicates there's potential for prospecting or finding new users that haven't heard of you yet. But if people, through remarketing, are not coming to your site and buying, it would lead me to hypothesize that finding new users is not going to be the best opportunity for through that social channel, because remarketing generally always works better than prospecting as far as the return on investment. So start there, and also understand that when you move beyond just the remarketing pixel on the remarketing ads, social is not like search, it's not a demand capture. People, for the most part, are not going to a social channel to find a product to purchase, generally you're interrupting their flow of connecting with friends and family or coworkers, and convincing them to click an ad to go outside of that flow to look at a product, it's something they probably hadn't been thinking about before. Jon: Yeah, that's such a great point. You really think about, at least in my business, around conversion, right, it's all about that capture and not the creation portion. And that's a really great point that if you are able to create that demand and then make it easy to do the capture or conversion at that point, then you're really going to see some great return on that ad spend here. Ryan: Yeah, and understand too, that generally as you move up the funnel of purchase, the return on ad spend drops, but I think it becomes more important as you're driving people to your site off of a social channel, to focus on that conversion optimization. You want them to be sticky and you want them to buy then, if at all possible, remove as much friction as humanly possible on social traffic because once they leave, go back to the social platform, you're no longer top of mind, now you're going to be remarketing to bring them back in. So it probably extends the purchase life cycle, if I could say it that way, when they're coming from a social channel. Not always, depends on how impulsive the purchase is, but you just have to generally be watching data very closely on social as you're looking to get sales there. Jon: Okay, so let's say a brand has been successfully selling on social already, what's the next step you would recommend? Ryan: Probably the same as with all of your marketing, it's test, test, test again, test again, test again, and not ever be satisfied with where you're at. You'll be trying out new ad sets, maybe if you haven't done video before, you need to do video, you're going to be testing new platforms. And so this is one where it's easy to get stuck on Facebook and Instagram and assume that that's your social media marketing, that's it, you're done, you've got it covered. But if you take me for example, I don't know how many years ago, maybe... gosh, I'm getting old, but what is it 15 years ago that we started on Facebook, maybe? I don't remember when it came out, but probably a while ago, and I was on Facebook for a while, thought Instagram was really stupid, why would people just not want to read anything, they just want to look at pictures, and then realize, "Oh, Instagram is pretty cool." I no longer really go to Facebook, I am on Instagram because it's easier to scroll through the feed maybe, but I'll go in maybe once a week and check on Facebook. My mom's on Facebook now, she's not that interesting to me to follow on Facebook. She's retired, she sits at home and it's just not as interesting. And so people are going to constantly be moving from platform to platform, I think. And I think as Instagram ages, we'll probably move to something else. People have moved to Snapchat, maybe it's going to be TikTok. Jon: TikTok, there you go. Ryan: Who knows? But you want to be making sure that you're aware of the demographic shifts, maybe the baby boomers start moving on to Instagram in a heavier flow, and all the gen-xers like myself were going to fall off and go somewhere else because we don't want to be hanging out with our parents on social media. Jon: Yeah, this is what's really interesting to me about social media, it's so easy... and I think as an outsider, obviously I'm not printing campaigns, but it's so easy to target different demographics because it's pretty clear what channels they're on. If you want to advertise to the teenager, you're going to advertise on TikTok, that's just generally where they're going to be right now. They're not going to be on Facebook, we know that. But if I want to advertise to Ryan's mom, I'm going to go to Facebook, right? It's just where it is. So yeah, that's something to definitely think about, but what I'm hearing from you is the core tenants of digital marketing apply to social, right? So whether you're doing ads from Google or you're doing ads on Facebook, it's really the same core tenants, it's just a little bit different, perhaps, on the execution. Ryan: Yeah, and the important metrics are going to be a little bit different. So whereas Google's algorithm is fairly advanced, and we have a lot of really quality data around quality score, for example, we know what goes into it, we know what makes up a quality score, and how to manipulate it to get a higher one. Whereas some of that information on Facebook isn't as readily available, and there's more testing and measuring to figure out what is going to work and what's going to be a good click through rate. It may be different for different ad sets, and there's a lot more visual ad types you can create on Facebook than maybe just text ads and shopping ads on Google. Understand it's different, but it's all the same thing, we're always looking at data and deciding what to do based on what the data is telling us. And on their demographic point too, there are young people on Facebook. And so if you do want to target younger people, you just set your targeting for younger people. You may not spend as much as you could on, say, Instagram or on maybe TikTok and be going to teenagers, but there's millions and billions of people on each platform so there's a lot of eyeballs. Jon: So would you recommend then that when a brand is looking to choose a social channel to sell on, that demographics would be their first elimination point? Or I'm hearing from you that, obviously there are, yes I agree, there's younger people on Facebook as well, perhaps, but would you still recommend demographics be that first deciding point where to start at choosing a social channel to sell on? Ryan: That's probably going to vary quite a bit depending on the brand and what you're selling. I mean, almost across the board, I'd probably recommend most companies start for the first time on Facebook, Instagram. It's a mature platform, you really know what to expect out of it, people expect to see ads, click ads and go somewhere else, and get basically their flow interrupted, it's not an uncommon thing to see an ad and click. I mean, I remember one of the best ads on Instagram was somebody that showed me a paddleboard surfboard with a rocket engine on the bottom of it. And I was like, "I didn't even know I needed that until I saw that on Instagram, and now I need to spend $2,000 on that even though I don't have-" Jon: Now you can be lazy during your workout. Ryan: Exactly. So start with what's known, where there is a lot of talent to execute for you, because there's not a lot of people right now that are TikTok marketing experts on the planet. And so if you're going to go off and start on TikTok, it may be much more difficult to get the goals that you want achieved there. Start there and then branch out as you see data, so set the demographics, knowing let's say you're going to target the younger demographic, and so people that are 18 to 24. You start on Facebook, Instagram, set your target demographics there, see how many there are, see how they respond, because you have a lot of... a mature platform is just easier to work on generally, knowing that you probably want to end up on TikTok as well, Snapchat, and expand out of that once you have a baseline to say, "Okay, I know that Facebook, Instagram, I get this return on ad spend, let's see how TikTok actually works for my brand as far as a return." Jon: So, I get asked this question all the time, Ryan, what's a good conversion rate, and people don't like my answer, generally, because- Ryan: Better. Jon: Yeah, one that's improving, right? That's generally how you should be thinking about it. Is there a goal for brands when it comes to selling on social, should we be thinking about specific goals or is there a percentage of a brand's overall revenue you prefer to see coming from selling on social? What are the metrics that you think are most impactful, and are there general standards for those metrics that people should be aiming for? Ryan: Unfortunately, no, it is very similar to the CRO question that it's an improving one, and you've got to look at your brand and who's buying, why they're buying, and where are they buying. So if you sell CNC machines online, you're probably not going to get a lot of direct conversions out of social for that. But it's an awareness thing, you can do some good top of funnel work there, that maybe it's not necessarily the final attribution is coming from social, but it is on the path. And so I think it's only going to get more and more complex as we continue to get more ways to engage with people through different channels, that I would probably never be able to put an exact number on it. But one thing I do like doing, and I do this in my own brands, I keep each marketing team siloed to a degree, so the Google Ads group, the social media group, I generally, personally at least, don't want the same team doing both because I want them both competing for a share of my sales. I want them to say, "Hey, the social should be bigger." Okay, if the same person's running Google and social, they may not care which one's bigger, they just want to push where it's maybe easier. And I think there's always a chance to win on social or win on Google, but I want hungry teams that are going to make that channel work no matter what. And so I would say, I always want it to be more but I also don't want to lose money. Anybody can sell a million dollars through Facebook, but some companies, it might cost you 20 million to sell that one million and so it's not worth it. So you just have to be aware and monitor what's happening and where that social channel fits for your brand. One of my brands, I haven't even gotten it on social advertising yet, I'm still Matt trying to max out Amazon and then I'm going to try to max out Google, and then I'm going to try to push on social. So there's so much you can do that it becomes mind boggling at some point to where you can be pushing a brand. Jon: Awesome. Well, I think we've sufficiently tackled this topic. Do you feel the same? Ryan: I mean, it depends on who's probably asking that question, but I feel like at least we've covered a topic and we've gotten some good insights. Jon: So Ryan, we promised at the start of this episode that we'd provide an update on the just released Facebook Stores, and I'm counting on you to educate me because quite honestly I heard about it, but I did not read anything about it. So can you give us a quick overview of what Facebook Stores is? Ryan: Yeah, so welcome to the world of e-comm, where things change more rapidly than we can produce podcasts, but it means it's fun and things are constantly changing. So Facebook Stores is basically what it sounds like, it is a store for your business on Facebook properties, mainly Facebook and Instagram. Allows people to checkout on the platform, many companies were, at least, aware of the checkout on Instagram feature that was in closed beta for a while, so it's basically all of that rolled into one. Facebook has an entity they're trying to release quickly to help local [inaudible 00:21:06] that maybe never had a website, offer the ability to transact online, at the boiled down version of it. Jon: Okay, and do you think this was in reaction or response to COVID and a lot of retail not being open? Ryan: I think that was the initial thought, but I think it was also quite an opportunity for the Facebook engine to push into e-comm with a lot of people paying attention, and that's a very easy release at that point. Jon: Great, and so it's separate, because I know Instagram is owned by Facebook, but it's separate from, or is it somehow linked to Instagram? I know you could sell on Instagram for some time now, not necessarily in a store, but you can do shoppable posts. Ryan: You can do shoppable posts, but those still take you to your website for transaction. There was that swipe up feature that was very popular, if you get over 10,000 followers, you get automatically put into it if you're a verified Instagrammer. A lot of value to those, we've seen some great data, but this is the next iteration of that, which is you don't have to leave the Instagram platform to transact. Once you've transacted on Facebook or Instagram, they store your data if you want them to so you can easily transact without having to put any data in. So just kind of try to make it as seamless as possible. So a great [inaudible 00:22:26] I believe, but one of the things people are going to realize as they start doing their research is when you have such massive organizations that try to move nimbly and quickly, there's some struggle. So by no means is Facebook Stores just [inaudible 00:22:41] working for everybody as they think it would at this exact moment. In fact, even me personally, my wife and I are trying to get our businesses up on Facebook Stores, like with Shopify a couple days after it came out, did not work. It was not just a click a button, you are going. You've got to have some things in place that will allow your business to work, and so obviously you've got to a Facebook page, so if you don't have [inaudible 00:23:08] out there. If you're going after people that are in the younger [inaudible 00:00:23:14], younger than baby boomers, you should probably have an Instagram profile. You need to have a platform that can easily get products into Shopify, and so this where Facebook and their post called out a few partners in the intro that came out right after Zuckerberg's live thing, where they say, "Hey Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CedCommerce, Cafe24, [inaudible 00:23:44], and Feedonomics can all [inaudible 00:23:46]. I don't think all those integrations are perfect yet, and I've tested on some Shopify sites where you can add the Facebook Commerce Manager, get the Facebook shopping plugin, the Instagram shopping plugin and it's be live [inaudible 00:23:59] not perfect. So I think that most businesses have to realize going into this is, if you've never been online before [inaudible 00:24:08] to accomplish that you've ever done. If I'm seeing articles and blogs from people, the e-comm experts not being able to do this, the switch, just with their knowledge, then I would say at least test measures and things, test [inaudible 00:24:22] things. If you get stuck, there are going to be a lot of blog articles, there are going to be a lot of help things within Facebook trying to solve these problems, but you're going to need some patience for sure. Jon: So Ryan, knowing all of that, how does one get access to Facebook Stores? Ryan: You need to go in and set up Commerce Manager, and so that's step one, like a great digital marketer that I am, I just go Google, Facebook Commerce Manager and find it. It wasn't as simple for me to find inside the Facebook platform, you also want to have a site like a Shopify, BigCommerce that already has a plugin for it, so you may need a plugin on that. Our Shopify site, we had to put a plugin on the site to get to send inventory over to Facebook, you've got to have something sending those product details over, along with inventory, what's available. Every business that has a Facebook page should be able to do Facebook Stores, but that doesn't automatically open up Instagram Stores, or so we're finding. There's a lot of misinformation out there, so you need to do some research on your own and see your business is able to do certain things. There were some articles that my wife came across that said, "Okay, if you try to do an Instagram Store, you can't do a Facebook Store and vice versa." I don't think that article is necessarily true, but the Instagram Stores or the Instagram checkout is still closed beta if you go to that page on Instagram. Jon: Okay. So, we should state that there's a lot in flux here, right? And we're doing our best to get this information out quickly, but things are changing rapidly is what I'm hearing from you as well. Ryan: For sure. So we're recording this today, and people are going to get access to it probably in a week and there's going to be constant change until we get to a homeostasis in the Facebook Stores environment, and so we'll probably have to do an update a little bit later. But as of now, just know that there's a lot of moving pieces at this point, and if you're on a platform that doesn't have an integration already built into Facebook, it's going to be much more difficult for you to get that thing set up. Jon: Okay, so what does Facebook cost? I assume they're not doing this for free. Ryan: It'd be nice if everything was free, but unfortunately Facebook is a business, and they have an obligation to shareholders to make money, nothing wrong with that, they do provide a service for free for people getting their own profiles. But as of now, they are charging 5% per transaction, now that is great in some areas, it does say that includes taxes and processing fees. And so that could be good, but I do have some struggle with that because if your business already has nexus in Washington, for example, you need to be collecting all of the sales taxes in Washington, which add up quickly. If you sell in Seattle, you're getting charged almost 10% sales tax up there, that that 5% just can't cover taxes. So that's how I know a lot of this is going to be changing and updating, because I'm not sure that it built out everything for tax collection perfectly. Because when you jump into e-comm and you have stores like mine and they sell on Amazon, their website, retail storefronts, I mean there is so many potentials for tax nexus they had to be collecting that Facebook sells a unit there, I'm on the hook actually as a merchant for that. And so that's where stores need to be aware that that's there. If Facebook doesn't collect the tax, nothing on them, I mean, they're not coming to Facebook for that, they're coming to the person that actually sold that product on Facebook for the tax. Jon: Right. So definitely something to keep track of, and I think we both know in e-comm, and there's whole companies dedicated to just helping you figure out your commerce tax situation. And it's down to the street level at times, local taxes and sometimes stuff like that. Ryan: Yeah, good luck in California, it's just not going to happen. Jon: So since this was released, and it is in beta as we were kind of talking about, what do you think is still being worked out with Facebook and their Stores platform? Ryan: Some of it, I think, is going to be that cost, like they want to have something that works and keeps it simple. But as of yet, I haven't seen how you can simplify commerce to a flat rate for everybody in every possible scenario. So I do think that's going to adjust somehow, and Facebook is potentially opening up for a local store that's never had a website, to sell across Facebook, which is a massive opportunity, but also adds in massive complexities to a small local business that [inaudible 00:29:10] had to consider before. Especially if you're in Oregon, where we don't have sales tax, that's just kind of a foreign thought to us that, "Hey, I can go anywhere I want, I buy something and whatever it says on the tag, I actually pay versus not having to worry about tax." Whereas I go to Washington, there's all kinds of taxes added on that as an Oregonian I'm just not thinking through. So an Oregon business, you have to be aware that most of the country charges sales tax, and if that collection's not there, how do you do it? And maybe Facebook has taken some liability in some of their fine print saying, "Hey, we're going to charge 5%, and we'll make it right, some how, some way." I don't necessarily think that Facebook shareholders [inaudible 00:29:50] too keen on that. Jon: Yeah, not for permanent, right? But I could see them doing that upfront to get users and to kind of buy their way in. Ryan: Yeah because it would be great if you could simplify processing and taxes into just one number to [inaudible 00:30:05]. You're just taking 5% and I'm done, that would be huge, and I think a great opportunity. Jon: I have to think, yes, we're in Oregon, so not really up on every other State sales tax, but I have to think that there's some States that have more than a 5% sales tax, right? So even just then, they would be losing on processing or any of the over right away. Ryan: Yeah, and it could be maybe they're pulling that from their small business fund that they talked about, where they say, "Hey, we're going to release a 100 million to small businesses." And so instead of giving them ad credits, they're just going to use some of that to collect the data. Because I think some of it Facebook needs is that data, because they've not done enough online commerce to actually have the data to know this is what it is and here's where things can go bad. Unless they hired some high up people at Amazon that have all this data that they could pull with them, I doubt it. Jon: Yeah. Well we all know that, and this perhaps is for a whole nother podcast, but we all know Facebook loves their data, so they'll get it one way or another. So is there anything we didn't talk about, you thought I should have asked you about Facebook Stores today? Ryan: I don't think so, I think as a business there's very little reason not to get into this channel and test it. Every business is going to have a different level of success with it, but if you're going to open up a massive channel, I think there's more risk to not exploring it than there is to explore it and put some of you inventory there and see what happens. I mean, I'm going to get all of my businesses on there that I can to say, "Hey, I want to be available where people are trying to transact." And if Facebook is successful at creating an e-commerce platform to rival the Amazon's or Google Shopping's, then I for sure want to be an early adopter into that system so I can get as much data as I can get to make smart decisions for myself and any of our clients. So I would say, get in, take some risk, take the time to study it, and just see how you can make it work for your business and your specific situation. Jon: Yeah, that's great advice. I mean, there's still millions and millions of people on Facebook, so it's a massive audience, right, and you might as well try to throw your store up there and see what happens. So, okay, great. Well, this is really helpful and I think it's a great add on, as we said, things are going to change rapidly with this, but hopefully this gets people started. They know where to look now, they have some understanding of what it's going to cost them, and why they should do it, and I think that's a great add onto this episode. So thank you, Ryan, again. And I look forward to doing an updated show in the future as things settle down with Stores. Ryan: Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks, Jon.

