Some Ecommerce Brands Make It Big While Others Stall Out, It’s A Fact.

But there’s really no big mystery behind why this happens.

A few months ago I was interviewed on a podcast by my good friend Brett Curry on the Ecommerce Evolution Podcast. We break down what separates e-commerce brands that scale up versus those that plateau.

After re-listening to the episode, I decided to share it with you. Brett and I talk about a variety of things, including average order value and lifetime value, and how that directly impacts your ability to scale up. We talk about demand generation versus demand capture: which is “better” and which lends itself to being able to scale. We talk about the roadmap to building a team and scaling up your business, how your role as a CEO changes as you grow, and much, much more.

I had a great time chatting with Brett, and I hope you enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 8:25 Why I’m so passionate about dissecting why some brands scale and others don’t.
• 9:56 The KPIs that separate the businesses that can scale from those that can’t.
• 11:18 Demand capture vs. demand generation and which one will allow you to scale.
• 14:51 Factors I look for when evaluating a product’s potential for growth.
• 16:53 How a passionate market can contribute to success.
• 21:03 Why having competitors in your market is a good thing.
• 21:44 Average order value and lifetime value: why they’re important and what to look for if you want to scale.
• 24:48 How to evaluate CPA across different channels and the other metric I recommend examining.
• 27:30 It’s OK if your business doesn’t scale — and this is why.
• 30:28 Growing your business by expanding your product line.
• 34:20 A true entrepreneur falls in love with their customers, not their product.
• 35:47 Great founders know when to ask for help.
• 37:17 Why business founders need to become experts at their marketing channels before handing over the reins.
• 41:23 How a CEO’s role shifts as the company grows.

Links And Resources

• ECommerce Evolution Podcast
• Business Lunch Podcast
• 2PM
• Episode 189: What’s Actually Working In SEM And On YouTube In 2019 (with Brett Curry)
• Profit Summit Intensive Workshop
• The Ecommerce Coalition
• Training: What’s Working With Google Ads Right Now
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Email is one of the most trusted ways to drive revenue in ecommerce.

But I still see too many people leaving money on the table and missing out on low-hanging fruit.

Today I’ll walk you through how to do a two-day email overhaul that will help you increase your revenue.

We’ll start by making sure your email service provider and integrations are set up correctly, create a branded email template, ensure you have a great offer that’s capturing tons of leads, and identify the email flows to build that have the biggest financial impact for your business.

This is the exact email overhaul process I’ve used with my clients to help them bring in $10K from email in just one week after set-up.

Can’t wait to hear your results!

Episode Highlights

• 5:06 How to ensure your email service provider is set up correctly.
• 6:20 The importance of tracking viewed products.
• 7:30 Other common mistakes Austin sees with ESP setup and integrations.
• 10:20 Creating an email template for your brand (without a designer).
• 13:45 Lead capture: the questions to ask yourself to make sure you’re set up for success.
• 14:55 How to come up with a good offer.
• 16:38 Deciding which tool is right for your lead capture.
• 18:55 The email flows that have the biggest financial impact for your business.
• 21:25 Simple tests to run that will improve your email performance and a tip for using profile properties to evaluate the success of your email sequences over time.
• 25:25 Tips for improving your subject line copywriting.
• 26:55 Using plain text emails to drive clicks.
• 28:00 Adding animated GIFs to emails with Soapbox.
• 28:50 Merging your content with commerce.

Links And Resources

• Klaviyo 
• Omnisend 
• CartHook
• ReCharge
• Justuno 
• Soapbox
• Private Intensive
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

If you’ve been on Facebook in the past week, you’ve probably seen an ad from Buffy.

What started as an idea to disrupt the bedding industry has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

Today Buffy co-founder Shoaib Kabani joins us to cover a range of topics.

We talk about everything from product development, to the importance of testing, how landing pages can improve your funnel, and what performance KPIs you have to be thinking about as you scale. , how he thinks about scaling up their business, what's worked for them.

Whether you’re a business owner or an ecommerce marketer, you’re going to get a lot out of this episode.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights: 

• 4:49 How a desire to change the bedding industry led to the creation of Buffy.
• 6:21 The training Shoaib got from his start in consulting that’s helped him as an entrepreneur.
• 7:35 Developing the initial idea and concept for Buffy: providing value and values.
• 9:31 The process of validating the concept online, on social, and in person before going all in.
• 12:48 How do I make this a no brainer for the consumer?
• 14:16 What’s worked for Buffy from a creative perspective and changes they’ve made as they’ve scaled.
• 18:40 Some of the unintended consequences of having a free trial offer.
• 19:56 Unique KPIs Shoaib looks at on a daily basis.
• 22:00 A funnel analysis tool that’s been a game changer as Buffy’s scaled up.
• 23:10 The materials and brand values that make Buffy stand out in the bedding industry.
• 25:05 How Buffy uses landing pages to enhance its sales funnel.
• 28:09 Addressing customer lifetime value when you have a limited number of products.
• 32:08 Shoaib’s approach to launching into new ad channels, specifically with affiliates and podcasts.
• 37:14 How the Buffy founders set their budget for testing new channels and concepts.
• 39:10 What you, the ecommerce business owner, need to be thinking about to be successful.
• 41:25 Exciting insight into what’s next for Buffy.

