June 3, 2025 • 46 mins
Ever feel like you're pouring endless effort into your e-commerce store with minimal results? You might be focusing on the wrong things entirely.
Scott Austin, owner of Jade Puma and host of the Shopify Solutions podcast, delivers a wake-up call for entrepreneurs stuck in the trap of website obsession. With decades of experience working with businesses from startups to industry giants, Scott cuts through the noise with a refreshingly honest take: "Your website is not your business. Your business is your customer acquisition strategy."
The hard truth is that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. While countless YouTube videos promise "start your Shopify store in 3 minutes," Scott reveals why success actually takes years of consistent effort and strategic pivoting. He shares why immigrant entrepreneurs often succeed, how the "four-hour work week" concept has been rendered obsolete, and why understanding your customers' decision-making process is the secret to conversion rate optimization.
Scott explains why Shopify has widened its lead as the undisputed platform for brands under $10 million, offering practical advice for leveraging its capabilities. He outlines a three-pronged approach to customer acquisition that works for new stores: start with SEO from day one, implement Google Shopping ads, and develop a remarketing strategy to stay top-of-mind.
Most importantly, Scott challenges store owners to stop treating their websites as product catalogs and instead transform them into decision-making engines that guide customers to the perfect purchase. This shift in mindset—from simply displaying products to solving customer problems—separates thriving e-commerce businesses from those that struggle to gain traction.
Whether you're just starting your e-commerce journey or feeling stuck after years in business, Scott's practical insights will help you focus on what truly matters: doing the right work, not just working hard. Ready to transform your approach to e-commerce? This episode is your roadmap to sustainable growth.
How to connect with Scott?
Website: https://jadepuma.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jadepumaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/JadePumaAgency
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jadepumaagency/Twitter: https://x.com/jade_puma
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the Firing the man podcast, the show
where we delve into thejourneys of entrepreneurs who
have taken the leap to buildtheir own businesses.
Today, we're excited to hostScott Austin, a seasoned
e-commerce expert and owner ofJade Puma, a Shopify-focused
agency based in San Diego,California.
With decades of experience ine-commerce and technology
(00:47):
sectors, Scott has collaboratedwith businesses of all sizes,
from industry giants to emergingstartups.
His extensive background hasequipped him with a
comprehensive understanding ofthe strategies that drive online
success.
In addition to leading JadePuma, Scott is the creator and
host of the Shopify Solutionspodcast, where he offers
(01:09):
practical advice and insights tohelp Shopify owners optimize
and grow their businesses.
Beyond his professionalendeavors, Scott is deeply
committed to communityengagement, notably through
coaching youth roller derbyteams, a testament to his
dedication to mentorship anddevelopment, both in and out of
the business realm.
In this episode, we'll exploreScott's entrepreneurial journey,
(01:33):
the lessons he's learned fromhis diverse experiences and his
expert perspectives on scalinge-commerce ventures.
Whether you're an aspiringentrepreneur or an established
business owner, Scott's insightsare sure to provide valuable
guidance on navigating thatdynamic world of online commerce
.
Scott, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Thanks for having me, David.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I'm doing great, really looking forward to
podcasting.
I have been a fan of yours fromafar and listened to a couple
of your episodes, which is why Ireached out and invited you to
the show, and so this is goingto be a great show.
Really looking forward to it.
Now, to start things off,you've worked with Shopify
stores of all sizes.
(02:17):
What are the key traits thatseparate successful e-commerce
businesses from those thatstruggle to gain traction?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
The way I think about businesses, and not just
e-commerce, right?
Businesses as a whole.
I think all businesses fail andsucceed by the people at them.
Right?
Businesses are not aboutproducts and pricing models and
things like that, it's aboutpeople.
So what I see in e-commercestores, you know, because most
e-commerce stores are starting.
Even established ones haven'tbeen around for a century, right
(02:48):
?
So most of them are newer orlearning and it's all about the
mindset of the people, whetherthey succeed or not.
Right?
And in the mindset, you know,there's a bunch of different
things that can factor in, likeare you willing to do the hard
work, because none of this iseasy for anybody that's tried it
right?
(03:09):
Are you willing to listen toyour customers?
Are you willing to accept thefact that you don't know
everything and that you have tofigure out lots of things and
solve problems and all that kindof stuff?
So when I see store owners thatare willing to listen, that are
willing to try new things, thatare willing to admit when
they're wrong, you know we turnthe.
You know we used to call ityou're wrong, now we call it
pivoting and all that kind ofstuff.
If you have that mindset, thenyou're in the right place, you
(03:29):
know, because this is a longgrind.
It's, you know, nobody'ssuccessful overnight in
e-commerce.
If you're lucky, you'resuccessful in a year or two.
More likely you're successfulin five or 10, right?
So you've got to have themindset of I don't know
everything.
I have to be willing to try newthings, learn from those,
listen to my customers, look atmy business numbers and adjust
(03:50):
accordingly.
And you start out thinkingyou're going in one direction
and five years later you're in acompletely different space.
But that's where you'resuccessful because you had that
mindset.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And you and I before the showand you touched on this a little
bit and I'd like you to go intomore depth on it you had said
firing the man is not foreverybody and as a host of the
show Firing the man, I did nottake offense to that.
In fact, I completely agreewith you.
And can you go into a littlebit more detail on that?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
to a little bit more detail on that.
Yeah, a lot of people talkabout oh, I want to be an
entrepreneur, right.
And if I swear in a minute here, it's just because I get so
aggravated about this industrythat we're in of good advice to
good, honest people and howdeceiving it is right, because
you look on YouTube and you'relike you want to figure out how
to do something YouTube, numberone research place in the world
so you want to see how to getstarted in a Shopify store and
(04:49):
you'll see a YouTube video thatsays how to get your Shopify
store started in 25 minutes orless.
And then someone's going to oneup that and theirs is in 21
minutes or less, someone else isin 15, and soon you can start a
Shopify store in three minutesor less and it's complete and
utter BS.
It is not that easy.
Now I can build you a Shopifystore overnight, but I've been
doing this for over a decade, soeverybody thinks it's get rich
quick and easy to do these kindof things, but it's not, so it
(05:15):
takes the kind of person thatunderstands that it's not easy,
right?
You have a podcast.
You've had 276 episodes.
That is a nightmare slog ofwork to make that happen, as you
know, right.
But everybody's like, oh, I'mjust going to start a podcast
and I'm going to be rich andfamous because of it.
But you know, you knew all thework that goes behind making all
those different episodes andit's not easy.
(05:36):
So too many people think thatI'm just going to start a
podcast and now I'm going to besuccessful.
No, that's just the start of it, right?
And then you got to do all thework behind it.
Can you wake up every singlemorning, not at the snooze on
your alarm and figure out whatare the most important things to
do for your business andmotivate yourself to get them
done?
Most people, I believe, cannot.
(05:57):
Now those that can, the worldis you know, their oyster kind
of thing.
You know, for me, with mypodcast, I don't allow myself to
go to bed, so I publish everytwo weeks.
I don't allow myself to go tobed on Sunday night before I
publish on Wednesday until mypodcast is locked and loaded,
and sometimes that means I go tobed at two in the morning.
Sometimes I get it done onSaturday and it's all good.
(06:18):
I don't let myself fail at thatever, right?
If you have that mentality, youcan be successful If you're
like oh, I'm really sick thisweek, oh, my cat's not feeling
good.
Oh, the Yankees lost.
Whatever your excuse is, it'ssuper easy to find reasons not
to succeed.
Successful entrepreneurs findways to succeed, and I think
(06:42):
that not everybody's designedthat way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I fully agree with that.
I fully agree with that.
I fully agree with that, andI'd be if I was building an
entrepreneur.
Uh in uh.
There have been some commonobservations that I've made of
successful people that I've hadon the show, and I'm going to
share a couple of these with you, and I'm curious if you have
more to add to the list.
Um, but here are just someobservations that I have, and if
(07:05):
you don't have thesecharacteristics, that doesn't
mean that you can't besuccessful, but I do think that
these help.
Really gritty people, peoplethat don't take no as an answer,
I think is huge.
I have observed that peoplethat come from immigrant
families and I can't place myfinger on it, but tend to have
that grit that helps them besuccessful.
(07:27):
People that didn't have rosychildhoods, people that have had
some sort of struggle or traumaprior to their entrepreneurial
journey, tend to be pretty wellsuited for it.
And yeah, so those are somelike common observations that I
had.
If I were to build anentrepreneur, those are probably
(07:49):
some characteristics that Iwould include.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So any to add to the list.
Well, of course there's athousand to add, but you're
(08:18):
absolutely right that you knowthe immigrant.
One is a great one.
It's just because you know, Ibelieve that you know the
generation.
You know the first generationAmericans of be here, where for
us it was a birthright right,and so you have to be willing to
do the hard work and,unfortunately, our culture is
designed to tell people it'ssuper easy, right?
You know, the four-hour workweek is my favorite example.
(08:39):
You know that book was writtenin 2008.
And it's actually based on sometruths.
In 2008, right?
So in 2008, to set up ane-commerce store, you had to
invest $100,000 in servers,build your own code and do all
that.
It was really hard to be.
You know the table stakes wasyou had to build your own
servers, right, and your ownsoftware, and then Shopify came
(09:02):
around and all the othersolutions and anybody can build
a store in three minutes or less.
So the entire assumption of thefour-hour workweek, which is
this?
Really big hump you got to getover and then it's super easy,
there's not a lot of competition.
Well, that hump got leveled andnow everybody can do it.
Everybody's still working onthe four-hour workweek concept
where, like, oh, I'm just goingto build this e-commerce store,
(09:23):
it's going to make me tons ofmoney.
So it goes back to the thingwe've been saying so far this is
freaking hard, really freakinghard.
It is long, it is a slog.
If you're here to get rich,quick, move on right.
Invest in crypto.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Exactly, there's something about the phrase
passive income in e-commercethat have kind of been married
up and I don't exactly know why.
I have not found e-commerce tobe a source of passive income,
and certainly there areinstances where it may be on the
spectrum of very active versusvery passive, maybe be farther
(10:04):
on the spectrum of towardspassive, but I don't have not
found it to be a passive incomesource.