Jon explores the nuances of CRO and explains why it can be so difficult to take a DIY approach with it. He also offers a few tips for those just starting out to improve your CRO without spending a whole lot. [The Mom Test book]: (https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742/ref=sr11) For more CRO help visit The Good: https://thegood.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Ryan: Hello, Jon. Jon: Hey, Ryan. How are you today? Ryan: I am doing well. Excited to get educated today by you, on some areas that I have very little knowledge. It's exciting, the world of CRO. When you see the results on my side... I get to see the results of what you do, but I don't conceptually understand it well. So today, I really wanted to dive into the weeds with you about conversion rate optimization, and help our listeners get a better understanding of just what you're going to need to do to help execute some CRO. And then, as we live in this DIY world... I can't tell you how many Pinterest things I see, or YouTube things I see, that I try to execute, and it just, God, doesn't quite turn out the way I want to. Especially when I'm cooking, all the recipes I find on Pinterest, just man, the pictures look so great and then my finished product is not great. Ryan: I own a few businesses. Logical Position does a lot of advising on best practices in improving conversion rates, but I wouldn't call what I do on my own sites or what we do at LP to kind of advise clients as conversion rate optimization. So from your perspective, as an expert in CRO, isn't it easy to just watch a YouTube video or find a Pinterest article on CRO and just do something and watch the conversion rate on your site increase? Jon: Well, I think that, just like anything else, right... Like you mentioned Pinterest or YouTube videos, how many times did you watch these videos and it had not turn out like you had wanted, right? Ryan: Yeah, most of the time. Jon: Yeah. I think, it's probably not too dissimilar. Now, look, there's a lot that somebody can do on their own to help improve their conversion rates. Is that technically and truly full conversion rate optimization? No, of course not. But there's a lot that people can do out there, and should be doing, and should be thinking about. I think that... Look, is it easy to do everything yourself? No. Could you focus on one or two areas and do very well? Yeah, maybe. Jon: But I think the biggest challenge I have, is we see this all the time at The Good. People come to us and they say, "Hey, I have one staff member I hired who's a conversion optimization specialist, but it's just not moving the needle in the way that I would like. We're not seeing the return on that salary spend or that contractor spend." The problem is that, and we've proven this out over 11 years now, you really need to have a team with a whole bunch of specialists, and it's impossible for one person to be expert in all of the areas that you need for conversion optimization. Ryan: What I'm kind of understanding is there is a conceptual difference between CRO, or conversion rate optimization, and, maybe what I would call CRI, conversion rate improvement. They're not necessarily the same thing. I can [inaudible 00:03:21] can change a button and improve our conversion rate, but that's not actually conversion rate optimization. Jon: I think we just came up with a new term and I love it, CRI versus CRO. That's awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Okay. Yes. Now, here's how you can do improvements, go out and get these tool sets that all talk about doing an optimization or improving your conversion rate. There's tools out there that can help improve your conversion rate, but they're not going to get to the level that a customized program with a team of experts can do for you. So you think about all those tools like Privy, or there's Hotjar, or Crazy Egg, or... I could go on and on, right? There's tons of these tools out there that each provide a little nugget of conversion rate improvement, but they're not truly doing full optimization, right? Jon: If you're really going to optimize anything, it needs to be a scientific process of optimization. It's not just a make these changes and you're done. It needs to be the ongoing iterative improvements where you're making incremental gains, month over month, that compound and grow. That's where the big numbers are going to happen and the massive results are. I mean, you look at this and maybe this might feel daunting to the entrepreneur who's doing a $100,000 on their site right now. But Amazon has a team, a massive team. Last I heard, it was well over a hundred, doing nothing but optimizing the Amazon experience. Ryan: Holy smokes. Jon: So you think about that, and you're like, "Man, I'm at a huge disadvantage here." But the reality is, they're looking at every little data point. That team has a wide range of people doing different items, you have data scientists to analyze all the data coming back. You have test developers to build out all the tests. You have conversion strategists who can help you to better understand what should be tested. You have experts in user testing, those people who speak to your consumers and understand how to get information out of their heads about what they're thinking. Jon: So you have all of these other types of roles that exist that can combine, be like the Avengers, right? But individually, if you just have the Hulk out there or... I'm not a huge comic book guy. Maybe I'm mixing up my worlds here. But, I would say individually, they're not going to be as great as they would be all together. Ryan: Interesting. So almost in putting it in terms I can quickly relate to would be PPC optimization. You can know conceptually that I really do need to be putting negative keywords into my account to eliminate some waste, but there's a lot more to that, and there's a lot more specialist in the die that I operate in so often. But also, as I'm looking at all the accounts we work in, the way we operate is very different on somebody that sells $50,000 CNC machines versus a five-dollar mug on their website. Jon: Exactly. We talked about this a little bit at one of our recent episodes, where I was interviewing you and I admitted to how I had a button checked in our ads account and it cost me $2,000 that I didn't need to spend. Ryan: That was a fun one. Jon: Right. But here's the thing, I thought I was doing the right thing by letting Google manage that. And it just kept bidding me up, bidding me up, bidding me up until I spent all this money. Where an expert who's in it every day would know, "Hey, on the surface level, I get why you would want Google to own that and optimize that for you. But the reality here, is there's a much better path ahead if you have experience here." I think that's where it really comes in, is having that experience and it means that you can rely on the tool, right, and you could just have a whole bunch of tools. The challenge is going to be, that you're not going to see the gains that you would if you work with somebody who does nothing but optimization and has a team centered around that. Jon: Think of it this way. I spent 2,000 extra dollars I didn't need to spend because I misused the tool, right? I could have spent that $2,000 with an expert who maybe could have generated me an extra $5,000. That would have been a massive return on my investment, by making the investment there, as opposed to clicking a button that I was trying to take the cheap way out, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I guess, in the e-commerce space, we have some very major players like Amazon, a hundred people or more on their conversion rate optimization team. Shopify has a million businesses utilizing their platform. And I assume, again that's an assumption so nobody quote me, but I assume they have an internal CRO team to a degree, because the more conversions they get, the more people use Shopify and the more money they make on the payment processing. Ryan: So with all of these major platforms having so much influence, do you ever think it's possible that we fast forward five years and all of us just are so trained in Amazon and clicking this to get this, or Shopify clicking this to get this, that it's almost standard like across e-com. Like checkout, I expect this, I do this, and there's very little optimization beyond that. Jon: I hope that we get to that point, I don't think we will. Now, here's why I hope, because... I've mentioned this book a hundred times, that's called Don't Make Me Think, right? The whole premise is that we have conventions as internet users that we've become akin to that we know and we like, and it makes the internet easier to use if everybody follows those conventions, so I don't have to think about it, right? Anytime you change that convention, you're making the user of your site think. And that delays them converting. It makes them frustrated. They bounce. They leave. They desert, whatever you want to call it. Jon: I hope we get to the point where there's a standard here, but I can promise you we never will. Now, here's why, they can standardize things like checkout, right? Shopify has done a wonderful job with this and this is where their optimization team internally would come in, where they are optimizing the checkout experience. However, if you go to a Shopify site and they have a custom theme and it's branded, you wouldn't even know it's on Shopify until you got to that checkout and then you know it's a Shopify checkout, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: And here's the thing... So there is so much to optimize beyond that. We're never in on the internet. And I hope we get to the point where things are standardized, but I never hope we get to the point where the internet just becomes this big gray area of everything being the same. Ryan: Yeah. Jon: Then it's not going to be cool. We're taking the branding out of the internet, which is part of what makes it really fun, is to go to a brand's website and get a feel for that brand, have an understanding of what their value proposition is. I hope we don't get to something where every website is just black text on white screen, with blue links, and the navs all look exactly the same, et cetera. I do think it's important that some things are standardized and some usability aspects of websites are standardized. I think that's important and we're making strides to that, but there's always going to be that brand pool. And it's going to be a push against that standard experience that makes people think a little bit. Jon: I really don't know how the experience, if you will, is going to be that much better over time. But I do think, if you're a small shop and you're using a BigCommerce or a Shopify, yes, use their default checkouts because they're pretty good. But you're going to get to a point where you're noticing some checkout cart abandonment, and you want to improve those metrics. And at that point, you're going to want to start to optimize those a little bit. That's when you move up to something like Shopify Plus, where you're paying a little more every month, but you get the ability to customize your checkout. And then you can start adding in some additional tools, you can start looking at moving some fields around, asking for less information if you're not using it or don't need it. Jon: And then on BigCommerce, one of the big things about BigCommerce is the customization that you can do with the platform. So their checkout, out of the box, if you're a BigCommerce subscriber, you can alter that, which is great. It gives you a rope to kind of hurt yourself with a little bit there. But in time, it can... If you're a smaller brand, you want to start using some of these tools, you have that capability. Ryan: For some of those bigger companies on BigCommerce, you can use something like a Bolt that is really focused on one thing only, and that's streamlining that process. Jon: I'm glad you brought up Bolt, because that's a great example of how they can take something that we just spent five minutes discussing as a standardized experience, and they've made it better. That's a great example, where there's always going to be room for improvement. How bolt has even done that, is they focused on reducing risk, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: So you're able to ask less information of the consumer, than you would on the standard Shopify checkout. That means you're going to convert higher, but you don't have to eat the risk of the fraudulent transactions as part of that, right? So you have options. And I think that there's always going to be room for improvement, I really do. Ryan: Well, I think it's also at this exact juncture to remind people, as I constantly had to be reminded, that conversion rate optimization is not checkout optimization. There is every step before, and I think this was a couple episodes ago, and a couple of steps after the fact of checkout, that conversion rate optimization plays. Jon: Yeah. [Crosstalk 00:13:39]... Ryan: So, often we as e-com companies and business owners focus, "Oh, I got to get people to check out, and then it's done." [inaudible 00:13:45] is over. But there's that huge process. Jon: Right. Yeah. We've talked about this a few times where... What happens when somebody gets to your site? What's their intention when they're there? All the way through what happens after they check out, how do you optimize post purchase checkout? And I think there's so much that can be done there. Again, very likely that it will never end in opportunities for optimization here. Ryan: Not every company is in a position to be able to start the full CRO agency or hire enough people to fully optimize their entire funnel of conversion, before and after giving the business money. Are there certain areas of CRO, outside of maybe just getting a Privy or a Hotjar or any of those other tools, that they can be doing something that would get them going towards official CRO? Like you've got to be able to grow the brand into a size to be able to afford a CRO agency or employees. So outside of just the tools, what... Is there AB test they can be doing? I mean, what does that look like for the e-commerce business owner doing a hundred thousand a year? Jon: Well, I think that most likely, you're not going to want to even dive as deep as doing something like AB testing, because you don't have enough traffic to prove those out, it's not going to be a good return on your time or funds investment. Jon: Now, what I would recommend here is two-fold. One, start tracking some data. This is not complicated, but it will help you later just to have more timeline of data. Go into Google Analytics, turn on things like enhanced e-commerce, set up some additional dashboards. Just Google e-commerce analytics dashboards, you'll find a bunch of great ways to set that up so you start tracking some good data, okay? There's a easy checklist to follow there. Jon: Now, other thing is start tracking user engagement. How do I mean that? Well, go sign up for Hotjar, it's $9, right, per month. Just sign up, go, and what you can do is you can start understanding how people are engaging with the content of your site. And I promise you, if you just spend one hour a week reviewing that data, you will learn where challenges are on your site, with things that you think you can do yourself that will improve conversion rates. Jon: Are you going to see massive gains? No, but I think if you're in the situation where you have more time than you have money, as you're growing your business and you're starting out, spending that hour to better understand your consumers yourself will help you find a better product-market fit, it will help you to improve your website overall. And as you continue to grow, you're already building that culture within yourself and your company with your team, as it grows, of understanding how consumers use your website and what data you should be looking at. Jon: If you just go out and you start talking to consumers, take a laptop, go to your local mall, or, I don't care, bar, doesn't really matter. Wherever your consumers hang out, right? Go to the coffee shop. Sit at the Starbucks and just say, "Hey, can I buy you a coffee, if you give me five minutes of your time, while they make your coffee. You're just going to be standing there anyways. I'll buy you a coffee. While they make it, I want you to use my website. I'm going to ask you to complete a task, and I'm just going to watch you do that. I just want you to tell me what you're thinking as you go through those steps." You will be amazed at what you learn. And all it takes is five, 10 minutes of someone's time and the cost of a coffee. So anybody of any size can do this. Jon: Now, you don't have to just be there all day, either. Do this for a couple hours. Get under 10 participants, and I promise you, you will walk away with a laundry list of improvements that you can make to your website. So if you don't- Ryan: It's almost like gorilla marketing in its purest form. Like, "You've never heard of my business before, I'm going to buy you a coffee and you're going to see it." Jon: Yeah. You're not trying to sell them anything, right? You're just trying to understand how they're using your website so that you can take that data and improve. The idea here is that you're getting an understanding of somebody who is a new to file customer, somebody who's never been to your website before. You're walking away with an understanding of what their first impressions of your site and the experience on your site. So the navigation, the funnel, how they find the right products, what they think of the content, right? All of those things are what you're looking for. You're not necessarily saying, "Hey, I want to introduce you to my business, so you buy something," because then they're not going to really have a great understanding. Jon: Now, there's an amazing book out there. It's called The Mom Test. You can get it on Amazon. It's 20 bucks or something. It's amazing. The Mom Test, we'll have our producer put it in the show notes. The Mom Test, it's got a pink cover, it looks like it's a not really helpful book, but I will promise you that it is amazing. The whole thing about this book, is that it gives you an outline of how to ask the right questions about your product and your website to get customer feedback, so that you're not asking them leading questions, that they're only going to give you positive feedback. Jon: So why is it called The Mom Test? Because this should be questions that you can ask your mom where you're going to get good feedback, not where you're going to get the mom feedback of, "Oh, honey, that website is awesome. Yeah, of course it's beautiful, you built it. This is the most usable website I've ever had." No. You want somebody, even your mom, to give you the best feedback about how to improve your product and what they actually think. That's where it gets important. So asking the right question is really the key here, but that's something that 150 page book can teach you, and you're not going to be expert right away. But again, going back to where we started this conversation, that is just one small item that you need to learn and master out of the whole range of conversion optimization. That's why it gets really hard to do CRO versus CRI. Ryan: We have to trademark that. Nobody think. I want to go back, really quick though, to a point you made about traffic being too low for CRO, because I know you have this conversation constantly. And then I get to talk to some of these people because their traffic's too low for CRO. But it crosses the minds of most business owners, as they're starting up, "Hey, I'm getting traffic to my site. And it's converting at," I'm going to make it up "1%. If I just made that go from 1% to 2%, I would double my revenue and I didn't even have to work on increasing traffic, which may be is a struggle for me or I've got really big competitors." Ryan: All that is true, but sometimes that time and energy should probably be spent more on getting, maybe, more appropriate traffic or figuring out what traffic is coming and is not converting. But how do you have that conversation on the front end? Because I usually get it from you, at least, after you've already had some kind of conversation around, you just need more traffic. What insights would you give to people in that scenario? Jon: Well, I think, there's a couple of things you have to really consider before you're going to deep dive into optimization. The first is, have you found product-market fit, right? So is anybody, A, interested in your product and, B, are they going to buy it because it's solving a pain they actually have? It's one thing to get people to your site, but if the product isn't really hitting with the market, then you are going to waste your money. You can optimize and have the best funnel and the best site ever, but if it's really just not something people want or need, then you've wasted your money, right? So that's the first thing. Jon: Now, a great way to determine that and the way that I usually determine it, because it's really quick and it's something most people know if they're running or managing an e-com site, is number of unique monthly users to your site. Because here's the thing, if you've generated enough traffic, that means people are interested. And if you're able to drive traffic with ads, where you're spending at a sustainable level, that means people have a pain point and they're actually willing to click on an ad to solve that pain. That kind of proves it out, right? Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jon: Now, what's that level? I generally want to see about 50,000 unique users per month before you're going to start doing true optimization. That's actually a pretty low number. It might feel like a mountain for some people, but if you've gotten to 50,000 per month... I mean, think about that, that's 12,500 per week, it's really not that many, right? Jon: The idea here is that you are able to drive enough people to your site, that you can start making scientifically-backed decisions. That's really where you're going to find those gains because you're no longer relying on what you think is best, or those 10 people you interviewed at Starbucks. Now, you're starting to get in mass enough data that you can prove stuff out to where it's statistically relevant. Ryan: That's a great insight, I think, on just a number, but also, I think, on market fit. I talked to so many startup businesses throughout the course of my day, weeks, months, but so many entrepreneurs come up with a really cool product that they just love, but unfortunately they have no idea who their market is or who they really think is going to buy. They have an idea like, "Oh, I really thought this company was going to buy it." But if you've created a product that hasn't existed before, nobody's searching for it. Or they're maybe searching for a problem, but getting a shopping ad to show appropriately, that image may not solve or cause them to take that click. So it becomes a much deeper conversation of, what are you going to do to get this into market? Not necessarily start by optimizing your site. It's, you've got to really find that fit, whether you go to social, whether you go to Google for that, whether you go to retail for that. Jon: Yep. That's exactly it. Conversion optimization is usually step two, right? So first step is... I would say step zero, is find product-market fit, right? Then step one is drive traffic. Then step two is, once you've proven those out, you want to start getting a higher ROAS or return on ad spend. At that point, that's when conversion optimization can help get you to that next level. And I say this all the time, Ryan, when... Jon: We have dozens of clients that share both Logical Position and The Good as partners and vendors. What we find, and I say this all the time, is when you have a company like LP that can really drive qualified traffic and you have a company like The Good that can help you convert that traffic at a high level, it is like adding fuel to a fire because it just accelerates things. And it really starts to show that you can start making a living off of your website, or take it to that next level that you never thought was possible. Jon: That's really where the gains can come in is, at that level, after you found product-market fit, you're driving some traffic, now you really want to take it to the next level. And then it becomes this great circle of, "Hey, you got your conversion rate up. Now, you have more money to spend on driving more traffic. And then you take that funds from the sales you're getting there, you reinvest it in additional optimization." You just keep going in that circle and it continues to compound that growth over time. Ryan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It makes entrepreneurs, startups, even existing business owners nervous when you start talking about paying for traffic, but the value there, even if you're doing that to get to the point where you can use CRO, is you get the insight into the intent of that visitor. If you're just focusing on organic traffic, that's great by the way. We've already mentioned in this podcast before, there is no such thing as free traffic. You're going to pay for all of it in time, money, energy. But when you're using Google Analytics, you don't get the insight of what did they actually search when they came to my site, when they came through an organic link, or they came direct to my site. I don't know how they got... I don't know why they got my link, or they knew my website. Ryan: But if they're using paid search, you get all this really cool data of saying, "Hey, they searched specifically for this, clicked on my ad, went exactly to this page where I sent them, and they either took the action I wanted or didn't." So I can get a lot more of those insights. And you can even get... If you are paying for it, because obviously Google is a for-profit organization, if you do pay for clicks on Google Ads, you can use Google search console to connect Google Analytics and Google Ads, and you will actually get the search queries on your organic traffic, and see how that is operating and what that search intent is, and where you're ranking. That'll actually give you real average ranking for an organic query. Phenomenal data. But again, you have to pay for it by utilizing the Google Ads platform. Ryan: So some business owners out there that are listening, you do have to take the leap and actually pay for some traffic to get some of these insights that let you figure out where your market fit may be or may not be. And it becomes exciting, but also challenging. And so I will put an asterisk by that, that Google does have a great product for starting up and getting your business going. A lot of their smart campaigns, smart shopping can be very powerful to get a business up and running on Google shopping, unfortunately, you don't get that search query data. That becomes problematic when you're really trying to figure out your intent or what you're actually showing for on Google that is becoming so valuable and why your business is growing. So just be aware of that, that you may actually have to do some more manual work in there, but, man, there's a lot of opportunity. Jon: I didn't even know about that one. So now, I don't have to get the... What is that message that shows up in Google Analytics now? It always says something about like not found or... Ryan: Not provided. Jon: Thank you. Yeah. Ryan: That came about 10 years ago. It was great for Google because you're forcing people to pay for it, I get it. That data does exist though, you just have to pay. Jon: Yep. Well, that's good to know. Ryan, this has been a great conversation. Are there any other questions that I can answer for you on how to do CRO DIY? Ryan: No, I've just got to go get some things on my website so I can get to the level that I can pay you to take my CRO to the next level. Jon: Well, I know you and I know you've already found product-market fit on all of these, so drive that traffic, which you're expert at, and then I can come back and help you convert, and we can go from there. Ryan: Yeah. Thanks for enlightening me and helping me figure out some of these details of CRO that I didn't know, so that I'm not just doing CRI all the time. Jon: Go trademark that right away. Ryan: Thanks, Jon. Jon: Thanks, Ryan.

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.

