September 6, 2023 • 26 mins
In the latest episode of Digital Discovery Group's podcast, our founder and host, Nigel Price, takes a deep dive into answering your burning questions and wrapping up the month's most riveting news. If you missed the episode, we've got you covered with this recap!
Notice: Before making any decisions regarding your ecommerce strategy, we strongly recommend you conduct your own in-depth research and seek expert advice.
Related Links:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everybody and welcome to the show. I'm going to be doing a solo podcast for the first
(00:13):
time. We're going to be doing a monthly news wrap up of all things digital and we had a
vote for artificial intelligence on last episode. So we'll be touching on that as well. First
off, I just want to thank everybody. We've had such an amazing response and you know,
my goal for this podcast is really to create a sort of a bit of a platform for retailers,
(00:35):
general guests, you know, just to come on and have a chat and talk about what they're
doing. Whether they're an entrepreneur, whether a senior vice president of a big multinational
corporation or if they're just running a small business in the back of work somewhere. I
really want to hear about your story. I've put up a special page. We have a booked out
(00:57):
show actually until December. I'm really excited about the coming guests. We've got such a
wide variety. So stay tuned. It's only going to get bigger. It's only going to get better
and I'm super excited about it. First off, I just wanted to address some of the questions
that I've been getting actually. You know, I came from a number of very big organizations,
(01:20):
well-known organizations. Why I started the digital discovery group and what's the purpose
of it? What services do we offer and how can I help from both businesses to business and
just consumers as well? So being a retailer and in being in the industry for so long,
you see a lot. You see a lot with with vendors. You see a lot your experiences as a retailer.
(01:42):
You see both the good side and the bad side. I've been to so many conferences. I've been
to so many different retail and industry events. I love seeing the guest speakers. I love seeing
all of that early platforms like Magento. You know, they had some of the best conferences
and I would go always go to the startup lane and I've met so many amazing people and they
(02:05):
had tiny booths at the time. Some examples would be Gaitan from Algolia. He had a few
customers at the time. I met him in a cafe. I'm actually going to go through that story
with my next guest on the podcast next week. I met Peter, the founder of Adyen. You know,
he's a multi-billion dollar business. Part of the reason why I started the digital discovery
(02:26):
group was because that for me, that discovery for me was really what I wanted to focus on.
I wanted to focus on retailers discovering new technologies and I wanted to offer my
services to small businesses, actually businesses of all sizes that have these interesting startups
that, you know, can't afford to have big digital teams. But as I said in my last podcast, I've
(02:49):
got the experience. I can take your business from five to six million dollars a year to
150 million dollars a year like I did with Bing Li. And you know, there is a formula
to it. There are some guys that have done it and they got in early. You know, Gabby
from Catcher of the Day, Kogan, obviously he's done so well. They're all super smart
guys and you know, they saw the opportunity and it's just saying you see you need, you
(03:13):
fill a need. And for me, what's fulfilling for me is helping people. And I've always
loved helping people, helping businesses grow. So that's why I started the business. The
services that I offer, I think I'm going to keep that one short because I can cover pretty
much everything when it comes to e-commerce, pretty much. There's not really much I haven't
(03:33):
done from robotics and logistics and warehousing all the way through to artificial intelligence
and stock replenishments and stock and fulfillment algorithms all the way through to building
a basic website and setting up a Shopify store, working on UX, working on all of the basics
(03:53):
around what an e-commerce site is. I've also done a lot of work around data. I've worked
with Tableau a lot and this is why I've had Eddie on the show. Data is super interesting
to me and I think if you're not looking at data, I'm here to help you, either myself
or my contacts through the digital discovery group, I will be able to help you achieve
whatever it is you're trying to achieve. So I offer a wide range of services. I've actually
(04:20):
wanted to share with you as part of my services. I've recently put up this page because I've
been getting a lot of people asking questions on my website. I've put up a page here to
make the switch. It basically goes into where I kind of sit. I sort of sit between your
marketing teams, your customer service teams and your technology teams. I kind of bring
(04:43):
all of that together. So the core to what I do is in between marketing, technology and
that customer service piece. And to make the switch to digital discovery group, if you're
not entirely happy with whether it's the agency that you're using, it's really quite simple.