And so, to kind of change thetune of our conversation or turn
a corner here, I'd like to talkabout Shopify and you know,
from your perspective, how hasthe Shopify ecosystem evolved
over the past few years and whatshould entrepreneurs be paying
(10:26):
attention to in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So let me just start off with the.
You know I've been working inShopify since about 2013.
I actually got started bybuilding software that was
agnostic to e-commerce platformsand we quickly realized that, a
Shopify was the best platformfor us to build you know,
integrate with, because ourwhole app ecosystem.
And we quickly realized that AShopify was the best platform
for us to build and integratewith because of our whole app
ecosystem.
And B the feature set ofShopify was way better than the
(10:51):
competition Back in 2013,.
You can maybe argue big commerce, but since then, for me, it's
been an absolute no-brainer.
Shopify is the undisputed rightfirst choice for any small or
medium-sized brand, and I meanzero to $10 million a year.
If you're going to build yourown website and have your own
brand, you must be on Shopify.
In my humble opinion, noWooCommerce, no BigCom.
(11:13):
And I believed that for now, 12years.
The crazy thing is in that 12years, shopify has only
increased the gap between themand the competition.
I am amazed only increase thegap between them and the
competition.
I am amazed.
Having spent 12 years atMicrosoft, a big software
company, I am amazed at thelevel of innovation and product
development that Shopify pumpsout Now.
(11:34):
However, I will throw in thatit seems to me like Shopify has
a little bit of the Facebookmantra of go fast and break
things, which is not the kind ofthing you want to be doing when
you're running the number twoe-commerce platform in the world
.
So I think they're a little bittoo loosey-goosey.
In my humble opinion.
They fix things quickly, butthey break things a lot.
(11:54):
Right now I'm going throughthis nightmare of users because
they're changing the useraccount system and it's just a
nightmare right now, but in theend, they end up fixing most of
the things.
So, you know, the question islike you know, what do I think
of Shopify?
Where's it going?
What's it done in the past fewyears?
In the past couple of years,shopify used to be a good
e-commerce platform, or even agreat e-commerce platform.
(12:17):
Now Shopify is a great website,right?
You used to in the old days, ifyou really wanted to do a lot
of SEO and content marketing,you'd run up a WordPress site to
run your blogs, because you hada lot more functionality in
WordPress and building out blogs.
Now that can all happen inShopify and that happened with,
you know, sections anywhere waslike three or four years ago, so
(12:38):
now there's no reason to nothave your entire website on
Shopify, and the data model hasgotten so much richer with
Metafields.
Metafields always existed inShopify as long as I've been
using it, but they'd been a loteasier.
So now you can enrich yourproduct data, and I believe in
enriching product data is animportant part of strategic
differentiation between you andyour competition.
(12:59):
The more data you have aboutyour products, the easier it is
going to be for customers tofind the right one for them, and
Metafields makes that super,super easy to do now with all
the new tools they've rolled out.
So Shopify is always rollingout new things and improving on
what they're doing, which Iabsolutely love.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Absolutely, and one of the things that you had
mentioned was them being theleader in the space.
This is an observation thatI've had.
If I would have gone to aconference five years ago and
was talking to a private labelbrand owner and I'd say, like,
what platforms do you sell on?
They'd say Amazon, walmart anda D2C website.
(13:39):
That same conversation now isAmazon, walmart, shopify, and
it's kind of like Q-tip, wherewhen you start referring to the
product as the entire industry,then that's a clear win and
that's something that I'venoticed where it's just when
you're talking to entrepreneurs.
It is like D2C website.
(13:59):
That word is people use it alot less and people just refer
to their DTC website as theirShopify store, and so absolutely
.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Everybody's migrating to shop, like I.
Every month I migrate anotherstore to Shopify from every
platform there is.
Right now I'm working on amigration from a 2002 SQL server
.
The guy built his own code in2002, right, and he's had it for
23 years and now we're finallymigrated to Shopify and he's
going to have a much easier lifeonce we're done with that
project.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Outstanding, outstanding.
Now, conversion rateoptimization is a hot topic and
you work with clients on this,and I'm curious what are some of
the most overlooked CRO tacticsthat can have a big impact on
revenue?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, I'm going to take a step back from tactics.
I'm going to give you astrategy instead.
Right, and I fully believe thatmost best practices you hear in
the industry are true forsomeone in some situation.
Right, and I think asentrepreneurs and as business
owners, it's our job to askourselves is this best practice
the right one for us?
(15:06):
And I give you a real examplethere in Amazon, right, number
one e-commerce platform in theworld, amazon is the single
worst shopping experience for awebsite standpoint on the
Internet, except for, maybe,this 2002 store that I'm
upgrading right now.
Right, and that's becauseAmazon has, you know, four
billion products or whateverthey can't do a good shopping
experience.
(15:26):
People don't use Amazon becauseit's easy to find what you're
looking for.
You go there to buy a spatula.
75 minutes later you end upwith a $13 spatula.
You went there because theyhave every spatula on the planet
.
They do overnight delivery, ifnot same day, and if you don't
like it, you can return it atyour local UPS store.
Nobody goes to Shopify for thee-commerce experience, but a lot
(15:48):
of us look at Amazon or nobodygoes to Amazon.
I said Shopify, nobody goes toAmazon for that shopping
experience.
But then we look at Amazon as arole model for how to build our
websites and the differencebetween an Amazon and, by the
way, I couldn't make Amazonbetter.
I'm not saying they're doing itwrong.
They're doing it really, reallywell with the constraints that
(16:10):
they have, which is 4 billionproducts in their website.
So that's Amazon's strengththey have 4 billion products.
Your small brand strength is youhave 100 products, so you can
build a curated shoppingexperience for people, right?
So in Amazon, when you land ona product page, they have no
confidence you're on the rightproduct page.
Therefore, on that product page, they show at least 75 other
(16:33):
products, right?
My best practice never showanother product in your product
page unless it's part of abundle that's related to that
product, right?
So, the point being, a lot ofwebsites are a list of products,
amazon list of products.
They give you some tools likefilters and all that kind of
stuff.
Small brands have the advantageto do, and even larger brands,
(16:56):
but not Amazon and aggregators.
They have the ability to turntheir website into a
decision-making engine and whatyou want to be doing is
educating your customers on theoptions that are available to
them.
So, instead of having acollection, which is a list of
all your products with somefilters on it.
You wanted to figure out whatare the steps in the
decision-making process in theproducts you're selling, right,
(17:17):
and that's where you have tounderstand your customers and
understand your products andunderstand how they shop for
your products.
Like I have one client he sellsantique posters, so he's got,
you know, one copy of a posterfrom 1855 or something like that
.
And when we first started weput out a whole bunch of
different ways that people couldshop.
Like you could look at thelanguage of the poster, the
country of origin, the size, theprice, the colors, and we just
(17:41):
shotgun it.
You know all these differentways you can start shopping.
And then the ways that peoplepicked.
I actually thought country oforigin was going to be an
important one, doesn't matter atall.
People care about the art andthe color and the graphic of the
poster way more than they careabout the language, right, so
the assumption we had going inwas wrong and we adjusted based
on that.
But we were able to make adecision-making engine for them.
(18:04):
We found out the first thingthey care about is the size of
the poster.
Is it a small one, is it alarge one, and then they care
about the colors and then theycare about the topic that it is,
and we built decision-makingtools so that they could do that
, you know.
Let's say that you have.
You know you're doingsupplements.
Let's say, right now I'mworking on five different
supplement brands for somestrange reason, and you have a
catalog of supplements.
(18:25):
Let's say you have 20 differentsupplements.
A lot of people list theirsupplements, right, and they're
like, hey, user, go figure itout for yourself, because Amazon
, they let you go figure it outfor yourself.
What you should be doing issaying to your customers tell me
something about yourself.
Are you someone who's young andathletic and looking to improve
your performance?
Are you someone who's getting alittle bit older and are you
(18:49):
looking to age in place?
And, you know, preventcognitive decline, right?
Too many people just show alltheir products and I've got to
go figure out.
Oh, this is the one for 58 yearold men which I happen to be a
58 year old man who are worriedabout their athletic performance
or their, you know, cognitivedecline type of stuff.
And then someone else has tocome in and say, oh, I'm a jock
and I want to have, you know thebest school on my, you know
softball league, and here's thestuff for me, because we don't
(19:11):
turn our websites into customerfacing questions.
Right, think about when you, youknow, walk into a good store
and someone says, hey, welcometo Acme Corp, what are you
looking for today?
And you're like, oh, I'mlooking for a gift for my wife.
And they're like, oh, what isyour wife like?
They don't just say, oh,there's women's over there, good
luck, goodbye.
Too many websites are sayingthere's women's over there, good
(19:33):
luck, goodbye.
So what we need to do is breakdown the decision making in our
website so that our store is adecision-making engine, not a
list of products.
So the way you do that is youstart having a page for every
decision that people are making.
Let's just say you're sellingclothing and the first decision
(19:55):
is men or women.
Right, you might have men,women or gender neutrally.
You might have three options inthere, and then, when they
click on men, you might showshoes, shirts, ties, whatever
kind of thing, instead of justshowing the list of all the
products.
Let people make those decisions.
And this goes back to, as Isaid before every best practice
has a truth to it.
Does it apply to you.
I talked to so many store ownersabout this type of strategy and
(20:17):
they're like oh, I have to bethree clicks to the add to cart
button, because they've heardthis best practice If you're
more than three clicks to theadd to cart button, you are a
failure.
Right and A?
That was true probably in 2006.
B that was true in 2006 forstores that were selling one
product on a landing page.
When you're buying an engagementring and going to spend $10,000
(20:39):
in the engagement ring, guesshow many clicks you need to make
that happen and have the personhave confidence in what they're
buying?
The answer is it doesn'tfreaking matter, right?
Because that customer willspend as much time as it takes
to be confident that they've gotall the right aspects you know,
of the diamond ring thatthey're looking for.
They'll educate themselves andmake all these choices, go back
(20:59):
and forth and all that kind ofstuff.
So you've got to understandyour product, understand your
audience and build adecision-making engine for them.
That's my conversion rateoptimization hack, right?
