August 15, 2024 • 15 mins
Unlock the secrets to transforming a struggling business into a category-leading brand with our special guest, Jason Shafton, head of the growth consultancy Winston-Francois. Jason takes us through his impressive journey of revitalizing a European e-commerce company from a seven-figure monthly loss to profitability by meticulously optimizing marketing channels and operations. Learn how identifying inefficiencies and implementing best practices can drive exponential growth. Jason also shares a pivotal moment from his career at Google, where he played a key role in launching Google Music, underscoring the necessity of robust products and structured growth experimentation for effective marketing.
Next, we explore the powerful art of storytelling to build brand presence. Discover the critical elements of achieving product-market fit and how leveraging customer feedback can significantly enhance your product experience. We'll guide you through telling your brand's story more effectively using platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and reveal the impact of engaging nano and micro-influencers to create a halo effect around your brand. Creativity, uniqueness, and differentiation are key themes in this chapter, helping you stand out from competitors.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:00):
Welcome to today's episode.
Today we are talking about howto create category leading
brands, and we have a greatguest to help us talk about this
, who specializes in this andgrowth marketing Jason, welcome
to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Maybe we can take a minute foryou to explain a little bit
about who you are and what youdo.
Jason Shafton (00:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
My name is Jason Shafton and Ilead a growth consultancy called
Winston-Francois.
We help technology companiesscale into category leading
brands.
My background includes workingat companies like Google,
headspace, paramount and Vita,and over the course of the five
years that I've been leadingthis team, we've helped dozens
of high growth startups get onthe right path.
(00:43):
Awesome, we're ready to beinspired.
The five years that I've beenleading this team, we've helped
dozens of high growth startupsget on the right path.
Eric Eden (00:45):
Awesome.
We're ready to be inspired.
Why don't you tell us a storyabout some of the best marketing
you've done, that you're themost proud of, perhaps helping
one of your clients create acategory leading brand.
Jason Shafton (01:00):
Yeah, we're very fortunate.
We worked with a lot ofcompanies.
I think probably my most proudaccomplishment is a company we
worked with a little bit about ayear and a half ago now that is
based in Europe and they are inthe kind of website and
e-commerce space and they werein trouble.
(01:21):
They were losing a lot of moneyevery month seven figures and
we came in and assessed theissues going on with the
business, identified some kindof opportunities to turn things
around and, over the course ofsix months, took the number that
they were losing every monthand broke that back, pulled that
(01:41):
back, broke even and caused thebusiness to stop losing money.
And broke that back, pulledthat back, broke even and caused
the business to stop losingmoney.
And then a few months afterthat, they were actually
returning that same figure thatthey had been losing to the
balance sheet.
And that was the result of theteam coming in and assessing the
way that they were operatingacross performance, marketing,
lifecycle marketing, growth,experimentation, conversion rate
optimization and even buildingkind of creative campaigns and
(02:03):
programs and new systems andprocess and helping them develop
a high performance team toachieve those goals.
So I'm really proud of thatwork.
And then I'll add one more thing, and this was a formative
experience in my career, whichis I was at Google.
I was 26 years old and somehowsitting in a warehouse on the
(02:23):
second floor Mr Brainwash if youever saw Exit Through the Gift
Shop Banksy's, this guy, mrBrainwash in LA, we were
throwing the Google Music launchparty in this warehouse and
downstairs Maroon 5, bustaRhymes were playing.
All these celebrities werethere.
It was this wild party.
And upstairs, on the secondfloor, I was sitting with a
small group of Google employeesand we were pushing the button
(02:44):
to turn Google Music on for theworld and make it live.
And it was a surreal momentbecause I'm this kid and what am
I doing here?
How did I get here?
And I felt really lucky andgrateful to be a part of
something special like that thatlots and lots of people were
going to use and ultimately have.
Eric Eden (03:01):
That's a cool vibe launching Google Music for sure.
Tell me the story about helpingthe company in Europe turn
things around.
What was the learning from thepivot there, from losing money
to making money every month?
What was the efficiency key orthe unlock there that really
turned it around for them?
Jason Shafton (03:23):
It was a couple things.