Go to my website, follow this maker switch. You'll see all of the different areas that
(05:06):
I cover from technology, site performance, agencies, SEO, security, analytics, and just
fill out the form. I'll get that information and I'll give you a buzz. I'll have a look
at your website and I'll probably set up a like a quick meeting. It'll only be about
15 minutes of your time. And from there, we'll go through what your needs are. I'll put a
(05:29):
scope together and then a proposal and then we'll catch up and work out how we can work
together. So look, I'm really super excited about helping you. Again, this is why I started
the digital discovery group. The podcast for me was just a platform to share the knowledge,
the 15 plus years I have the experience. And look, if not as part of the group, what I'll
(05:49):
offer is normally nine times out of 10, I will connect you with an agency. I will connect
you with a development house after I've worked out exactly what your needs are. So that's
enough about me. Let's go on to just a few things. Some questions I get a lot and I've
had a lot since, since I started the business. One of them is got a website. I don't really
(06:15):
know how to work it and has these features. I want to start using. These are really simple
questions and a lot of the times it depends on where you are in the business, whether
you've progressed to making significant revenue. You would start investing heavily in, in the,
in understanding the nuances around your platform from day one. You don't have to be a certain
(06:37):
size, but a lot of the time business owners don't have that. They, they get handed over
their website from their agency and they tend to put it on the side and just take the orders
and start packing. And they're focusing on the logistics and the fulfillment. And they
forget about their SEO. They forget about creating new content. They forget about their
stock management. And it's only when it creates problems for them. I'm sort of positioned
(07:02):
in a way that I can come into your business. It doesn't matter what size it is. And I would
say I can help you start working out what part of the platform you should be focusing
on to get the most out of your business. Okay. So the next question I get a lot, I need a
website, but sort of, I don't know where to start. Right. And make a switch is part of
the reason why I did that, because you could just go on there and make a switch, you know,
(07:24):
or you could just go on and contact me on the website and I can help you from, from
setting up an appointment. We can have a chat depending on the size of your business. I
would work towards getting a sort of a foundation set first. A lot of people rush straight into
e-commerce because it can set up a store and immediately can start taking orders. But sometimes
(07:47):
it's not necessary. Sometimes you can create a basic contact form depending on what it
is you're offering. For example, mostly services you wouldn't really put in a shopping cart.
Okay. It would more be products, a drop ship potentially because you wouldn't have a warehouse.
So you might want to use fulfillment by Amazon, for example. So these are all the things I
can help you with. So where to start is always a question. And it's really a discovery process
(08:11):
that I go through with my clients. I sit there and we go through it. It doesn't take long.
And by then I can pretty much guarantee I'll have a platform, either a pre-built platform
like Squarespace, Wix or even as basic or as broadly used as WordPress with a shopping
cart built onto it. Then go on to a number of pre-built platforms for e-commerce like
(08:32):
Shopify, BigCommerce and so on. They're not always the best solutions. There's Magento.
It depends on what your requirements are and what the scope for your startup is. The other
one is, I've had this a lot actually, it's more to do with Google and paid advertising
SEO and so on. And I'm hoping to get a guest on from Google in the next few weeks. But
(08:56):
I would say to the businesses out there, it doesn't matter what size you are, you have
to be on, you have to be running a campaign, whether it's one of the automated campaigns
from Google or whether it's a campaign that you're setting up to target keywords, but
you have to be, you have to be there. You have to be on Google. You have to protect
your brand and you have to really work out what keywords are converting. And businesses
(09:24):
tend to use conversions quite loosely, business owners. And for me, conversions is part of
what we do in terms of the scope of work. We would sit down with you to understand.
And the reason we do that is because a conversion is not necessarily just a new client. Okay.
A conversion could be a click to call, it could be a visit to your business page because
(09:48):
the funnel, and I mentioned it in the last, and this is part of the reason I wanted to
mention it is because some people ask me, what are you talking about when I say conversion
funnel or the purchasing funnel? And the purchasing funnel has got to do with discovery. So the
first part of the conversion funnel is awareness. So you're going through sort of what's called
an awareness phase. You then go through what's called an influencing phase. So that influencing
(10:13):
phase is what marketing media, so whether it's a video on YouTube, whether it's an
ad on Facebook, whether it's an ad on Google, wherever that ad might be, this is part of
that influencing factor. So it's going to do things like remarketing. If you've viewed
a product, it's going to continually remind you that, Hey, this product is here for you
(10:35):
to buy. And then there's the conversion phase. And I like to break it down in those three
simple phases of the funnel because the conversion phase is the tipping point in which the customer
goes from being just looking, you know, tire kicking, let's just say that's the first to
then, okay, well, I'm now interested in product Sony TV from, you know, priced from a thousand
(11:04):
dollars to two thousand dollars, for example. And then the conversion phase is, okay, well,
where am I going to buy it from? Who's going to ship it? How quickly can they get it to
me? Do they have it in stock? Do I trust that brand? How's their reviews? All of these things
go into a consumer's mind when they're in that last phase. And whether it's working
(11:25):
out, you don't get enough at the beginning of the funnel, you don't get enough through
the middle of the funnel and or the end of the funnel. When I say you don't get enough,
I mean, you don't get enough clicks or views to your page or impressions on your ads for
customers in your audience to be aware of who you are. Okay. It's really quite that
(11:46):
simple. So if I say to you as a business, well, do you want your customers to know who
you are and where you are? And when you're open and how much your products and services
cost, every business owner is going to say to me, yes. All right. And I'm going to say,
well, why wouldn't you be on Google? Why wouldn't you advertise online? And a lot of the times
they say, well, I do print, I do, you know, I sponsor the local school. Look, that's all
(12:09):
fantastic. But your main audience is online. Okay. It's online. It's in social. It's on
Google. They're there. You just have to find them and you have to make sure that they see
you in order for you to get a conversion. And it's that simple. And then obviously the
cost comes into it, but starts off more expensive. But as the quality of your targeting in your
(12:30):
ads improves, the cost comes down. Okay. And then, so a lot of the times Google takes a
while its algorithm. So it needs big data sets, big data sets. So you need to get a
lot of impressions. Google can't make a decision on whether or not it should show your ad based
on a keyword or something that someone has searched based on the intent around that search.