It's not a tactic, it's acomplete strategy in the way you
design your website.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that youpointed that out, because a lot
of times and I hear this a loton podcasts where it is a one
size fits all, this worked forperson A, this is going to work
for person B, c and D, and so,yeah, I'm glad that you pointed
that out.
So what should somebody do?
(21:35):
You had talked about like thedecision-making process and you
used the example of supplements.
Like the decision-makingprocess and you used the example
of supplements is when somebodyis starting out a Shopify store
, is it good to look forexamples of that?
Or is there a particularwebsite that you're aware of,
whether you've worked with themor not, that you think does this
exceptionally well?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I think I fully believe you should always look
at your competition right and Icall it soaking Right.
You need to soak in yourindustry.
You need to know more aboutyour competition than they do,
which is, by the way, reallyeasy.
It amazes me how many storeowners I talk to that have no
idea what the text is in theemail that goes out when
somebody places an order becausethey've never tested their own
(22:20):
website as a customer Rightorder, because they've never
tested their own website as acustomer right.
So if you soak in your ownexperience and in your
competition's experience and youcan learn from each other and I
used to work at MSN until I gotinto Microsoft in 1999.
And for like 1999, 2000, 2001,.
Msn and Yahoo were the twonumber one portals back then
(22:43):
right, and you could literallysee Yahoo tried something, msn
copied it, and then MSN triedsomething and Yahoo copied it
back and forth.
No one knew what they weredoing.
We were all trying to figurethings out, copying from one
another.
So there's nothing wrong withthat strategy.
The key is coming up with anidea, copying it and then seeing
if it works for your audienceright?
(23:04):
I mocked a minute ago Amazon andhow they do things and how I,
you know, try to do thingsdifferently than them.
But Amazon did something that Ijust absolutely loved, right?
So I buy little K-cup coffeepods and they started doing the
pricing per pod, right?
So this box of K-cups is 20bucks per pod.
It's 37 cents, right?
And I started looking likewhich one's the cheapest,
(23:25):
because I'm a cheap SOB, right?
So, especially when it comes tocoffee pods, I am very price
sensitive.
So because of that, I now addthat to as many stores as I have
that are selling things indifferent sizes.
So if you're selling a product,let's go back to supplements.
If you have the 30 bottlesupply, the 60 bottle supply,
the 120 bottle supply, I putdown the price per tablet and we
(23:47):
do a little custom code to makethat happen so that people can
see the savings they get.
It's obvious you buy the 120 tosave money, but we show them
exactly how much, right?
Because that motivates peopleand moves them over the top.
So you totally should be lookingat your competition, seeing
what they're doing, learningfrom it.
But you have to know yourcustomers and you have to be
watching your business so thatwhen you apply things you can
actually say it worked or itdidn't work.
(24:09):
Now I deal with only smallShopify stores.
We are not doing A-B testing.
Many of them don't havesignificant volume of traffic to
do A-B testing and A-B testingis way too hard, especially
since Google shut down their A-Btesting tool last year.
It's way too hard for a smallbrand to do it.
Bigger brands that have anagency doing it they can totally
do that.
That is great.
I love them for that.
Small brands are not going tobe able to do real, legit A-B
(24:32):
testing.
But you have to try things andfeel you know, by looking at the
data and listening to yourcustomers, is it working or not
working for them.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I like it, I like it and yeah, no, I think that's it.
I'm going to go back andre-listen to that response.
It was outstanding and there'sa bunch of really good stuff
there.
One thing so you work with alot of smaller Shopify store
owners.
What are some common mistakesthat you see those entrepreneurs
make?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Oh, I think the biggest mistake is people not
focusing on the right thing,right?
So the secret to every singlebusiness is customer acquisition
and most e-commerce stores thatI talk to or potentially
e-commerce stores that I talk tothink about their website.
The website is a means to anend.
(25:21):
The website is not yourbusiness, right?
Your business is your customeracquisition strategy and the
last piece of that customeracquisition strategy is your
website.
So they think about the end oftheir customer acquisition
strategy without thinking aboutthe beginning of their customer
acquisition strategy.
So I frequently talk my clients, or potential clients, out of
investing in their website andtalk them into investing in
(25:45):
customer acquisition strategies,whether that be advertising,
social, seo, word of mouth,events and conferences all those
different channels, right?
Too many people think when theybuild their website, they've
started their business.
No, you need to start yourbusiness by building a customer
acquisition strategy and processan engine, right?
(26:05):
It's why I get into podcasting,right?
So as a Shopify agency, I wasgetting all my business from the
Shopify experts marketplace andthen I was talking to the
Shopify team one day and she wasexplaining to me how they were
going to change the expertsplatform.
And I listened to her words andI'm like, oh, I am screwed,
right, because it was going tomake it a lot more cost
(26:25):
conscious, right.
So it was basically going tofavor all the offshore people
and the good old Americans whowere charging a lot of money,
like I am.
We're not going to be favoredin the future.
And I said I need a newcustomer acquisition strategy
because the one I'm relying ontoday is going to change and
that's why I started podcastingto attract people to my agency
services.
So you have to always bethinking about customer
(26:49):
acquisition.
Too many people think about howto monetize the people they have
and they don't think enoughabout how to draw more people
into their monetization engine.
If you've got 10,000 users permonth coming to your website and
you improve your conversion bya 10th of a percent and your
average cart value is $100, I'mgoing to pretend that I can do
math the impact of that nearrevenue is like $1,000 a month
(27:11):
or whatever the number is right.
If you've got 10,000 peoplecoming to your website today and
you're making, let's just say,$50,000 a month, if you double
your traffic, you're makinganother $50,000 a month, even if
your conversion isn't the best.
Now, it isn't as binary as that, it's not as black and white.
You want to be bringing in morecustomers.
At the same time you'reimproving conversions, but the
(27:32):
net answer to your question ofyou know what are people doing
wrong or mistakes they're making?
They worry too much about theirwebsite, not enough about their
customer acquisition strategytoo much about their website,
not enough about their customeracquisition strategy.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I want to dive into this a little bit more, and I'm
reminded of there's an excellentmovie with Kevin Costner called
Field of Dreams.
There's a quote in that movieif you build it, they will come,
and I found that not to be trueabout websites.
And which gets to the customeracquisition is that you need to
drive traffic, and it seems likethere is seemingly infinite
(28:08):
possibilities for sources oftraffic and Facebook ads, google
ads, influencers, emailmarketing, sms marketing and it
is kind of overwhelming thenumber of choices that people
have, and so I'm curious do youpoint people in any particular
(28:29):
direction?
Or, out of those sources oftraffic that I listed out, do
you favor any over others?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Absolutely Right.
So the first answer, like allof us are going to say it
depends, right.
That said right, and I got toput that qualifier out there.
So if you disagree with me,you're absolutely right.
Also, right, your answer isalso good In general.
Here's what I see and first ofall, I just want to correct what
you said.
Email is not a customeracquisition strategy.
(28:56):
Email is a customer retentionstrategy, right, and I point
that out because I have so manypeople who want to work on their
email first and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no.
When you have an email list ofa thousand people, then we'll
implement email, not until right, kind of thing.
So, for a new e-commerce store,the way I recommend to do
things right, you build aminimal amount of website that
(29:19):
you possibly can, and I thinkthat you need to start investing
in SEO on day one.
Now, seo is not your primarystrategy for acquiring traffic,
but it's an important one andit's one of those.
You know, free and air quotessources of traffic, because it
takes you a lot of effort upfront.
But you know, I'm today gettingyou know traffic to my website
(29:40):
from a blog article I created in2014, kind of thing right, it's
the gift that keeps givingforever and ever.
And when I say SEO, anotherthing I want to add there is,
seo is not just Google.
Even though nobody optimizesfor Bing or Bing, right, search
happens everywhere, right?
The number two search engine onthe planet YouTube, right.
Amazon, etsy, tiktok, instagramthey're all search engines now,
(30:02):
right?
So I think you have to optimizefor Google, organic, and for
YouTube on day one.
So, in other words, you shouldbe doing video, right?
So, number one, you got tostart working on SEO strategy,
because everybody should bedoing SEO for the long-term and
it is a long-term game, and youneed to operationalize that into
your business thinking, right,and by operationalizing itterm
(30:24):
game.
And you need to operationalizethat into your business thinking
and by operationalizing it.
What I mean is you need to havea goal.
This is my humble opinion.
Again, you can do itdifferently if you want to.
You need a goal that says I'mgoing to create SEO content at a
cadence, but so you're going todo one blog article per week or
one per month or whatever.
You got to do that every weekor every month, whatever it is.
If you don't start making thatpart of your DNA from day one.
It's one of those things youjust keep kicking that can down
(30:47):
the road.
You're like, oh, seo's, youknow long pole, I'll get to it
after I do all these otherthings.
I think you got to start it offearly, right?
And a lot of my clients becausethey're smaller brands, they
like doing the non-paid stufffirst, right, they like the idea
of the organic things, for agood reason.
So, number one you want tostart out with an SEO strategy
(31:07):
or start building out contentfor SEO and knowing what your
strategy is and seeing how itworks.
And the number two thing youwant to do is you want to do
Google shopping ads, right?
So today in Shopify, it'sreally easy to connect the
Google and YouTube channel toyour Shopify store, send your
(31:28):
product feed off to GoogleMerchant and then connect your
Google Merchant to your Googleads and do shopping ads.
Now, shopping ads for those thatdon't know.
If you do a search query onGoogle, let's just say you look
for how to repair Nike sneakers,right?
Google looks at that and says,oh, that's a research or a
research or a DIY query and itgives different types of ads.
It probably does keyword adsfor that.
Sometimes it'll give you knowYouTube videos.
If it thinks it's a shoppingquery, like blue Nike sneaker
(31:50):
size 13, it'll say that's ashopping query.
It shows shopping ads.
Shopping ads come from GoogleMerchant, which comes from your
Shopify feed.
It's all connected directly andit's really easy and really
relevant.
You show up the top ofalgorithmic search and you show
up at the top of the shoppingpage.
So shopping ads easiest ones toset up of all the ads in the
ecosystem and they're reallyrelevant.
(32:14):
And all you do is you say Iwant to spend $10 a month or $20
a month.