As the coronavirus pandemic is changing the game for businesses around the world, Jon and Ryan offer some timely advice on what you can do to propel your ecommerce business forward instead of just sitting on the sidelines. TRANSCRIPT RYAN GARROW: Jon, we are all working from home, because there's a virus running around the country, scaring us but also driving us to be safe and do different things. I'm not at all making light of that, but it is changing the game for every business. If you're a business that hasn't been impacted by this in a positive or negative way, you might be on vacation somewhere not knowing what's going on. As you're talking to companies over the last week or two, what are you hearing? Have you seen anything work, anything that's been terrible? What's the general gauge of customers that you've been speaking to or prospects you've been speaking to when it comes to business right now? JON MACDONALD: Good question. I'm hearing two camps, pretty exclusively, and it seems to be clear cut one or the other for e-commerce. The one camp is, "My sales are going better than ever. People are home, they're not shopping on retail at all and we're picking up the slack." A lot of brands that also sell through retail are seeing this because they still have a demand for their goods and they're still shipping. A lot of them are even offering special deals right now to get people to purchase even more. I see a lot of e-commerce brands I'm talking with that fall into the camp of, "Things are better than ever," and that's great. I'm so glad to hear that. Then there's the other camp that are saying, either, "I'm already out of stock of items, and I don't know when I'm going to get more," because they're having challenges-- In the United States, we're probably, what? Eight weeks behind where China was with this health epidemic. You look at that and you say, "Okay, eight weeks before the factories got going again." If they're full scale in eight weeks, we don't really know and then, the ports are really backed up and people aren't able to get the goods, even into the country. If they are, they'll be in China right now. We have a lot of issues with supply chain and I'm hearing a handful of folks that are saying, "This is a problem, I need to stop all spending. I'm not going to drive traffic anymore, because, why would I drive traffic? Why would I spend to convert my site if I can't get any product in the hands anyways?" I'm not suggesting that's right or wrong. I would love to hear your opinion on that aspect, but that's what I'm hearing. It's one of those two camps. What about your side? What are you hearing on these daily conversations? RYAN: Because we touch companies that are all e-commerce as well, we've got probably the full gamut of it. We have some small local businesses that only have storefronts and they've-- Obviously, nothing is happening. I can think of escape rooms like for entertainment, those companies stay with small little companies, didn't spend a lot but we helped them do well but nobody's going to go to an escape room for the near future. They have just nothing, no chance to market. They've got to do some interesting things. We're advising them in different ways. E-commerce, there's a lot of gut reaction we hear, mainly from smaller clients that it's like, "Pull everything back in, don't do anything. We just got to ride this out and huddle and protect what we do have." Then we have other companies of all sizes, saying, "Hey, this is great. Let's step on the gas. Let's go." Again, there's supply chain issues all over the place. Some of them are pivoting, some of them had backstop because of the previous issues with China production last year with tariffs, so that has some of our clients. They have a bunch of back stock from that even because they were worried about 25% tariff, so they had loaded up before that. We have, like you said, the full gamut. I don't think we go back to where we were three weeks ago. We're going to have a new normal for almost every business in the United States, no matter what your business is. Just lots of change. JON: Yes. Talk about that new normal a little bit, then, I'm interested. What do you think won't change? What do you think will stay the same, and what do you think will change? RYAN: What's not going to change is people are going to buy stuff online. People have already been buying online, they're going to continue buying online and so that doesn't necessarily change. What you're buying right now, I mean, if somebody had an online toilet paper retailer, they are probably in great shape right now. That's probably the ones that are like, "This is great, this is the best thing that's ever happened." I think we're going to have a reaction to that and people that sell petits are probably going to be doing wonderfully well because people are going to be sick of buying toilet paper. I think there's going to be a shift in retail, obviously. I don't know if-- I knew retail was going down and you've probably known this as well, like, it's not been a secret. Somebody told me today, I haven't actually found the article, but JCPenney may have like Forever closed all stores and gone online totally. Probably it was a good decision anyway. JON: They were headed that direction before, right? RYAN: Yes, so it accelerated that. What I see with a lot of these things that happen-- I mean, this is a very rare occurrence. I did a lot of research and I was preparing for talks around what do you do in a down economy, and you look back at the depression, and you can see how you can spend through that and you can do depressions-- Companies that advertise through recessions, depressions do better. There's a bunch of studies around that, it's no secret but when you have a cliff that we fall off of, it's not necessarily economic related. You do have to look at it from different lens and the easiest, closest thing I saw was 1918, when it was the Spanish flu, the first H1N1 and it was after World War 1 and the US was already in a recession to a degree and so this exacerbated it, but it was also, we had people that couldn't find work already and then people couldn't move. It was a very similar scenario, kind of a lockdown. They also didn't have e-commerce, they had local stores. That was basically all you could do. Retail obviously came back from there, but very unique times, but I think what it does is that when things like this happen, it shines a magnifying glass on things that were going really well and things that were going really bad. If you had a store that was already not doing well, it's really not doing well now, unless you randomly got some of the products that people need right now. JON: Right. I'm hearing that same thing that the best way to think about this is that your company needs to be able to survive this initial shock. I keep hearing the biggest similarities economically are 9/11. You get through that initial big shock and then we'll get into the recession, and then we can deal with the financial impacts. If you had a business that was having challenges already, you're not going to survive that shock because all it takes is one shock to a weakened system if you will, and your business is going to suffer the ultimate consequence because of that. If you were able to get through that shock, then you can probably pick up the pieces and we should see-- I'm not an economist, I'm just telling you what I keep hearing is optimism about this coming back up quickly. That, "Yes, we're going to hit a recession for a minute, but then we'll work our way back up pretty quickly." I think the long term effects are going to be more of an issue because of all the bailouts and money we're pumping in, we got to pay that back somehow as a United States economy, but we'll get there. The reality I think is if you are already running a business that couldn't survive the initial shock, then you had other issues as well, and if you run a decent business that had some cash that could weather the storm a little bit, then you're likely going to be better off coming out of this because maybe you'll run a little leaner, maybe you'll make sure that you're spending more effectively. I think that for you and I in terms of E-competence is what we're going to see on a regular basis is more emphasis on return on ad spend, coming out of this. I think there's going to be more emphasis on conversions for sure. I'm hearing that already from our customers and our clients. We did some research reports and interviewed everybody and the data was very eye-opening, and where people are going to cut and how they're going to cut. Are you seeing the same things? RYAN: Yes. Every company is a time to step back and analyze what's going on. I think what companies have to protect themselves against is making a really quick decision, just like, "Oh my gosh, we got to pull back and stop everything and then figure it out." It's like, "Let's stay calm, even if everything goes down." Let's hypothetically say the economy drops 20%, that's a big drop, but that still means that we have 80% still going. That's not a terrible thing. It's painful, bad things are going to happen. There's going to be people out of work. If 3 million people lose their job. I, it's 3 million people that can't buy your stuff but it also means there's still 97 million people probably working. It's not the end of the world. For some businesses, it will be, but I think it's-- Step one, remain calm and understand where we're at and that it's not a death sentence for every business out there. JON: I pulled up the data from our survey we did of e-commerce store owners. We ran the survey for about a week, last week, and I feel like it's already been a month since then, just in terms of how quickly things are moving. At that point as of the end of last week, we asked the question, "Have your e-commerce sales been negatively impacted by the recent health and economic events?" 52.2% said no. Again, it's been pretty split down the middle there, right? 52% are saying that they have not been negatively impacted. I know you sent out a bunch of great data as well, from what you're seeing from January to February, February, mid February and then end of March. Any thoughts on that data? You said January 1 through February 17th, that shopping impressions were up by 17% year over year, and revenue was up almost 14% year over year. RYAN: We saw really normal data. E-commerce has been steadily growing at that rate for years. For us, it's like, all systems go, everything's normal. I think we've got somewhere around 3,200 to 3,300 e-com clients. Then for some reason, I don't know why, I pulled some big snapshots of large segments of our e-comm data. Something happened on February 18th, couldn't find a news article or a reason. The first death in the Us-- this is US data by the way, first death in the US wasn't until February 23rd so in my head, there was something building up, some reason that people are starting to shop more. Impressions jumped to 37.4%, I think, year over year from the February 18th to 28th. I eliminated the 29th because of the leap year but that significant bump for no reason. External, there's no holiday involved and this is your year data too. Then we went into March and we looked at March 1st to the 9th, year over year and it got a little less crazy but it was still up 27% year over year. We didn't have a big move of Easter this year. I mean, there was no data other than people are online to buy things or search for things at a much higher rate. I didn't bring conversion data into those yet because latent conversions are important in a few of our clients that we just couldn't calculate that yet, but people are online. Even take my family, for example, we've been buying our groceries online for store pickup and delivery for, I don't know, a couple of years. Now, we have four small kids, nobody wants to take four kids under six to the store to buy groceries and out of everything. You can't get meat at Fred Meyer, for example, here in Portland. We had to check Walmart, can't get meat there. Costco, you could probably get meat but you're going to wait in line for an hour to get in. You're going to wait in line an hour to get stuff. They don't do pick up or delivery. Found Whole Foods, so we did a lot of searches actually just to find certain things we needed. That could be a part of it. Just continuing to search at a local level for certain things. Again, if you're being appropriate with your budgets and search, then you can capture a lot of these people that are trying to find various things. If you have it, people want to buy and they're not going to stores. JON: I think you made a good point there. I think there's goods that you need to purchase locally. You're not going to get online like meat, but even then, it's interesting. I mean, there's a lot of frozen meat companies out there that will ship you-- Omaha Steaks, things of that sort. RYAN: Exactly. If I could order Omaha Steaks for every meal, I totally would. Unfortunately, I haven't made enough money for that to be the case yet, but someday Omaha, you're shipping my steaks on a daily basis. How about that? JON: Love it. It's interesting because I'm also hearing, despite all of that, one of the questions we asked was, "Do you anticipate seeing your e-commerce sales grow as people take health precautions by not shopping in retail?" Again, 52% said yes. It aligns with those who feel their sales have not been impacted. They're also hopeful that they're going to do more of the capturing that retail group that is not buying at retail. I think that's really interesting that we'll see some hit from the e-commerce world, but it probably won't be as bad as retail. RYAN: I sure hope not. We do a lot in e-commerce together, so it'd be bad for us. I look at this, I'm an optimist. I'm an eternal optimist. I always think I'm going to win. I always think things are going to be great. I fail, of course. That's the way I look at it. I get excited because I see economic downturns as opportunities. The last time we had a big downturn, 2006, 2007, 2008 I wasn't prepared. I didn't have businesses in the places that I do now, so I couldn't capitalize when things got bad, they were house deals all over the place. If you had cash in 2008, 2009 you have a fleet of rentals at this point that probably tripled in value because you had that and you were prepared. I see this, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is exciting. I am prepared. I have the ability to move in and get aggressive where it's appropriate." Businesses, you might be able to buy competitors for pennies on the dollars very soon if they weren't prepared. If you're an e-com store for example, and you don't have the overhead of a retail and some of your competitors have expensive retail spaces, they have to support and still pay rent, or they have employees that maybe aren't being utilized in an e-commerce scenario, they're going to be struggling and it creates significant opportunities. For me, I'm excited because I think there's so much to do and this is where companies that really want to win will be able to distance themselves if they take appropriate actions. JON: I think that's a great point of taking the optimistic view of this of, "Well, how can you help someone out by perhaps bailing them out a little bit, buying their company and helping them turn that around and everybody win from that?" I think we're going to see a lot of that coming down the line just from an economic standpoint. You mentioned there's going to be deals to be had and if you're an e-commerce company in a position to be able to invest and take advantage of those, you're going to be doing I think very well coming out of this. JON: Well, we asked a question as well around what is the response these brands are going to take. "I predict my brand will respond to these health and economic concerns by," and reducing marketing spend was 61% of the response and I thought that was interesting because that's not taking advantage of this opportunity. I mean ad-words and stuff, are going to get a lot cheaper because people aren't bidding. RYAN: I feel bad for companies that their default reaction to the tough times is to pull back marketing, especially when we're in e-commerce. For example, my brand. I separate my accounts so I have brand terms and non-brand terms. You've heard me say this constantly. I probably preach it every event you're at with me. Non-brand, that's a free agent. If somebody is searching for your product but not you, they have intent to buy based on the search, they're choosing you or a competitor. There is no scenario for a business that I am involved with in an ownership and I have some say where we are not spending down to break even to buy that customer, no scenario. I want that customer and I want them more than my competitors do. It's going to become mine so I am turning up marketing. In fact, I hired people last week in the middle of this to increase production like we are going in and we're going in aggressively. Hey, it might not well be able to win as much as I want or could, but there's no scenario. I'm actually taking it. I'm going all in and if I fall a little bit short, oh well, at least I've made some gains and I got some clients that maybe I wouldn't have been able to get even as recently as two weeks ago because my competitors hadn't pulled back their marketing yet. JON: I think that's interesting because in that same response, 8.7% said they're going to spend more on marketing. I think that's 8.7% that's going to win. I look at that and I'm like, "If you're in that minority of 9% let's just say, you have a big opportunity where you're just going to be able to take over your competition and if you keep marketing through this, there's a very high likelihood that you'll have more revenue. You're going to have more resources when you come out of this, frankly, be able to overtake your competition and just in overall spend, because they're going to be limping along through this. They're hurting themselves or their sales not being able to be propelled by this marketing. When they come out of this, it's just not going to be as pretty for them as it would be for somebody who tries to maintain their marketing as much as they can." That's been a big message to my team here too. It's like, "Let's continue to keep marketing." Now, it needs to be done tactfully. Let's not get mixed up in the COVID-19, "Here's how we're continuing to serve our customers," emails. That's not helpful. RYAN: Oh my God. That's like popups to me for you. It's like, really? Thank you 500 people that I've ever bought something from in the last 10 years emailing me. Kudos. JON: That's exactly the problem. Most people aren't going to be upset about those emails, but they're certainly not going to read them. It's not a good opportunity. RYAN: My password keeper sent me an e-mail, the one on my iPhone that stores all my passwords that I pay for once a year, sent me an e-mail. I was like, "Do I care if your developers are working from home or working from the office?" JON: As long as I can get to my passwords. RYAN: I don't care. Why would you waste the, I even cost you something to send it like human capital, fractions of pennies for emails. Like, Oh my gosh. JON: There's that for sure. The way to get through this in terms of the marketing is to acknowledge it's a problem and just say, "Hey, you know what? We know that this is going on. Don't ignore it, and certainly don't take advantage of it and try to say 'Oh, we're running a shop from home sale because everybody's stuck at home right now."' That's not going to go over very well. RYAN: No. I was talking to one of our clients that sells, it's a beauty skincare cream. They focus on organic and teens or preteens. It's something like that. They're like, "Okay, what do we do with COVID-19?" I'm like, "What do you mean? You sell skin-- You're not going to talk about that. That's terrible." They're like, "Well, people can't go out for Easter." I was like, "Well, yes, they can't." "What about getting Easter baskets? You're going to buy your daughter some makeup for," I was like, "That's great. Maybe you can do an Easter sale and push your heart on social and get some--" Influencers may be involved, but you don't want to necessarily say, "Hey, you can't go out on Easter. You still want to dress up." I mean, that's just rubbing into somebody's face because there's going to be a lot of disappointment. Every Easter we do a big event at my barn with my whole family, because I have a large one and we do a beer tasting. We work our way through the Easter letters. The beer had to start with E one year, then A, we're around S which was a great one because there's a lot of great beers that start with S or they have to have like Jesus in them. There's some bad beers with Jesus. I'm just telling you that right now. [crosstalk] JON: I can't imagine it's good beer. RYAN: But we're doing it virtually, we're doing a virtual tasting. JON: Talk about taking advantage of a situation, naming your beer off of religious figures. RYAN: Oh man, there's-- I won't mention a brewery but there's a pecan Jesus beer that it is not very good. JON: Pecan beer sounds horrible to me. RYAN: Everything about it was like, "That is not a good sounding beer." JON: I'm much more of a wine person, unfortunately. RYAN: Well, we could do wine tasting too, but it's changing. Don't push it on people.There's two things I'm telling a lot of companies [unintelligible 00:21:30] is number one, assume everybody knows I'm going to tell them to keep marketing. Outside of that, you have to be creative but move. If you don't do anything, you're never going to start moving. Understand that you're going to make some mistakes and you're going to go out there. Maybe you accidentally mentioned the COVID or coronavirus when you maybe shouldn't have, but at least you're out there testing something and you realize, "Oh, that wasn't great." Get out there and do something to expand your brand. You have to think outside the box. This is unprecedented. None of us have been through a giant downturn related to a virus. If you find somebody that's been through this, I'd love to know what country they were in when this exactly happened. They had e-commerce versus Amazon not being able to send anything but toilet paper. Getting out of, it's going to take some testing. I say also talk to an expert, whether that's Jon, whether that's me, somebody else. Talk to somebody that understands something about what you're trying to accomplish and run some ideas by him and then say, "Hey, I'm thinking of doing this. Is there a reason that you would say bad idea or yes, it's worth a try. Let's measure it." Pull back quickly if it's not working. JON: I mean one of the benefits of a slowdown right now for e-com brands is that there are experts like you and I who were a little bit slower perhaps than what you would typically see and we're giving our time back and saying, "Hey, I'm happy to chat with you. I'm happy to help as much as I can, answer questions, let's do these things." We're stuck at home. We have an extra hour a day because we're not commuting. We have extra time on our hands as a whole, as a community that I think is really interesting. It's really, really fun to see how you can use that goodwill in a way that-- I'm answering questions. I sent an e-mail out last week instead of an article which we've sent out for seven years in a row over seven years now. We send one every Tuesday and last week I was just like, "Team, it doesn't seem right to send an e-mail out this week with an article that's quite frankly a topic we had booked three months out. On our content calendar. It's not really relevant to what's going on. I don't feel we should send that out this week." They were like, "Well, we don't want to just send no e-mail. Let's send, 'hope everybody's doing well."' I was like, "No, no, no, that's not going to go well. Nobody wants to hear that." Instead what we decided was let's send an e-mail that's basically being helpful. We really wanted to just be as helpful as we could for these e-com brands and be in it with them. The whole goal was,"Okay, we have all this content, seven, eight, nine years of content that we've have up on our site that we've written. It's super helpful." I just said, "Hey, if you're having a challenge, you want some expert advice on it, reply to this e-mail and we'll look at our back catalog of content and send you the article that's specific to your need along with some context and a little bit of help on that." The amount of responses I got is overwhelming. We sent it on Tuesday, we're recording this on a Thursday afternoon. I still have dozens of emails in my inbox that I need to get through. The benefit of that is not just that we get to help the community, but also that now I'm basically writing content because I'm answering these people and saying, "Here's the old content, but here's all the stuff I would update on this right now and here's how I would be thinking about it." Then I sent that e-mail to our marketing team and they're taking that and they're updating the content on the site, or they're writing new content based off of what I'm suggesting. We're able to produce a lot of great content with this extra time that we have on our hands because everybody's working from home, not commuting. We do have some clients who are like, "Hey, talk to me in two weeks when things calm down." They're not dropping but they're saying, "Hey, I just need some time right now," which is understandable. I think that it's really interesting to see how we can all band together and help each other out and really use this to generate some great content that will be everlasting out there. I think the knowledge base, the communal knowledge base is just going to grow so much. RYAN: I think it's going out with the idea people want to give help, they want to be helpful, but they also are going to be looking for help. I think it opens up a lot of doors to maybe a partnership that you wouldn't have even been able to approach or do anything with before. One of my companies is a brand that sells to retail as well as online and my retailers are closed. They're struggling. They still have expensive rent to pay in certain areas, and so I'm like, "Okay, well, you don't sell online. I do. I know how to do it. Let's get some of your stuff online, how can I help you move product?" They're going to sell more of my product probably with some of these things as well but it's like, "Hey, you're being forced as a local business to start selling online now, let me help you compete with some of those big retailers," because a lot of times it surprises me. We have some rather large advertisers and some of them came in and said, "Yes, right now we're going to cut budgets 50%," and there's no data around that. We didn't have anything to say around it. They just dictated that. We're going to go back and talk to them through some of the logic, but that was an e-mail we got yesterday and I was like, "That makes no sense." If you have one of the largest advertisers in a category that's going to pull back 50% of their digital spend, small guys have a huge opportunity to fill that void because people are still buying these things. The volume is still there. JON: That's so true. That goes back to just that small 9% in that survey that said they're going to invest more or continue the same. I think those are the folks who are going to come out winning. If nothing else, their brand is going to get in front of new people that they wouldn't have been able to afford to get in front of before. There is some bright spot here for sure. RYAN: I'm excited but it's also, I guess I get nervous, but it's almost like an excited nervous. We don't know what's going to happen. I'm pretty confident with our team's skill set and what we're going to be able to do and your team skill set, we're going to come out of this fine. Hopefully, most of our clients do and we're able to help that but if some of their competitors of our clients don't make it. JON: Maybe they should have talked to us first. [laughter] JON: I think there's a bit of a Machiavellian message here. I don't want to say take advantage of the situation but definitely think twice about how you can utilize this in a way that is going to help your company instead of hurt it. If you start thinking with that mindset, I'm not suggesting even a growth mindset, I'm just saying every company is going to have down revenue this year. If you are just thinking about how do I maintain, then when things pick back up, you're going to really pick back up much quicker. If you say, "Hey, you know what? I know we're going to have a 20% drop, I'm just going to cut everything." Like you mentioned with that one customer, that's just the wrong mindset. I understand. Of course, that sounds, coming from you and I, of course, we should be saying keep spending on marketing because that's our business. I cannot stress the data that's behind this and the reality of this. I know I've seen you do presentations on just how car companies back in the depression came out of this and how Ford really blew up coming out of that because of the actions they took versus what is it, GM at the time? RYAN: Chrysler. JON: Chrysler. RYAN: That was crazy. JON: I think the same situation can apply here. People who keep moving forward, keep marketing are going to grow like Ford versus Chrysler did back then. Different time maybe different industries, but I think the same tenants apply. RYAN: Yes, I probably would agree. If you Google recession studies, and I think I've referenced one from the '70s and then one from the early '80s they were recessions. They did some studies around companies that advertised in, during and after a recession and compared their growth to companies that cut marketing and every time companies that advertise and marketed through the recession, despite what maybe they felt like doing grew and their marketing wasn't even as traceable as our last-click attribution type tracking that we have online. We have unprecedented tracking online that if you have profitable or even break-even marketing, I don't care what the economy is doing, there's no reason not to spend that money. I mean it's just, it's layups. JON: Well, Ryan, this has been a lot of fun to connect about this today. Hopefully, there's been some value here for listeners, some things they should be thinking about. If nothing else, hopefully, they decide that they can be the Ford of the world versus the Chrysler coming out of this in a way that is really going to help propel their business forward versus sitting on the sidelines. RYAN: Yes. Hopefully. If anybody wants to reach out to either one of us, please do. This is fun for us to talk through and help companies and advise them. It's what we live for. JON: Yes. RYAN: And we've got extra time with no commute. JON: There you go. I'm happy to help. I've been putting this on LinkedIn. Anytime I see any of our partners or any offers out there, I repost them on LinkedIn. It's like, ''Hey, guys, look, e-commerce community is banding together.'' I don't know if you saw, Privy just came out with today ShopSmallEcomm.com. RYAN: I did see that, yes. JON: Ecomm with two m's at the end. It's just amazing. They're really trying to just help all of these e-com businesses to get listed in this directory and they're doing this effort for free. Yes, it's a marketing thing for Privy, nobody's hiding that. The reality is that it's helpful and it can't hurt to list your site on there. Right, so why not? RYAN: No, not at all. I already sent it out to my wife's businesses. I've sent it to all our directors and VPs like, ''Hey, there is no reason not to support a partner, number one, because we want to do that.'' JON: I'm hearing things like Brex does credit cards for e-com. They usually offer net 60 terms with no fees and they're extending those terms out to 90-120 days with no fees, no interest. Things like that are like, ''Hey, can you see three months in the future right now. If you are sure your business is going to be around in three months, why not do this and give yourself that runway, and perhaps be able to pay some employees in this time. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to and keep advertising and take advantage of this opportunity." There are ways out there. I know there's Clearbanc that does funding, as well B-A-N-C, Clearbanc with a C. There's a ton of these type of things out there that are offering a lot right now. They understand that your balance sheet looks low, there understand what we've all been going through and they're willing to work with that. If you can show that going into this, you were doing okay, they're confident you're going to do okay when you come out of it, and they want to help you see that through. There's a lot of stuff out there right now, Ryan and everybody's got a little extra time to contribute. Everybody's kind of banding together, it's been amazing to see the e-com community. I just recommend that as many as e-com brands can take advantage of these opportunities that are in front of them and the help that has been extended, will really see it through. As you mentioned, we're both happy to help on paid search and how to keep marking on that front. Also on conversion to make sure that once you get those people there, that those dollars go as far as possible so definitely reach out. Any last thoughts on your side, Ryan? RYAN: I think the last webinar was probably just when in doubt, go. Just do it. See what happens. Again, that's kind of just get in motion. I think you can't fail if you're moving somewhere. You'll figure it out. JON: I'd rather go down swinging, right? RYAN: Heck, yes. JON: That's it. All right, Ryan. Thank you. This has been fun chat today, considering the sad circumstances and topic, but I think we're going to pull through this. RYAN: I agree. JON: I'm very excited to be able to help everybody. Thanks, Ryan. RYAN: Thank you.

You know the Girl Tribe girls, Carrie Barker and Sarah Baucom. But do you know their boys, Derek and Ryan? Well, you will after listening in on the triple date night we had with them. You’ll learn how Carrie and Sarah turned a high school “close acquaintanceship” into two besties starting and now running one of the fastest growing businesses in Charlotte, why none of us will be chairing our local chapters of the La Leche League anytime soon, and that “be the scientist” is the relationship advice you never knew you needed. Listen in and enjoy getting to know the masterminds behind this powerful business turned #girlpower movement, and their super supportive partners who help free them up enough to make it all happen. Jake, in particular, was pumped to commiserate (ahem... hear from) some other dads who do heavy lifting kiddo duties. And to accidentally play for the girls' team during Catchphrase. AGAIN. We’d love to hear from you! Please share, comment and also suggest ideas for future guests! For past episodes please visit jakeandpage.com.