One we can't take all thecredit.
There was a strong leadershipteam that kind of got brought
together at that time thathelped make that happen,
including a new chief financialofficer and strong operating
partners at the kind of boardand investor level.
But ultimately what weidentified when we came in was a
lot of the spending they weredoing across marketing channels
(03:46):
was inefficient, and so what wedid was identify those
inefficiencies, call them out,put together a set of
recommendations of here's thingswe should change.
For example, your affiliateprogram that you're running.
You're spending hundreds ofdollars to acquire a customer
that might only net you a couplehundred dollars in revenue over
their entire lifetime.
So let's change the economicsof that program to unwind those
(04:09):
losses and stop losing money.
Every new customer we acquireand we found those kinds of
efficiencies across their Googleads campaigns, their meta ads
campaigns and even in the waythat they were sending lifecycle
emails and running experimentson their site to drive
conversion.
In each of those cases therewas very discreet oh, this is
not the best practice.
(04:30):
Here's the right way to do this.
From decades of experienceacross our team, having done
this many times with lots ofcompanies, let's implement those
best practices and let's changethe way that you're doing this
stuff so that we can do it theright way.
And I think a lot of companiesget into this thing where
they're like I have to inventthe answer.
I have to come up with a new,innovative, novel solution to a
to an known and already solvedproblem, and what we try to do
(04:53):
is come in and say you don'tneed to spend all that time and
fumble in the dark.
Let us help you solve theproblem with what we know is a
solution that already exists.
Eric Eden (05:05):
So one of the things you specialize in is growth
marketing, and that's a buzzwordthat a lot of people will throw
around.
But where does the rubber meetthe road with growth marketing,
in your opinion?
Jason Shafton (05:20):
the rubber meets the road.
When you have an awesomeproduct, you've found product
market fit and then you can puttogether a really effective
growth experimentation programto identify a bunch of things
you want to try and test andprioritize those based on what
you think they will have interms of impact, and then
(05:40):
execute those experiments,document what you learn, measure
everything that you do and feedthat back into the process.
I like to think about growthmarketing.
As you know, growth is the kindof intersection of product and
marketing and growth marketingis that bend towards marketing.
It's the things that we do totry to spread the word and tell
the story of the brand, theproduct, the services, and in
(06:03):
doing so, we want to be datadriven, we want to be thoughtful
and we want to take what we'velearned and feed that back into
a system so that we're thinkingabout things in terms of the
scientific method.
What is my hypothesis?
What do I want to learn, whatdo I want to test and how do we
learn those things quickly,efficiently and then improve the
results of the business as aresult?
I think the difference for alot of folks is traditional
marketing is a lot of spray andpray.
(06:25):
Let's advertise here and hereand hope that it works.
And there's an old adage 50% ofmy marketing works.
I just don't know which 50%.
And growth marketing is aboutunderstanding exactly which
parts of your marketing andgrowth strategy are working and
only focusing there.
Eric Eden (06:42):
I think the focus on testing and the analytics of the
testing is really the keyunlock there.
And I also agree that you'regoing nowhere fast if you don't
have the right product.
That's not a problem thatmarketing can solve.
If you don't have the rightproduct, market fit, you just
can't market your way out ofthat.
Jason Shafton (07:02):
That's exactly right, yeah, product market fit
is where you start, and then yougrow from there.
Eric Eden (07:08):
So let's talk about category leading brands.
I think I've talked to a lot ofcompanies over the years that
want to create their owncategory and then they want to
be a category leader in thatcategory.
No one wants to be number twoor number three, definitely no
one wants to be number nine.
So how does one create acategory leading brand?
Jason Shafton (07:31):
Brands are empty vessels that we fill with
meaning and the first thing thatpeople often experience of your
brand is the product itself,like how good is the product?
So think about something thatyou recently tried or did or
experienced that was reallygreat and how that made you feel
about that brand right.
For example, the first time youused an Apple, iphone or iPad
(07:59):
or any iPod, there was somethingreally magical about it, and
Steve Jobs was a genius and apioneer and one of the greatest
inventors of our time andprobably the best marketer of
our time, and he would createthis reality distortion field
around everything he touchederof our time, and he would create
this reality distortion fieldaround everything he touched and
everything he created.