You just put down the cost, soit's really easy to see if it's
working for you, kind of thing.
And then after that you want todo remarketing right, so you
want to have anybody come toyour site.
You want to bug them as theywalk around the internet for the
next two weeks and remind themthat you still exist.
So those are my first threesteps when I think about getting
(32:35):
started on a store.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Okay, okay, and when you are talking about SEO, you
are not talking about well, letme ask backlinks.
That is a topic that oftencomes up when people are talking
about SEO.
Do you think that is anessential part of the SEO
strategy, or is that just kindof an ancillary topic within SEO
(33:00):
?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
the SEO strategy, or is that just kind of an
ancillary topic within SEO?
So backlinks used to beimportant, then they became
non-important and now they'reimportant again, so it has to be
part of your strategy.
So in the old days, right,backlinks was one of the leading
indicators of whether yourcontent was good or bad.
And then Google got good enoughand I saw this happen like
overnight around 2019 in somestores where they were ranked
really low, get no traffic andthen Google changed the
algorithm and backlinks were nolonger as important and it
(33:25):
evaluated the content of yourwebsite.
I had a client who builtworld-class content in the
medical space for the stuff theywere doing and he had the worst
backlink of all his competitionand then, all of a sudden, he
became number one on SEO becausehe had the best content Right
(34:09):
no-transcript you need to makewhen launching a Shopify store.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And so how can a business owner strike the right
balance between design,aesthetics and performance, and
are there any themes that you,you know, like out of the box,
perform really, really well fora particular site?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
The question you're asking is the balance between
aesthetics and performance.
So my first question is what doyou mean by performance?
Because I can think of a coupleof different ways to factor
that in.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
The end goal being that the customer buys from you,
and so yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
So conversion, and that, I think, is the important
one, because a lot of peoplehear the word performance and
they're thinking page speed andpage speed is important.
You cannot have a page load in11 seconds but page speed is not
important between three secondsand 2.9 in e-commerce, right?
So too many people, you knowit's one of those things.
(35:10):
They focus too much on pagespeed when they should focus on
getting more customers, kind ofthing.
But performance and conversion,I totally love, right.
So your question is the balancebetween aesthetics and
conversion.
I believe that most e-commercestores remember, I deal, I
totally love, right.
So your question is the balancebetween aesthetics and
conversion.
I believe that most e-commercestores, remember, I deal with
small brands, right.
So I'm not working with KylieJenner Cosmetics, for example.
(35:30):
This is not an answer for abrand like that.
I believe form follows functionand I believe the purpose of
your website is to take trafficand move it to the cart so that
the customer has confidence inthat purchase decision.
Remember back to thatdecision-making engine that I
love so much, right?
They have confidence so thatthey finish that checkout
process.
(35:50):
In other words, I don't carewhat the aesthetics are, what I
care is customers get to wherethey want to be and understand
it.
So I focus way more time on thefunnel want to be and
understand it.
So I focus way more time on thefunnel on the performance of
the site.
And then and don't get me wrong,aesthetics is important.
You can't have a garbagelooking website, you can't have
grammatical errors, but I don'tneed flashy animations, big
(36:13):
fancy videos, scrolling effectsas they move up and down the
page.
I think most of that is juststroking our own egos and a
waste of time and energy.
My favorite example with myclients is they want to do a
slideshow on the homepage and Isaid the only people that are
going to look at slide numbertwo on your homepage are you and
me.
Your customers don't care aboutit, they don't have time for it
(36:35):
, they're just scrolling.
They want to get your results.
They're not going to watch fivedifferent messages three seconds
apart.
They're not going to watch fivedifferent messages three
seconds apart.
It's just, we're just doing itfor ourselves, right?
So you know how do I strike theright balance between
aesthetics and performance,performance, performance,
performance.
Don't fuck up your aesthetics,right?
Don't look stupid, don't lookamateur.
You need to look professional.
(36:55):
You need to know what yourbrand standards are.
These are my colors, right,these are my fonts.
You need consistency across theboard.
I'm absolutely diligent aboutthat kind of stuff, but if you
want a fancy little animationthing that shows the unboxing of
the thing, if you're not makinga million dollars a year, maybe
even a month, you're wastingyour time.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I really like that, and I think that does take a lot
of pressure off of theentrepreneur when getting that
minimum viable product to sendtraffic to, because it does seem
like there's a lot ofpossibilities on things that you
could add different modules andwhatnot.
That may not necessarily bebeneficial, and so I really like
(37:38):
that response.
Do you have any examples ofwebsites that you think do it
really well?
And that's something when I'mlearning about something,
oftentimes going and looking ata website that's doing it
exceptionally well or whateverit may be is helpful, and so are
there any, whether you'veworked with them or not, that
(37:59):
you think do it exceptionallywell any?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
whether you've worked with them or not, that you
think do it exceptionally well.
I don't spend a lot of timelooking at others.
I just look at my clients'websites and work on them most
of the time and theircompetition.
So as I look at my websites,one of my favorite clients is JT
from Rep2Chip.
Rep2chipcom.
They sell the most unsexy thingon the planet.
They take coconut, they breakup the coconut shell and then
(38:26):
they ship it to you and you putthat in the bottom of your tank
for your frog or your turtle asthe bottom of the floor for
these animals to live in rightSubstrate.
Yet you know their products.
They have different sizes anddifferent shapes and forms and
all that kind of stuff anddifferent animals, new,
different things.
So we've spent the past two anda half years trying to turn his
website, which is just a list ofsix or seven products, into a
(38:50):
decision making engine.
So if you have a northerndiamondback terrapin turtle, we
now have a page for that thatsays, hey, the northern
diamondback terrapin Turtle.
It uses these types of thingsand he's actually making videos
and an e-book for each animaltype.
There's 275 animal types thathe's working on on this website,
right?
So that's where you're.
(39:11):
You're not trying to sell yourproduct, you're trying to help
your customer with their need.
Right?
It's sort of like when you knowwhatever car you have.
You know when you go to a carwebsite, you tell them what car
you have.
Well, if you have a pet website, why don't you tell them what
kind of pet you have Exactly?
And then they answer thequestion specifically Right, so
I have a 2013 Ford C-Max.
(39:32):
My battery dies, so this exactbattery fits in your car.
We need to do the same thing inour website for our customers
needs.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I like that.
I think that's a really goodpractical example, like the cars
, I mean.
I think everyone's been on acar website and understands that
process of getting you to whereyou need to be, and so well.
This has been an outstandinginterview.
I think we probably could go onfor another couple hours, but
want to be respectful of yourtime.
At the end of every podcast wehave something called the fire
round.
It's four questions that we askevery guest at the end of the
(40:07):
show.
Scott, are you ready?
I am ready, let's do this.
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
In the space that we're talking about, right, my
favorite book is the LeanStartup.
When I first read that you knowI think Eric wrote that in
about 2008.
I think I read it in 2011 whenI started my first startup so
much of it resonated with me andthings that I had done in my
past different tactical bestpractices I had but what Eric
did is he wrapped that into awhole program and a way of
(40:34):
thinking right, and the way Isummarize the lean startup to
people that haven't read it.
It's simple as this.
With your business, everythingyou have is an assumption and
your job is to validate yourassumptions.
So, basically, your job as astartup is to learn.
It's not to maximize yourrevenue today.
It's to maximize your learningsand minimize your unknowns.
(40:55):
The more you learn, the smarteryou're going to be about the
decisions that you're going tomake, and that's what Lean
Startup tries to explain topeople.
Is changing your mindset of asyou're going to be, about the
decisions that you're going tomake, and that's what Lean
Startup tries to explain topeople.
Is, you know, changing yourmindset of as you're starting
and growing your business.
It's not about you know themoney you're making today.
It's about how much better youunderstand your customers, so
that the product you offer themtomorrow is better than the one
(41:16):
you're offering to them today.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I like it, I like it and I second that.
That's an outstanding book.
Number two what are yourhobbies?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
My hobbies these days are pickleball and my pack of
little chihuahuas.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Very nice, very nice.
What is one thing that you donot miss about working for the
man?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
There's not much that I miss about working for the
man.
For me, the biggest one isbureaucracy right, you know so
many large corporations you endup.
You know everybody has a veto,right, you know everybody can
voice their opinion andeverybody's trying to stop
projects instead of move themforward.
What I love about you know theentrepreneurial side of things,
and one of the reasons I workwith only small brands is when
(41:57):
we're talking back and forth.
We make a decision right thenand we move forward right.
I had a fortune 500 client thatI was working with in Shopify
and we'd get on the call.
There'd be 12 of them, one ofme, and two things always
happened the person who neededto make the decision was not in
the call, and the person thatwas going to do the work from
the decision was not in the call, and a bunch of middle managers
(42:19):
were just there, you know,drinking coffee or whatever
they're kind of doing.
So I love the pace at which youcan move right, because it's
all about those learnings, right?
There's nothing wrong withmaking mistakes in air quotes.
They're not mistakes, they'rethings you tried that didn't
work.
Therefore, you are now smarterthan you were yesterday about
those kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I fully agree with that, and bureaucracy is a very
common answer to this one.
And so final question what doyou think sets apart successful
e-commerce entrepreneurs fromthose who give up, fail or never
get started?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Two pieces to that and they're quite related, right
?
First is they do the work.
Second, is they do the rightwork right.
So, on the they do the workright.
You know, back to the ReftedShip example, where they're
going to have these landingpages for 275 different animals
and they're going to have, youknow, videos for each.
They got to do all that workright and that's hard.
(43:14):
You know, in any business thatyou're working on, there's lots
of work that needs to be done.
But sometimes people do lots ofwork but it's the wrong work,
like they're working on theirwebsite instead of working on
customer acquisition, right?
So you also have to make sureyou're doing the right work.
So you need that grit to do thework.
But you also need that commonsense or intelligence or
(43:35):
awareness of your business,understanding of your customers,
to make sure you're doing theright work.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
I think that's an outstanding answer Now for
people that have listened tothis and would be potentially
interested in working with you.
Who's your ideal client at JadePuma?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
So, jade Puma, what we do is we focus and specialize
on small Shopify brands andpeople that want to build a
brand versus build an e-commercewebsite.