We are excited to have Ryan Cox, Principal at Founders Grove Capital, a real estate investment and advisory firm dedicated to helping clients select and manage real estate investments that work for them. Ryan is responsible for helping clients select and manage real estate investments so they can build a more secure financial portfolio. Ryan hosts The Real Estate Innovators Podcast and he is a real faculty for drawing out some of the inside baseball elements of the real estate tech world. When he is not hosting his podcast, he is the CEO of Founders Grove Capital! Tune in as we talk about... Multifamily Real Estate Investor Real Estate Technology or PropTech Design in Commercial Real Estate Block Chain Platform and much more! Learn more about Ryan Cox on The Real Estate Innovators Podcast and Founders Grove Capital VO: You’re listening to Raising Your Antenna, with host Keith Zakheim. Keith: Welcome to Raising Your Antenna. And I’m your host, Keith Zakheim. Today, we have a guest, Ryan Cox that wears many hats. Being that this is a podcast, and many of you, like me are podcast addicts, let me give you Ryan’s podcast bona fides first. Ryan hosts a real estate innovators podcast, in which he interviews some of the bigger founders and influencers in the real estate tech/proptech market. I guess Ryan, one of the things we can kinda talk about is what we call this industry because I’m hearing a lot of names for it: proptech, real estate tech, other things. But anyway, Ryan’s podcast is a great listen. And he’s a real faculty for drawing out some of the inside baseball elements of the real estate tech world. That I think is great gold or father for investors and professionals in the real estate and the real estate technology space. So anyway, definitely give a listen. But, when he’s not hosting his podcast, Ryan is a CEO of Founders Grove Capital, where he himself is a super successful investor and advisor to investors. So Ryan, before we get going and kinda get into the nitty gritty of our conversation today, maybe give my audience some of your background, professional background. And also specifically, you know, why you do the podcast. You know, is that kind of a personal passion. And also, how it helps your business from a marketing perspective. So anyway, welcome aboard and, yeah, it’s to you. Ryan: Well, Keith. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Excited to talk about a little commercial real estate tech, a little about my business. So, my background is, you know, I really, primarily, my primary business is to focus on multi-family value-added opportunities. So, my core business is as real estate investor and working with investors to buy multi-family assets here in the state of Texas. The podcast, as you said, is developed, I guess, primarily, out of a passion and some curiosity. So, I found it to be, you know as an investor, a really great avenue on a weekly basis to really dig in to all of the, you know commercial real estate tech that is developing around us. And the podcast has given me an opportunity, you know, really, a calling card to knock on any door and talk to founders about their background and unique insight that they had in their background to lead them to found a commercial real estate tech company. And on the podcast, I’m really just able to, you know, dig in what their background is, what unique insight, talk about the solution, how it benefits and impacts their users. And then try to suss out, really, just their insights from their work, about how they see the overall real estate market and that changing, and the impact of commercial real estate tech. I think the big driver for before the podcast is, you know, number one is I’m an advocate for my investors. So, I feel like it’s a priority for me to really be able to have a broad view of all of the technology that is, really, just starting to make an impact. But, I believe in the next three to five years, would dramatically shift the way that a lot of business in real estate gets done. So, I wanna make sure that I’m not flat-footed and that I’m being an advocate for my investors and paying attention to all the real estate tech that is transforming how we do business. I think.. Keith: You know, I, you’ve, again, being a listener to I think your last two episodes. I think you do a great job of listening that kind of feedback, and getting really down to the founder’s course to both your entrepreneurial side as well as your passion. Specifically, of this CRE-tech space. So anyway, I enjoy and I encourage my listeners to download it, become a subscriber, and listen cause it’s really, it’s a great listen. So, let’s dive in and my first question Ryan is that you know, where in, when I say we, I mean you and me from the marketing side are in the super-exciting space of what we call CRE-tech/prop tech. But, there are tons of applications found in the market. So, if that big data applications and, or you know spaces service as a business, virtual marketplaces and leasing tenant focus platforms, private management, augmented reality, and others. Clearly, some are getting more ink than others in space as a service comes to mind. But, as an investor and an advisor, I’m curious in your perspective. What are the exciting areas, that maybe somewhat under the radar right now. So you know, trying to bring somebody into a no-tell where we work. Okay, no big deal. Lots of money’s going there. That’s just aping what everybody else is doing. But, what are the areas, you know, applications that you think have the potential for real disruption, will attract early adopters, and in the next few years, where should the savvy investor who really wants to be part of the space looking to allocate money? Ryan: Well, first of all, I think that there are a ton of really interesting across, you know, like you said teantt project management. There’s a really, really quite a few interesting, you know spaces to play in CRE-tech. I think, as I think about the next two or three is we’re just so early. Especially regards to adoptions, it seems to me like the folks that are focused on data and that could be a cross-spaces as service, virtual marketplaces, leasing tenant project management and that stuff. The folks that are taken a data first enabled to monetize that early, enabled to give users actual data to make decision for that real estate investors, for lets space users, you know building owners. It seems to me like those folks are probably to the best start because there’s a value they can charge users afforded data. But, the collection of that data also gives them flexibility as they grow out, you know, the solutions that are provided to end-users. Keith: Yeah, we see for example both in CRE and also this residential real estate is, you know, a lot of these companies are multi-generational families that abound, you know, especially in the big cities, right. So, they own a lot of the office space, they own a lot of residential real estate, and they’ve been making money in this space for a long time. And as a result, the little more buttoned-up conservative, unless, willing to be early adopters. And we found with our clients, is that the case to be made at least initially, is surely an economic play, right. So, this is how you gonna be more efficient and save money. But, you know, how, what do you see is being the most partner-compelling arguments to, you know, CRE-tech as CRE-owners in order to get them to kinda take that first leap of faith into some of these, you know, applications and areas. And it could be, you know, big data which is maybe, there is some would have, you know, an easier, a leap of faith from data, the argument for efficiency and economic savings probably easier than making, also, I realized much more quickly. But, how do you advise your clients, or what do you see your founders in terms of being able to, you know, circumvent or achieve some of those obstacles? Ryan:Well, I think that from a founder’s perspective, you know, I think the venture community has great channels into, you know, big, you know, big brokerage. I would just definitely in avenue to get widespread adoption across a numbered users and geographies. I think that a lot of the bug development companies have their own adventure arm that you know, co-investing with the venture firms or looking to, you know, incubate and grow their own, you know, own kind of tech. So i do think that there are great opportunities with the right venture partner or being able to sit with the right investment or development company to help kinda scale the platform out. So. Keith: So, how are you looking for money for for example. It's not just about the money, but the strategic value that these investors can bring in terms of opening up new channels and helping with initial adaption? Rayna: Absolutely, the faster to market in adaption. I think is what you see in the re-work examples. They are just trying to raise the biggest, the best and have amass the monopoly. I think that the fastest routes to market, the more channels that you have to be able to deploy the product, the better your chances for success. Keith: Yeah that’s a great segue to the next topic I want to discuss, which is basis of service. And companies like re-work, and notel raising money on previously unthinkable valuations. I have a 2-part question. So, clearly, there is some type of bubble forming, and this not the first tech-vertical or general investment vertical to experience a bubble and there’s a lot of money-chasing deals and we work in (notel) just based on evaluations are clearly benefiting from all that money that’s on the sidelines looking to invest in this space. So, it’s 2 questions. You know, it’s not new what we work in (notel) are dealing, right. So, we just been around for a long time. Yet, we are left behind in the dust. These newer companies are gobbling up market share and their valuations are significantly higher. So, what’s been the drivers of their growth versus what we’ve seen in the past? And the 2nd question, Ryan, which I know comes up everywhere. Which is, you know, we work in (notel) have experienced, any other companies by the way just keep referring to these two, but they’ve experienced this growth in a real estate environment in which the market is just fantastic and also experiencing above all, right. What’s that gonna look like when there is an inevitable downturn. That’s what real estate is historically, so it’s not gonna continue and values are not gonna continue to appreciate and as I understand their business model which is, you know, leasing up a lot of space and being able to upsell that to tenants. What happens when, you know, values go down and their existing tenants can go lock in space for much cheaper prices. So, 2-part question: drivers of growth versus the history of the space as well as what it’s all gonna look like during an inevitable downturn? Ryan: Yeah, those are good questions. I don’t think anybody can accurately predict. But just some thoughts. I think, you know, running we were.. Keith: The beauty of being a podcast, of being a prognosticator, is that they only remember when you’re right and when you’re wrong, no one cares. So, that’s, you know, we can say whatever we want. Be Nostradamus, right? Ryan: Right. Well, if we were on video, everybody would be able to see me in my wizard hat. Keith: (Laughs). Exactly. Ryan: My answer here. I mean, (Ryan), we were cause undertaking the company’s taken a name as an approach to spending, investing heavily on growth, in hopes that profits will follow. I think, in the most likely scenario, is that, the thing that’s been driving growth in valuations for these companies will ultimately will come to roost. You know, right now, we’re in a growth at all cost negative gross margins. I think that we workers gotten so big that we’re seeing a lot more access to their data and, you know, right now, their focused on growth in a winner take all mode similar to some other tech companies we’ve seen at Silicon Valley. You know something , the ultimate challenge, so that goal is that if you can grow to a large size and create a market monopoly. Then, over time, you’re able to, you know, raise prices because you’ve got some sort of walk-in with those customers. I think the challenge right now in the current environment is that there’s so much private capital out there and so many entrepreneurs willing to take on big dogs. It would be a re-work at this case but people with. I think you need value proposition in a co-working space. So, on a venture capital people chasing, I don’t see right now that there is a monopoly in place. And then those companies are public, so you know valuations that can be tricky. Just a tricky area when we talk about private money. So, the question will be if there is a downturn and we’re not in a profitable place and that money dries up. How do you sustain growth or shift on a dime with your users to a profitable model. Keith: Yeah, for sure. I do, you know, so you mention Amazon and Amazon first of the 15-year run and they probably are the exception to the rule in terms of being able to early on stake-out they wouldn’t call a monopolistic position but certainly, 800-pound gorilla type of corporation. But, if you look at ride-sharing. So, a company like Uber tried to do that but the market was so large. The problems of executions are great and the amount of so much money on the sidelines willing to go into that space. Left has been able to significantly cut into their business over last few years with no one inside there. It seems to me also, the spaces service industry. The various entry are really just raising the capital. I mean, I don’t know there’s much secret sauce in doing that except for being able to sustain the losses initially and go gobble up property. So, it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out and what it all looks like in a number of years but I know everybody in our industry is watching that closely and that will be interesting as we go forward. Ryan: Yeah, totally great I think. I definitely think the spaces services creating a value for large enterprise and small businesses alike. It’ll be up to those organizations to find a profitable, sustainable, long-term business model, which is yet to be proven. So, I think that there will be some, I think that there’ll be winners, I think that there’ll be losers. I think that there’ll probable even a few that rise to the top and are able to sustain there long-term. Keith: Alright. Moving on. Entrepreneurs and startups and certainly marketing agencies, we love the buzzwords. Alright, so, you can raise money and you can throw out terms like artificial intelligence or augmented reality or blockchain or cryptocurrency and figure out how to present your business plan and I think companies or startups are hoping that investors will follow that with investment. So, blockchain is a bit, is a buzzword that is being thrown around, our industry, the CRE-tech industry. We do a lot of work and energy and I thought blockchain is a fantastic application of blockchain platforms with application in the energy markets because energy in general’s becoming a lot more distributed and decentralized and blockchain is a fantastic application for industries that are going in that direction. We’ve seen a number of companies over the last 6 to 12 months that come to us and claim to have some type of blockchain application real estate whether that’s for raising money, whether that’s because it can cut out some of the soft-cost involved in transactions, whether it’s because of blockchain application will make shrink the timeline for these transactions. There’s a number of reasons why blockchain could be a good application in the real estate industry. Curious what your thoughts are as to what those applications are? Are you seeings things that right now are more substance and hype? Do you think at this point just more hype and people throwing around the word? What’s your take on all that? Ryan: I think there’s a lot of hype, I mean, blockchain is really just a lot of copies of a gigantic cell spreadsheet. So, I think that there’s some interesting possibilities for blockchain. Clearly, to the number of hands that have touched a transaction to potentially cut out intermediaries. I think that there are some regulatory things that need to happen as those boundaries get pushed. I think that it’s a move in the right direction but whether it’s blockchain, artificial intelligence, a machine learning, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that are tackling that technology and trying to integrate it into their business and or their philosophy. When you talk to the technologist about where we are with those technologies and what they’re capable of doing, there’s somewhat of a sentiment that, yeah, the baseline is there but today they don’t function as they’re being promised or advertised as. So, I think that is commercial real estate technology is playing catch up to a lot of technology innovations from, maybe the past 15-20 years and that started to really grow inside of commercial real estate maybe in the past 5-6 years. I think that this group of entrepreneurs is in the right place and on pace or the slightly behind fintech or other spaces where they’re trying to develop the technology to truly make an impact. Keith: Yeah, we’ve spoken with a few companies recently who feel that blockchain and cryptocurrency solution will enable owners and CRE owners to have opportunities for liquidity and to bring in partners or investors in a way that they can’t with the current financial and legal infrastructure in real estate. So, that’s what, from what I understand from these companies, they think they can be deploying those solutions relatively quickly. It’s a proof in a pudding. Ryan: Yeah, I mean. Title company, all kinds of things, potentially make an impact or just we’re not there today. I think, we’ve got smart entrepreneurs that are working on solutions and are really trying to develop that technology to make it viable. And, where we are today versus where we’ll be in 5 years, is one of the reasons I have a podcast or I’m on this show, talking to you about it because I’m very interested in watching those developments and understanding how people are leveraging the technology and using that technology to change the way we work, live, play.. Keith: Yeah, so let’s talk about play. Another great segue, is Ryan, you’re a great host. So, when you’re the guest, you can do my work for me. That’s perfect. I wanna talk about apps and platforms and features that companies now are offering to enhance the tenant experience. It seems like a very millennial thing. So, in my company, we’re always kind of our executive team is always discussing. Alright, so, how do we make millennials happy, keep them productive, make sure that we’re able to retain them? And, I started my business 15 years ago, I wasn’t really having that conversation. It was more around, let’s just create professional development opportunities, make sure paying them fairly, and treating them with respect. But now, they want things that are gonna enhance their social experience, logistical experience. Work is now just not about work but it’s responsibility of companies and now it seems like maybe a building owner’s as well to provide a home-like experience or social experience, cultural experiences within the 4 walls of the workplace. Companies like Comfy, I've seen HQO, Office App, Equium. Again, they’re going out there and trying to convince owners and landowners that their responsibilities transcend just a physically-built environment. What’s been your experience in speaking either with your clients or with founders about the receptivity towards this? Who’re gonna be the early adapters? Is this just kind of like a fad right now but, we’re gonna eventually go back into haywork is work? What do you think on that? Ryan: I think that broader society is just moving towards more experiences whether that’s the bloomers who are moving out of houses then looking for less kind of ownership responsibilities to give them opportunities to travel, to go and do, to hop on an RV and go across America. Keith: I’ve got a 19-year old so we’re having these discussions which give me a little me more grey hair than I had prior. Ryan: (Laughs) And you know the 19-year olds in the same boat. How do I create more experiences, driven by a very different and very visual world with Instagram, Facebook, Social. It’s a ‘hey, what experiences are you having?’ And I think cause it’s less driven by the material. When I think about the specific applications that are going after a different experience in a work environment. I again think it comes back down to the channel. I think that the broad offering, well I guess, the appeal to many users will be more applicable if it serves out more as an amenity that people are able to choose from a la carte or a part of a package. Kinda like a TV dinner. Say ‘Hey, wanna be able to have access to all of these different applications to be able to create this experience in our work environment.’ I think that somebody’s applications are very niche. And so, if they’re not paying attention to the channel or how they’re partnering with other applications to create that experience could potentially be an uphill battle. But, yeah, I mean I think that experience-driven is what is driving re-work or notel or the other kind of space as a service. I think that when IBM is taking re-work space, it’s a very clear communication to the market that experience is valued and IBM’s one of all those technology companies out there so, it’s not just the startups, the millennials that are focused on creating that experience for their employees. Keith: Yeah, that’s a really good point. So, a lot of our listeners are themselves founders and entrepreneurs. I thought maybe, we’d just end, Ryan, with just your observations of the common denominators between the companies and founders that succeed, those that don’t. That really can be anything from leadership skills to how to manage money, to operations, to figuring out audience, marketing. Whatever the case, but I got a thought that your advice would be compelling to the people listening. Ryan: Yeah, I think that those with a good product and user experience. I think about some fintech apps, like Robinhood. When Robinhood comes to mind, it’s like very easy to use, it’s very visually appealing. So, I think that applications that are focused on great user-experience. I think that have some sort of data or value that they’re able to charge customers from Day 1 increase sustainable profitability. And I think that just have really low overhead, low volume kinda revenue targets to keep them accountable to grow. I think that they’re gonna have, those that start with that business model will have early adapters that are potentially more forgiving of the product, that are able to receive feedback, to really shape the product, to listen to customers’ demands and pay attention to their roadmap in a unique way that keeps them from over-building or steering the roadmap in a direction that is actually not a demand or want on their customer base. Which is, back to my earlier talk, was those that are due to a really good job of aggregating and creating actionable data, will be able to build off that data in a meaningful way, and create a roadmap that is really impactful for their users. Keith: That makes sense and I think for every founder and businessman and entrepreneur, what Churchill always said to his people, ‘Keep buggering on KBO.’ Just gotta stick with it, right? And, there’s gonna be lots of ups and downs and challenges. But, if you believe in your vision and you believe in your product and believe in your ability to execute, then you gotta keep going. Certainly, until the bank account says zero. So, with that Ryan, I think we’ll end there. Was there anything else that you wanted to add or tell our listeners? Ryan: I guess the one thing I would add is I am co-hosting a commercial real estate tech event in Austin on October 25th. We’ve got a great panel of tech founders that includes Michael Mandel with ComStak, Arie with WiredScore, Ryan Turner with Refinery, and Doug Shenkman with Tenax. As well as a panel of venture capitalists from Fifth Wall, Navitas, and Metaprop. So, it would be a great event downtown Austin with food and drinks and some great founders and venture capitalists to give you much of the same conversation about the state of the world of CRE Tech and the state of the market, and what’s coming up. Keith: And I will be there. So, if that’s, if you wanna scream that from the rooftops as well, enables you to add one more person to the event, feel free. Maybe, if you tell enough people, my mom will come as well, if I’m gonna be there. But, Ryan: We’d love to have your mom. Keith: It’s an exciting event, I will be there. I’m gonna be travelling from New York to Austin for it. And, goodluck with that. I guess, I’ll see you there, Ryan. So, thank you for being our guest today. And just again, for our listeners, Raising Your Antenna is a podcast dedicated to bringing on venture capitalists and founders who are transforming B2B technology spaces including today’s CRE (Commercial Real Estate) technology. Antenna Group which is the primary sponsor of Raising Your Antenna, is a digital marketing and public relations firm which services companies from startups all the way to Fortune 100 companies that are in the B2B technology space. So Ryan, thanks again and look forward to seeing you in Austin. Ryan: We all look forward to it. Thanks, Keith! Keith: And another episode of Raising Your Antenna is in the books. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and look forward to connecting again next week. Raising Your Antenna is a weekly podcast hosted by yours truly, Keith Zakheim, that features the movers and shakers, and key influencers of the B2B technology industry. Our guests are leading revolutions and disruptions in the mobility, clean energy, healthcare, and real estate technology industries. Raising Your Antenna’s brought to you by Antenna Group, a full-service digital marketing and public relations agency that focuses on the B2B technology industry. Please be in touch with me on Twitter (@czakheim) with any feedback about this podcast. And check out Antenna Group at www.antennagroup.com if your organization is looking for really smart and good-looking marketing and public relations partner.

In the fifteenth episode of Otaku Brothers Rusty and Ryan of course talk about the games they’ve been playing recently. Rusty has greatly been enjoying the SNES Classic while Ryan…Well, as Rusty types the show notes he really can’t recall what Ryan played. Let’s go with Final Fantasy XIII? One of Ryan’s personal favorites. Per usual, listener mail derails the Hogwarts Express to the 9 ¾ degree. They’re sorry but not sorry. After that they take a trip to Diagonally. Ryan and Rusty rank each of the Harry Potter movies from favorite to least favorite, debate which Hogwarts House they’d be placed in, talk favorite characters and scenes from the movies and so much more. Enjoy! I also wanted to personally thank Jason Heine for creating the intro to the show. He's creating excellent stuff over on YouTube, and has his own podcast on iTunes called Music, Games, and Gear. PLEASE check out his content and show him some support!  Jason's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheEMUreview Also wanted to thank my good friend Mark for doing the fantastic logo for the show. You can see his professional work at the link below!  Mark's Website: https://cooperdesignco.com/ If you have any questions or feedback for the show, please write in to OtakuBrothersPodcast@gmail.com! We'll read your questions and feedback in the next episode!

