TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
brands, year, customers, problem, working, shopify, business, measures, bsr, acquisition, ads, retention, strategy, argentina, questions, helped, run, awesome, started, black friday
SPEAKERS
Mariah Parsons, Brian Roisentul, Noah Rahimzadeh
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:04
Hey retention pros. I'm Noah Raheem today and I lead partnerships here at Malomo. I'm super pumped to continue to chat with ecosystem experts alongside Mariah, who you all already know and love, say hi, Mariah.
Mariah Parsons 00:16
Hey, everyone, as you probably know, retention Chronicles likes to bring in some of the best retention focused brands in the Shopify ecosystem.
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:24
Well, we don't just feature brands, we also feature some great thought leaders in the Shopify ecosystem that serve brands.
Mariah Parsons 00:31
And because we always want these conversations to be fun, you'll hear us talk with our guests about what they're excited about and what's helped them get to where they are today.
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:40
We hope you'll stick around to learn and laugh with us retention Chronicles
Mariah Parsons 00:43
is sponsored by Malomo a shipment in order tracking platform improving the post purchase experience, be sure to subscribe and check out all of our episodes at go. malomo.com.
Noah Rahimzadeh 00:58
Okay, I think we're smack dab in the middle of season four, Mariah, and very lucky to have Brian Rosen tall to get to with us today. Excuse me, I think I probably stumbled over that last name. So we'll let you correct me Brian. Founder and CEO of BSR digital, I was lucky enough to be on his podcast a few months back. And we love to return the favor. We had a great discussion. The first go around, and we knew we had to have a menar. So Brian, it's been a while come in, but appreciate you. bearing with us and joining us today.
Brian Roisentul 01:37
Yeah, hey, no, Mariah. It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Of course. All right, first
Noah Rahimzadeh 01:44
of all, like, How bad did I butcher the last name? What? Oh, it
Brian Roisentul 01:48
was perfect. It was perfect. It's, it's not your fault. It's mine. You know, we're having that last name. There's so many stuff that I'm not surprised anymore. And I don't blame people anymore. He's like, okay, it's my parents or grandparents or whatever. Whoever fault. Right,
Noah Rahimzadeh 02:05
right. Yeah. My last names for him today. My dad's from Iran. And I always tell people, like, I have them try before I tell them how to say it. And then I say like, you know, they're like, How close was I? And I was like, you might be right, I might be wrong. Who really knows?
Mariah Parsons 02:23
Yeah, that's a fun way to spin it, honestly. Yes,
Brian Roisentul 02:27
yes. Because, you know, my grandparents, or great grandparents were immigrants from Poland, Russia and the European region, you know, and they came to Argentina were in from, like, in the 1920s, or something like that. So they escaped from the First World War. And back then, you know, when they were coming here to the country, people were like, spelling their names as they could imagine traveling, you know, sailing in the boat for a month, gaping from a war. And then spelling your last name to somebody who didn't speak your language. So you can see many, many last names similar to yours. And you say, probably we're, we're like, relatives somehow. But you know, in the customs, you know, people wrote whatever name back then. So we have a hobby capsulate maybe, buddy.
Noah Rahimzadeh 03:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my dad said like, our last name is not like really a family name, because of what you just said. Like, I've been adapted so many times to through the different, you know, moves throughout countries back in the day. So yeah, migration. Brian, good to see you. And first of all, tell us where you're dialing in from because it's kind of unique.
Brian Roisentul 03:57
Yes, I'm from what? Osiris, Argentina, south of the American continent, right. So if you're in the US, we are just at the southeast part of the continent, where the Patagonia is. At the south of Brazil, let's say to be more specific.
Noah Rahimzadeh 04:15
Awesome. Have you hiked the Patagonia? No, no. Okay. Me and my buddy thought about doing that actually even had flights booked. But we we got hit with COVID as world and so those flights were canceled, and we never went, but it's on the list for sure.
Brian Roisentul 04:42
Once Yeah, sorry. I actually went to one CD there. And it's beautiful, but there are many more. Yeah. Like, it's beautiful, beautiful life.
Noah Rahimzadeh 04:53
Yeah. 100% Okay, we obviously want to learn more about you and BSR did at all and given when this episode will air talk a little bit about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, of course, before we do that, Brian, tell us one or two things that you're excited about in your personal life.
Brian Roisentul 05:13
Well, my twins, I have a boy and a girl four year old. It was tough. Definitely during the pandemic, they were like seven month old when it started. But now I'm joined them last, like a few months ago, they turned for it. So super excited about that. And I really enjoy that. And then I'm gonna practice a little sports. Soccer is a thing here where I leave the latest war champions won the World Cup last year. So why not? Yeah,
Noah Rahimzadeh 05:51
yeah, one of our other very close partners. Marco. Whiplash is from from Argentina as well. And he was very, very so so it kind of got to see, you know, firsthand, big time Argentine fan. And how crazy that was so cool. And we have messy here in the States. Now, of course in Miami, which is awesome. I would love to go to a game there. But just to get into the building any, any game is like minimum $500. Just to just to get in the building. So
Brian Roisentul 06:29
now, it wasn't like that before. It's crazy.
Noah Rahimzadeh 06:33
Yeah, it is. It is crazy. So are you I imagined massive Messi fan, huh? Yes,
Brian Roisentul 06:40
I went. I saw him play many times in Barcelona. And here in Argentina.
Noah Rahimzadeh 06:47
Oh, cool. So you went over to Argentina to see him?