And as a result of that, youhave this magical experience.
I briefly worked when I wasfinishing up college at an Apple
store in Chicago this ispre-iPhone days selling lots of
(08:21):
iPods and Macs, and I wouldinternalize the mantra, which is
that we were supposed tosurprise and delight our
customers and users.
And so when you think aboutgreat brands, they do that.
The first time you used Uber orAirbnb or, like I said, the
first time you used an Appleproduct, first time I used
Google search in like the early2000s right, like it was just
(08:41):
like holy crap.
I've been using Lycos andAltaVista and this is way better
and I think that's how youstart with it's with great
product again.
But then where you can win as abrand is telling really amazing
stories, and people don'treally care about hearing
stories of brands or companies.
They care about stories thatare about people.
So how is your product, yourservice, your brand, helping
(09:03):
people, making their livesbetter, making the world better,
doing interesting things?
You think about some of thebest and most successful brands
ever, like Nike and if you're,if you have a body, you're an
athlete right and all thecampaigns that they have done
and the incredible athletes thatthey use as people to create a
halo effect around their brandand make people have a ton of
(09:23):
affinity for those brands.
That's how you create abeautiful brand, and a category
leading brand is that you tellstories that touch people's
hearts and make people give ashit about your brand.
Eric Eden (09:35):
I love that definition.
Your example of Uber is greatbecause the building I live in I
can sit in my apartment on the15th floor and I can say I need
a ride and I can tap a fewthings on my phone and before I
can get in the elevator down tothe lobby, there's a car there
waiting for me to take mewherever I need to go.
(09:57):
That's pretty crazy when Ithink about the history of
things.
That's where we're at.
Similarly, with Uber Eats, Ican just tap some things on my
phone and cold beer shows up atmy door.
What kind of magic are weconjuring?
Jason Shafton (10:09):
It is magical, Absolutely.
That's the thing, and at Googlethey taught us know the user,
know the magic, connect the two,and that is as a marketer.
That's what you have to do istell a story that connects the
magic of your product and yourbrand with the user and what
they care about.
Eric Eden (10:25):
And one more example is I was using the predecessor
to chat GPT.
I was using GPT 2.0 and 2021.
Some people had introduced meto it.
There was some tools that weretrying to integrate it, like
grammarly, and I was using it.
I was like what is this?
This is terrible, like itdoesn't even work right.
And then when chat GPT came out, version 3.0, I was like, wow,
(10:50):
this works now, like they got itright in this version and
they're still not perfect.
A lot of people would argue,even at version 4.0, it's not
perfect, but it was able todelight people.
At chat gpt version 3, I couldsay things like rewrite eric
eden's linkedin profile and thevoice of Homer's, iliad and the
Odyssey, and it came back withsomething amazing.
(11:12):
You could do things like thatand it was like, wow, this will
delight me.
And so I think that theseexamples are just popping into.
My mind is how do you becomethe leader is, yes, you have to
have the right product, but thenalso the user stories, like the
ones I just shared, of whatvalue does it bring to people?
How does it delight people?
(11:33):
That's how you become acategory leader, right.
Jason Shafton (11:36):
I totally agree.
Eric Eden (11:38):
So what advice do you have for companies and
marketers who want to execute onthis?
What would you tell them to doto go in this direction?
Jason Shafton (11:50):
Start by talking to your customers and your users
Really get to know theirproblems intimately and deeply.
And you've got to get to knowthem and really understand their
needs, their wants, what theirchallenges are.
I think Steve Jobs used to saythey're hiring you to do a job,
so what is the job to be donefor them and how does your
product, how does your brand, dothat better than than anybody
(12:12):
else?
What makes you different andspecial?
What is your magic?
And once you figure that outand once you get to that point
of product market fit and getthe necessary customer feedback
to build a great productexperience, then tell that story
and show don't tell, show folkshow they can use your product
to do what they're trying to doin a compelling way.