Right For me, they're between abrand and an e-commerce website
.
E-commerce websites sellproducts.
Brands sell a brand experience.
Most of your audience probablyunderstands the differences
between those.
But we're looking for thepeople just getting started on
(44:12):
their business or they've beendoing it for five years or
whatever and they're just notgrowing kind of thing.
We're not here for your milliondollar a month people.
I'm a small agency.
I'm a solopreneur.
I've got a couple ofcontractors helping me.
If you're looking to grow KylieJenner cosmetics from a billion
dollar valuation to 5 billion,I'm not the person for you.
But if you're just gettingstarted or been doing this for
(44:34):
five years and kind of stuck ina rut, I am perfect for you.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Very nice, and we will post links to that in the
show notes.
Scott, this has been anoutstanding interview.
Thank you so much for your timetoday and looking forward to
staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Thanks, david, it was a pleasure.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the Firing the man podcast, the show
where we delve into thejourneys of entrepreneurs who
have taken the leap to buildtheir own businesses.
Today, we're excited to hostScott Austin, a seasoned
e-commerce expert and owner ofJade Puma, a Shopify-focused
agency based in San Diego,California.
With decades of experience ine-commerce and technology
(00:47):
sectors, Scott has collaboratedwith businesses of all sizes,
from industry giants to emergingstartups.
His extensive background hasequipped him with a
comprehensive understanding ofthe strategies that drive online
success.
In addition to leading JadePuma, Scott is the creator and
host of the Shopify Solutionspodcast, where he offers
(01:09):
practical advice and insights tohelp Shopify owners optimize
and grow their businesses.
Beyond his professionalendeavors, Scott is deeply
committed to communityengagement, notably through
coaching youth roller derbyteams, a testament to his
dedication to mentorship anddevelopment, both in and out of
the business realm.
In this episode, we'll exploreScott's entrepreneurial journey,
(01:33):
the lessons he's learned fromhis diverse experiences and his
expert perspectives on scalinge-commerce ventures.
Whether you're an aspiringentrepreneur or an established
business owner, Scott's insightsare sure to provide valuable
guidance on navigating thatdynamic world of online commerce
.
Scott, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Thanks for having me, David.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I'm doing great, really looking forward to
podcasting.
I have been a fan of yours fromafar and listened to a couple
of your episodes, which is why Ireached out and invited you to
the show, and so this is goingto be a great show.
Really looking forward to it.
Now, to start things off,you've worked with Shopify
stores of all sizes.
(02:17):
What are the key traits thatseparate successful e-commerce
businesses from those thatstruggle to gain traction?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
The way I think about businesses, and not just
e-commerce, right?
Businesses as a whole.
I think all businesses fail andsucceed by the people at them.
Right?
Businesses are not aboutproducts and pricing models and
things like that, it's aboutpeople.
So what I see in e-commercestores, you know, because most
e-commerce stores are starting.
Even established ones haven'tbeen around for a century, right
(02:48):
?
So most of them are newer orlearning and it's all about the
mindset of the people, whetherthey succeed or not.
Right?
And in the mindset, you know,there's a bunch of different
things that can factor in, likeare you willing to do the hard
work, because none of this iseasy for anybody that's tried it
right?
(03:09):
Are you willing to listen toyour customers?
Are you willing to accept thefact that you don't know
everything and that you have tofigure out lots of things and
solve problems and all that kindof stuff?
So when I see store owners thatare willing to listen, that are
willing to try new things, thatare willing to admit when
they're wrong, you know we turnthe.
You know we used to call ityou're wrong, now we call it
pivoting and all that kind ofstuff.
If you have that mindset, thenyou're in the right place, you
(03:29):
know, because this is a longgrind.
It's, you know, nobody'ssuccessful overnight in
e-commerce.
If you're lucky, you'resuccessful in a year or two.
More likely you're successfulin five or 10, right?
So you've got to have themindset of I don't know
everything.
I have to be willing to try newthings, learn from those,
listen to my customers, look atmy business numbers and adjust
(03:50):
accordingly.
And you start out thinkingyou're going in one direction
and five years later you're in acompletely different space.
But that's where you'resuccessful because you had that
mindset.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And you and I before the showand you touched on this a little
bit and I'd like you to go intomore depth on it you had said
firing the man is not foreverybody and as a host of the
show Firing the man, I did nottake offense to that.
In fact, I completely agreewith you.
And can you go into a littlebit more detail on that?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
to a little bit more detail on that.
Yeah, a lot of people talkabout oh, I want to be an
entrepreneur, right.
And if I swear in a minute here, it's just because I get so
aggravated about this industrythat we're in of good advice to
good, honest people and howdeceiving it is right, because
you look on YouTube and you'relike you want to figure out how
to do something YouTube, numberone research place in the world
so you want to see how to getstarted in a Shopify store and
(04:49):
you'll see a YouTube video thatsays how to get your Shopify
store started in 25 minutes orless.
And then someone's going to oneup that and theirs is in 21
minutes or less, someone else isin 15, and soon you can start a
Shopify store in three minutesor less and it's complete and
utter BS.
It is not that easy.
Now I can build you a Shopifystore overnight, but I've been
doing this for over a decade, soeverybody thinks it's get rich
quick and easy to do these kindof things, but it's not, so it
(05:15):
takes the kind of person thatunderstands that it's not easy,
right?
You have a podcast.
You've had 276 episodes.
That is a nightmare slog ofwork to make that happen, as you
know, right.
But everybody's like, oh, I'mjust going to start a podcast
and I'm going to be rich andfamous because of it.
But you know, you knew all thework that goes behind making all
those different episodes andit's not easy.
(05:36):
So too many people think thatI'm just going to start a
podcast and now I'm going to besuccessful.
No, that's just the start of it, right?
And then you got to do all thework behind it.
Can you wake up every singlemorning, not at the snooze on
your alarm and figure out whatare the most important things to
do for your business andmotivate yourself to get them
done?
Most people, I believe, cannot.
(05:57):
Now those that can, the worldis you know, their oyster kind
of thing.
You know, for me, with mypodcast, I don't allow myself to
go to bed, so I publish everytwo weeks.
I don't allow myself to go tobed on Sunday night before I
publish on Wednesday until mypodcast is locked and loaded,
and sometimes that means I go tobed at two in the morning.
Sometimes I get it done onSaturday and it's all good.
(06:18):
I don't let myself fail at thatever, right?
If you have that mentality, youcan be successful If you're
like oh, I'm really sick thisweek, oh, my cat's not feeling
good.
Oh, the Yankees lost.
Whatever your excuse is, it'ssuper easy to find reasons not
to succeed.
Successful entrepreneurs findways to succeed, and I think
(06:42):
that not everybody's designedthat way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I fully agree with that.
I fully agree with that.
I fully agree with that, andI'd be if I was building an
entrepreneur.
Uh in uh.
There have been some commonobservations that I've made of
successful people that I've hadon the show, and I'm going to
share a couple of these with you, and I'm curious if you have
more to add to the list.
Um, but here are just someobservations that I have, and if
(07:05):
you don't have thesecharacteristics, that doesn't
mean that you can't besuccessful, but I do think that
these help.
Really gritty people, peoplethat don't take no as an answer,
I think is huge.
I have observed that peoplethat come from immigrant
families and I can't place myfinger on it, but tend to have
that grit that helps them besuccessful.
(07:27):
People that didn't have rosychildhoods, people that have had
some sort of struggle or traumaprior to their entrepreneurial
journey, tend to be pretty wellsuited for it.
And yeah, so those are somelike common observations that I
had.
If I were to build anentrepreneur, those are probably
(07:49):
some characteristics that Iwould include.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So any to add to the list.
Well, of course there's athousand to add, but you're
(08:18):
absolutely right that you knowthe immigrant.
One is a great one.
It's just because you know, Ibelieve that you know the
generation.
You know the first generationAmericans of be here, where for
us it was a birthright right,and so you have to be willing to
do the hard work and,unfortunately, our culture is
designed to tell people it'ssuper easy, right?
You know, the four-hour workweek is my favorite example.
(08:39):
You know that book was writtenin 2008.
And it's actually based on sometruths.
In 2008, right?
So in 2008, to set up ane-commerce store, you had to
invest $100,000 in servers,build your own code and do all
that.
It was really hard to be.
You know the table stakes wasyou had to build your own
servers, right, and your ownsoftware, and then Shopify came
(09:02):
around and all the othersolutions and anybody can build
a store in three minutes or less.
So the entire assumption of thefour-hour workweek, which is
this?
Really big hump you got to getover and then it's super easy,
there's not a lot of competition.
Well, that hump got leveled andnow everybody can do it.
Everybody's still working onthe four-hour workweek concept
where, like, oh, I'm just goingto build this e-commerce store,
(09:23):
it's going to make me tons ofmoney.
So it goes back to the thingwe've been saying so far this is
freaking hard, really freakinghard.
It is long, it is a slog.
If you're here to get rich,quick, move on right.
Invest in crypto.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Exactly, there's something about the phrase
passive income in e-commercethat have kind of been married
up and I don't exactly know why.
I have not found e-commerce tobe a source of passive income,
and certainly there areinstances where it may be on the
spectrum of very active versusvery passive, maybe be farther
(10:04):
on the spectrum of towardspassive, but I don't have not
found it to be a passive incomesource.
And so, to kind of change thetune of our conversation or turn
a corner here, I'd like to talkabout Shopify and you know,
from your perspective, how hasthe Shopify ecosystem evolved
over the past few years and whatshould entrepreneurs be paying
(10:26):
attention to in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So let me just start off with the.
You know I've been working inShopify since about 2013.
I actually got started bybuilding software that was
agnostic to e-commerce platformsand we quickly realized that, a
Shopify was the best platformfor us to build you know,
integrate with, because ourwhole app ecosystem.
And we quickly realized that AShopify was the best platform
for us to build and integratewith because of our whole app
ecosystem.
And B the feature set ofShopify was way better than the
(10:51):
competition Back in 2013,.
You can maybe argue big commerce, but since then, for me, it's
been an absolute no-brainer.
Shopify is the undisputed rightfirst choice for any small or
medium-sized brand, and I meanzero to $10 million a year.