(12:50):
For example, a local mechanic. Okay. They don't know whether or not your mechanic services
is relevant to that search unless they see you there. They see that you're, the people
are clicking on your ads and you're relevant to that search. And this is the key. They've
got to run for long enough in order for you to be relevant for the algorithm. Okay. So
(13:11):
yes, my answer is yes, absolutely. You have to be on Google and you have to be there.
All right. Second part of the show, we're going to get into the news and we've got some
really interesting news, AI news in fact. And now for those that don't know, Elon Musk
started a company quite a few years ago now called Neuralink. And what it aims to do is
(13:36):
solve what he's always called the band human bandwidth interface to technology issue. And
the issue is we have thumbs, opposable thumbs, and those thumbs are on a keyboard, which
are on a phone and you're tapping away, right? And your interface is so slow. So, and he
wants to solve that problem by putting your brain basically merging it with technology
and building in the ability just to think about things that, and they'll appear on the
(14:00):
screen. And why I think this article is really, really interesting for everybody out there.
And for those that are listening on the podcast, the story is basically a guy sitting there
with a chip on the top of his brain and it has a wire coming off it, which is like a
USB-C cable. Okay. And it's implanted on the top of his skull. All right. Now what this,
(14:25):
what these scientists were able to do without, they were able to use artificial intelligence
to map the neurons in the brain as they fire when that, when words are read. Now in this
particular article, there was a woman who suffered a stroke. So she lost the ability
to speak. The very fact that they were able to restore her speech simply by using artificial
(14:48):
intelligence. It just goes to show that it's not all Terminator robots and dark and gloomy
and humans are going to find ingenious ways to use artificial intelligence to improve
our lives. The next one moving on, it's a similar medical story. And this is just incredible.
(15:10):
Now there's a new documentary with Michael J. Fox, and we know how sad that story is.
Everybody loves Michael J. Fox from his, you know, from his early days in Back to the Future.
And it's just heartbreaking to see him struggle with the disease. Now, obviously if they got
(15:31):
to it before he was showing symptoms, his outlook would have improved. It's similar
to cancer is my understanding. Okay. And so what these medical daily have published an
article and what in that article they're saying is that the artificial intelligence is actually
able to scan the image of somebody's retina. All right. And they can diagnose Parkinson's
(15:57):
disease seven years from when it will appear. So that then leads on to an early detection
and more timely treatment. So this article comes to us from the European Union. And what
they've done is they've passed a law that forces apps like TikTok, Facebook, threads
(16:23):
as well, any app as part of the digital services act in Europe, right, that offers personalized
AI recommendations on videos. And you'll be able to go in and you'll be able to turn off
these AI recommendations. And obviously the theory is that it will affect the apps because
(16:45):
it will make them less sticky, you know, and these apps are all KPI around how long you
spend on it, how much of your daily screen time do those apps take up now? Obviously
we know TikTok is, is super addictive. Now that's just designed in such a way. And we
know what effect they can have on things like political campaigns and swaying the opinions
(17:10):
of people. But I really think this is a step towards making sure that artificial intelligence
doesn't take over people in a way that they, that they don't understand. And by that, I
mean, you know, you put a frog in water and you slowly boil it or die. It's a similar
thing. Obviously it's not that grim, but Simon Sinek talks about it actually. It's endorphins,
(17:33):
brain, oxytocin and serotonin. And those, they look at the brain and the activity that
goes on. And when you see something that you like, there are all these little micro moments
that happens with the, with the app, within the app. Okay. What it's doing is it's observing
whether how far you scroll, how quickly you scroll over the next few videos. It's looking
(17:58):
at things like the video itself, all of the comments around the video, the sentiment analysis
of that video. And it then starts to build a profile of you. Now these app providers
say, oh yeah, but it's just a hashed ID and it doesn't matter. Okay. Because at the end
you're, it's, it's you looking at a screen, which they're manipulating to make sure that
(18:23):
you stay on that app for as long as possible. Okay. And I found it personally, I found it
super hard to actually put it down. And you know, I'd be on the toilet. I'd be scrolling
through tick tock every, you know, I'll be having breakfast. I'll be scrolling through
tick tock. And I eventually just said to myself, I've got to stop. And I uninstalled it. And
(18:46):
the moment I uninstalled it, the, I started mentally, I started feeling better. So for
those people who don't think that this is such a big deal, it is. And I think the, the
fact that now that you can go into these apps and now turn off the algorithm as such, that
it's only going to look at things like your profile information, what's on your feed,
(19:09):
what you actually are interested in. And it's not going to turn and entice you into different
areas. I think is a, is a really good move from Europe. Anything that's using personal
data, I think is, it's, it's getting to a point now with you combine that with AI, and
then eventually quantum computing, of course, it's just going to be mind bogglingly powerful.