(12:35):
We're in the world of theexplosion of social media and
TikTok and Instagram, so tellcompelling video stories, let
other people tell your story foryou.
Leverage nano and microinfluencers and get a halo
effect on your brand and dothings that are creative, unique
and different, that set youapart from your competitors.
Eric Eden (12:56):
Great advice.
Thank you very much for beingwith us today, sharing these
stories and your insights.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite so if people want to get
in touch and learn more abouthow to create a category leading
brand, they can do so.
We really appreciate you beingon the show today.
Thanks so much for having me,Eric.
Welcome to today's episode.
Today we are talking about howto create category leading
brands, and we have a greatguest to help us talk about this
, who specializes in this andgrowth marketing Jason, welcome
to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Maybe we can take a minute foryou to explain a little bit
about who you are and what youdo.
Jason Shafton (00:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
My name is Jason Shafton and Ilead a growth consultancy called
Winston-Francois.
We help technology companiesscale into category leading
brands.
My background includes workingat companies like Google,
headspace, paramount and Vita,and over the course of the five
years that I've been leadingthis team, we've helped dozens
of high growth startups get onthe right path.
(00:43):
Awesome, we're ready to beinspired.
The five years that I've beenleading this team, we've helped
dozens of high growth startupsget on the right path.
Eric Eden (00:45):
Awesome.
We're ready to be inspired.
Why don't you tell us a storyabout some of the best marketing
you've done, that you're themost proud of, perhaps helping
one of your clients create acategory leading brand.
Jason Shafton (01:00):
Yeah, we're very fortunate.
We worked with a lot ofcompanies.
I think probably my most proudaccomplishment is a company we
worked with a little bit about ayear and a half ago now that is
based in Europe and they are inthe kind of website and
e-commerce space and they werein trouble.
(01:21):
They were losing a lot of moneyevery month seven figures and
we came in and assessed theissues going on with the
business, identified some kindof opportunities to turn things
around and, over the course ofsix months, took the number that
they were losing every monthand broke that back, pulled that
(01:41):
back, broke even and caused thebusiness to stop losing money.
And broke that back, pulledthat back, broke even and caused
the business to stop losingmoney.
And then a few months afterthat, they were actually
returning that same figure thatthey had been losing to the
balance sheet.
And that was the result of theteam coming in and assessing the
way that they were operatingacross performance, marketing,
lifecycle marketing, growth,experimentation, conversion rate
optimization and even buildingkind of creative campaigns and
(02:03):
programs and new systems andprocess and helping them develop
a high performance team toachieve those goals.
So I'm really proud of thatwork.
And then I'll add one more thing, and this was a formative
experience in my career, whichis I was at Google.
I was 26 years old and somehowsitting in a warehouse on the
(02:23):
second floor Mr Brainwash if youever saw Exit Through the Gift
Shop Banksy's, this guy, mrBrainwash in LA, we were
throwing the Google Music launchparty in this warehouse and
downstairs Maroon 5, bustaRhymes were playing.
All these celebrities werethere.
It was this wild party.
And upstairs, on the secondfloor, I was sitting with a
small group of Google employeesand we were pushing the button
(02:44):
to turn Google Music on for theworld and make it live.
And it was a surreal momentbecause I'm this kid and what am
I doing here?
How did I get here?
And I felt really lucky andgrateful to be a part of
something special like that thatlots and lots of people were
going to use and ultimately have.
Eric Eden (03:01):
That's a cool vibe launching Google Music for sure.
Tell me the story about helpingthe company in Europe turn
things around.
What was the learning from thepivot there, from losing money
to making money every month?
What was the efficiency key orthe unlock there that really
turned it around for them?
Jason Shafton (03:23):
It was a couple things.
One we can't take all thecredit.
There was a strong leadershipteam that kind of got brought
together at that time thathelped make that happen,
including a new chief financialofficer and strong operating
partners at the kind of boardand investor level.
But ultimately what weidentified when we came in was a
lot of the spending they weredoing across marketing channels
(03:46):
was inefficient, and so what wedid was identify those
inefficiencies, call them out,put together a set of
recommendations of here's thingswe should change.
For example, your affiliateprogram that you're running.