If you're going to build yourown website and have your own
brand, you must be on Shopify.
In my humble opinion, noWooCommerce, no BigCom.
(11:13):
And I believed that for now, 12years.
The crazy thing is in that 12years, shopify has only
increased the gap between themand the competition.
I am amazed only increase thegap between them and the
competition.
I am amazed.
Having spent 12 years atMicrosoft, a big software
company, I am amazed at thelevel of innovation and product
development that Shopify pumpsout Now.
(11:34):
However, I will throw in thatit seems to me like Shopify has
a little bit of the Facebookmantra of go fast and break
things, which is not the kind ofthing you want to be doing when
you're running the number twoe-commerce platform in the world
.
So I think they're a little bittoo loosey-goosey.
In my humble opinion.
They fix things quickly, butthey break things a lot.
(11:54):
Right now I'm going throughthis nightmare of users because
they're changing the useraccount system and it's just a
nightmare right now, but in theend, they end up fixing most of
the things.
So, you know, the question islike you know, what do I think
of Shopify?
Where's it going?
What's it done in the past fewyears?
In the past couple of years,shopify used to be a good
e-commerce platform, or even agreat e-commerce platform.
(12:17):
Now Shopify is a great website,right?
You used to in the old days, ifyou really wanted to do a lot
of SEO and content marketing,you'd run up a WordPress site to
run your blogs, because you hada lot more functionality in
WordPress and building out blogs.
Now that can all happen inShopify and that happened with,
you know, sections anywhere waslike three or four years ago, so
(12:38):
now there's no reason to nothave your entire website on
Shopify, and the data model hasgotten so much richer with
Metafields.
Metafields always existed inShopify as long as I've been
using it, but they'd been a loteasier.
So now you can enrich yourproduct data, and I believe in
enriching product data is animportant part of strategic
differentiation between you andyour competition.
(12:59):
The more data you have aboutyour products, the easier it is
going to be for customers tofind the right one for them, and
Metafields makes that super,super easy to do now with all
the new tools they've rolled out.
So Shopify is always rollingout new things and improving on
what they're doing, which Iabsolutely love.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Absolutely, and one of the things that you had
mentioned was them being theleader in the space.
This is an observation thatI've had.
If I would have gone to aconference five years ago and
was talking to a private labelbrand owner and I'd say, like,
what platforms do you sell on?
They'd say Amazon, walmart anda D2C website.
(13:39):
That same conversation now isAmazon, walmart, shopify, and
it's kind of like Q-tip, wherewhen you start referring to the
product as the entire industry,then that's a clear win and
that's something that I'venoticed where it's just when
you're talking to entrepreneurs.
It is like D2C website.
(13:59):
That word is people use it alot less and people just refer
to their DTC website as theirShopify store, and so absolutely
.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Everybody's migrating to shop, like I.
Every month I migrate anotherstore to Shopify from every
platform there is.
Right now I'm working on amigration from a 2002 SQL server
.
The guy built his own code in2002, right, and he's had it for
23 years and now we're finallymigrated to Shopify and he's
going to have a much easier lifeonce we're done with that
project.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Outstanding, outstanding.
Now, conversion rateoptimization is a hot topic and
you work with clients on this,and I'm curious what are some of
the most overlooked CRO tacticsthat can have a big impact on
revenue?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, I'm going to take a step back from tactics.
I'm going to give you astrategy instead.
Right, and I fully believe thatmost best practices you hear in
the industry are true forsomeone in some situation.
Right, and I think asentrepreneurs and as business
owners, it's our job to askourselves is this best practice
the right one for us?
(15:06):
And I give you a real examplethere in Amazon, right, number
one e-commerce platform in theworld, amazon is the single
worst shopping experience for awebsite standpoint on the
Internet, except for, maybe,this 2002 store that I'm
upgrading right now.
Right, and that's becauseAmazon has, you know, four
billion products or whateverthey can't do a good shopping
experience.
(15:26):
People don't use Amazon becauseit's easy to find what you're
looking for.
You go there to buy a spatula.
75 minutes later you end upwith a $13 spatula.
You went there because theyhave every spatula on the planet
.
They do overnight delivery, ifnot same day, and if you don't
like it, you can return it atyour local UPS store.
Nobody goes to Shopify for thee-commerce experience, but a lot
(15:48):
of us look at Amazon or nobodygoes to Amazon.
I said Shopify, nobody goes toAmazon for that shopping
experience.
But then we look at Amazon as arole model for how to build our
websites and the differencebetween an Amazon and, by the
way, I couldn't make Amazonbetter.
I'm not saying they're doing itwrong.
They're doing it really, reallywell with the constraints that
(16:10):
they have, which is 4 billionproducts in their website.
So that's Amazon's strengththey have 4 billion products.
Your small brand strength is youhave 100 products, so you can
build a curated shoppingexperience for people, right?
So in Amazon, when you land ona product page, they have no
confidence you're on the rightproduct page.
Therefore, on that product page, they show at least 75 other
(16:33):
products, right?
My best practice never showanother product in your product
page unless it's part of abundle that's related to that
product, right?
So, the point being, a lot ofwebsites are a list of products,
amazon list of products.
They give you some tools likefilters and all that kind of
stuff.
Small brands have the advantageto do, and even larger brands,
(16:56):
but not Amazon and aggregators.
They have the ability to turntheir website into a
decision-making engine and whatyou want to be doing is
educating your customers on theoptions that are available to
them.
So, instead of having acollection, which is a list of
all your products with somefilters on it.
You wanted to figure out whatare the steps in the
decision-making process in theproducts you're selling, right,
(17:17):
and that's where you have tounderstand your customers and
understand your products andunderstand how they shop for
your products.
Like I have one client he sellsantique posters, so he's got,
you know, one copy of a posterfrom 1855 or something like that
.
And when we first started weput out a whole bunch of
different ways that people couldshop.
Like you could look at thelanguage of the poster, the
country of origin, the size, theprice, the colors, and we just
(17:41):
shotgun it.
You know all these differentways you can start shopping.
And then the ways that peoplepicked.
I actually thought country oforigin was going to be an
important one, doesn't matter atall.
People care about the art andthe color and the graphic of the
poster way more than they careabout the language, right, so
the assumption we had going inwas wrong and we adjusted based
on that.
But we were able to make adecision-making engine for them.
(18:04):
We found out the first thingthey care about is the size of
the poster.
Is it a small one, is it alarge one, and then they care
about the colors and then theycare about the topic that it is,
and we built decision-makingtools so that they could do that
, you know.
Let's say that you have.
You know you're doingsupplements.
Let's say, right now I'mworking on five different
supplement brands for somestrange reason, and you have a
catalog of supplements.
(18:25):
Let's say you have 20 differentsupplements.
A lot of people list theirsupplements, right, and they're
like, hey, user, go figure itout for yourself, because Amazon
, they let you go figure it outfor yourself.
What you should be doing issaying to your customers tell me
something about yourself.
Are you someone who's young andathletic and looking to improve
your performance?
Are you someone who's getting alittle bit older and are you
(18:49):
looking to age in place?
And, you know, preventcognitive decline, right?
Too many people just show alltheir products and I've got to
go figure out.
Oh, this is the one for 58 yearold men which I happen to be a
58 year old man who are worriedabout their athletic performance
or their, you know, cognitivedecline type of stuff.
And then someone else has tocome in and say, oh, I'm a jock
and I want to have, you know thebest school on my, you know
softball league, and here's thestuff for me, because we don't
(19:11):
turn our websites into customerfacing questions.
Right, think about when you, youknow, walk into a good store
and someone says, hey, welcometo Acme Corp, what are you
looking for today?
And you're like, oh, I'mlooking for a gift for my wife.
And they're like, oh, what isyour wife like?
They don't just say, oh,there's women's over there, good
luck, goodbye.
Too many websites are sayingthere's women's over there, good
(19:33):
luck, goodbye.
So what we need to do is breakdown the decision making in our
website so that our store is adecision-making engine, not a
list of products.
So the way you do that is youstart having a page for every
decision that people are making.
Let's just say you're sellingclothing and the first decision
(19:55):
is men or women.
Right, you might have men,women or gender neutrally.
You might have three options inthere, and then, when they
click on men, you might showshoes, shirts, ties, whatever
kind of thing, instead of justshowing the list of all the
products.
Let people make those decisions.
And this goes back to, as Isaid before every best practice
has a truth to it.
Does it apply to you.
I talked to so many store ownersabout this type of strategy and
(20:17):
they're like oh, I have to bethree clicks to the add to cart
button, because they've heardthis best practice If you're
more than three clicks to theadd to cart button, you are a
failure.
Right and A?
That was true probably in 2006.
B that was true in 2006 forstores that were selling one
product on a landing page.
When you're buying an engagementring and going to spend $10,000
(20:39):
in the engagement ring, guesshow many clicks you need to make
that happen and have the personhave confidence in what they're
buying?
The answer is it doesn'tfreaking matter, right?
Because that customer willspend as much time as it takes
to be confident that they've gotall the right aspects you know,
of the diamond ring thatthey're looking for.
They'll educate themselves andmake all these choices, go back
(20:59):
and forth and all that kind ofstuff.
So you've got to understandyour product, understand your
audience and build adecision-making engine for them.
That's my conversion rateoptimization hack, right?
It's not a tactic, it's acomplete strategy in the way you
design your website.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that youpointed that out, because a lot
of times and I hear this a loton podcasts where it is a one
size fits all, this worked forperson A, this is going to work
for person B, c and D, and so,yeah, I'm glad that you pointed
that out.
So what should somebody do?
(21:35):
You had talked about like thedecision-making process and you
used the example of supplements.
Like the decision-makingprocess and you used the example
of supplements is when somebodyis starting out a Shopify store
, is it good to look forexamples of that?
Or is there a particularwebsite that you're aware of,
whether you've worked with themor not, that you think does this
exceptionally well?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I think I fully believe you should always look
at your competition right and Icall it soaking Right.
You need to soak in yourindustry.
You need to know more aboutyour competition than they do,
which is, by the way, reallyeasy.
It amazes me how many storeowners I talk to that have no
idea what the text is in theemail that goes out when
somebody places an order becausethey've never tested their own
(22:20):
website as a customer Rightorder, because they've never
tested their own website as acustomer right.