(19:30):
Okay. So that's it for, for the social media side of things. Actually, well, there's one
other thing I did want to touch on. The Pope has warned the social, the perils of social
media. Okay. I'd have to say he's right because so many times it's funny. I met up with my,
(19:52):
my nephew the other day and we just went to the pub and we're sitting there having a,
having a beer with each other. And we're just talking, we're talking about the podcast.
We'll just talk, he wants to study his own podcast as well. Shout out to you, Chris.
And this young couple, good looking couple sat down and they're immediately sat down
and they're on their phones scrolling Instagram. They weren't even talking to each other. And
(20:14):
it went on for about, about, I'd have to say about 10 minutes before they decided to pick
up the menu, order some drinks and then put the phone down, phones down. And it's a common
thing. I see it all the time when the only way to break the ice is to remove yourself
from a situation, look at your phone and then slowly ease your way into a conversation by
(20:38):
seeing these different signals, like putting your phone down and then saying, Hey, do you
want to order something like that's 10 minutes, 15 minutes of conversation that you missed
out on. And the Pope is talking about this. Okay. The perils of relationships and what
social media is doing. And if anybody hasn't seen it, I highly recommend the show on Stan
(20:58):
called evil. Okay. And it's quite funny. It's the, I've actually followed the actress in
it. She, she plays a psychologist. What comes up a lot is these things with evil and social
media and technology. And it comes up a lot in the show. Almost I would say every episode,
(21:19):
but every episode has its own thing. I'm not going to give it away, but I highly recommend
you guys just jump on there, jump on to stand and have a look and watch it because it's,
it's a really interesting and it's actually what the Pope talks about. You know, these
algorithms they, how they can propagate sort of this left or right wing propaganda and
(21:41):
also hate speech and hatred. The Pope is, is extremely powerful and especially in Europe.
And I think he, if, if not, he would be in the ears of all of the legislation, legislators
over in Europe to make sure that the devil as he sees it is not getting into these algorithms,
(22:05):
you know, believe it or not, you know, I'm not saying, you know, I'm religious or anything,
but it's interesting that he's actually physically come out and said, Hey, this stuff is really
bad. And it was only just, just yesterday that it was reported on. I think we're going
to see more of that. Yeah. Anyway, in that interesting story, I thought I'd share with
you guys. And last story for today is the story that we'll all be glad to hear. It is
(22:32):
a first world problem, obviously. But Virgin have released a really cool feature of the
app that allows you to track your luggage. And there's the digital officer, Paul Jones
said he's proud to announce that he's the first airline in the country to offer ability.
(22:53):
Now this story comes to us from the, from news is where I picked it up at. But it allows
you to track it via the app. You get a tag, I would say it's an RFID tracking tag and
yeah, it's going to save you from losing your luggage. I think they're a bit late to the
party. If you ask me, I think everybody uses air, uses air tags now anyway. You hide them
(23:18):
in your bag and if someone wants to steal your bag, they're going to steal it. This
is not going to change anything. In fact, Apple's technology is probably better. And
it seems to me, it seems like a huge waste of money, but it is what it is. You know,
if they want to do it, it's for free, I suppose. If you don't have air tags. And I suppose
that's a good part about it. Anybody putting significant amounts of, or, you know, expensive
(23:43):
equipment, for example, whatever you would always have insurance and make sure you put
air tags in your products, in your, in your, in your stuff, as well as the bag makes it
super hard to, to lose. Moving on to the last part of the show, this young player, or he
was playing in the MPL and on Friday, he basically went to, and I'll, and I'll try and show it.
(24:06):
He went to head the ball. And as he went to head the ball, he came down on his head. Okay.
So you can picture that. All right. But as he came down on his head, he never really,
like he was sort of on his shoulder and the side of his head, he stayed down and the game
played on, but the ref kept his eyes on him. And this referee, a huge shout out to this
(24:31):
referee because he is an absolute hero. In my, my, my opinion, a lot of referees would
have called somebody on and that's critical time. You blow your whistle. So you blow your
whistle, stop the play, call on the medics. That would come straight over and do that.
Right. But he had stopped breathing. And it was basically, you know, he could have, anything
(24:54):
could have happened. He could have gone into cardiac arrest. This, this referee has run
over and put him in the recovery position and realized that his tongue had gotten caught
in his throat. So he's putting him in the recovery position, taking his tongue out and
he could start breathing in. And he basically saved his life. But this ref just happened
(25:15):
to be a doctor. Okay. And a cardiac rehabilitation expert. Right. So he's obviously, if there's
anybody you want to go down and stop breathing in front of it's this guy and it's turned
a villain, which is normally the ref, everybody hates the ref into an absolute hero. So this
(25:37):
is a really cool article. If you're interested in more to read more, I'd say just jump onto
news.com.au I'll link the article in the show notes and you guys can have a, have a look
at it. Anyway, that's a wrap from me. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. It's my
first solo podcast. So a bit nervous, but thanks for watching and enjoying the show
(26:01):
and continue with the comments. As I said, like and subscribe. It really helps the channel.