Links and Resources: 

• Buffy
• Heap
• Shoaib on Instagram: @ShoaibKabani
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

It’s our goal to help our clients succeed, but even the experts get it wrong sometimes.

As we've seen in the first six months of the year, things have changed wildly within Facebook. Today, Andrew shares some of the advice he’s given that hasn’t worked out. And while he’s never intentionally led anyone astray, things don’t always go as planned. Andrew talks about five times his advice has failed on Facebook and the lessons learned from those mistakes.

We hope by sharing some of the worst Facebook advice of the year we’ll prevent you from making any of these mistakes yourself.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights: 

• 3:02 Why we’re talking about failure.
• 6:11 Budget advice: what we’ve said before and how we’d correct it.
• 10:35 Creative is the most important part of the FB ad equation, bottom line.
• 13:15 The gut check question to ask yourself before you run with your creative content.
• 14:55 Honesty around product market fit when you have a very specific niche.
• 18:40 Campaign budget optimization: it’s still the Wild West.
• 22:00 Not all lookalike audiences are created equal.
• 23:42 How to determine if your audience is viable for creating a lookalike audience.

Links and Resources: 

• Episode 191: How An Artist And Engineer Turned Business Owners Built A “Cult” 
• Episode 196: The Ugly Truth About Why Your Business Isn’t Scaling
• Episode 198: How To Create Winning Content On Facebook And Instagram
• Episode 202: How I Scaled From $500/Day To $15,000/Day In Ad Spend In 30 Days
• Andrew on Twitter: @andrewfoxwell
• Austin on Twitter: @a_brawn
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Q3 is officially here. What are you doing to prepare for the second half of the year?

For my team, the end of the quarter means it’s time to get out of the day-to-day grind and do some bigger picture planning.

Every three months we do a quarterly business offsite, where we take a step back so we can review our goals, and set new ones, that will help us move forward in the right direction.

Today we’re talking about the process we follow for our quarterly business offsite and how you can host one of your own. I’ll share the questions we ask to review the previous 90 days, how we capture ideas for improvements, and how we come up with our north star goal for the upcoming quarter.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 2:49 Why Austin’s excited to get off the grid and plan for a new quarter.
• 4:44 How to start preparing for your quarterly business offsite.
• 9:35 Questions to ask as you prepare for your offsite that will help your employees take ownership in the business.
• 12:35 A question that will help narrow in on the vision for the upcoming quarter.
• 13:29 Bonus question: what is one unique way we could create more monthly recurring revenue for the business?
• 14:59 The themes we use for each day of our offsite.
• 15:49 The big question Austin asks himself when reviewing the numbers from the previous quarter.
• 18:11 Questions to answer during a freewriting session to gain clarity on where you want the business to be one year from now.
• 19:10 A more structured alternative for creating a vision for the future.
• 20:59 The freedom and flexibility this kind of planning can give you, both in your work and in your life.
• 25:20 Reviewing your website and evaluating your funnel with critical eyes.
• 26:24 Day two of the quarterly business offsite: goal setting for the next 90 days and identifying your “north star.”
• 30:49 How to successfully wrap up your offsite (don’t forget to celebrate!).

Links And Resources

• Book: The Goal
• Chris Rudolph: Freedom Business Family
• UserTesting
• Episode 203: Why You Should Stop Selling Yourself Short And Think Like A Billionaire
• Andrew on Twitter
• Austin on Twitter
• The Coalition
• Brand Guild
• Foxwell Digital Courses
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Join The Coalition

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I have something really exciting for you. For the last year and a half I’ve been coaching business owners and marketers inside a group called The Coalition. What launched as an experiment became a game changer for our over 150 members. 

If you’d like me and my team of expert marketers and ecommerce operators to coach you on your journey to scaling up your ecommerce business, this is your opportunity. We go in-depth on all the topics we talk about on this podcast and provide actionable training every single month. You’ll also get one-on-one coaching from me to help you grow your business. 

Head over to JointheCoalition.com to learn more. Can’t wait to see you inside.