Ryan Daniel Moran was a preacher-in-training turned entrepreneur. He moved to Austin with little to nothing to his him name, and launched Amazon businesses that he eventually sold for over 8 figures. Ryan did us all a solid – really – by documenting and sharing his journey. The Freedom Fast Lane Podcast helps entrepreneurs at every stage of their business, from startup to exit. In this interview, Ryan shares his top three “mistakes”, or as discussed, things he wishes he did differently as he looks back. He openly shares his story and journey, in the hopes that other entrepreneurs do things to maximize the value of their business (and life). Through Ryan's conference, Capitalism.com, he helps bring like minded entrepreneurs and experts in the ecommerce space together to build brands and businesses that last. While he may be a preacher-school-dropout, Ryan still has a way of delivering the goods when it comes to advocating doing the right thing…so good things follow. Episode Highlights: [1:25] Who is Ryan Daniel Moran? [4:38] Is it better to buy or build? [6:43] Ryan thinks we're in a “seller's market” [8:05] What are Ryan's “mistakes” and what would he do differently. [11:30] Does it matter if you like your buyer? Does likability matter? [13:52] The likable buyer story…who won out over an all cash buyer. [15:12] Mistake # 1 – playing the short term. [17:25] Mistake #2 – telling people what to do and diminishing their talent. [18:51] Ryan shares his staffing team numbers. Inhouse and remote. [20:06] Mistake #3 – Ryan wishes he spent more money on advertising, customer acquisition, and brand building. [22:51] Why is a 100% Amazon business worth less than a Shopify store? [24:00] What channels would Ryan expand to – beyond Amazon.com [25:30] The first “nut you have to crack” [27:02] Ryan disagrees with Joe! [30:40] Brands last, product businesses don't. [31:06] Should you be thinking about a possible exit at all times? [33:05] What gives Ryan the “goosies”. Ok…he didn't say goosies, that was JLo. [33:58] Know what you will do with your money before you sell! [36:10] Should you plan your next brand before you sell, or stay focused? [39:29] How do you get more Ryan Daniel Moran Transcription: Mark: So if I could go back in time I would do a number of things different than I did in my entrepreneurial past especially before I sold my first company. And I have told you the story before that when I sold my first company I sold it for $165,000 only to find out that a year later the same person who bought the company got an offer for 350,000 without changing anything about the business at all. So … and there's a lot of regrets I have by not going back in time obviously I think anybody would like to have that ability. Joe: I'm glad it's that instead of saying you're bringing me on as a business partner. Mark: Well, you're here so I can't … I might not say that to your face. Only when you're on vacation and I have somebody else filling in as guest host. Joe: Well, Jason doesn't listen to the podcast, let's talk about him. Mark: Right. Exactly. Joe: Conversation … no regrets there. Yes and Daniel Ryan Moran was our guest and he talked about some of the regrets or as we called the mistakes because that's how he learns in life as many of us do by making mistakes and in trying not to make them over again. Fascinating … fascinating yes they're our podcast today Mark. I don't know if you recall … if you were there for his presentation at Smart Record over the last summer in Austin but he got up on stage and he spoke for 60 minutes with no script, no PowerPoint presentation and everybody was captivated. And the information that he has in it … volume of entrepreneurs that he works with and the velocities, and the approach, and everything about the way he does business and the way he literally … I mean not literally, preaches business. Okay, he's a … he was going to be a preacher so I want to say preacher school dropout. He chose to be an entrepreneur instead but the way that he talks about things is spot on with the way that we see the most successful entrepreneurs run their businesses. They focus on a number of different things and they implement those and maybe someday if they choose to exit they're in a great position to do so. Ryan talks about all of that including his own two exits that combined totaled over eight figures. Mark: Daniel Ryan Moran, same Moran that comes from Freedom Fast Lane right? Joe: Freedom Fast Lane Podcast where he talks about his story. You know five years ago he had a car and he drove to Austin, Texas and he decided he was going to launch an Amazon business and record his journey. And his journey is not over yet. It's on a new adventure, a different larger adventure but his journey kind of came to a new chapter after selling the last Amazon business that he had. But he talks about it all the way through on the Freedom Fast Lane Podcast. He got tired of seeing people do things the wrong way and learned ways to cheat at conferences and started to do his own conferences through capitalism.com and bringing good like-minded people together that build strong foundation long term value businesses and he talked about all of that today. Mark: Fantastic I can't wait to hear it. Let's go to it. Joe: Hey, folks, it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got somebody that a lot of you might know already. His name is Ryan Daniel Moran. Ryan, welcome to the show. Ryan: Joe thanks about having me in, let's make some magic. Joe: Listen I was having a barbecue last night we had some friends over and this is an absolute true story and one of them is an entrepreneur wannabe. She's in the corporate world and she bought some Amazon products and she tried something and it didn't work but she's going to go at it again someday and she's grilling me … she always asked me how things are with Quiet Light Brokerage and she starts asking about the podcast. I said yeah we're doing all right and hey have you ever talked to Ryan Daniel Moran just like that and here you are today we're talking to you. You're kind of a little celebrity I should say … little, you're kind of a celebrity; a rock star maybe for this … look it was a 50 year old woman. She's rather attractive and she knows who you are. Ryan: Well you know it's like my ideal market is attractive 50 year old women. We all know that that's the market I'm after right now. So tell her to give me a … maybe call me maybe. Joe: She loves listening and the fact that you're first and foremost helping people that's what she loves about it. She says someday she's going to get back to it but she loves listening and she's going to take that leap at some point in the future so good for you. And listen as I said prior to the intro we don't do fancy intros. So if you would … I know it's hard to talk about yourself but give folks a little bit of background about yourself; who you are, where you came from, and what you're all about. Ryan: Yeah. I invest in and I start physical products brands. And the way that I got to that point was actually as a pastoral student back in 2006. I built my first website and started my first business in between high school and college on my shared dial-up computer in my living room and hand coded websites using raw HTML in a software program called Dreamweaver. If you are old enough to remember Dreamweaver and you know it well. So what's funny is we hear a lot of people who are talking about building and … or selling businesses thinking about the good old or either like all the opportunity is gone now or the good old days have these … man, I was hand coding websites in Dreamweaver on a dial up computer. Do you realize how much more opportunity we have now being able to build websites on platforms and sell products on Amazon? So the opportunities are way way bigger now but I was just trying to find a way to supplement my … what I expected to be $30,000 a year salary as a pastor. Now fast forward a few years I did not finish the pastoral route for reasons that would be probably best left on a second podcast that you have Joe that's going to be called quiet skepticism. Joe: Yeah, some kind of … something where we're helping people, we're guiding them off that path right. Ryan: Exactly; quiet go to the light we'll call it. And I did not finish that route and I became a full time entrepreneur. So I was in really involved in the internet marketing space for many years until I really decided or realized I hated that crowd. I didn't like hanging out with those people. So I was like what a conference where those people hung out and I took the skill set that I had from Search Engine Optimization from Pay-Per-Click Marketing from Email Copyrighting and I applied it to physical products brands. And I've had a couple of different exits in the physical products world and now I'm an investor in physical products businesses because it's what I know. It's who I can help the most. And I think it's one of the biggest upside is in the market right now whether you are selling or building a business or buying a business, I think there's a tremendous amount of white space with the transition from big brands into more what I call micro brands mostly Internet based that's where I see the biggest opportunities right now. So that's a … I've had a couple of exits and the total over billed were eight figures in cash exchange. I still own a minority stake in a few of those businesses and have a portfolio business but my primary focus is investing in physical products brands and I have a media company for entrepreneurs at capitalism.com. Joe: Okay, so when it comes to investing people look at buy versus build. In fact, we had a podcast recently with our newest broker Walker Diebel who wrote about a book called Buy Versus Build and there's a really long subtitle and it was a … it quickly rocketed to the top 10 podcasts that we have. And you're talking about investing, do you think it's better to buy versus build at this point in your career or would you recommend somebody that's just starting out to scrape some dollars together and bootstrap something and start? Ryan: Yeah, it's better for me to invest but it wasn't better for me five years ago. In 2013 when I took my first sale on Amazon.com for a physical product I know business investing in physical product brands. I know businesses buying physical products brands now … back then I was buying a lot of websites. And you know what I was buying Joe? I was buying search engine friendly websites with email lists … social media followings weren't this big back then, but with audiences, followings targeting each market that sold affiliate products; because that was what I knew. Joe: That's what you knew. Ryan: I would have been a lot of people who are like looking for the system and that you are the system. You are the machine. And your machine is unique to you. So applying your machine to different opportunities is where value is created. So for me, I'm … at this point, I have more upside as an investor because I already have all the retail connections. I have the connections to sell businesses. I'm connected to other investors. That's my own skill set but the entrepreneur who I invest in is way better suited to start that company than I am and that's what capitalism is. Where I get the value that I bring in combination of the value that you bring and when we bring them together it's greater than the sum of our arts. And so for me yeah I'm … I have more value as an investor but to say like it's better I think would be a mistake. Joe: You know I think you're absolutely right. It depends upon the individual's situation without a doubt. I bought and I've sold and I've invested as well and I can say each were successful in their own way and each were very very difficult in their own ways as well. You'll learn along the way from the mistakes mostly. Ryan: If I could Joe I will add though, I mean globally I think we're in a seller's market. I think we're looking at buying versus selling if I give it a binary choice I do think we're in a seller's market right now. Joe: I have to agree with you 100%. When we have a good quality listing come … I had a conversation with someone this morning who wants to buy. And he's a referral from somebody who already bought and this guy is doing great so I want to do what he's doing. And the response is look when a great listing comes along you need to be prepared. So the more listings you look at the more you're going to know the right shit when it comes along. And you need to be able to act fast because you and a dozen other people are doing the same thing and they're going to make an offer on that business. So I agree it's a seller's market but at the same time, the multiple still don't get pushed too high. It's still the buyer to decide that. You and I as sellers, as brokers can pick whatever number we think the value of the business is but we don't make the final decision at the end it's usually the buyer. The seller's got a lot to say about it because they can say yes or no. But it's still the buyer makes the decision in terms of the value for the most part. But you just recently said you've exited a couple of different times in the last few years. What did you learn in that process if you look at the exit? Or maybe do you want to talk about the fact … the mistakes you made maybe building and what you can do to help the entrepreneurs that are listening or perhaps the exit and maybe a little bit of both. Ryan: Yeah well, there's one thing in particular that I think was on the stake if you will and it was thinking that the buyer had all of the control. By the way, this is C money right here or by a … my … he is the one who wants to make great on the Internet. Joe: For those listening and not watching somebody just walked into the background. Ryan: Yeah, so the mistake that I made was thinking that the buyer had all of the control. And if I could redo this Joe, the truth is if you built something, if you built a business you're the one with the asset. You're the one with the goods that money is chasing you, people want to buy you and so often the seller comes into market and is like the thing that I'm after is the check and I'm hoping that I get the check and that immediately puts you in the frame in which you're the after. You're the one who is not in the power position. So we share them with an offer and the seller is like thank you please oh please Mr. Money Pants I would like your money. And now they're in a position to beat you up over earnings, over … in the negotiations. So what I wish I had done was recognize the fact that I'm the one with the goods. I'm the one with the asset that people want. I'm the one courting the offers. People are making offers to me. There they want one I got not the other way around. So if you're in that position and you're willing to say no and you combine that with the turn ship that says here's what I'm looking for, that to me puts the seller in the frame of mind repair and the negotiating position. I didn't do that. I discovered that after the fact and I really could only have learned that by going through the process. I learned … I personally learned by making mistakes and paying for them later. Joe: We all do. Ryan: Yeah but that's a mistake that I wish somebody had told me before I went to market. Joe: Or is it … the buyer that you're referring to is it a strategic buyer or did you have your business officially listed and people came to you? Ryan: Yeah, we had it listed and we were acquired by an equity group. I still own a minority stake in that company and I'm in great terms with the equity group. I'm really happy with the buyer. I have become friends and obviously business partners at this point. But had I gone to the market with terms that I wanted I probably would have ended up in a more favorable financial position when it came to closing. Joe: Well, the next time you have a transaction you'll know that and you'll be able to make adjustments. Ryan: Right. Joe: Really I think like you said the check isn't the end all, it's more about … I think almost in many ways what your next adventure is going to be. I know that a lot of folks that I work with and myself included when I exited I was just … I sold too late. I was emotionally tired and I think that's the absolute wrong time to sell. You should sell … you should plan to sell, just don't wake up and decide to sell. But when you're emotionally tired you're not doing everything that you can to maximize the profits of the business and that's going to drive down the value. And you're going to get beat up at the end if you're so committed to that check that you can't negotiate a little bit more for something else and be willing to walk away from that buyer if they're if they're not a good buyer. And correct me if I'm wrong but just tell me how you think here, I always find that it makes an enormous difference if you like the person that's buying your business or the one … if you're buying a business from. It's not just about the check. It's not just about the money. It's the people you're doing business with. And I think that as a seller you can get more value if you're respected and professional and likable and the same as a buyer, if you're a buyer and you're professional and likable and complement the owner on the business that they built that you're going to get a better transaction out of it versus all the hard core raw street negotiations. What are your thoughts on that? Ryan: I don't know if you are right or wrong because I intentionally don't do business with people that I don't like. [crosstalk 00:15:45.7] Joe: So, therefore, anybody that wants to buy a business from you if you don't like them then you've got to do that to work with somebody you like. A classic- Ryan: I don't think everybody has that mentality though. I think I would even go as far as to say the majority of people are buying and selling based on numbers or like the deal and very few entrepreneurs get to find every purchase as a person. And so I think most people are approaching it by numbers and logically rather than is there a connection here. I personally … just like for the protection of my own lifestyle am willing to say no to anything that I personally don't like. And what that does is it always puts me in a strong negotiating position because if I don't like somebody I have no problem walking away. And the person who has … the person who is most willing to walk usually has the upper hand in the negotiation. Joe: I agree 100%. I find that from a buyer's perspective one of the questions I get a lot from buyers if I'm up on a panel or speaking or something like this is how do I negotiate up against an all cash buyer, somebody that's got more money than me? And the tried and true answer is really is be likeable. It's … you don't necessarily have to have more cash to get the deal done and I … the classic example is I sold a business last fall. It was about two and a $2.5M and the guy had two full price offers within the first 10 days. One was from an all cash buyer who was a little rough around the edges and was hard to work with. The other was from a really likable guy who was buying with an SBA loan and actually required 10% seller financing in that. The entrepreneur, the seller of this business had the choice; you could go for the all cash or you can go for the guy that he liked. He actually chose the full price SBA buyer and chose to carry a 10% seller note versus working with somebody that he didn't like. So in that situation, I think it makes a difference in terms of … buyers that are listening be likable. If you're working with a broker you absolutely have to be likeable because they're … as you said it's more of a seller's market. And there's a lot of buyers out there. There are buyers that are competing for that same business and when they're likeable they're going to build rapport and when you build rapport you sometimes learn about things before they hit the market as well. Ryan, talk to me about some of the mistakes you've made in your own business. Maybe two or three of the biggest mistakes that comes up at the top of your head. Looking back and learning damn I screwed that up if I ever do that again I'm going to it a different way. Ryan: Well, every time I've made a mistake it was because I was playing the short term. So when I have made short term decisions I usually make bad decisions. I like to say that the longer term that I can make decisions the wiser I am and the better decisions that I make. I said before that people forget that behind every purchase is a person … that goes for customers too and all relationships are long term relationships. Or the best relationships are long term relationships. So if you are aware that behind every transaction is a person and you play it like it's a long term relationship you end up building the better company. Sometimes in spite of a short term decision, meaning … for example as we're recording this there's a … in the Amazon there's a thing we're calling review gate where Amazon is coming in and hit them onto your businesses and removing their reviews. And it's been a bloodbath. It's been absolute bloodbath. And the people who are soaring through it are people who have been doing of the right things the right way for the longest. And the people who are being hurt the most are the people who are the most profitable over the last couple years because they played the tactic game. And like there's absolutely room for tactics inside of every business but those who have been building really solid brands and building audiences and building followings they're going to soar right through this and capture a whole heck of a lot of market share. So the mistakes that I made were always in saying what's the Band-Aid solution here rather than building for the long term. So we take a rule now in the business that we're building, we say okay here's the situation that we're in rather than talk about how we're going to fix it let's say what do we wish we had started doing 90 days ago and that would have made today a lot easier to get through? That's the decision that we need to make today which is a really hard conversation to have when you're in reaction mode. But we force ourselves to ask that question because it usually addresses whatever the root cause is that we need to fix rather than going for a Band-Aid solution. So that being mistake number one, mistake number two would be as a leader telling people what to do. There's a great book called Multipliers that really morphed my brain in terms of how I can affect [inaudible 00:20:52.9] people. And what I realize after reading that book was that I have been diminishing the talents on my teams by telling people what I wanted them to do rather than casting a vision and inviting people to build their piece of that. Now that seems kind of a nuance and maybe overly simplistic but I couldn't emphasize enough the accountability that this book brought me on how much I was diminishing the people that I was working with, And the difference in energy and growth that happened once I started correcting those issues. So as an entrepreneur, we often have like our baby that we're bringing in to our team and we're telling people how to build the baby when reality if we're working with smart people they'll probably own that area of expertise better than we can even if we can't see it. And the big distinction of that book highlights is someone who diminishes their team is usually the smartest person in the room but a real leader makes the rest of the team like they're the smartest person in the room. And that was a huge shift in my overall happiness and with the growth of my companies and it's something that I wished that I had done before I was building companies to sell them. Joe: What kind of staffing do you have just out of curiosity? Ryan: Well, the company that I just exited was a team of four. The portfolio of companies … of brands that I have is a team of five. And my media company capitalism.com is a team of six. Joe: And are all of those people in-house or do you do some … or the VA's are they working remotely or they come to the office every day? Ryan: I'm only counting in-house people so that does not count freelancers. But no not everybody … we have … there's, we are a distributed team. So like I'm recording this in my office right now, one of my team members is just right here my side. But people will come in and out. Some people … like we have a team member in Canada, we have a team member in Germany, but they're all full time dedicated to [inaudible 00:22:47.0]. Joe: Good. I asked that because you know most people that are listening would probably be considered lifestyle entrepreneurs and they have to outsource staff and VA's and people working remotely. So it's good to know that even though they're not coming into your office every day this is really important [inaudible 00:23:02.3] get their short term vision don't have that long term vision so that you don't have major major stomach aches with algorithm updates we'll review gates in that situation and then over managing of the staff you know let them be their experts; anything else that comes to mind? Ryan: As far as big mistakes that I've made … I mean we talked about the mistake in selling and as far as building the business I'll say I wished that I had spent more money on cold advertising. Like always like there's never been a business that was like ah you know I think I spent too much on advertising. I've only ever said I wish I'd spent more on advertising. Joe: Yeah, where would you have spent it because these are primarily Amazon based businesses correct? Ryan: The businesses that I personally built, yes. Joe: Right. So where would you spend that money? Ryan: So we just identified the problem because you said they were mostly Amazon based businesses so had I done things even better I would have doubled down on non-Amazon advertising. Because what … if you're an Amazon business which is like nails on a chalkboard to me because it means you're dependent on somebody else. Joe: Right. Ryan: It means that you're dependent on this channel and you've got to go double down on building a business has a different leg to the stool and that when you combine those things together magic can happen. If you've got an email list of 100,000 people that you've built from cold advertising or from buying tripwires and now you're combining that with the power of something like Amazon.com that's really really powerful. Most physical products sellers never make that [inaudible 00:24:32.6] or they get so myopic into one channel that they never spend the money and the time to go develop the advertising for another channel. I wish I had been comfortable losing my rear end on other advertising channels until I figured out those systems. It's interesting Joe, it's true that every channel you will lose for a while and then you figure out the systems and then you start to grow through it and you get profitable. The strange thing is that most people once they've figured it out and get profitable they're unwilling to go do that hard work in another area. So the way that Amazon worked in 2013, '14, and '15 was if you spend until you grab long enough you could outrank everybody else and go win but I never … I lost that hustle when it came down to Facebook Ads or influencers and people start looking for the immediate ROI. In what business is there immediate ROI? When you're building a long term brand that has sales potential … like buyers are buying the systems; they're buying profitable systems because you've already gone through that hard work of developing the systems that are profitable. But it requires you to go build them so I wish I had spent more on advertising, been more willing to lay it on the line, rolled more back into reinvestment. So I'll call that mistake number three. Joe: So for buyers and sellers that are listening, entrepreneurs that are listening it's that one legged stool, two legged stool, three legged stool. If you're 100% Amazon business it's riskier than if you also have a revenue channel from Google Ad Words and driving traffic to your Shopify store and you might be doing wholesale or B2B things of that nature but right away as I've said before if you've got a business that's just at within $100,000 in discretionary earnings that's 100% Amazon same business $100,000 in discretionary earnings but you've got 60% Amazon, 25% Shopify, I guess that would be 15% percent [inaudible 00:26:36.4] my math here, another percent of B2B that business on the other side is going to be worth 15 to 20% more. So you might be breaking even or losing a little bit of money on that land grab trying to grab more customers but if you can turn that into even the same discretionary earnings that business automatically is going to be worth 15 to 20% more because the buyers will pay more for a risk averse business that'll be around for the longer term so very very good advice. What channel would you go to first? Because there are so many options these days and building a channel off of Amazon is hard as you know. You've got to learn a whole new expertise. Where would you go first and what do most of your successful folks do? Ryan: Yeah and I'm actually going to cue on very creatively sidestepped this question because the obvious is Amazon. But where I would suggest is actually people double down on where the audience is. To me, this is the nut has to be cracked if their building a sellable company. And what that means to me it is for some people their audience hangs out following influencers. For other people that is they follow blogs or they have a blog where the audiences are already hanging out. Or some people they've got a Facebook where there's an audience. Now what most businesses, especially like a million dollar businesses, are doing is they're going channel first and trying to extract as much of it as possible. Like I'm going to go to Amazon try to rank and pull as much out of this pie as possible. Only a few people can win that game but if you switch it and you say where are my people who is the ideal buyer and where are they then the channel where you collect the order can always change. And that makes Shopify, Amazon, B2B a whole lot easier. The first nut that you have to crack isn't where the buyers hang out apart from the sales transaction and then you bring those buyers to the transaction. So the transaction to me … Amazon, easy no question. Put your product on Amazon the credit card is already there, people are already looking for it. No question, easy, done. The nut that needs to be cracked is what happens one step before that. And if there is … like if you don't have the influence, the list, the following, the traffic, the pay-per-click strategy that some way to go get those people and bring them into your ecosystem I think you are struggling from the get go and that's the primary question that I ask the entrepreneur. Joe: Yeah and I think depending upon as you say the product and what they're offering some of those different channels will make more sense. You know I had a conversation with someone this morning that has several brands and one brand has incredible numbers with email marketing and that same expertise applied to that different brand doesn't do as well. Ryan: Right. Joe: They're driving people to their Shopify store though Amazon keeps growing and out phasing everything else. So I understand identify where your customers hang out and then you've got to go find those customers. To own that list though you need to send them to your own store, not to Amazon. So are you sort of balancing between sending them to Amazon because it's all there or? Ryan: No, I just disagree. So I think that the loyalty to the brand is the customer experience. And you give the customer the ability to give you money wherever they are most comfortable making the purchase. I heard Brian Lee say where it's … Brian Lee is the founder of the Honest Company, the billion dollar brand with Jessica Alba, and I heard him say once that he considers it a win when the product is in the customer's home. That's when you've wo, not collecting it online e-commerce site, not getting into retail. It's when the product is in the customer's home. However, they get it and you want to release as little friction as possible getting the product into the customer's home. You will own the customer experience when you have their data. You have the ability to communicate a message in front of them. So if you've got the email list and you send them over to Amazon, Amazon rewards that and your conversion rate is probably going to be higher sending them to Amazon that sending them to your Shopify store. So there's a balance [inaudible 00:31:12.7] I know that I can get a higher immediate customer value sending them to my own web site because I can put them through upsells and cross sells to get their immediate data versus sending them to Amazon where I am going to have to work to get their data. I don't have any upsell experience. They might see a negative review. And so the entrepreneur is going to have to play the game of where the numbers make the most sense over the long term. But I think that the actual customer experience happens in when you communicate with them. And that's in the email message, that's in the outside of just a transaction, not just where their credit card is being added but words being communicated. Joe: Okay, I get and I'm just going to repeat it for those that are … well not smarter than me; let's put it that way. So it's capturing the customer information up front, building that relationship with them, and then simply send them to the place that they can buy the product and experience the brand with the least amount of friction and get it in their home. Ryan: Nailed it. Joe: Okay. Ryan: That's my opinion. Joe: And it all goes back I would say and it's kind of almost unspoken that the brand has to be pretty amazing so focus on that first. Build a great product, a great brand so they have a great experience and then do all that other stuff as well. Ryan: Yeah and let me address that because that often brings up the question how do I identify a brand? Like what exactly is the brand. And the brand is the way that trust is communicated to a very specific customer. Most Amazon sellers have no idea over their customers they know what their product is. If you know what you sell and not who you sell to you do not have a brand. Or you might have a brand but it's really lousy whereas if you know who the person is, it makes the product really really easy. I was just meeting with one of my team members today; we were expressing the frustration over one of our brands in our portfolio. Because when we acquired it, it sold a lot of product but it had no target market. And so we've had to do a lot of work to convert that brand into an actual brand where people are not just buying a product but they're buying something and it says about them sells. Those businesses last, product businesses don't because they're commodities. You forget about commodities and the minute that there's a better price or better customer experience their loyalty changes. But when you've got the brand people are very stingy with their trust. I want to give it to you, you have them for as long as you keep their trust. Joe: Very important message right there. Ryan, any thoughts in terms of whether someone should be building this business and always think about the future and possible exits; do you try to instill in them that they should know the value of their business in the event they wake up some day and want to move on or do you just focus on building that brand and when you're ready the time will come? Ryan: You know the real … the temptation for me is to say that no, you shouldn't be necessarily thinking about selling but I know that I'm in a different spot than everyone who's listening. So I would say if you are building this to make money, be building it to sell from day one. Because the very act of being in it for the money means that you will burn out, you will wake up and want to do something else. It's going to happen. So if that … and like let's just be real about it, if you're in it because of the payday, build it to sell because that's what you're in it for and the payday is the cherry at the end of the rainbow here. If you were in it because you've got a product you want to bring to the world then still develop the systems and processes that will keep you in the position to be in your zone of genius. And that will make you more sellable one day but I don't think it's necessary for you to know what it's worth or be making decisions based on that. So these are different goals. Now I build companies that I'm excited about and I am building them in the same way that we make something valuable because I want to be in a position where I'm just in my zone of genius. But it's a different mindset than if I'm building something because it's going to be profitable. Does that make sense Joe? Joe: Absolutely; excellent …excellent. Hey listen I know we're running out of time here I just want to say that last summer I was at the stock market conference and you got up and you spoke as did another dozen or so very very successful entrepreneurs. Each and every one of them had a PowerPoint presentation. You got up there with nothing. And you talked for an hour and the audience was captivated as was I. You have a gift thank you for sharing it. I appreciate it. Ryan: I just got goose bumps. Thank you so much, mate. I really appreciate it. Joe: How do more people get to experience that and listen to you and hear what you do share? Ryan: You know I'd love to answer that question, can I offer one more piece of advice before we go? Joe: You can offer a dozen more pieces of advice. Ryan: Wow, awesome. I'll leave it to one but if you are in this to please have a plan of what you're going to do with the money when you get it. Entrepreneurs are magicians. We remake things up here on thin air. We create value out of thin air. We create a bigger pie. We make money show up. And we also make things disappear. Joe: Isn't that true? Ryan: And if you do not have a plan of what you're going to do with the money it will slip through your fingers. I know you think you're the exception. I know you think all I have to do is invest this at 8% and I'm [inaudible 00:37:11.5]. I know you think that's how it's going to be. You will ball the money. I … right now I just heard you think “no I won't”, yes you will. So if you don't have a net for catching the money and allocating the money for your lifestyle you will be back in the grind very very quickly. I promise you, I know you don't believe me. I'm here to tell you that's the case. Have a plan for what to do with the money once you get the money. It's actually my favorite conversation to have. At some point, I'll probably have more chops [inaudible 00:37:45.3] about investing once you have a big windfall. But for now, it's like have a plan like a plan is better than no plan. And that plan would probably be best done after you sat on the money for about six months and you've gotten used to that money being in the bank account. Your second question or actually your only question was- Joe: Can I interrupt that? Ryan: Please. Joe: I definitely want to get to that but in terms of having the plan to exit, I'm always telling people look have your next adventure planned. Because entrepreneurs like you say they blow through the money, it goes through their hands like saying. I'm often saying maybe get that other opportunity started and launched long as it's not competing to get the ball rolling. So that you got some working capital maybe you're going to put it in … some of it you're not as bootstrapped although you'll be more successful probably if you are. Do you think maybe they should 100% focus on what they're doing on that brand before they sell it up until the day they sell or maybe when it gets big enough and good enough and they've done enough right they can take some of their attention and start Brand B while they're selling off Brand A? Ryan: Wow, Joe. The reason I'm saying wow is because my experience is pretty unique and that was I took about a week off and then I immediately went back to workaholism and it was the worst. It was a horrible experience. Now full disclose like at the same time I was going through separation and I'm going through a lot life changes. I threw myself into work right after the sale. I celebrated by reading books on my patio for like eight days and I was immediately back to workaholism. And I like … I roasted my body, I mean I so needed a break and I did not give myself that break. I don't know if every entrepreneur was as burnt out as I was. I was more burnt out than I [inaudible 00:39:40.5]. Joe: Most ideal [inaudible 00:39:42.8] they come to me tired, exhausted, ready to move on. Ryan: Joe, it's been over a year. I wouldn't even say I'm back now. You know I'm probably operating at 75% of capacity because I never really recovered. So should you go right back into it? I don't know. I think it depends on the level you're at and your own wiring. I make really good decisions when I'm relaxed and creative. I make terrible short term decisions when I'm stressed. And when I'm in that workaholic mode I'm a terrible entrepreneur. I wish I had just blissed out for like three months; I didn't. Joe: I don't know what the folks that listen to you every week would do if you would disappear for three months though. Ryan: Well here's the thing though Joe. I kind of did. Like my podcast sucked for like three months, three to six months and I was trying … like I'm sitting in front of mic trying to come up with things to say and I was uncreative as heck. So I sort of did disappear it was just a different way. And now I'm getting back to it and it's a completely different experience. But I actually think I did my listeners a disservice by not taking a break. And if have been just really upfront and be like guys I just got an eight figure check I am going to the beach and I will call you when I'm ready. My audience would've popped but instead, I was like operating from this place of like I'm so … oh my goodness I'm so tired and I turned off a lot of people. I know it's not the answer that you expected it's not the answer I expected to give you. Joe: No, I like it. Ryan: But I think it's true. Joe: I think sleep and rest and meditation or whatever it is to focus on is absolutely necessary. So back to that original question and you know finding out what they do with the money after they sell. How do they get more of Ryan Daniel Moran? How do they experience what that audience down at Smart Market and myself experienced where you just talked and everybody listened and took notes and all that? Ryan: Well, thanks so much, man, my media company is capitalism.com. My podcast is called Freedom Fast Lane. And I say things into a microphone and we hold events at capitalism.com that are specifically for entrepreneurs. And we're actually … we just rebooted the Freedom Fast Lane podcast. I feel as though- Joe: With fresh energy. Ryan: What's that? Joe: With fresh energy right? Ryan: Well yeah, I think you'd probably feel it from me. Five years ago I started this journey as a boy and I was … I just put everything I owned into my car, drove to Austin, Texas, started some new companies, I documented the whole experience from startup to sale. And then I kind of grew up while documenting the journey. And now there's a new journey and it's a much bigger one and so we just rebooted kind of the entire audience, the whole experience in the podcast. And my podcast is called Freedom Fast Lane. My company is capitalism.com. Joe: Okay. Well, I'll make sure those are in the show notes. I'd love to see you be more successful on this new adventure, this bigger journey. Ryan: Thank you. Joe: Let's stay in touch. I think I may see you at the capitalism conference at the end of August; let's see. At the very least we'll be to as many as we can be over the next few years. Ryan: Good to see you man, thank you so much for having me. Joe: Thanks for your time, I appreciate it. Links: Capitalism.com FreedomFastlane.com