If you can leave some comments about what you're interested in, we could do a whole
show on it. Enjoy the rest of your week. So thanks very much for watching. See you later.
Have a good one. Bye bye.
Hi everybody and welcome to the show. I'm going to be doing a solo podcast for the first
(00:13):
time. We're going to be doing a monthly news wrap up of all things digital and we had a
vote for artificial intelligence on last episode. So we'll be touching on that as well. First
off, I just want to thank everybody. We've had such an amazing response and you know,
my goal for this podcast is really to create a sort of a bit of a platform for retailers,
(00:35):
general guests, you know, just to come on and have a chat and talk about what they're
doing. Whether they're an entrepreneur, whether a senior vice president of a big multinational
corporation or if they're just running a small business in the back of work somewhere. I
really want to hear about your story. I've put up a special page. We have a booked out
(00:57):
show actually until December. I'm really excited about the coming guests. We've got such a
wide variety. So stay tuned. It's only going to get bigger. It's only going to get better
and I'm super excited about it. First off, I just wanted to address some of the questions
that I've been getting actually. You know, I came from a number of very big organizations,
(01:20):
well-known organizations. Why I started the digital discovery group and what's the purpose
of it? What services do we offer and how can I help from both businesses to business and
just consumers as well? So being a retailer and in being in the industry for so long,
you see a lot. You see a lot with with vendors. You see a lot your experiences as a retailer.
(01:42):
You see both the good side and the bad side. I've been to so many conferences. I've been
to so many different retail and industry events. I love seeing the guest speakers. I love seeing
all of that early platforms like Magento. You know, they had some of the best conferences
and I would go always go to the startup lane and I've met so many amazing people and they
(02:05):
had tiny booths at the time. Some examples would be Gaitan from Algolia. He had a few
customers at the time. I met him in a cafe. I'm actually going to go through that story
with my next guest on the podcast next week. I met Peter, the founder of Adyen. You know,
he's a multi-billion dollar business. Part of the reason why I started the digital discovery
(02:26):
group was because that for me, that discovery for me was really what I wanted to focus on.
I wanted to focus on retailers discovering new technologies and I wanted to offer my
services to small businesses, actually businesses of all sizes that have these interesting startups
that, you know, can't afford to have big digital teams. But as I said in my last podcast, I've
(02:49):
got the experience. I can take your business from five to six million dollars a year to
150 million dollars a year like I did with Bing Li. And you know, there is a formula
to it. There are some guys that have done it and they got in early. You know, Gabby
from Catcher of the Day, Kogan, obviously he's done so well. They're all super smart
guys and you know, they saw the opportunity and it's just saying you see you need, you
(03:13):
fill a need. And for me, what's fulfilling for me is helping people. And I've always
loved helping people, helping businesses grow. So that's why I started the business. The
services that I offer, I think I'm going to keep that one short because I can cover pretty
much everything when it comes to e-commerce, pretty much. There's not really much I haven't
(03:33):
done from robotics and logistics and warehousing all the way through to artificial intelligence
and stock replenishments and stock and fulfillment algorithms all the way through to building
a basic website and setting up a Shopify store, working on UX, working on all of the basics
(03:53):
around what an e-commerce site is. I've also done a lot of work around data. I've worked
with Tableau a lot and this is why I've had Eddie on the show. Data is super interesting
to me and I think if you're not looking at data, I'm here to help you, either myself
or my contacts through the digital discovery group, I will be able to help you achieve
whatever it is you're trying to achieve. So I offer a wide range of services. I've actually
(04:20):
wanted to share with you as part of my services. I've recently put up this page because I've
been getting a lot of people asking questions on my website. I've put up a page here to
make the switch. It basically goes into where I kind of sit. I sort of sit between your
marketing teams, your customer service teams and your technology teams. I kind of bring
(04:43):
all of that together. So the core to what I do is in between marketing, technology and
that customer service piece. And to make the switch to digital discovery group, if you're
not entirely happy with whether it's the agency that you're using, it's really quite simple.