You're spending hundreds ofdollars to acquire a customer
that might only net you a couplehundred dollars in revenue over
their entire lifetime.
So let's change the economicsof that program to unwind those
(04:09):
losses and stop losing money.
Every new customer we acquireand we found those kinds of
efficiencies across their Googleads campaigns, their meta ads
campaigns and even in the waythat they were sending lifecycle
emails and running experimentson their site to drive
conversion.
In each of those cases therewas very discreet oh, this is
not the best practice.
(04:30):
Here's the right way to do this.
From decades of experienceacross our team, having done
this many times with lots ofcompanies, let's implement those
best practices and let's changethe way that you're doing this
stuff so that we can do it theright way.
And I think a lot of companiesget into this thing where
they're like I have to inventthe answer.
I have to come up with a new,innovative, novel solution to a
to an known and already solvedproblem, and what we try to do
(04:53):
is come in and say you don'tneed to spend all that time and
fumble in the dark.
Let us help you solve theproblem with what we know is a
solution that already exists.
Eric Eden (05:05):
So one of the things you specialize in is growth
marketing, and that's a buzzwordthat a lot of people will throw
around.
But where does the rubber meetthe road with growth marketing,
in your opinion?
Jason Shafton (05:20):
the rubber meets the road.
When you have an awesomeproduct, you've found product
market fit and then you can puttogether a really effective
growth experimentation programto identify a bunch of things
you want to try and test andprioritize those based on what
you think they will have interms of impact, and then
(05:40):
execute those experiments,document what you learn, measure
everything that you do and feedthat back into the process.
I like to think about growthmarketing.
As you know, growth is the kindof intersection of product and
marketing and growth marketingis that bend towards marketing.
It's the things that we do totry to spread the word and tell
the story of the brand, theproduct, the services, and in
(06:03):
doing so, we want to be datadriven, we want to be thoughtful
and we want to take what we'velearned and feed that back into
a system so that we're thinkingabout things in terms of the
scientific method.
What is my hypothesis?
What do I want to learn, whatdo I want to test and how do we
learn those things quickly,efficiently and then improve the
results of the business as aresult?
I think the difference for alot of folks is traditional
marketing is a lot of spray andpray.
(06:25):
Let's advertise here and hereand hope that it works.
And there's an old adage 50% ofmy marketing works.
I just don't know which 50%.
And growth marketing is aboutunderstanding exactly which
parts of your marketing andgrowth strategy are working and
only focusing there.
Eric Eden (06:42):
I think the focus on testing and the analytics of the
testing is really the keyunlock there.
And I also agree that you'regoing nowhere fast if you don't
have the right product.
That's not a problem thatmarketing can solve.
If you don't have the rightproduct, market fit, you just
can't market your way out ofthat.
Jason Shafton (07:02):
That's exactly right, yeah, product market fit
is where you start, and then yougrow from there.
Eric Eden (07:08):
So let's talk about category leading brands.
I think I've talked to a lot ofcompanies over the years that
want to create their owncategory and then they want to
be a category leader in thatcategory.
No one wants to be number twoor number three, definitely no
one wants to be number nine.
So how does one create acategory leading brand?
Jason Shafton (07:31):
Brands are empty vessels that we fill with
meaning and the first thing thatpeople often experience of your
brand is the product itself,like how good is the product?
So think about something thatyou recently tried or did or
experienced that was reallygreat and how that made you feel
about that brand right.
For example, the first time youused an Apple, iphone or iPad
(07:59):
or any iPod, there was somethingreally magical about it, and
Steve Jobs was a genius and apioneer and one of the greatest
inventors of our time andprobably the best marketer of
our time, and he would createthis reality distortion field
around everything he touchederof our time, and he would create
this reality distortion fieldaround everything he touched and
everything he created.
And as a result of that, youhave this magical experience.
I briefly worked when I wasfinishing up college at an Apple
store in Chicago this ispre-iPhone days selling lots of
(08:21):
iPods and Macs, and I wouldinternalize the mantra, which is
that we were supposed tosurprise and delight our
customers and users.
And so when you think aboutgreat brands, they do that.