So if you soak in your ownexperience and in your
competition's experience and youcan learn from each other and I
used to work at MSN until I gotinto Microsoft in 1999.
And for like 1999, 2000, 2001,.
Msn and Yahoo were the twonumber one portals back then
(22:43):
right, and you could literallysee Yahoo tried something, msn
copied it, and then MSN triedsomething and Yahoo copied it
back and forth.
No one knew what they weredoing.
We were all trying to figurethings out, copying from one
another.
So there's nothing wrong withthat strategy.
The key is coming up with anidea, copying it and then seeing
if it works for your audienceright?
(23:04):
I mocked a minute ago Amazon andhow they do things and how I,
you know, try to do thingsdifferently than them.
But Amazon did something that Ijust absolutely loved, right?
So I buy little K-cup coffeepods and they started doing the
pricing per pod, right?
So this box of K-cups is 20bucks per pod.
It's 37 cents, right?
And I started looking likewhich one's the cheapest,
(23:25):
because I'm a cheap SOB, right?
So, especially when it comes tocoffee pods, I am very price
sensitive.
So because of that, I now addthat to as many stores as I have
that are selling things indifferent sizes.
So if you're selling a product,let's go back to supplements.
If you have the 30 bottlesupply, the 60 bottle supply,
the 120 bottle supply, I putdown the price per tablet and we
(23:47):
do a little custom code to makethat happen so that people can
see the savings they get.
It's obvious you buy the 120 tosave money, but we show them
exactly how much, right?
Because that motivates peopleand moves them over the top.
So you totally should be lookingat your competition, seeing
what they're doing, learningfrom it.
But you have to know yourcustomers and you have to be
watching your business so thatwhen you apply things you can
actually say it worked or itdidn't work.
(24:09):
Now I deal with only smallShopify stores.
We are not doing A-B testing.
Many of them don't havesignificant volume of traffic to
do A-B testing and A-B testingis way too hard, especially
since Google shut down their A-Btesting tool last year.
It's way too hard for a smallbrand to do it.
Bigger brands that have anagency doing it they can totally
do that.
That is great.
I love them for that.
Small brands are not going tobe able to do real, legit A-B
(24:32):
testing.
But you have to try things andfeel you know, by looking at the
data and listening to yourcustomers, is it working or not
working for them.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I like it, I like it and yeah, no, I think that's it.
I'm going to go back andre-listen to that response.
It was outstanding and there'sa bunch of really good stuff
there.
One thing so you work with alot of smaller Shopify store
owners.
What are some common mistakesthat you see those entrepreneurs
make?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Oh, I think the biggest mistake is people not
focusing on the right thing,right?
So the secret to every singlebusiness is customer acquisition
and most e-commerce stores thatI talk to or potentially
e-commerce stores that I talk tothink about their website.
The website is a means to anend.
(25:21):
The website is not yourbusiness, right?
Your business is your customeracquisition strategy and the
last piece of that customeracquisition strategy is your
website.
So they think about the end oftheir customer acquisition
strategy without thinking aboutthe beginning of their customer
acquisition strategy.
So I frequently talk my clients, or potential clients, out of
investing in their website andtalk them into investing in
(25:45):
customer acquisition strategies,whether that be advertising,
social, seo, word of mouth,events and conferences all those
different channels, right?
Too many people think when theybuild their website, they've
started their business.
No, you need to start yourbusiness by building a customer
acquisition strategy and processan engine, right?
(26:05):
It's why I get into podcasting,right?
So as a Shopify agency, I wasgetting all my business from the
Shopify experts marketplace andthen I was talking to the
Shopify team one day and she wasexplaining to me how they were
going to change the expertsplatform.
And I listened to her words andI'm like, oh, I am screwed,
right, because it was going tomake it a lot more cost
(26:25):
conscious, right.
So it was basically going tofavor all the offshore people
and the good old Americans whowere charging a lot of money,
like I am.
We're not going to be favoredin the future.
And I said I need a newcustomer acquisition strategy
because the one I'm relying ontoday is going to change and
that's why I started podcastingto attract people to my agency
services.
So you have to always bethinking about customer
(26:49):
acquisition.
Too many people think about howto monetize the people they have
and they don't think enoughabout how to draw more people
into their monetization engine.
If you've got 10,000 users permonth coming to your website and
you improve your conversion bya 10th of a percent and your
average cart value is $100, I'mgoing to pretend that I can do
math the impact of that nearrevenue is like $1,000 a month
(27:11):
or whatever the number is right.
If you've got 10,000 peoplecoming to your website today and
you're making, let's just say,$50,000 a month, if you double
your traffic, you're makinganother $50,000 a month, even if
your conversion isn't the best.
Now, it isn't as binary as that, it's not as black and white.
You want to be bringing in morecustomers.
At the same time you'reimproving conversions, but the
(27:32):
net answer to your question ofyou know what are people doing
wrong or mistakes they're making?
They worry too much about theirwebsite, not enough about their
customer acquisition strategytoo much about their website,
not enough about their customeracquisition strategy.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I want to dive into this a little bit more, and I'm
reminded of there's an excellentmovie with Kevin Costner called
Field of Dreams.
There's a quote in that movieif you build it, they will come,
and I found that not to be trueabout websites.
And which gets to the customeracquisition is that you need to
drive traffic, and it seems likethere is seemingly infinite
(28:08):
possibilities for sources oftraffic and Facebook ads, google
ads, influencers, emailmarketing, sms marketing and it
is kind of overwhelming thenumber of choices that people
have, and so I'm curious do youpoint people in any particular
(28:29):
direction?
Or, out of those sources oftraffic that I listed out, do
you favor any over others?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Absolutely Right.
So the first answer, like allof us are going to say it
depends, right.
That said right, and I got toput that qualifier out there.
So if you disagree with me,you're absolutely right.
Also, right, your answer isalso good In general.
Here's what I see and first ofall, I just want to correct what
you said.
Email is not a customeracquisition strategy.
(28:56):
Email is a customer retentionstrategy, right, and I point
that out because I have so manypeople who want to work on their
email first and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no.
When you have an email list ofa thousand people, then we'll
implement email, not until right, kind of thing.
So, for a new e-commerce store,the way I recommend to do
things right, you build aminimal amount of website that
(29:19):
you possibly can, and I thinkthat you need to start investing
in SEO on day one.
Now, seo is not your primarystrategy for acquiring traffic,
but it's an important one andit's one of those.
You know, free and air quotessources of traffic, because it
takes you a lot of effort upfront.
But you know, I'm today gettingyou know traffic to my website
(29:40):
from a blog article I created in2014, kind of thing right, it's
the gift that keeps givingforever and ever.
And when I say SEO, anotherthing I want to add there is,
seo is not just Google.
Even though nobody optimizesfor Bing or Bing, right, search
happens everywhere, right?
The number two search engine onthe planet YouTube, right.
Amazon, etsy, tiktok, instagramthey're all search engines now,
(30:02):
right?
So I think you have to optimizefor Google, organic, and for
YouTube on day one.
So, in other words, you shouldbe doing video, right?
So, number one, you got tostart working on SEO strategy,
because everybody should bedoing SEO for the long-term and
it is a long-term game, and youneed to operationalize that into
your business thinking, right,and by operationalizing itterm
(30:24):
game.
And you need to operationalizethat into your business thinking
and by operationalizing it.
What I mean is you need to havea goal.
This is my humble opinion.
Again, you can do itdifferently if you want to.
You need a goal that says I'mgoing to create SEO content at a
cadence, but so you're going todo one blog article per week or
one per month or whatever.
You got to do that every weekor every month, whatever it is.
If you don't start making thatpart of your DNA from day one.
It's one of those things youjust keep kicking that can down
(30:47):
the road.
You're like, oh, seo's, youknow long pole, I'll get to it
after I do all these otherthings.
I think you got to start it offearly, right?
And a lot of my clients becausethey're smaller brands, they
like doing the non-paid stufffirst, right, they like the idea
of the organic things, for agood reason.
So, number one you want tostart out with an SEO strategy
(31:07):
or start building out contentfor SEO and knowing what your
strategy is and seeing how itworks.
And the number two thing youwant to do is you want to do
Google shopping ads, right?
So today in Shopify, it'sreally easy to connect the
Google and YouTube channel toyour Shopify store, send your
(31:28):
product feed off to GoogleMerchant and then connect your
Google Merchant to your Googleads and do shopping ads.
Now, shopping ads for those thatdon't know.
If you do a search query onGoogle, let's just say you look
for how to repair Nike sneakers,right?
Google looks at that and says,oh, that's a research or a
research or a DIY query and itgives different types of ads.
It probably does keyword adsfor that.
Sometimes it'll give you knowYouTube videos.
If it thinks it's a shoppingquery, like blue Nike sneaker
(31:50):
size 13, it'll say that's ashopping query.
It shows shopping ads.
Shopping ads come from GoogleMerchant, which comes from your
Shopify feed.
It's all connected directly andit's really easy and really
relevant.
You show up the top ofalgorithmic search and you show
up at the top of the shoppingpage.
So shopping ads easiest ones toset up of all the ads in the
ecosystem and they're reallyrelevant.
(32:14):
And all you do is you say Iwant to spend $10 a month or $20
a month.
You just put down the cost, soit's really easy to see if it's
working for you, kind of thing.
And then after that you want todo remarketing right, so you
want to have anybody come toyour site.
You want to bug them as theywalk around the internet for the
next two weeks and remind themthat you still exist.
So those are my first threesteps when I think about getting
(32:35):
started on a store.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Okay, okay, and when you are talking about SEO, you
are not talking about well, letme ask backlinks.
That is a topic that oftencomes up when people are talking
about SEO.
Do you think that is anessential part of the SEO
strategy, or is that just kindof an ancillary topic within SEO
(33:00):
?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
the SEO strategy, or is that just kind of an
ancillary topic within SEO?
So backlinks used to beimportant, then they became
non-important and now they'reimportant again, so it has to be
part of your strategy.
So in the old days, right,backlinks was one of the leading
indicators of whether yourcontent was good or bad.