Go to my website, follow this maker switch. You'll see all of the different areas that
(05:06):
I cover from technology, site performance, agencies, SEO, security, analytics, and just
fill out the form. I'll get that information and I'll give you a buzz. I'll have a look
at your website and I'll probably set up a like a quick meeting. It'll only be about
15 minutes of your time. And from there, we'll go through what your needs are. I'll put a
(05:29):
scope together and then a proposal and then we'll catch up and work out how we can work
together. So look, I'm really super excited about helping you. Again, this is why I started
the digital discovery group. The podcast for me was just a platform to share the knowledge,
the 15 plus years I have the experience. And look, if not as part of the group, what I'll
(05:49):
offer is normally nine times out of 10, I will connect you with an agency. I will connect
you with a development house after I've worked out exactly what your needs are. So that's
enough about me. Let's go on to just a few things. Some questions I get a lot and I've
had a lot since, since I started the business. One of them is got a website. I don't really
(06:15):
know how to work it and has these features. I want to start using. These are really simple
questions and a lot of the times it depends on where you are in the business, whether
you've progressed to making significant revenue. You would start investing heavily in, in the,
in understanding the nuances around your platform from day one. You don't have to be a certain
(06:37):
size, but a lot of the time business owners don't have that. They, they get handed over
their website from their agency and they tend to put it on the side and just take the orders
and start packing. And they're focusing on the logistics and the fulfillment. And they
forget about their SEO. They forget about creating new content. They forget about their
stock management. And it's only when it creates problems for them. I'm sort of positioned
(07:02):
in a way that I can come into your business. It doesn't matter what size it is. And I would
say I can help you start working out what part of the platform you should be focusing
on to get the most out of your business. Okay. So the next question I get a lot, I need a
website, but sort of, I don't know where to start. Right. And make a switch is part of
the reason why I did that, because you could just go on there and make a switch, you know,
(07:24):
or you could just go on and contact me on the website and I can help you from, from
setting up an appointment. We can have a chat depending on the size of your business. I
would work towards getting a sort of a foundation set first. A lot of people rush straight into
e-commerce because it can set up a store and immediately can start taking orders. But sometimes
(07:47):
it's not necessary. Sometimes you can create a basic contact form depending on what it
is you're offering. For example, mostly services you wouldn't really put in a shopping cart.
Okay. It would more be products, a drop ship potentially because you wouldn't have a warehouse.
So you might want to use fulfillment by Amazon, for example. So these are all the things I
can help you with. So where to start is always a question. And it's really a discovery process
(08:11):
that I go through with my clients. I sit there and we go through it. It doesn't take long.
And by then I can pretty much guarantee I'll have a platform, either a pre-built platform
like Squarespace, Wix or even as basic or as broadly used as WordPress with a shopping
cart built onto it. Then go on to a number of pre-built platforms for e-commerce like
(08:32):
Shopify, BigCommerce and so on. They're not always the best solutions. There's Magento.
It depends on what your requirements are and what the scope for your startup is. The other
one is, I've had this a lot actually, it's more to do with Google and paid advertising
SEO and so on. And I'm hoping to get a guest on from Google in the next few weeks. But
(08:56):
I would say to the businesses out there, it doesn't matter what size you are, you have
to be on, you have to be running a campaign, whether it's one of the automated campaigns
from Google or whether it's a campaign that you're setting up to target keywords, but
you have to be, you have to be there. You have to be on Google. You have to protect
your brand and you have to really work out what keywords are converting. And businesses
(09:24):
tend to use conversions quite loosely, business owners. And for me, conversions is part of
what we do in terms of the scope of work. We would sit down with you to understand.
And the reason we do that is because a conversion is not necessarily just a new client. Okay.
A conversion could be a click to call, it could be a visit to your business page because
(09:48):
the funnel, and I mentioned it in the last, and this is part of the reason I wanted to
mention it is because some people ask me, what are you talking about when I say conversion
funnel or the purchasing funnel? And the purchasing funnel has got to do with discovery. So the
first part of the conversion funnel is awareness. So you're going through sort of what's called
an awareness phase. You then go through what's called an influencing phase. So that influencing
(10:13):
phase is what marketing media, so whether it's a video on YouTube, whether it's an
ad on Facebook, whether it's an ad on Google, wherever that ad might be, this is part of
that influencing factor. So it's going to do things like remarketing. If you've viewed
a product, it's going to continually remind you that, Hey, this product is here for you
(10:35):
to buy. And then there's the conversion phase. And I like to break it down in those three
simple phases of the funnel because the conversion phase is the tipping point in which the customer
goes from being just looking, you know, tire kicking, let's just say that's the first to
then, okay, well, I'm now interested in product Sony TV from, you know, priced from a thousand
(11:04):
dollars to two thousand dollars, for example. And then the conversion phase is, okay, well,
where am I going to buy it from? Who's going to ship it? How quickly can they get it to
me? Do they have it in stock? Do I trust that brand? How's their reviews? All of these things
go into a consumer's mind when they're in that last phase. And whether it's working
(11:25):
out, you don't get enough at the beginning of the funnel, you don't get enough through
the middle of the funnel and or the end of the funnel. When I say you don't get enough,
I mean, you don't get enough clicks or views to your page or impressions on your ads for
customers in your audience to be aware of who you are. Okay. It's really quite that
(11:46):
simple. So if I say to you as a business, well, do you want your customers to know who
you are and where you are? And when you're open and how much your products and services
cost, every business owner is going to say to me, yes. All right. And I'm going to say,
well, why wouldn't you be on Google? Why wouldn't you advertise online? And a lot of the times
they say, well, I do print, I do, you know, I sponsor the local school. Look, that's all
(12:09):
fantastic. But your main audience is online. Okay. It's online. It's in social. It's on
Google. They're there. You just have to find them and you have to make sure that they see
you in order for you to get a conversion. And it's that simple. And then obviously the
cost comes into it, but starts off more expensive. But as the quality of your targeting in your
(12:30):
ads improves, the cost comes down. Okay. And then, so a lot of the times Google takes a
while its algorithm. So it needs big data sets, big data sets. So you need to get a
lot of impressions. Google can't make a decision on whether or not it should show your ad based
on a keyword or something that someone has searched based on the intent around that search.