E. B. Moss: Hey, it's E.B. Moss from MediaVillage and this is Episode 12, basically live from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I’m with MediaVillage Journalist David Polinchock who’s an expert at CES. So... We're mic’d up together and we're going to walk around, enjoy the ambient sounds of CES 2018, and I'm going to tap your brain... a Vulcan mind meld!, appropriately for CES. We're going to ask you to give us some insights. INTRO: Ready for some insights from those inside the media, marketing and advertising industry? Welcome to Insider Insight from MediaVillage. MediaVillage.com is the home for exclusive thought leadership with content by, for and about agencies and networks. From digital experts and add tech providers to CMO's and CRO's. With villages of content focused on everything from Wall Street reports to women in media. Now let's get some insights. David: First stop? We're here at the Google Home gallery. They've put together a kind of cool exhibit of what you can do with Google Home and how it's changing how we all live. E. B. Moss: Wow, great. Google has been sponsoring everything including the city monorail where they even piped in some pretty compelling audio. So when you're a captive audience on the monorail it's instructing you to learn how to utilize Google Home like saying, "Hey Google play me some soothing music" - which is good for when you're trapped on the monorail to hear little bubbling brook sounds. They really have done a good job in their convention sponsorship presence. David: This kind of new audio assistant is what we're getting in homes and in the rest of our lives. One of the AR head manufacturers announced a partnership with Alexa so you get voice control in your heads-up display now so you can see how this is changing how people are really doing things at home. One person on my last tour had one of the voice connection systems all throughout their house and realized they had to take it out of the kids room because the kids were doing their homework by asking it all the questions and just getting all the answers. You know, there's good and bad with everything. But this ability to ask a simple question, or check my schedule works because if I already have "Hey Google" phone I can use it and I get information there but now I can move it around from thing to thing. I think what people are looking for at large is a connection of all their things so it's not "I have this list over here and this list over here". So the fact that I can ask Hey Google on my phone but when I get home at night I can follow up the conversation with my Google Home Assistant because it's all connected. E. B. Moss: Oh, so the connectivity. Got it. David: The other thing they've been working on are ear buds that translate something like 70 languages. It literally is the communicator that we saw for 20 years on Star Trek. E. B. Moss: So, I can date a person who doesn't speak English! David: That's correct. And, if you look over here we also have it in air conditioners and washing machines and a variety of things now. So that's what, to me, becomes really exciting about this: you're seeing Hey Google as you're seeing Alexa and other products leave the single device and being incorporated into all of our lives. E. B. Moss: Google Home really was everywhere at CES; trying to connect the dots with audio and smart speakers and voice assistants. The other thing that was everywhere was Audio. I spoke to Tom Webster of Edison Research, as well as the head of marketing for Audio-Technica who had some unique ways to use headphones. E. B. Moss: Tom Webster was on the panel on the smart speaker research that just came out from Edison Research in conjunction with NPR. So I grabbed him afterwards. ...Hey Tom... That was fascinating. I know that you're going to be sharing some more of this information though MediaVillage in general, but specifically, a couple of things jumped out at me today were the fact that gifting over the 2017 holiday season really should've exponentially upped ownership of smart speakers. So that was good? Tom: Yeah, we've seen the initial adoption of smart speakers grow at a clip more than we saw smart phone adoption grow when we first started tracking. It's certainly both Amazon and Google coming out with $29 units had a lot to do with that but I think eventually we're going to stop caring about the devices themselves because that technology is going to just be baked into everything. E. B. Moss: So, that's an interesting point because Google is all over the show and promoting their digital assistant, Hey Google, but it's still only about 70% in devices own versus Alexa. What do you think it needs to do to compete more? By the way I think you said we're at about 16% ownership in America right now, so there's still plenty of growth opportunity there. What do you see the differences being and how do you see it competing more? Tom: I think, first of all I have no doubt that they're both going to be very competitive devices for a long time to come and for a lot of people it's just learning the use cases. We do know from the previous iterations of Smart Audio Report that we found with NPR 88% of the people who have an Alexa are Amazon Prime members. So there is a natural connection there. They're already being marketed to, in a way that is contextual for them. I think the more that Google educates listeners about what these devices can do and just more devices. Again the technology is just going to start being baked into everything and by the way it's already on your phone. One of the interesting things we found in our research is that 44% of smart speaker users tell us they're using the audio assistants on their phone more as a result of using the smart speaker. So it's just learning education and getting people context. E. B. Moss: And a brand that has good social media followers will do a service to those followers and enhances its own position by teaching them how to use smart speaker skills that they've created, right? Tom: Absolutely. I think we used to ask ten years ago "What's your mobile strategy?" Now I think it's a valid question to ask what your audio strategy is because people want to communicate with brands. They want to communicate with brands that they care about and they want to have those kinds of relationships and those kinds of experiences. E. B. Moss: So last question.... You mentioned a couple of the obstacles that we still have to continue to overcome: the perception of trust and the perception of security. What do you see happening? Tom: Well, those are valid concerns. First of all far be it from me to poo poo them because they are in fact valid concerns and when we interviewed people who don't own a smart speaker but who are interested in the category; three of their top concerns were all related to security, privacy, insuring their data, having the government listen in on their data. These are all valid concerns and all of the makers of this technology are going to have to find ways to address them because it's one thing to say "O.K. Google or Alexa play some Fleetwood Mac" it's another to start reciting your credit card number into it or something and those concerns are going to have to be addressed. E. B. Moss: ...So now I'm heading to Audio-Technica. You might know them for their turntables and headphones. They are giving me a welcome treat of a chair massage...I'm going to put my noise-canceling headphones on right now.... Speaker 5: "Let's begin by centering on the breath. ... slowly exhale and imagine your breath moving out through your ears as well. Cleansing them, forcing out all the toxic noise you've observed from the show floor and setting it a flame to burn off like so much painful gas..." E. B. Moss: That was one of the funnest ideas on the show floor. It was practical and sort of like a forced pre-roll listen in a good way. So I'm speaking to Director of Marketing Communications for Audio-Technica, Jeff Simcox. Jeff: Hi. How are you doing? Are you relaxed? E. B. Moss: I'm so much more relaxed. How did you come up with the idea? Jeff: Well, what's one of the reasons for wearing noise-canceling headphones? You want to relax, knock out all the annoying sounds and get into yourself, into the music. We just thought on the CES show floor we'd add that little extra thing to help you relax and lose yourself and have a massage while you're enjoying the headphones. My boss is like "You've got them in the chair so give them a sales pitch." And I'm like "who wants to lay there and just hear a dry sales pitch"? So it was our way of saying "Okay, you know, [inaudible 00:11:30] in that we can give you a little bit of entertainment, give you a little bit of a laugh. Now feel the tension escape from your ears like so much painful gas." It was one of my favorite lines.  E. B. Moss: As we made our way though CES you couldn't help notice autonomy everywhere. From autonomous cars to the super sonic Hyperloop; also autonomous public transportation helping the lesser abled. E. B. Moss: Initiating autonomous drive. I'm about to experience it, in 90 seconds. What it's like to be on the road and not in control. I'm at the Intel booth right now. Very cool. But I think it might drive me a little bit nuts if I had to hear all of the play by play of the autonomous driver. Pedestrian detected, anomaly detected, slow down. E. B. Moss: Now we're at Hyperloop and I'm talking to the Director of Marketing Ryan Kelly. Ryan, It looks like a long monorail pod from the future. What is it? Ryan: Elon Musk in 2013 had a vision for a new form of transportation. A bunch of VCs at Silicon Valley got together and founded Hyperloop One. Now we are actually Virgin Hyperloop One, three years later, which is very exciting. So now Richard Branson is now our chairman. Ryan: I'll tell you a little bit about the technology. Hyperloop basically the pod that you're looking at just broke a speed record, which is really exciting. We went 240 miles per hour in 300 meters at our test site 40 miles outside of Las Vegas. We're really excited about. So how does that work, how did we get there and why do we think it's the future of transportation? Hyperloop is in a tube so this pod was in a tube, we suck out almost all the air out of the tube to almost zero atmospheric pressure. It's not a full vacuum but very, very close. What that does is it provides frictionless travel. What does that mean? That means we can reach higher speeds than Maglev trains that you might see in Japan, in niche markets. It also means that it's more energy efficient and effective because we're using passive magnetic levitation. So that means once we start and accelerate at that point we're floating. So this actually levitates above a track, which is pretty unbelievable. From a cost perspective that's huge cost saving, not only for energy efficiency but also for building track, et cetera. E. B. Moss: I know the sustainability aspect is very important to Mr. Branson. Ryan: Huge. Yeah, it's absolutely. So sustainability is definitely something that we're looking towards. We'd like to get something up and running by 2021 and if you think about where we're going to be in 2021 with autonomous vehicles, with cleaner energy and we're completely energy agnostic solution, which we're really excited about. Not only going fast but thinking about how the future of transportation works. David: Right, so being both New Yorkers I know you've gotten some approval for New York track, from discussions. Ryan: Well, there's discussions. We are a very ... even though some people might see this as a cry in the sky opportunity a lot of our executives have worked in government before. We know how the system works in the United States. You have to go through a regulatory and safety process. We don't want to be seen as a paperwork company that's going to disappear in two years faking all these different things. Ryan: So we have directors of policy here that are working with the federal government. We've made headway in places like Colorado where legislature has signed a memorandum of understanding to look at these. That's actually started already but you have to remember that we need to make sure that it's safe for passengers and we need to go though our safety process. So we kind of understand that but I think it's really interesting because we kind of have a VC type philosophy and coming and working with government. Those are some of the slowest movers. So kind of working that out, working for structure has historically been or seen as a slower moving process. Merchants of VC digital world and then combining this with structure is a really interesting combination. Not only have we seen progress in the United States, we've seen progress in the UN [inaudible 00:16:52] road and transit authority there, we have a proposal to them. The Netherlands and some Scandinavian countries. Started to talk about the UK as well. So we've made some groundwork. David: So, if I'm inside what's my experience? Ryan: Sure. Actually we're partnering with Here Technologies and this is the booth that we're outside of right now. This is the first time that we're talking about the passenger experience in public. 2017 for us was what we call our kitty hawk moment, prove the technology works. Now 2018 is about lets get real, how do we commercialize, what's the experience going to look like, how we work with regulators, et cetera. In the same way that in the digital space we expect fast on demand and we expect a personalized, customized experience we're trying to bring that into the infrastructure mind frame, which hasn't necessarily been the case because this is one of the first new forms of transportation over 100 years, We're trying to incorporate this thing. Ryan: Let's say I book a ticket for the Hyperloop. I want that experience to be one, for example, where I'm here in Las Vegas I have turn by turn walking directions so if I'm inside this crazy convention center I see yes I know I have to walk down the stairs and to the right of the Starbucks to go get my Uber, which will already be there because they know that it takes ten minutes for me to walk out of this craziness. Take my Uber to the Hyperloop get in the Hyperloop, they know that I'm having a meeting with three other people that I met at CES so they're going to give me a customized pod with meeting table et cetera. Versus I've had enough of CES and I don't want to talk to anyone I know and I just want a silent pod and then when I get off the Hyperloop powered by Here Technologies in the future when we get this thing up and running. My Uber's already there and potentially maybe there are other apps like Seamless, et cetera, that by the time I get home my pizza is there. E. B. Moss: Will this exercise for us also because you just eliminated all of the walking that we do. Ryan: Well, I don't think it's there. All the pieces are there so I don't think it's that far of a stretch to get there. Imagine all the pieces and components are there we just got to put it together. E. B. Moss: Yeah, a much different experience than trying to get on the monorail with 5000 other people all crammed into one car, which took me 40 minutes. Ryan: Let's talk about that because that brings up a really good point. So what we'd like to do with the Hyperloop is have pods leaving, seconds; fast, fast, fast. When you have a train that has certain point A to B stops everyone is crammed on the train and then pushes out at the same time. Here we're aiming for consistency so that the other modes of transportation that we're connecting with create more of a flat traffic environment versus these waves where they're not ready. E. B. Moss: I love it. Ryan, thank you so much. Ryan: Thank you so much. E. B. Moss: So we stopped at the booth called Accessible Olli and I'm speaking with Brittany Stotler of Local Motors. So tell me what the connection is Brittany. Brittany: So we are here to show a new project that was announced last CES with CTA Foundation, IBM, and Local Motors. Talking about what it means for people with disabilities or that may not have the function that everyone else has and then as well as the aging community. Trying to make vehicles that are going to be pulling the drivers and age out of them because they're self driving vehicles. Trying to figure out how these people are going to start interacting with the vehicle, making it easier for them and ideally providing them more freedom. We based this on personaes, such as Eric who, though blind legally, he did not start out blind; he's actually an engineer from IBM and was one of the big people behind trying to help us figure out how to make a vehicle and make an Olli stop accessible for somebody who is visually impaired. Another persona is wheelchair bound but doesn't like to call attention to that aspect. So having the accessible Olli be able to communicate with them and use these vehicles allows them the freedom to be going out without someone else there to continually load them because they would roll onto Olli themselves and it automatically secures their wheelchair. Push a button to release them, they can roll back out of the Olli stop and they're all set to go. So ideally you'll have an app on your phone requesting to get on the next Olli that's coming into the station with your preferences set, so if you are in a wheelchair, if you visually have issues or maybe it's your hearing Olli can actually sign back and forth to you though the stop and through the actual vehicle. We’ve got a couple of different options that we're working with so ultrahaptics - a really neat technology system which, for those who can't see or have limited mobility they can actually ... rather than having to press a button ... can just wave their hand in front of it and you feel it and it creates like a virtual button for them. But there's also extendable to some vibrations that can actually drive them to an open seat so they don't have that awkward moment they maybe have to deal with on a daily basis of maybe actually sitting on somebody that's already there but they couldn't see them. E. B. Moss: What's the revenue model for this? Brittany: We are selling Olli and Ollie stops to cities - master planned communities, which is where a lot of the elderly will come into play - and then into large campuses and theme parks. Everybody across the board is thinking about how to integrate Ollie because it helps pull down costs: they can move people out of a bus driver position and turn them into another position, gives them a few new skill sets hopefully.  E. B. Moss: Is there an opportunity or a plan to take advantage of some of the data capture via the app? Brittany: There is potential. Currently we would own all of that data though our app but depending on the partnership it could potentially be a white label for a city’s Olli. They can wrap it however they want on the exterior. There's potential for glassine products, you can put text, you can have a video playing, and it'll go on any of our windows so it turns into almost mobile advertising. David: For our readers and our listeners in this case, I think, this is an opportunity to reach this new audience in a very compelling way. Brittany: Right. You're just the only [crosstalk 00:24:35]. So you're on a university campus and you have all these students that are getting on, they're going from their parking structures to a certain place on campus but they're going to go by Pete's Coffee every single morning and as they're rolling up or they're getting ready to go up to that stop Pete's Coffee advertising comes up on the app or it comes up within the bus to show come inside tell us you were just on Olli and here's your code and you get a discount. It starts driving traffic and then that's another way that the whoever's purchasing to actually operate the vehicles they can start recuperating and making money on the advertising piece. E. B. Moss: So a traffic driver driving traffic. Brittany: We're trying to get rid of traffic. E. B. Moss: Thank you so much for your time [inaudible 00:25:21] Beautifully stated and a very important application for all members of our community to be able to be more mobile ... Brittany: More freedom for them so thank you to all of our partners. E. B. Moss: For a less autonomous but very elevating experience we spoke to the Head of Marketing for Workhorse. He described their octocoper. E. B. Moss: So what are we officially calling this? This is experimental [crosstalk 00:25:54] Workhorse: That's a good question. We've just been calling it personal electric octocopter. Octocopter, eight things octo. David: What's the range on it? Workhorse: 70 miles. David: That's pretty good, that many miles. Workhorse: Gasoline generator that powers it so once you go 70 miles toward hop you gas up ready for the next hop. Not waiting for the lithium-ion battery for hours to charge up and all that stuff. You can just keep going. Normal helicopter you have to have pedals and those handles. This doesn't have any pedals or any of that stuff. We fly like a drone. So it'd be, you know ... David: You don't fly it like a drone. Workhorse: I mean we had this on display in Paris and all the kids that came in 15 they could jump in there, let's go, let's take it up because they're so familiar with the video game and all that stuff. So that's the way this flies. E. B. Moss: So what's the flying experience like? I mean I've been in a glider and I've been in a helicopter, somewhere in the middle? Workhorse: Yeah, I would say so. It wouldn't be as much as a glider, which is just pretty basic but it is also not as complicated as the helicopter. See this only has a ceiling height of flying of 4000 feet. Okay, so it's just enough that you're up and you're flying. So, it's meant to be like a different method of transportation. In America the helicopter's been here for 78 years, last year in America they sold 1000 of them new, that's not that big of a market. So we're not really planning on taking market share from commission on helicopter. We're kind of planning on creating a new category. So you've got to think of it as a new way of transportation, like we were kidding around about the New York City and all that stuff. David: And what's the price point on it or what will it be? Workhorse: We have price point at 200,000 dollars and at this show we can take your name and ... E. B. Moss: Take Credit Cards? Workhorse: $1,000 and your place is saved in line and then we would probably start delivering them in 2020. E. B. Moss: It looks like a Workhorse experimental aircraft. Workhorse: The name of the craft is Surefly. So it's Surefly with safety and that and background.  E. B. Moss: David and I saw AR, audio, autonomy, everything at CES and we talked about how it all came together. David: So one of the trends we just to look at in general is we just saw with Olli and what they're doing. There's a huge population growing old. E. B. Moss: Yes. David: And it's a key population that has a certain expectation level of service and experience and technology and that's only getting bigger. You're seeing a lot of brands really trying to figure out how do we deal with population that's having vision problems and mobility problems and hearing problems. All the things people my age are starting to think about. E. B. Moss: The 25 year olds. David: The 25 year olds. Again, when ... as we joked ... but when you think about the 25 year olds they are very tech savvy. They're the Hyperloop audience, they don't want to be waiting on the street corner for the M35 without having any idea, in the rain, when it's coming, when was the last time it was here, did I just miss it. You know, the stuff we do every day. So you're seeing mobility things like Olli and transportation systems and whole ecosystems. You're seeing companion bots. You're seeing machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision coming into play to do things like my mom lives far away it's hard for me to necessarily be on top of her. And I don't know if she wants me to be on top of her; all that family dynamic. E. B. Moss: So, we actually have a theme here and it kind of wraps things up beautifully because we've seen the connected appliances, connected home. We've seen the connectivity between devices and how to make things easier in life and not having to pick up one device to do one thing and one device to do another. We've seen the continuity between I want to get some place and how do I get there. So everything is connecting us whether it's virtually or physically like with Olli, like with the experimental aircraft, like everything we've seen today is all about connectivity. David: It really is and the big thing is it's connectivity that has value to you and me not connectivity that has value to some corporation. That's where people really get the difference. I'm excited about a technology that will help my life be better and in the course of my life being better the company makes money off of that, that's great. E. B. Moss: Like the last example with Olli. Where there is branding opportunities on and within it but it's giving me something of value. David: That's correct. There equates down when the consumer feels there's no value it's changed for them. Gen Zs might say, "We get that brands trap us every day and we're okay with that, that's the world and we're fine. But what they're not okay with is that you track me every day and then you don't know who I am, if you're going to watch everything I buy you should know what I buy. You should know what I've bought and stop telling me what I've already bought.” E. B. Moss: So if you're going to connect with me, connect in a meaningful way, connect in a valuable way and ... David: Imagine you have a friend who asks you the same question over and over and over again. Right, then eventually you stop hanging out with that friend. So that's where this connectivity has great value to us as human beings. Great value. E. B. Moss: David thank you so much. This was invaluable to have a guide like you. This is Insider Insight live from the Consumer Electronics Show. I'm E. B. Moss, Managing Editor for MediaVillage. Check us out MediaVillage.com and thanks for listening.  

Heyang: For those who worship in the Apple Chapel, the iPhone 7 is the item of ultimate desire. But a company policy in central China’s Henan province goes as this: any employee who buys an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus gets the boot. Why is the company sticking its nose in the employee’s phone-purchasing decision? Guys, what’s going on here? Hongling: Well, according to a report by Henan based Hnr.cn or映像网, a notice was released by the company on Sept. 18 which reads “Our company forbids all employees from using or buying the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Whoever is found in violation of that rule will be immediately forced to resign”. The notice also called for employees to stop buying other U.S.- and Japan-made products, and to support domestic products instead. And also the company theory here is that “If we have some disposable income, and if conditions allow it, let’s use the money to take better care of our parents’ health. Let’s pay more attention to our kids’ growth, to the value of life and to the prosperity of our country.” So maybe instead of buying a phone I guess.Ryan: Yeah, I don’t know, I mean hahahah (Heyang: This is completely outrageous for you Ryan), ah, yeah. I think my eyeballs did a full rotation backwards in my skull when I read this, um and I think it’s—I mean I’m all about people loving their country, I think that’s great, but at the same time too, I think competition and buying the phone that you choose andspending the money that you work hard for, the way you want, not having to worry about losing your job, that’s some security everybody should have. And you know I always kind of been skeptical myself about the iPhone. I’ve had I think a four, and that’s about it, and it was a good phone. But by no means am I like, worshipping at the ‘Apple Chapel’, we are getting married at the ‘Apple Chapel’, I don’t know, people probably done it. But um, I don’t know. Heyang, actually so if you are in this company, you might be in trouble. Heyang: Ok, just say a little bit more about that why then. Ryan: Well, so Heyang has been, I think she’s been dealing with a relic phone for so many years. It was all derelict. She made it work, but um she finally decided to step out the cave a little bit, look outside, and suddenly someone dropped an iPhone 7 in her hand and she’s like ‘Technology!’. And she’s still learning how to use it, but it’s a great phone, and uh it’s really cool. She totally deserves it because she’s been using such an old phone for so long. But that being said, how would you feel? Heyang, you just got this phone, do you think this company is justified if you are working there? Getting rid of you because you got this phone.Heyang: And judging by how much I put out to purchase that phone. First of all, it’d better be good, I’m still trying to learn the functions right now, and it is not easy for a cave woman like myself, and further I haven’t gotten the previous one, so it’s a big leap for me. So you know, I’m very happy that I got this new thing. But, if my boss is judging me by the handbag I get, or my phone or what the lipstick that I’m wearing today, I feel why are you interfering with my personal business when I can delivery my A game at work, and I follow all other company rules. I’m a star employee, why does it matter what phone I get? And here I don't comprehend what the company’s explanation at all. I don't get it at all. Because it says it’s anti-Japanese aggression, well that’s apparently one of the explanations that you know you need to love your country more, you shouldn't be using foreign products especially given the history between China and Japan during the Second World War. And what’s up with the iPhone then? The iPhone is made by Americans and guess what during the II World War? We were close allies with the Americans, so judging by that logic, we have every right to use the iPhone it feels. So the logic does not hold, and what’s up with like being nice to your parents because you don't use an iPhone? So you don't use an iPhone, so you don't by an iPhone, you will spend that thousands of yuan on your parents instead? Who guarantees that? Too many loopholes in that thinking. So don't get it at all.Ryan: Yeah, you know I’ve been called idealistic before, and that’s ok, cause I like being idealistic. But at the same time, you know, I do understand there’s history between a lot of different countries in the world. But we often talked about how we are globalizing, and how we are all moving in a direction that is kind of like human beings are coming together, on so many fronts on what we buy, and what we like and how we do things. And I think there’s beauty in that but some people are scared. But at the same time, I think the future of humans in general, lies in us taking steps forward together? I think that doesn't mean not loving your country, but at the same time, not barring your employees from buying a phone based off of things that happened in the past. And I know it’s not the so distance in the past, but at the same time, we shouldn’t live in the past. I believe in a bright future, again idealistic, and everybody being able to buy that iphone they so desire. Heyang: Or whatever other phones you so desire. It’s up to you, why does the company have anything to do with this. And it’s sounds like the company could be very smart about grabbing public attention about this, because we’ve seen numerous stories that create controversy online, also a lot of backlash about emotionally black mailing people in ‘you have to’ supposedly love your country in some stipulated way by some stranger. Why does that make any sense to any people? Anyway, this kind of argument has also received a lot backlash online, despite supporters as well. So here, I think it’s a guarantee to talking point for people, and what better way is that to get a little bit more publicity for company even if it’s a negative one. Is that the case? Hongling: It is possible that they are just being very sneaky, but I’m very happy that I didn't mention the company’s name in our show (Heyang: Exactly). And also, what Heyang just said about emotionally black mailing people, there’s a thing that I was always trying to follow, trying really hard just by myself. Moral code is for yourself to follow, not for others. You are not using your moral code to regulate other people’s action. That is the first thing, and also, for those of you who think you can boycott like import products in a way to support your country, I have some figures for you. In 2015, the import from America to China cost is like 116 billion yuan, and the export is 482 billion, that is to say if everyone in China listens to you and tries to boycott things from America, it will cost our country like hundreds of billions of dollars or yuan. It’s just not the thing you wanna do. So stop being unreasonably patriotic, or you think you are loving your country, but actually, you are just making a very small-minded case here. Ryan: At the end of the day, buying an iPhone 7 doesn’t mean you don't love your country, it just means that you love apple products and you also love your country. And Niuhongling so eloquently well put that we live in a globalized economy, so if you think that just buying domestic products is going to benefit China, I don't think,Based off figures that’s true, so well put. Heyang: And also in a globalized age, when you’re if you’re trying to boycott some of these foreign brands. They are often manufactured in China, and think about the millions of migrant workers that work their heart out, sweating in those factories to put that phone together, are you boycotting against your fellow compatriots? That’s a question for you.