The first time you used Uber orAirbnb or, like I said, the
first time you used an Appleproduct, first time I used
Google search in like the early2000s right, like it was just
(08:41):
like holy crap.
I've been using Lycos andAltaVista and this is way better
and I think that's how youstart with it's with great
product again.
But then where you can win as abrand is telling really amazing
stories, and people don'treally care about hearing
stories of brands or companies.
They care about stories thatare about people.
So how is your product, yourservice, your brand, helping
(09:03):
people, making their livesbetter, making the world better,
doing interesting things?
You think about some of thebest and most successful brands
ever, like Nike and if you're,if you have a body, you're an
athlete right and all thecampaigns that they have done
and the incredible athletes thatthey use as people to create a
halo effect around their brandand make people have a ton of
(09:23):
affinity for those brands.
That's how you create abeautiful brand, and a category
leading brand is that you tellstories that touch people's
hearts and make people give ashit about your brand.
Eric Eden (09:35):
I love that definition.
Your example of Uber is greatbecause the building I live in I
can sit in my apartment on the15th floor and I can say I need
a ride and I can tap a fewthings on my phone and before I
can get in the elevator down tothe lobby, there's a car there
waiting for me to take mewherever I need to go.
(09:57):
That's pretty crazy when Ithink about the history of
things.
That's where we're at.
Similarly, with Uber Eats, Ican just tap some things on my
phone and cold beer shows up atmy door.
What kind of magic are weconjuring?
Jason Shafton (10:09):
It is magical, Absolutely.
That's the thing, and at Googlethey taught us know the user,
know the magic, connect the two,and that is as a marketer.
That's what you have to do istell a story that connects the
magic of your product and yourbrand with the user and what
they care about.
Eric Eden (10:25):
And one more example is I was using the predecessor
to chat GPT.
I was using GPT 2.0 and 2021.
Some people had introduced meto it.
There was some tools that weretrying to integrate it, like
grammarly, and I was using it.
I was like what is this?
This is terrible, like itdoesn't even work right.
And then when chat GPT came out, version 3.0, I was like, wow,
(10:50):
this works now, like they got itright in this version and
they're still not perfect.
A lot of people would argue,even at version 4.0, it's not
perfect, but it was able todelight people.
At chat gpt version 3, I couldsay things like rewrite eric
eden's linkedin profile and thevoice of Homer's, iliad and the
Odyssey, and it came back withsomething amazing.
(11:12):
You could do things like thatand it was like, wow, this will
delight me.
And so I think that theseexamples are just popping into.
My mind is how do you becomethe leader is, yes, you have to
have the right product, but thenalso the user stories, like the
ones I just shared, of whatvalue does it bring to people?
How does it delight people?
(11:33):
That's how you become acategory leader, right.
Jason Shafton (11:36):
I totally agree.
Eric Eden (11:38):
So what advice do you have for companies and
marketers who want to execute onthis?
What would you tell them to doto go in this direction?
Jason Shafton (11:50):
Start by talking to your customers and your users
Really get to know theirproblems intimately and deeply.
And you've got to get to knowthem and really understand their
needs, their wants, what theirchallenges are.
I think Steve Jobs used to saythey're hiring you to do a job,
so what is the job to be donefor them and how does your
product, how does your brand, dothat better than than anybody
(12:12):
else?
What makes you different andspecial?
What is your magic?
And once you figure that outand once you get to that point
of product market fit and getthe necessary customer feedback
to build a great productexperience, then tell that story
and show don't tell, show folkshow they can use your product
to do what they're trying to doin a compelling way.
(12:35):
We're in the world of theexplosion of social media and
TikTok and Instagram, so tellcompelling video stories, let
other people tell your story foryou.
Leverage nano and microinfluencers and get a halo
effect on your brand and dothings that are creative, unique
and different, that set youapart from your competitors.
Eric Eden (12:56):
Great advice.
Thank you very much for beingwith us today, sharing these
stories and your insights.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite so if people want to get
in touch and learn more abouthow to create a category leading
brand, they can do so.
We really appreciate you beingon the show today.
Thanks so much for having me,Eric.
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