(12:50):
For example, a local mechanic. Okay. They don't know whether or not your mechanic services
is relevant to that search unless they see you there. They see that you're, the people
are clicking on your ads and you're relevant to that search. And this is the key. They've
got to run for long enough in order for you to be relevant for the algorithm. Okay. So
(13:11):
yes, my answer is yes, absolutely. You have to be on Google and you have to be there.
All right. Second part of the show, we're going to get into the news and we've got some
really interesting news, AI news in fact. And now for those that don't know, Elon Musk
started a company quite a few years ago now called Neuralink. And what it aims to do is
(13:36):
solve what he's always called the band human bandwidth interface to technology issue. And
the issue is we have thumbs, opposable thumbs, and those thumbs are on a keyboard, which
are on a phone and you're tapping away, right? And your interface is so slow. So, and he
wants to solve that problem by putting your brain basically merging it with technology
and building in the ability just to think about things that, and they'll appear on the
(14:00):
screen. And why I think this article is really, really interesting for everybody out there.
And for those that are listening on the podcast, the story is basically a guy sitting there
with a chip on the top of his brain and it has a wire coming off it, which is like a
USB-C cable. Okay. And it's implanted on the top of his skull. All right. Now what this,
(14:25):
what these scientists were able to do without, they were able to use artificial intelligence
to map the neurons in the brain as they fire when that, when words are read. Now in this
particular article, there was a woman who suffered a stroke. So she lost the ability
to speak. The very fact that they were able to restore her speech simply by using artificial
(14:48):
intelligence. It just goes to show that it's not all Terminator robots and dark and gloomy
and humans are going to find ingenious ways to use artificial intelligence to improve
our lives. The next one moving on, it's a similar medical story. And this is just incredible.
(15:10):
Now there's a new documentary with Michael J. Fox, and we know how sad that story is.
Everybody loves Michael J. Fox from his, you know, from his early days in Back to the Future.
And it's just heartbreaking to see him struggle with the disease. Now, obviously if they got
(15:31):
to it before he was showing symptoms, his outlook would have improved. It's similar
to cancer is my understanding. Okay. And so what these medical daily have published an
article and what in that article they're saying is that the artificial intelligence is actually
able to scan the image of somebody's retina. All right. And they can diagnose Parkinson's
(15:57):
disease seven years from when it will appear. So that then leads on to an early detection
and more timely treatment. So this article comes to us from the European Union. And what
they've done is they've passed a law that forces apps like TikTok, Facebook, threads
(16:23):
as well, any app as part of the digital services act in Europe, right, that offers personalized
AI recommendations on videos. And you'll be able to go in and you'll be able to turn off
these AI recommendations. And obviously the theory is that it will affect the apps because
(16:45):
it will make them less sticky, you know, and these apps are all KPI around how long you
spend on it, how much of your daily screen time do those apps take up now? Obviously
we know TikTok is, is super addictive. Now that's just designed in such a way. And we
know what effect they can have on things like political campaigns and swaying the opinions
(17:10):
of people. But I really think this is a step towards making sure that artificial intelligence
doesn't take over people in a way that they, that they don't understand. And by that, I
mean, you know, you put a frog in water and you slowly boil it or die. It's a similar
thing. Obviously it's not that grim, but Simon Sinek talks about it actually. It's endorphins,
(17:33):
brain, oxytocin and serotonin. And those, they look at the brain and the activity that
goes on. And when you see something that you like, there are all these little micro moments
that happens with the, with the app, within the app. Okay. What it's doing is it's observing
whether how far you scroll, how quickly you scroll over the next few videos. It's looking
(17:58):
at things like the video itself, all of the comments around the video, the sentiment analysis
of that video. And it then starts to build a profile of you. Now these app providers
say, oh yeah, but it's just a hashed ID and it doesn't matter. Okay. Because at the end
you're, it's, it's you looking at a screen, which they're manipulating to make sure that
(18:23):
you stay on that app for as long as possible. Okay. And I found it personally, I found it
super hard to actually put it down. And you know, I'd be on the toilet. I'd be scrolling
through tick tock every, you know, I'll be having breakfast. I'll be scrolling through
tick tock. And I eventually just said to myself, I've got to stop. And I uninstalled it. And
(18:46):
the moment I uninstalled it, the, I started mentally, I started feeling better. So for
those people who don't think that this is such a big deal, it is. And I think the, the
fact that now that you can go into these apps and now turn off the algorithm as such, that
it's only going to look at things like your profile information, what's on your feed,
(19:09):
what you actually are interested in. And it's not going to turn and entice you into different
areas. I think is a, is a really good move from Europe. Anything that's using personal
data, I think is, it's, it's getting to a point now with you combine that with AI, and
then eventually quantum computing, of course, it's just going to be mind bogglingly powerful.