And then Google got good enoughand I saw this happen like
overnight around 2019 in somestores where they were ranked
really low, get no traffic andthen Google changed the
algorithm and backlinks were nolonger as important and it
(33:25):
evaluated the content of yourwebsite.
I had a client who builtworld-class content in the
medical space for the stuff theywere doing and he had the worst
backlink of all his competitionand then, all of a sudden, he
became number one on SEO becausehe had the best content Right
(34:09):
no-transcript you need to makewhen launching a Shopify store.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And so how can a business owner strike the right
balance between design,aesthetics and performance, and
are there any themes that you,you know, like out of the box,
perform really, really well fora particular site?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
The question you're asking is the balance between
aesthetics and performance.
So my first question is what doyou mean by performance?
Because I can think of a coupleof different ways to factor
that in.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
The end goal being that the customer buys from you,
and so yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
So conversion, and that, I think, is the important
one, because a lot of peoplehear the word performance and
they're thinking page speed andpage speed is important.
You cannot have a page load in11 seconds but page speed is not
important between three secondsand 2.9 in e-commerce, right?
So too many people, you knowit's one of those things.
(35:10):
They focus too much on pagespeed when they should focus on
getting more customers, kind ofthing.
But performance and conversion,I totally love, right.
So your question is the balancebetween aesthetics and
conversion.
I believe that most e-commercestores remember, I deal, I
totally love, right.
So your question is the balancebetween aesthetics and
conversion.
I believe that most e-commercestores, remember, I deal with
small brands, right.
So I'm not working with KylieJenner Cosmetics, for example.
(35:30):
This is not an answer for abrand like that.
I believe form follows functionand I believe the purpose of
your website is to take trafficand move it to the cart so that
the customer has confidence inthat purchase decision.
Remember back to thatdecision-making engine that I
love so much, right?
They have confidence so thatthey finish that checkout
process.
(35:50):
In other words, I don't carewhat the aesthetics are, what I
care is customers get to wherethey want to be and understand
it.
So I focus way more time on thefunnel want to be and
understand it.
So I focus way more time on thefunnel on the performance of
the site.
And then and don't get me wrong,aesthetics is important.
You can't have a garbagelooking website, you can't have
grammatical errors, but I don'tneed flashy animations, big
(36:13):
fancy videos, scrolling effectsas they move up and down the
page.
I think most of that is juststroking our own egos and a
waste of time and energy.
My favorite example with myclients is they want to do a
slideshow on the homepage and Isaid the only people that are
going to look at slide numbertwo on your homepage are you and
me.
Your customers don't care aboutit, they don't have time for it
(36:35):
, they're just scrolling.
They want to get your results.
They're not going to watch fivedifferent messages three seconds
apart.
They're not going to watch fivedifferent messages three
seconds apart.
It's just, we're just doing itfor ourselves, right?
So you know how do I strike theright balance between
aesthetics and performance,performance, performance,
performance.
Don't fuck up your aesthetics,right?
Don't look stupid, don't lookamateur.
You need to look professional.
(36:55):
You need to know what yourbrand standards are.
These are my colors, right,these are my fonts.
You need consistency across theboard.
I'm absolutely diligent aboutthat kind of stuff, but if you
want a fancy little animationthing that shows the unboxing of
the thing, if you're not makinga million dollars a year, maybe
even a month, you're wastingyour time.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I really like that, and I think that does take a lot
of pressure off of theentrepreneur when getting that
minimum viable product to sendtraffic to, because it does seem
like there's a lot ofpossibilities on things that you
could add different modules andwhatnot.
That may not necessarily bebeneficial, and so I really like
(37:38):
that response.
Do you have any examples ofwebsites that you think do it
really well?
And that's something when I'mlearning about something,
oftentimes going and looking ata website that's doing it
exceptionally well or whateverit may be is helpful, and so are
there any, whether you'veworked with them or not, that
(37:59):
you think do it exceptionallywell any?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
whether you've worked with them or not, that you
think do it exceptionally well.
I don't spend a lot of timelooking at others.
I just look at my clients'websites and work on them most
of the time and theircompetition.
So as I look at my websites,one of my favorite clients is JT
from Rep2Chip.
Rep2chipcom.
They sell the most unsexy thingon the planet.
They take coconut, they breakup the coconut shell and then
(38:26):
they ship it to you and you putthat in the bottom of your tank
for your frog or your turtle asthe bottom of the floor for
these animals to live in rightSubstrate.
Yet you know their products.
They have different sizes anddifferent shapes and forms and
all that kind of stuff anddifferent animals, new,
different things.
So we've spent the past two anda half years trying to turn his
website, which is just a list ofsix or seven products, into a
(38:50):
decision making engine.
So if you have a northerndiamondback terrapin turtle, we
now have a page for that thatsays, hey, the northern
diamondback terrapin Turtle.
It uses these types of thingsand he's actually making videos
and an e-book for each animaltype.
There's 275 animal types thathe's working on on this website,
right?
So that's where you're.
(39:11):
You're not trying to sell yourproduct, you're trying to help
your customer with their need.
Right?
It's sort of like when you knowwhatever car you have.
You know when you go to a carwebsite, you tell them what car
you have.
Well, if you have a pet website, why don't you tell them what
kind of pet you have Exactly?
And then they answer thequestion specifically Right, so
I have a 2013 Ford C-Max.
(39:32):
My battery dies, so this exactbattery fits in your car.
We need to do the same thing inour website for our customers
needs.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I like that.
I think that's a really goodpractical example, like the cars
, I mean.
I think everyone's been on acar website and understands that
process of getting you to whereyou need to be, and so well.
This has been an outstandinginterview.
I think we probably could go onfor another couple hours, but
want to be respectful of yourtime.
At the end of every podcast wehave something called the fire
round.
It's four questions that we askevery guest at the end of the
(40:07):
show.
Scott, are you ready?
I am ready, let's do this.
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
In the space that we're talking about, right, my
favorite book is the LeanStartup.
When I first read that you knowI think Eric wrote that in
about 2008.
I think I read it in 2011 whenI started my first startup so
much of it resonated with me andthings that I had done in my
past different tactical bestpractices I had but what Eric
did is he wrapped that into awhole program and a way of
(40:34):
thinking right, and the way Isummarize the lean startup to
people that haven't read it.
It's simple as this.
With your business, everythingyou have is an assumption and
your job is to validate yourassumptions.
So, basically, your job as astartup is to learn.
It's not to maximize yourrevenue today.
It's to maximize your learningsand minimize your unknowns.
(40:55):
The more you learn, the smarteryou're going to be about the
decisions that you're going tomake, and that's what Lean
Startup tries to explain topeople.
Is changing your mindset of asyou're going to be, about the
decisions that you're going tomake, and that's what Lean
Startup tries to explain topeople.
Is, you know, changing yourmindset of as you're starting
and growing your business.
It's not about you know themoney you're making today.
It's about how much better youunderstand your customers, so
that the product you offer themtomorrow is better than the one
(41:16):
you're offering to them today.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I like it, I like it and I second that.
That's an outstanding book.
Number two what are yourhobbies?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
My hobbies these days are pickleball and my pack of
little chihuahuas.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Very nice, very nice.
What is one thing that you donot miss about working for the
man?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
There's not much that I miss about working for the
man.
For me, the biggest one isbureaucracy right, you know so
many large corporations you endup.
You know everybody has a veto,right, you know everybody can
voice their opinion andeverybody's trying to stop
projects instead of move themforward.
What I love about you know theentrepreneurial side of things,
and one of the reasons I workwith only small brands is when
(41:57):
we're talking back and forth.
We make a decision right thenand we move forward right.
I had a fortune 500 client thatI was working with in Shopify
and we'd get on the call.
There'd be 12 of them, one ofme, and two things always
happened the person who neededto make the decision was not in
the call, and the person thatwas going to do the work from
the decision was not in the call, and a bunch of middle managers
(42:19):
were just there, you know,drinking coffee or whatever
they're kind of doing.
So I love the pace at which youcan move right, because it's
all about those learnings, right?
There's nothing wrong withmaking mistakes in air quotes.
They're not mistakes, they'rethings you tried that didn't
work.
Therefore, you are now smarterthan you were yesterday about
those kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I fully agree with that, and bureaucracy is a very
common answer to this one.
And so final question what doyou think sets apart successful
e-commerce entrepreneurs fromthose who give up, fail or never
get started?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Two pieces to that and they're quite related, right
?
First is they do the work.
Second, is they do the rightwork right.
So, on the they do the workright.
You know, back to the ReftedShip example, where they're
going to have these landingpages for 275 different animals
and they're going to have, youknow, videos for each.
They got to do all that workright and that's hard.
(43:14):
You know, in any business thatyou're working on, there's lots
of work that needs to be done.
But sometimes people do lots ofwork but it's the wrong work,
like they're working on theirwebsite instead of working on
customer acquisition, right?
So you also have to make sureyou're doing the right work.
So you need that grit to do thework.
But you also need that commonsense or intelligence or
(43:35):
awareness of your business,understanding of your customers,
to make sure you're doing theright work.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
I think that's an outstanding answer Now for
people that have listened tothis and would be potentially
interested in working with you.
Who's your ideal client at JadePuma?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
So, jade Puma, what we do is we focus and specialize
on small Shopify brands andpeople that want to build a
brand versus build an e-commercewebsite.
Right For me, they're between abrand and an e-commerce website
.
E-commerce websites sellproducts.
Brands sell a brand experience.
Most of your audience probablyunderstands the differences
between those.
But we're looking for thepeople just getting started on
(44:12):
their business or they've beendoing it for five years or
whatever and they're just notgrowing kind of thing.
We're not here for your milliondollar a month people.
I'm a small agency.
I'm a solopreneur.
I've got a couple ofcontractors helping me.
If you're looking to grow KylieJenner cosmetics from a billion
dollar valuation to 5 billion,I'm not the person for you.
But if you're just gettingstarted or been doing this for
(44:34):
five years and kind of stuck ina rut, I am perfect for you.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Very nice, and we will post links to that in the
show notes.
Scott, this has been anoutstanding interview.
Thank you so much for your timetoday and looking forward to
staying in touch.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Thanks, david, it was a pleasure.
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