Heyang: We were all born as chubby babies one day, but how come after college graduationor apparently during that period of time in your life, we see more skinny Chinese people as opposed to Western peers? I don't think that has much to do with genetics actually. Ok, guys, yeah so what explains this phenomenon?Ryan: Well, first of all, I’m pretty sure that you just called me and Bob chubby babies, we were very healthy looking babies, am I right Bob?Bob: Yes, I was possibly chubby but I totally applaud your right, to say that we were chubby, whether we were chubby or not, is neither here or there. Let’s sort it that one there.Ryan: Let’s talk about what happens after you know that point when we were a baby, we grow up, and how it’s different from maybe the east and west. Um and I say I think first thing we’ll talk about, and we often just talked about on the show is that, how intense the school is here, and academic is that something is so important for many Chinese students. Young Chinese people preparing for this test, that seems to be the make break for them known as the Gaokao. Well we have something similar towards high school, the SAT, but at the same time in the US, you find the emphasis and the make break of the SAT isn’t really there. It’s something that helps you to get to the better school, but I think you can still manage to get to a good school, doing OK on your SAT. The thing is, in the US, we have in high schools, in middle schools, sometimes in elementary schools, but competitive sports, and we really put an influence on our kids, to go out and try out for sports. Because we believe like maybe makes you a good all-round kid, someone that knows how to compete, be a good sports man, practice good sportsmanship, know how to act in a team, you know inside and outside of a class, and because of this, we see I think in the US at least, a more emphasis on gym culture, in high school and what not.Heyang: And also I think there’s a huge influence or emphasis in the US, correct me if I’m wrong Ryan, that if you are really good at one sport, then it’s quite easy-er you are to get into a top knot university as there's a lot of sports sponsorships or scholarships? And I think that’s so closely tied to (you know) higher education, and in China, there’s no emphasis as such, and usually the PE classes are considered as a wasted time. There’s better use of that precious time of these young people -- that is to study Math or English or some of the other subjects. Ryan: Yeah you make a really great point. It’s true that actually I was reading not so long ago about the Olympics and where a lot of the Olympic athletes came from (I think it was) Berkeley, was one of them, I don't remember what the top one was. So these top universities are getting people not necessarily based offtheir academics, but how they perform as athletes. Why? You will find in the US, that many of these athletes bring just as much recognition to the school, and more money to the school than someone who's really good at math or what not. You know a good example is at UNM (University of New Mexico, our basketball team'sgreat, we built a huge new stadium. It was amazing, and the basketball team is very lucrative for my university. It’s a focus. Bob: But then is that saying that if you are good at sport, then you can't do Math? Ryan: No, that's absolutely not. But I would say someone who focuses all their time on math, like maybe what you would see here in China, someone focusing on their academics, and then someone splitting that time up between really becoming an Olympic athlete and going to Berkeley, and then competing the Olympics, and also keeping up that academics. It's gonna be harder. One person that is very focused on one thing, that's the academics, the other----it has its balance. Bob: But I think um I suppose if I could bring in the British dimension here (yes please), because I think when we talking about Americans, I think that's probably all about um you know body building and looking fabulous, and going to the gym, and things like that. If British people I think, you know um are little larger, it's nothing to do with muscles, I think it's just we eat too much. To be honest, ah....Heyang: And actually yeah I think my initial introduction to this topic was slightly biased, and I did it on purpose, waiting for you guys to catch me actually.Bob: Suddenly going through colleg, and you know there has to be exams you know, it's comfort to eat as well, because I think we have a big culture that when you get stressed or upset, we go straight to the larder and just eat (we do too, the freshman 13), and eat and eat and eat. Heyang: Yeah also I think there is this culture aspect to us as well. In China I think the parents don't really think that body building or you know having a good physics or you know playing sport is that important, and often mum says oh that is just playing, you are wasting your time, you are playing, you should be studying. And then also in traditional culture, if not ancient culture, we have this concept of Wen and WU, so it's Civil and Military, and that goes back to thousands of years. And military is usually a connected with maybe masculinity and Wen is more about being a magistrate, and you have a big brain, and the muscles don't really come in to play. People don't really care and that has been associated with also ascetics, what women think is attractive in men as well. So there's a whole concept going on. Ryan: Yeah I think what we are seeing here in China, in how the typical male and female act in their younger years and academically and sports wise. I think it works for here, passing the Gaokao and becoming successful. Although I think it's a different story in the US, we are kind of um very a culture that does focus on the look, as well as the academics. And um I think you know it's just different, it's just different and you know what there's no right or wrong here, we just see two different cultures and how they play out in the youth. Heyang: Yeah I think there’s no right or wrong, but there's always one that's attractive in a way. I guess although that's a....Ryan: What you are trying to say here uh?Bob:　I think she's trending on a very dangerous ground here. Heyang: Yes, I have some girl friends that like really skinny guys and think that muscles "eww", basically that sums it up. But also there's other girls, like myself, that we think working out is cool, and muscles I think it's sort of like a badge honor in a way, and when I myself is lean, and I've got muscles. I like to be paired up with a guy that got some too. So depends on your own, preference and ascetics, we are not judging at all. And yes it is east meeting west, and I think we are seeing each other and encountering each other so much more. So yeah that's a topic for discussion.

Heyang: A photo showing actor and Beijing-native Ge You slouching on a sofa has gone viral. That posture has been nicknamed "The Beijing Slouch." Now 4 younger male celebrities have inherited the mantel and have been crowned the 4 slouchers of the capital. What is the Beijing slouch? Why do Beijingers proudly proclaim it is ours?YuYang: I guess many people have watched the "Wo Ai Wo Jia". The photo was a snapshot from "Wo Ai Wo Jia", literally meaning "I Love My Family". It's one of the oldest and most famous sitcoms in China. In this picture Ge You, was always seen slouching on the sofa and had not sat up straight once. At first, the posture was called Ge You lying, later people started to call it Beijing slouch since it's a very typical posture for Beijing natives and the photo soon gained huge popularity during the weekend. A lot of people posted photo shopped versions of the picture like Ge You dressing like the American captain, or Spiderman while doing the posture. It also became a popular meme with words like "I know I am wasting my life but I just don't want to stop." It's very interesting while Heyang, as a Beijinger, can you show people how do you do a proper Beijing slouch. Heyang: Thank you for directing that question to me.YuYang: Many people would be interested.Heyang: Well, when it comes to the Beijing slouch, it's very…Ryan: Technical.Heyang: Yeah, because you have to hear me out here. It's about you're sitting there but as if you have no bone in your body and can you imagine how comfortable that is. And also it is not just 1 posture, it is a process. So, basically what you do is you sit down on a chair or on a sofa and then you sort of just lay back, and then here comes the process: you are sliding down the sofa but your back clings to the end of the chair in 120 degrees to 180 degrees. I think that is the technical side of things and you better get it right to qualify the Beijing slouch. That is what I think and also here can I please abuse my position a little bit. I am so sorry about it, but I have to do it. Listen up everyone, you have to use the Beijing slang to describe this that is: "从椅子上出溜下去". That is when you slide down and you glide down and that is what the Beijing slouch is and I think it shows a lot of attitude, it could be 3rd world war out there but I don't give a damn.Ryan: You know, looking at this, I'm going to say something that maybe Heyang won't like here that…Heyang: What is it Ryan? Be nice.Ryan: First of all, I love Beijing, I do but to call this the Beijing slouch, I think I have been doing this slouch my whole life. When I get on a couch, especially when its comfy, I first sit on the chair or sofa then after I have secured my comfiness I decide that I want to accelerate my comfiness level, so then I slowly slouch on the sofa till my shoulders are basically almost touching the back and I make the nice little triangle that you have with your Beijing slouch. So, I am just saying guys I think this is also a slouch that is done everywhere around the world by tons of people looking to be very comfy on their couch.Heyang: Ok, could be true but I beg to differ, Ryan. Because can you make sure it's the 120 to 180 degree slouch?Ryan: Can you make sure?Heyang: Oh yeah, with my fabulous abs, I can make it whatever degree and also you know what's really essential here, that is when you are maintaining the slouch, it is pretty good exercise to the abs. Also when you finish the slouch, you need to bounce up, that's like Beijing style, bounce up effortlessly like a spring or when some guys mess it up they need to put their hand on the ground for a little support to bounce up. That's not called bounce up, that is just struggling. That doesn't qualified.Ryan: Please stay tuned for Heyang's workout video called Slouch in the Abs out. YuYang: I see you guys are both trying so hard to establish your own brands right? Heyang's slouching style and Ryan's slouching style. Actually there are the Beijing 4 slouchers of the capital. Celebrities are trying hard to establish their own brands. Netizens also found 4 famous celebrities, most born in Beijing as the top 4 Beijing slouchers who gave the best demonstrations of the posture. One is Walkie Zhang (Da Zhang Wei), he was an actor, singer, and host born in Beijing, many photos showing him slouching him on sofa or chair. It looks like he wants to show that he's a genuine Beijinger. In a TV show named: "I Go To School", he even slouches down between chairs and desks in the decorated classroom.Ryan: There's many photos of me in school slouching folks well before I got on this show but let's talk about the history of the so-called Beijing slouch. The posture can date back to the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912), in case you didn't know. The Manchu people loved to lie down on the heated brick bed after dinner even including the emperor. It is said that Emperor Qianlong loved to slouch down after dinner read books and write calligraphy. Now, that sounds really nice. I think I would be doing that, and that's why I think I have done that. It's because I think slouching is one of those human necessities we have all done but I do think it's cool that people are really enjoying this here in Beijing. It does definitely have a cultural aspect to it. I am just saying guys, everybody slouches. Yu Yang: People say this slouching posture of the Qing Dynasty with Emperor Qianlong is related to his long-life. He died at 88 years old. He was regarded as the longevity emperor in the Chinese history. People say he knew how to keep himself healthy like he always took the unprotected sleep called回笼觉. Maybe the slouching always makes him feel comfortable and relaxed after long working hours. Heyang: Interesting. But I still think that the Beijing slouch we're talking about today, the type that I have described…Ryan: 120 degree angle!Heyang: Yeah. You have to get the angle right, you know and I don't think it's the same as what the emperors used to do because I don't think they're practically flat on their heated brick beds. I don't think that is the situation at all. Actually, they have a lot of support on their back so it is slouching more like half-way what we're talking about in the contemporary sense. Maybe I've given it too much thought but I think this is an interesting way to see what the Beijing local culture is about.Ryan: Maybe, just maybe, the slouching culture has evolved and especially here in Beijing to perfect the slouch to a 120 degree angle for optimal comfort on the couch. I saw a picture of the guy that's known for the Beijing slouch, and he does look so comfortable.Heyang: There's one thing I think that I do share with Da Zhang Wei. Is he a member of the 4 slouchers of the capital? Our internet users are just so intelligent and clever. I do admire you guys so much. The part that I share with Da Zhang Wei is that yeah things evolve, technology develops. Now, everybody pretty much has a laptop and I'm a busy person, a hard worker. There are a lot of things I want to do on my laptop even in my free time that could be work-related or not. What I do? I slouch and I use my fabulous abs as a table or a desk and I put on my laptop on there and as I do stuff so yes I think the Beijing slouch has many facets to it and now it's multi-functional. Yu Yang: Is it a good way to train your abs. That's a pretty creative way, I guess.Heyang: If you want fabulous abs, I think I have some authority in it. I can only say that the slouch is conducive but it doesn't determine your abs. So if you really do want those defined abs, maybe you should follow a class that maybe I will teach in the future. Yu Yang: Wow. That's very interesting. I agree that it's a fabulous way to train your abs. It is the cultural symbol and it is also a nostalgic thing in Beijing Hutongs maybe during the hot summer time. You can see a lot of people, many old Beijingers slouched on enfolding bamboo chairs in the yard or on the Hutong streets using the big fan to keep them cool and drive mosquitos away while drinking some tea and talking to neighbors. That's a typical Beijing summer night in Hutong.Heyang: Why is it that so many of our parents especially our moms when they have been teaching us our manners as we grow up always say or often call us out and say: "Don't do that!" "Don't slouch"?Ryan: Well that's what I was going to say here is that you know you have painted this picture Heyang of like 6 pack ripped guys just slouching to the best shape of their life, but when I often see someone slouching, I often think they are lazy, not lazy but just careless, relaxing and hanging out or maybe just trying to beat the heat, not so much trying to get the 6 pack abs we all really want. You want what I mean! Also, guys I think that it's bad for your backbones and your posture overall. In fact, I was doing just a little research. Slouching often does increase your chances of back problems, i.e. scoliosis, arthritis and it also might give you that image of the "double chin" You're just so comfortable that you don't care how you look. The double chin's coming out.Heyang: I have an objection to that. Basically, yeah maybe you could be seen with the double chin, that could happen but also you create an imagery that is second to none. That is, it seems as if it's all legs below your neck. Try it out. You will see what I mean.

Heyang: Students at Hubei University of Technology have been asked to complete an unusual summer vacation assignment that is to write a confession letter to evaluate your relationship status. The title goes as: "Why are you still single?" So, what's going on?Ryan: Well, let me tell you all about this summer vacation homework. The topic is: "Why you are single" and so basically what the homework request is a personal analysis with 300 words including 5 strengths and 5 weaknesses of yourself inviting someone to start a romantic relationship with you and a love letter with 500 words to your current girlfriend or boyfriend if you have one and on top of all this guys, they are to post it on Weibo when they finish and do like a @your school counselor. This is not a joke but a real summer vacation homework for more than 300 students from Hubei University of Technology. Some students jokingly say that it is absurd calling it really hard for single dogs. It's killing them! Some netizens agree that it is bad others are thinking it's okay. Personally guys for me, this is weird and I think kind of unacceptable for a school project and on top of that shaming yourself, I don't know, I would feel weird putting my information about this specific part of my life on Weibo. Why I'm single?Niu Honglin: Yeah and what I'm trying to say is well by asking the question about why you're single, it feels like its wrong to be single. What's wrong to be single?Ryan: Well putHeyang: That's so weird.Ryan: They use the words: "still single" as if it is a problem.Niu Honglin: It's not nice and also, isn't it kind of a violation of personal privacy? I mean, maybe I choose to. Maybe I didn't find someone that I like, maybe the one pursuing me does not come to certain standards. It has a lot of reasons. You can't just say: Why you're still single? like why you are failing a test？ Why don't you have a job? It's not a nice question.Heyang: It's not a nice question. It feels its naturally discriminating people who are not in a relationship and also for people who are freshmen that just have finished their first year of university and as you migrated into your next year becoming a sophomore, that's an interesting time point to publish this online. There's a few things going on that I think are kind of interesting.Ryan: Well, before we throw her under the bus, let's understand why she, in her opinion assigned this homework assignment. So, basically she came up with the idea during a taxi trip while the driver was complaining that college students nowadays always blame others rather than themselves. Yue thinks this topic is related to students' lives and may help them realize their own problems. Yue was born in the 1980s; all of her students were born after 1995, so they're young. She said the attitudes about love for the two different generations. People of the young generations are more direct. They will speak their love in public or in their dormitory and though this behavior is brave, on the other hand, it's kind of maybe centric on yourself. I will say that I do think the younger generations due to social media and a lot of other things are becoming somewhat narcissistic. They think they're always the victims of certain problems and I attribute this especially to my generation, back in the states. But I think this is a universal thing, maybe you guys can clarify this specifically here in China. But, kids nowadays are quicker to blame others rather than take responsibility which we talk about all the time, people not taking responsibility for themselves. I think we're seeing less and less of that in these newer generations. Niu Honglin: I agree, maybe she meant well. Maybe, she's trying to make university students think about their own strengths and weaknesses but also to remind you, students who have a boyfriend or girlfriend also have to finish the homework but they have to do the article with a theme of: "How did I manage to get a boyfriend or girlfriend?" "What's bad or good I've done in a relationship?" It's kind of like they're the winners of life. They're sharing their experiences. I don't like that attitude. It's like they have this idea that being in a relationship is some kind of winning. I don't think it's a good concept. Ryan: Right. I think this promotes that you should be in a relationship. Why aren't you in one? Your life is incomplete. When I was their age, relationship was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to have fun with my friends and was living on my own. I was so excited! I mean, granted of course, relationships are always a nice thing but these kids are young and they need the time to be young. To be asking such questions like: "Why are you still single?" I mean A) you're promoting that being single is a bad thing. I don't think that's healthy at all for the mindset and B) they're sharing this with everybody. What if some guys says well, maybe I'm not athletic enough and maybe blah blah blah when he's listing his weaknesses and his peers make fun of him. I don't think this is a good thing to promote. There's no amenity here. These people are posting this personal stuff about them on weibo for everybody to see, right?Heyang: Yeah, so that's the part I cannot agree with. I guard my privacy like I'm guarding the holy land. That's the kind of importance it is for me and in this day and age, I think I'd advise everybody to do that actually. Your personal information getting online means you will not have a chance to get it back to you. So, that's the first thing I want to say and also our Wechat listeners have very personal insights regarding this topic and our Wechat listener Xue has left us a mini essay on this and I think it's really interesting what she says. Xue, I hope this is okay with you but you didn't send us a private message, so I'm assuming it's alright. I'll leave out the parts that I think might be a little bit too sensitive for her. So basically she's saying that in high school, the last year of high school, she was madly in love with this boy and her parents and his parents were like Romeo and Juliet, split them up and said: "No way can you guys have a relationship". You have more important things to do in life and that is the Gao Kao. They listened to parent's advice, broke up, and both of them got to different universities and life is supposed to be better now. But actually she says, she's never managed to find another guy that she really likes in university and now, just in a matter of like two years or so, her parents are pressuring her: "You're in university and how come you don't have a boyfriend." That's like the biggest irony of everything and she's totally upset about it. But, what do you say about this kind of mentality? Prior 18 having a relationship is like the monster in life, then after you're 18, it's like, What? Suddenly, everything has changed, you have to be in a relationship and get married as soon as possible.Niu Honglin: Well, I do feel like Chinese parents have this certain feeling that the age of 18 or the landmark of entering a college is sort of like changing everything. Before that, they say: "on't talk to boys", "Don't have a boyfriend", "Do not do anything", and after that it's like, "Bring back your husband." It's not a life-changing night, maybe it's a life-changing test, but it's not in terms of everything. You cannot decide what you should do or what is okay to be done just over a test. We have to admit it's another period of your life but growing up is a constant process. Ryan: You know, when I'm a father, I will be consistent in that: "No boyfriends ever for my daughter." And that's just how it's always going to be. That's how I'll always feel. But, you know what to this specific scenario, I think the parents are warranted and that is because when you're 18, trust me, cause I've been 18, that was 10 years ago. I was a dramatically different person. I had feelings I didn't understand. I was growing, you grow so much in college and god even after that. So, I think yes it's so sad that you didn't get to spend that proper amount of time with someone you really had feelings for but at the same time I want to tell you that you will find that person out there. Just keep looking, be patient. Realize you're growing, that person is also growing and in amount of time, I'm sure you will bump into each other and things will all make sense. But I'm sorry to hear about the fighting between the Capulets and Montagues, I believe those were the two families of Romeo and Juliet and I hope that you find love as soon as it's appropriate. Heyang: I think that's a life-pursuit for me, I don't know but for people who want to have a real and fulfilling relationship, I think you should never stop trying to look for it. You need to look for it. I don't think it's going to fall on your lap if you're just eating potato chips and playing video games at home. But also, I think it's a delicate balance in the mind that if you're too desperate, that just drives good people away. It's about growing yourself stronger inside, keep looking, and I can't think of anything else right now. Ryan: I want to point out something else too. Yes, I actually agree with you Heyang. I think most people, a big part of life is looking for someone to spend it with, to do those things with, to make memories. It's a beautiful and magical thought when you think of spending your life with another soul, another human being and sharing things nobody else will know about in the world except you and your best friend. But you know what, you need to have patience for that. You also need to be yourself and be okay with being by yourself. I think that person comes when you're independent and when you're happy being by yourself. Because, then it's not like you need them, it's they complement you. It's like you didn't need anyone, but suddenly there's this person in your life that complements you. That's how I've always thought of it. But I think it is always so healthy for you to be confident being by yourself. I think this assignment is promoting an ideology of saying that it's not okay and that's not what a young person should be learning in college. They should be learning that it is okay to be yourself and feel good being yourself. Heyang: Wow. I almost wanted to cry listening to that, Ryan.Niu Honglin: It's just so well-said. Also maybe to perfect the homework, we can instead ask students to write about what kind of quality you want in your future partner and what kind of quality you hope to grow on yourself to find them. Maybe that would be a better article to write aboutHeyang: Also, write a personal letter or don't put it online. I hate it when that stuff is put online.

Heyang: Do you have a very strict routine that you have to follow everyday and never let yourself go if you couldn't make it, or you insist finishing washing all the dishes in the kitchen even when you are sick, or you have to organize your closet in military style otherwise you won’t be able to leave the house? If your answer is yes, you might be a perfectionist, or someone with OCD! That is obsessive-compulsive disorder, so it actually could be a disease. So guys, could you please enlighten me first with the definition perfectionist and OCD? What is going on here?YuYang: Oh yeah, research on perfectionism has indicated that there are two main types. The first type is healthy perfectionism. This type of perfectionism is categorized by high standards of yourself, as well as other persistence in the face of adversity, and conscientiousness. Healthy perfectionism usually goes along with goal-directed behavior and good organizational skills but the second type of perfectionism is the so-called not that healthy, unhealthy perfectionism. This type of perfectionism is characterized by excessive preoccupation with past mistakes, fears about making new mistakes, doubts about whether you are doing something correctly. Excessive preoccupation with control is also a hallmark of the unhealthy perfectionism. So in general, while healthy perfectionism tends to be associated with good psychological well-being and high achievement both at school and at work, the unhealthy perfectionism has been associated with distress, low-self esteem and symptoms of mental illness, such as OCD.Ryan: Okay, but Yuyang, you know you described excessive preoccupation with past mistakes, and fears about making new mistakes, doubts about whether what we are doing, if we are doing correctly. This sounds like something maybe everybody has, but maybe you can paint a picture because you have told that sometimes, you fit in the category of perfectionist in describe, what is it? YuYang: I can go on endlessly. First of all, the first thing I do every morning after steeping into the office is cleaning my desk, my chair, the computer keyboard, or even my earphone sometimes. I know it sounds weird but it is me.Heyang: No! It is not weird at all. And every morning, I see Yuyang working as busy as a bee, and she is not even seated yet, she is just cleaning everything first and she gets her own little rag thing that she gets, a piece of cloth that is very clean and she uses it to clean more things. Otherwise, she will not feel comfortable being seated there.YuYang: I think so. I think I will feel more comfortable after I finish cleaning all of them. Clean it first, and then I can do other stuff. Ryan: Well so we were talking about this early this morning, and so, my first exposure to OCD, I remember our specific story, at first, I thought it was really funny and I want to share with you guys. So, there is this guy, he lived in whats called a cul de sac in the story. And so a cul de sac is like a circle of houses surrounding this one common area street, the circle. And so, he wanted every morning to bring his trash out, he would have to come out of his house and look directly at the ground. And his neighbor is like “This guy is so weird, like why he is just starring at the ground?” The thing is he had OCD, in which, he could not look, you know out of sight out of mind, he could not look at other people's trash cans. His neighbors, and because it was a circle, he would see them easily. He couldn’t look at them without having the, if he did look at them, go over there and organize their trash. So, they said sometimes, you know, a car with honk, and he would look up. The people that saw him would see this expression like, “Awww man, no I gotta go to organize everybody’s trash!” So basically, this guy could not do it. You know there is a feeling of urgency. This very strong feeling he couldn't resist that he knew if he saw all these trash cans, something inside of him, had to go and organize. YuYang: You know what Ryan, after hearing your story, actually I feel good. I realized that I am not that extreme and I am still healthy maybe.Heyang: Oh definitely! So it sounds like you are the perfectionist, but you haven't got OCD, compulsive…what is it? What is the O stands for? Obsessive-compulsive disorder. YuYang: Yeah, exactly. But sometimes I think I am standing in the middle. And I think I have a very strong impulse after I arrive home. To do cleaning firstHeyang: Still cleaning?YuYang: Still cleaning, but not that extreme. I collect all the garbage and throw them outside. But I don't care much, that much garbage on the road or other places. Yeah I think Ryan you have given me a good therapy. Ryan: I am happy to helps. But you know research, we have found something, I should say something first of all, I am, what we call in the English language, a, hypochondriac, too low level, but sometimes, I feel like I have something when I read more about it, and so, we will doing this “I feel like I have some of these symptoms.” But, maybe you guys can chime in and let me know if you have fallen into any of these categories. So, it is says unhealthy perfectionism can also be described as if you do not feel you have the perfect certainty that you've locked a door, turn off the stove as you are trying to leave the house. For me, I know I literally have a problem where when I am walking away from the ATM, I have to check it 5 times to make sure A, I pull out the money and B, I got my card. And like I will leave, and like I walk a couple steps, and then come back. And I have done this three times. I do know to a certain extent that “Oh yea, I probably did it.” But there is a nagging suspicion in the back of my head. And I just can’t ignore. So, I am definitely fall in to that category, I think.Heyang: The frequency is a little bit high. And actually it is a really good point that you should always check. But usually I don’t think we have the problem of taking the money, but taking the card with you. Sometimes you just forget! But anyways, maybe I am one of those exact opposite person to perfectionist. Maybe I don't really see why there is such urgency with these things. And my belief in life is I think 70% good is superb. YuYang: Wow that's quite healthy Heyang, I am jealous of you. You know sometimes being a perfectionist is tedious.