(19:30):
Okay. So that's it for, for the social media side of things. Actually, well, there's one
other thing I did want to touch on. The Pope has warned the social, the perils of social
media. Okay. I'd have to say he's right because so many times it's funny. I met up with my,
(19:52):
my nephew the other day and we just went to the pub and we're sitting there having a,
having a beer with each other. And we're just talking, we're talking about the podcast.
We'll just talk, he wants to study his own podcast as well. Shout out to you, Chris.
And this young couple, good looking couple sat down and they're immediately sat down
and they're on their phones scrolling Instagram. They weren't even talking to each other. And
(20:14):
it went on for about, about, I'd have to say about 10 minutes before they decided to pick
up the menu, order some drinks and then put the phone down, phones down. And it's a common
thing. I see it all the time when the only way to break the ice is to remove yourself
from a situation, look at your phone and then slowly ease your way into a conversation by
(20:38):
seeing these different signals, like putting your phone down and then saying, Hey, do you
want to order something like that's 10 minutes, 15 minutes of conversation that you missed
out on. And the Pope is talking about this. Okay. The perils of relationships and what
social media is doing. And if anybody hasn't seen it, I highly recommend the show on Stan
(20:58):
called evil. Okay. And it's quite funny. It's the, I've actually followed the actress in
it. She, she plays a psychologist. What comes up a lot is these things with evil and social
media and technology. And it comes up a lot in the show. Almost I would say every episode,
(21:19):
but every episode has its own thing. I'm not going to give it away, but I highly recommend
you guys just jump on there, jump on to stand and have a look and watch it because it's,
it's a really interesting and it's actually what the Pope talks about. You know, these
algorithms they, how they can propagate sort of this left or right wing propaganda and
(21:41):
also hate speech and hatred. The Pope is, is extremely powerful and especially in Europe.
And I think he, if, if not, he would be in the ears of all of the legislation, legislators
over in Europe to make sure that the devil as he sees it is not getting into these algorithms,
(22:05):
you know, believe it or not, you know, I'm not saying, you know, I'm religious or anything,
but it's interesting that he's actually physically come out and said, Hey, this stuff is really
bad. And it was only just, just yesterday that it was reported on. I think we're going
to see more of that. Yeah. Anyway, in that interesting story, I thought I'd share with
you guys. And last story for today is the story that we'll all be glad to hear. It is
(22:32):
a first world problem, obviously. But Virgin have released a really cool feature of the
app that allows you to track your luggage. And there's the digital officer, Paul Jones
said he's proud to announce that he's the first airline in the country to offer ability.
(22:53):
Now this story comes to us from the, from news is where I picked it up at. But it allows
you to track it via the app. You get a tag, I would say it's an RFID tracking tag and
yeah, it's going to save you from losing your luggage. I think they're a bit late to the
party. If you ask me, I think everybody uses air, uses air tags now anyway. You hide them
(23:18):
in your bag and if someone wants to steal your bag, they're going to steal it. This
is not going to change anything. In fact, Apple's technology is probably better. And
it seems to me, it seems like a huge waste of money, but it is what it is. You know,
if they want to do it, it's for free, I suppose. If you don't have air tags. And I suppose
that's a good part about it. Anybody putting significant amounts of, or, you know, expensive
(23:43):
equipment, for example, whatever you would always have insurance and make sure you put
air tags in your products, in your, in your, in your stuff, as well as the bag makes it
super hard to, to lose. Moving on to the last part of the show, this young player, or he
was playing in the MPL and on Friday, he basically went to, and I'll, and I'll try and show it.
(24:06):
He went to head the ball. And as he went to head the ball, he came down on his head. Okay.
So you can picture that. All right. But as he came down on his head, he never really,
like he was sort of on his shoulder and the side of his head, he stayed down and the game
played on, but the ref kept his eyes on him. And this referee, a huge shout out to this
(24:31):
referee because he is an absolute hero. In my, my, my opinion, a lot of referees would
have called somebody on and that's critical time. You blow your whistle. So you blow your
whistle, stop the play, call on the medics. That would come straight over and do that.
Right. But he had stopped breathing. And it was basically, you know, he could have, anything
(24:54):
could have happened. He could have gone into cardiac arrest. This, this referee has run
over and put him in the recovery position and realized that his tongue had gotten caught
in his throat. So he's putting him in the recovery position, taking his tongue out and
he could start breathing in. And he basically saved his life. But this ref just happened
(25:15):
to be a doctor. Okay. And a cardiac rehabilitation expert. Right. So he's obviously, if there's
anybody you want to go down and stop breathing in front of it's this guy and it's turned
a villain, which is normally the ref, everybody hates the ref into an absolute hero. So this
(25:37):
is a really cool article. If you're interested in more to read more, I'd say just jump onto
news.com.au I'll link the article in the show notes and you guys can have a, have a look
at it. Anyway, that's a wrap from me. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. It's my
first solo podcast. So a bit nervous, but thanks for watching and enjoying the show
(26:01):
and continue with the comments. As I said, like and subscribe. It really helps the channel.
If you can leave some comments about what you're interested in, we could do a whole
show on it. Enjoy the rest of your week. So thanks very much for watching. See you later.
Have a good one. Bye bye.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!