​【特别感谢热心听友“Mobey 曹英哲”帮忙听写本篇文稿】Heyang: Some believe that one’s personality can alter the course of one’s destiny. But do you believe that your personality can affect how many birthdays you celebrate?Of course, it’s important to remember that there are many factors, from genetics to lifestyle, work together to determine life expectancy — but researchers have found that there are six personality traits, in particular, some are more common in those who lead longer lives. Guys, what does the study say, do you believe in this six indicators that could contribute to how long you live?Yu Yang: Well, this is a really interesting research, because the researchers used the data from a 75-year study of 600 people, who began taking part in the study between 1935 and 1938 when they were in their mid-20s and continued the whole participating process until 2013. When they joined the study in the 1930s, each participant picked three to eight close eight friends to rate their personality using a 36-question scale created by the psychologist E. Lowell Kelly in 1940. Using the questionnaire, the researchers end up with 4 key traits that emerged as key measures as longevity. And two for women and two for men. Of the men in the study, those who were seen by their friends as more ‘conscientious’, which means they were less likely to take risks and also tended to be more thorough and efficient, and open to new and different ideas, feelings, and concepts lived longer. Of the women, those who were seen as more emotionally stable and agreeable lived longer.Ryan: Yeah. I was looking at this, and I think it boils down to, for me, these are just really technical terms to say, don’t live a life that is stress-ridden. So a stress-free life, you live longer, and I think happiness, that ambition, that drive that tells your body life is good, let’s keep this run going for as long as possible. I think your body does directly respond to you, if you’re hating life, if you stressed everyday, it’s like the worst day of your life, your body’s probably, it’s that mentality’s taking a toll on it some way. Like let’s take the guys for instances. Conscientious, which is the best predictor of longevity when measured in childhood, is a personal indicator of long life measured in adulthood. To me, conscientious means like people who create healthy, long life pathways for themselves, and for me, at the same time, I think that is hand in hand with a stress-free life, also being open, not opposing change, everyday is a change, and so these people that were started this what the 1930s, a lot has changed, if they fight it continuously, they’re gonna get tired and worn out, and of course, probably won’t be living as long life. But if you open the change and you are conscious, you think about things like, oh I should set my alarm or worry about the little details in your life, those little details won’t come back to bite you in the rear end, and you will be less stressed, you can relax knowing that you covered all your basis and that’s what it means for me, maybe you guys can talk about the lady, the two lady words.HY: Yeah that could be possible, but also I just think conscientious is really interesting coz it’s sort of telling you that you take small risks maybe, but you avert most of the risks, is that what kind of means here? Ryan: Well, also, detail-oriented which to me means someone who doesn’t just like go through life, and like doesn’t pay attention to small things, looks through things in detail, and make sure it’s done maybe correctly, but also at the same time, you could say, like, thrifty and persistent, but those kind of people I believe they have less of that karma from doing half way jobs comes back to bite them in the butt they live more stress-free lives. HY: Oh interesting. Coz I used to think that would be... Because these people sound like prudes.Ryan: Oh... She said it. You guys heard it. She took off the gloves. But...HY: I mean I’m just throwing it out there…Ryan: Oh you threw it in my face. You can just throw it out there. Alright, you know I’m just gonna say this. I think someone who does take that detail into serious account will live a longer life in less stress. Now please, this is the man words. So let’s talk about the lady words.YY: Yeah. The emotionally stable thing…I think I agree with this point. It’s not a gender topic but maybe because women are more influenced by emotion than their counterparts. And according to the research, the emotional status can affect women’s hormone and endocrine. Endocrine means “内分泌” in Chinese. This one I totally agree. So, well, I think women are more susceptible to the endocrine imbalance(内分泌失调). Well if you suffer from that, that’s a problem. So I suggest to keep your emotions stable as much as you can, and agreeable and friendly and being nice, well, that’s kind of ideal situation, but life is hard sometimes. Or I think Heyang you have something dramatic to say about this trait.HY: I have nothing dramatic to say, I just have something pretty rational to say. That is I think emotionally stable should be what men and women try to pursue maybe. I don’t see why this is strictly a gender thing that is my question, coz when it comes to hormones, come on everybody, male are more susceptible to it or if not we’re at a similar levels, I think it’s sort of gender stereotype to say women are just more emotionally going through ups and downs and things. Ryan: Well, ok, I mean that’s a whole separate argument I feel, but there are inherent differences in men and women especially in brain chemistry, I believe that there is a good argument in that. But at the same time, I do agree with you that emotional stability is not a gender specific thing. And so everyone should strive to be emotionally stable, but what do you think about agreeable and friendly like?HY: Well, I think it’s sort of creating that happy atmosphere around you, coz I think automatically if that is around you, then it makes you happy, it would work for you and maybe spreading a little bit love on the way is not a bad idea, either. And also it seems like being an extrovert can help too, so I think it goes back to being open and those kind of things.Ryan: I was just gonna say for me it’s common sense, I totally agree with you.HY: Alright~YY: Really I think I’m an introverted person, I can handle stress pretty well. HY: Don’t forget that these factors in play together.

Heyang: Have you reached your peak friendship? According to a new study, people will have the highest number of friends around the age of 25. But, these numbers begin to decline soon after, and men have more friends than women. Do you agree?Guys, what did this study find?Yu Yang: In the study published in Royal Society Open Science, researchers from Aalto and Oxford Universities analyzed the cell phone communications of 3.2 million users in Europe. The team looked at the calling patterns (excluding text messages) between pairs of people of known age and gender in 2007. The Study found people have the highest number of connections at age 25. After 25, these acquaintances will decline steadily, and plateau from 45-55. Once a person reaches 55, friendships will begin to decrease steadily. While the study examined these relationships in a phone-based setting, the team says these findings correspond closely to face-to-face networks as wellRyan: I think this makes sense to me. Because I feel once you’re hitting 25, you’re A “looking for serious relationships.” And everybody knows that’s once you’re in a relationship even if you try really hard, it is hard to keep those personal friendships you had when you were an individual. Maybe when you are a couple, those friendships won’t be as relevant anymore. At the same time at 25, people are starting to get ready to pursue their work or career. They’re finishing school, life’s looking like a full time job. Basically, life is going to hell in a hand basket, folks. But pursuing a career that might even take you from a different part the country you are living in even to another country. When it’s long distance, it’s really hard to stay connected. HY: That is so true when you talk about distance, it can kill a friendship. I’ve experienced it too. I went to college in the UK and I had my really tight and close circle of friends. But most of them live in London, and some are in Europe now, or actually scattered all around the globe. And not that many of these close friends of mine back then from college are in Beijing. I feel that friendships are a bit like flowers, just allow me to be little sentimental today, it suffers if you don’t sing to it. Now I feel the urge that I need to get back in touch with these friends. As you make new friends, but shouldn’t it be in theory that once you start working, you are expanding your contact list. You are supposed to meet more people, but how come for most of us, it seems after college you just lose that big pool of candidates to become your friends. What happened there?Yu Yang: I think it depends on the degree of maturity. As you grow older and maturer, I think you become more selective about your acquaintances. One typical scenario in China is after people get married and have kids, they spend most of their non-working hours with their family members instead of hanging out with friends. At least that is a typical scenario in China. Ryan: For me, I would say, I don’t like to mix to often professional life with my real “me” life, you know? And so, I think that’s why we see a lot of people that have work acquaintances but then outside of work they leave work at the door as they are leaving the office and suddenly, I’m like, a whole different kind of Ryan.Yu Yang: This study is based on a phone setting and I think people are using their phones to communicate with each other when they are young, people mostly communicating with peers of similar age.Heyang: Ok, this is based on phone data and I felt that it is looking at people who are called “cavemen” or “cave-women” and I belong to that group, you guys, young and hip people, Ryan and Yu Yang, you don’t belong to this group. I feel…..ok you guys aren’t saying anything, you know, against me, to make me feel a little bit better in that context….anyways so I think this study, maybe that is a little bit biased.Ryan: Well, first of all, the reason why I was taking my time there is because you called me young and hip, that was so nice of you.Heyang: You’re welcome, we help each other out.Ryan： But，you know, that was my thing, is this going to be relevant in the next 5 years, in the next 10 years? With communication now, we are looking at so many interesting things, like we were talking about VR the other day. Imagine if I just put on these goggles and I’m chilling in your house with you even though I’m half way across the world and there are these holograms now where a camera is looking at you and it projects your friend (Heyang: Yeah) next to you, it’s almost surreal, these people that are half way across the world can visually be in front of you in almost a 3 dimensional way. And so, actually, I feel like in the future, communication and friendships, relationships in general, will see a huge change.Heyang: I think it’s really smart of you Ryan to say it’s a huge change, but you didn’t say it’s going to be a huge improvement because I think technology, it does help communication but whether it can facilitate more communication, is a bit of a question. As we have seen the popularity of Wechat in China, Weixin, everybody probably using it, whoever’s got a smart phone but has that made you have more friends or more contact with these people that you really care about, it’s a bit of a different question as I think we’ve been spoiled with these avenues of communication but if you don’t have the urge, that you really want to keep in touch with this person, it means nothing.Ryan: At the same time, scary, I just want to point out that communication now seems to always put us in contact even when we want our privacy, so I love privacy.Heyang: Yes, and I have tried so hard to guard my cave, not allowing people in.

非常感谢热心听众【张惠云- Bibi】对本文稿的贡献！Heyang: If there is someone most likely to drop into your nightmares, it is your boss. Our bosses are very special to us - they know what drives us, how to hurt us, and most shamefully, where our bottom lines are. Today is their turn to be whipped by Round Table. Whish, OK didn’t do it right. But anyway this topic has been inspired by a post on WeChat public account on shameless and has so much fun reading it. Guys, have you encountered any of these bosses ever in your life?Ryan: Well, OK let’s talk about these bosses because I think the names are very awesome. But we are gonna do some censoring here on some of the names, you can check the same article if you so wish. But the first one, no problems, the emperor boss. Now imagine it, and the emperor, what is an emperor, dude? Here is people take care of them. He is in a position of power, he is a powerful man. Well yes the emperor boss is a very powerful man, he doesn’t want to...you know, get his own coffee, or he has an assistant to do a lot of work for. This kinds of boss that are really like the menial tasks he has someone do it for.Heyang: Yeah, ask someone to do it for him or her actually, could be an empress boss. And if it’s a woman in that position, could be equally as bad and demanding if not more.Luo Yu: But I think on most occasions these emperor bosses are not very demanding. You know, you just pour them a cup of tea, or get the parcels for them, or get their schedules done, things like that. They will not be bossing you around, form my perspective.Ryan: It is a way to win favor with the emperor. But at the same time too, as long as I think the tasks are menial, like please give me a cup of coffee, oh like can you lighten my cigarette. It’s kind of things like…dude you can do this you know. But I haven’t actually experienced any kind of emperor bosses, I don’t know about you guys. But there is one boss that I have experienced maybe you guys have also experienced it—the credit-owner boss. And Shameless describes this kind of boss, the boss is like come on guys, we are a team! Let’s do this! And then if the team fails, he’s like: well, my team failed, I don’t know what they did wrong uhm, you know, they jump out of the situation. And they include themselves when the good is good. They will be there and say oh I am a part of the team. But if the team messes up, they are immediately in the boss position and segregate themselves from it.Heyang: You actually been a victim to this.Ryan: Absolutely, people will always jump to greener pastures. Heyang: Oh that’s not good at all. And I’d even take it a step further and say some of these credit-owner bosses, it could be credit-owner professors as well, you know, if you’re a student. And sometimes, they take credit of your hard work, your fruit of labor, and don’t give you any recognization at all. And I think that’s the worst type. It’s like you work so hard, and you don’t exist. And they don’t even remember you sometimes. And you just feel…I just felt like I was a complete loser and was being used. Luo Yu: A lot of people have the same feeling of being used by other people, it happens a lot in every corner of the workplace around the world, I think, even happens in CRI.Heyang: Oh! Tell us more about that.Luo Yu: There are people who did the interviews, who had the story lines, who had conducted interviews by himself. And all of a sudden, there was a supervisor level person who asked the person to write his name first when they’re going to apply for award. This happens a lot.Heyang: Yes, it’s kind of practice in certain circles. And I just wonder I mean, in those kind of situations of course, it’s very easy to say that we are the victims to it. But there is the other side of the argument that sees this as sort of a path that everybody has to go on for a little while because that’s how you earn trust form the boss or your professor. And also gain more experiences and through the way you might get some exposure. And I even like to respond to the first boss type that Ryan talked about, the emperor boss. Sometimes, on the surface, it’s like you are doing a personal errand for your boss. Like sometimes, the boss asks someone as strong as Ryan to change the water filter. But it’s not because it’s a personal favor. It’s more like they trust you and they want you to do something. So I mean there are different angles to look at this. Ryan: Like moving forward on this, like being a good boss. I think a good boss should expect less people doing like catering to him, as he caters to his employees. Coz I feel like if you encourage your employees, you make them happy. They will be very productive, and as a boss, you will be rocking your job. So a good boss is an encouraging boss.Heyang: That’s true. What about the boss 2nd generation? Do you have anything to say about that, Luo Yu?Luo Yu: Well, boss 2nd generation. Usually, the female inferiors have a very good depiction about them, you know, they want to be hugged by theses boss 2nd generation. They think them to be very affluent and very powerful. But actually in reality on most occasions, they’re not that rich and sometimes their body shape is not that good as well. Heyang: It sounds like someone’s got personal vendetta towards this 2nd generation bosses. Yes, that could be…uh sometimes, people shouldn’t take the face value of things. And also what are some of the other bosses that you think, they are just not good?Ryan: Well there is the not nice lady boss. Yes I am censoring that name can be both man and woman. But someone who like kind of sleeps their way to the top. They use their assets to get their special job, which I don’t think is good. Heyang: Yeah well sometimes, I feel that there is just the prejudice against powerful hard-working and good-looking women. And there, sometimes, when she gets on top, then there seems to be that kind of discrimination towards her. That scandals and rumors could be made up.

【特别感谢热心听友“阿饺”帮忙听写本篇文稿】Heyang: The latest research says that over 10 million children in elementary school across china have dyslexia or 读写障碍. I think in Chinese, not even that many people have heard of it. And these kids don’t get timely support and often are misunderstood or just totally neglected. Guys, what is dyslexia and how can these kids get help?Ryan: Well dyslexia is a type of learning disability associated with problems within the brain’s language processing areas. Research shows, and can be caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Children with dyslexia have problems recognizing and understanding words. Despite having normal or above levels of intelligence. That’s I think that’s important. So basically these kids have like a learning disability, but has no real influence on their intelligence, they are still smart people. And in fact, before I go on, I just wanna mention that Albert Einstein was someone that suffered from dyslexia. His theory of relativity and a lot of what we know about like astronomy today and physics came from the man who had dyslexia. So it’s a serious problem, but it doesn’t mean these children are seriously inhibited. Heyang: That’s true and also just add another example. Apparently Steve Jobs, the great Steve Jobs, the man behind the iphone and ipad and all those amazing products. He had dyslexia, 读写障碍. And that just really hard for a lot of people to get their head wrap around this problem like, I know in English dyslexia means that sometimes a suffer could, can’t really tell the difference between B and D, these two letters. And in Chinese, I think the difficulties for the patient could be, that, simply this guy or girl cannot tell how did these strokes work as we build the character. As I’ve read first hand accounts of kids, after the teacher telling them how to write a character hand by hand teaching them, they still can’t get it. And the only way they can write a character is like drawing. They don’t get the pattern of the strokes at all. (It’s a creative way to learn) And also a different way. And if the teacher doesn’t know about dyslexia or 读写障碍, or doesn’t have the patience or the knowledge to cope with a situation like this, the kids’ studying process is gonna be compromised. Ryan: And you know I do wanna point out that the 2014 national data surveyed from the Chinese Academy Social Sciences. 11 percent of Chinese suffer from this disorder. Heyang: Right before the show we talked about all these famous and also very successful people who have this disorder, but it’s not a disease, and it hasn’t stop them from achieving greatness in life. And can I please just add up another example? Can I please do that? It’s an abuse of power I feel. But I have to talk about ‘我腾’, that’s is short for ‘我的萧敬腾‘. Ok. So basically he is a singer from Taiwan and Chinese singer he is really cool, he can totally do rock songs, write his own music and also do great ballads and very very talented. And this guy has got dyslexia. And he has said that during his school years, he always thought that he was a kind of dumb that he was all little bit on the stupid side, being always the dim student in the classroom. And I think it was actually through his own words that he said later on it was music that sort of salvaged him and made him find worth in life because throughout his student years in school, he always thought that there is something wrong with his head or something. And he was too cool and too proud to try to find a way to fix that as you always turned the cold shoulder of the teacher. So, I just wanna say, there, according to this recent research, there are more than 10 million kids that suffer from 读写困难, or dyslexia in our country. And if they don’t know that, this is not your problem, it’s a disorder, it’s not like you are stupid, and I mean if you grow up thinking like that, it’s detrimental to your self-esteem. So guys, what do you think needs to be done here right now in Chinese classrooms?Ryan: Well, so this is definitely a serious issue. And in the U.S I can personally speak from experience that they have what called special ed, special education. And it does like when people talked about it, initially I remember the reaction was kind of negative. So like oh you are in special ed like, actually I have a story myself to talk about. So, when I was younger, I was in these classes, special ed, and my thought process was I knew this stuff was super easy for me. But I have had what was called attention deficit disorder which means it’s very hard for me to stay concentrated, especially at this age, on stuff, I just wanted to go out and do things. I was one of these people that always have to be moving. So this affected my grades and I just didn’t care enough, my mind was in other places. So in these classes, at first I was like really liking how easy it was and how I can go out and spend more time playing in the counterparts that were normal classes. And then I was when I got to middle school that I realize that I should step up my game that I should challenge myself, and it was like through my own personal like revelation that I decided you know, I really need to start really challenging myself. But, maybe there are lots of kids that don’t have that realization and they need people to push them and help them finding incentives to like to get pass things as you said you have very intelligent people who have low self-worth, when that’s really was not just the case, they are just intelligent as anybody else, they just have different way to get to where they need to get to.

【特别感谢热心听友阿饺帮忙听写本文稿】Heyang: Did you drink or was forced to drink at various dinner parties during the just passed Spring Festival? A late survey has shown that people in some provinces drink a lot more than others. We’ll find out who is the king of drinking in china. Guys, did Chinese people drink a lot during the Chinese New Year holiday week?Ryan: Well actually I just saw a report published on sohu.com that showed that netizens from 26 provinces and cities have been drinking alcohol every day for 7 days straight the spring festival vacation. And some of the numbers are 59 percent of the drinking activities took place in the evening, since many people stayed up late during the vacation and would not like to get up early to have a big lunch with alcohol. So the big dinner came in the evening when people finally had enough time to drinking, chat at the table. And most drinking activities happed on the second day of January on the Chinese lunar calendar, right.Heyang: So instead of on New Year’s Eve, it was the second day of the new year’s. Why is that, Luo Yu?Luo Yu: Because it’s da nian chu er, and da nian chu er is the time when married daughters go back to their original family, and it is the time for the married couples to meet their in-laws, especially for husband to meet his in-laws, you know. Heyang: so the guy came to your house, and the father-in-law is like you need to show me that you are devoted to her so you drink more! It that the situation?Luo Yu: Yeah it is (really?), I think it’s more or less the situation here we are talking about, also the ranking is also very interesting. If you look at the ranking of drinking monsters or the king of drinking in china, the top 9 drinkers on Spring Festival Eve dinners are people from Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Henan, Beijing, Shanxi and Sichuan which I totally disagree with. Because where’re the people from Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia?Heyang: Luo Yu is from Xinjiang, so do you think that you guys in general drink a lot?Luo Yu: I think they drink a lot. And even people from Hebei, that’s our Chinese culture. I mean, I don’t know whether Ryan has got used to get this already but you know I remember when I visited Cheng de, a city very famous for it’s mountain resort, and the drinking culture there is that you have to drink up two mugs of red wine or bai jiu, and then the banquet can officially get started.Heyang: if you just piled it down, go bottoms up all the time you don’t have the chance to appreciate the taste of the wine, but that’s really interesting, is that a very different drinking culture China versus the US?Ryan: Oh my god, so much so. I mean, so the way Luo Yu described it, it sounds kind of obligatory. You know what I mean? It’s like, there is such a structure to it. I feel like in the US, there is not really a structure, people kind of drink in their own pace, you know what I mean. And you know, something like, I could at any time during the meal like I give someone a cheers just like a sip, nothing more than that I think. So I definitely think that’s a huge difference, this structure.Heyang: is there a drinking custom during this spring festival? Luo Yu: We did have this custom according to our social conventions. But the original purpose during this spring festival was that we were worshipping our gods and goddesses and pay our tribute to our ancestors. However, as this society has been evolving, the custom has been changed. Heyang: And there are a few of our wechat listeners who can’t believe that that rankings champion wasn’t someone from the northeast china provinces.Luo Yu: But actually if you look at the ranking 7 out of 9 provinces are located in northern part of china so which comes as a not surprise to me.Heyang: So stereotype sometimes works. Sometimes! And also I think it’s not like Chinese people drink all the time. Like what Ryan said earlier, it’s more because when people are gathering together and you’re with friends and family and you’re having a big meal and people almost feel it’s imperative that you need to fill up the glasses and drink. But it’s hardly because people enjoy it so much or you do it everyday, right. It’s because the occasion.Luo Yu: Yeah I mean according to a research 84 percent of the respondent dislike drinking culture. And nearly 75 percent of the people disgust it. So not so many people like the drinking culture, especially we have a drinking culture like always persuading other people to drink and you always flatter your bosses during some occasions, so it’s not very pleasant for me.Heyang: Thank god spring festival is not a time you have to meet up with your bosses. It’s only family, right?Luo Yu: Sometimes occasionally you have to do.Heyang: Yeah I think the drinking culture has sort of kidnapped some of us. But sometimes you need to try to break away from it. I think as drinking too much could be a problem but drinking a glass or two or having something that is totally complimentary to the food you’re having. Let’s say when you are having a piece of red meat, isn’t it just superb and ideal to have half a glass of red Borolo. Or, just you know, red wine. Isn’t it? Have I said too much?Ryan: Well yeah and I would even say like in the US you know, I would dare you to go to a barbecue and not have like a beer or two you know what I mean, it just kind of something that you do, but it’s not something you would go overboard with.Heyang: As our wechat listeners Han says quit drinking. They were made by the process of, I think he is taking about the fermentation process and he thinks it’s not very pleasant based on lots of research, is more of a drug and is harmful to people and he’s even saying it’s more harmful than tobacco and weed. I think binge drinking certainly, it becomes a killer to you. And as a matter of fact, they contain more calories than most people think, that is also something that we should let people know.Luo Yu: Yeah for health concerns, I think if we look at the liver diseases, 80 percent of the liver diseases are related to drinking, it also does a lot of harm to our cardiovascular system as well.