Brian Roisentul 06:51
Yes. to Barcelona. I went over to Boris wanted to see him in 2013. Like that, that great. Like the one Barcelona was the shabby? Yes. Donald layers. Yes. Right. That. And in Argentina many times, of course.
Noah Rahimzadeh 07:08
Yeah. That was like the best team to play with on FIFA. Except you're, you know, kind of cheating by playing with that team. Yes.
Brian Roisentul 07:17
You end up playing Barcelona against Barcelona. The customer when she sees we're back then chose to see him. Right, right.
Noah Rahimzadeh 07:24
Yeah. Man, that's bringing back memories. That's awesome. Very cool. Congrats on the twins four years old. That's got to be a lot of fun. And yeah, thanks for Thanks for lending us messy for at least a small period of time. Don't I get paid for that? Yeah. Yeah, it's part of his contract. You just get a piece of Inter Milan, or I am. Awesome, man. Well, that's very exciting. Okay. Tell us about your background. What led up to the founding of BSR. Digital, and what BSR digital does today?
Brian Roisentul 08:09
Yes, sure. So I actually have a degree in computer science. I keep the glasses. So I'm a former nerd. But actually still, who am I kidding, right. So I, I actually worked as a software developer for many years. And long story short, after working. Let's say after high school after working in Software Factory company, in 2008. It was a challenging year for the US, I used to work for a US company. The company shut down, you know, the company closed. And I kept some clients because the clients say, Hey, I have no one to do the job for me now. So could you please do that for me? And it was a kid back then? Less than 20 or so we're so yes, I'm 35 now. And it was awesome. I was working from home, even before the pandemic, right? In 2008. And I was super happy doing that. And then with a partner of mine back then we said, hey, why don't we open a Software Factory, and we opened our first first office in 2010. So we were in the early 20s, with the first office and few employees. And then long story short, we created a startup, we created a product out of that software company. And we raised funds. We were like 40 people working for us. And it was crazy. And we learned a lot. And that was the first time i i Actually that was like my, the closest I I had been to marketing in my life. Because I was surrounded by developers Oh my life, right. But then I was surrounded by salespeople by marketing people in my startup. And that's it. Historically, we were doing Facebook ads, because Facebook ads wasn't thing 211 Or sorry, 2011, you know, was nothing. And we were doing like, you know, boosting posts, buying likes, that was all there was back then, and growing the communities organically and they said, Hey, is this working? You know, I'm coding all day long, you know, hitting my head against the wall with some really tough problems as a developer, and these people were having fun. And we're, you know, smiling, and we're, you know, generating results for us. And as the years went by, I say, hey, I want more of this. So we opened in the first marketing agency back in 2013, in Barlow of that startup with another partner, and we said, hey, no C's, we have a lot of clients, that sort of wanting to do, like social media, marketing, organic and some paid. And so we want, I want him, you know, I want to be a part of this new world. And then a few years later, we sold the startup. And I went work, like, I think it was 2014 or 15, full time in the agency. And we were doing organic. And then I was working full time there. And they said, Hey, is this really working? You know, I came from, you know, again, I had the, like, programming world. So for me, generating likes, shares and comments for clients wasn't a thing for me. You know, it was a thing for many people. And it is currently, but for me wasn't I wanted to provide them with business results. So, hey, why don't we do something else? So long story short, are we sort of working on helping them generate leads, and then later down the road? Generate purchases online? So it's been a while since then? And that's how what we've been doing since you know, those are early days. Why fast forward today? Yeah. We help the agency brands mainly with their acquisition and retention efforts. Yes. Amazing story.
Noah Rahimzadeh 12:17
And I think kind of similar to Yao and Anthony's are co founders. When you say, Software Factory? Were you building like apps and storefronts for other entrepreneurs? Is that what you started doing?
Brian Roisentul 12:33
Yes, we built web applications. We even program a platform like Twitter back then, like a copycat of Twitter, because someone paid us for that, because they wanted us to do that for them. Then, you know, some model, even apps for Facebook, I don't know if you guys remember those. You know, in the in the Facebook pages, there were like dabs. And people and brands run, you know, contests, giveaways. Back then they gave away cars, trucks, big things in return stuff likes fans, and blah, blah. And or some of them, you know, put their locations, they're like in those tabs, or a Contact Us pages. So those were embedded in their Facebook pages back in 2011 1315, etc. Right. So we developed them through coats, games for Facebook, etc. Yes.
Noah Rahimzadeh 13:32
Yeah. Interesting. So our founders very similar story. And actually, it's how I met them. So they, they were running a software consulting firm in Indianapolis. And I started I co founded a company out of college. neither myself nor my co founder, we're developers. So we went and saw a dev shop. We found sticks and leaves, which was Yeah, and Anthony's. Yeah. And Anthony's company, they built our like wireframes, and MVP. They even like went on some early sales calls with us. And at the same time, they were building apps for people like me and my co founder, they were also working with Shopify merchants. And over time, they solve this problem of like, the post purchase experience being awful with Shopify, for a couple of merchants like ad hoc, and then they realized that it's probably a it's probably a problem for like every single Shopify merchant, right? And so eventually, over time, they shut down the agency and built the built the platform that is Malomo today. And then I you know, I was connected with them for my thing way back in the day and eventually ended up joining them in their mission. But yeah, that's a little little background on how we met. also very similar to yours like, what? How did you guys decide to build a your own software? While you were while you're building for others? Was it similar? Did you recognize like a pattern problem? Or what did that look like?
Brian Roisentul 15:16
Yes. So in this case, it was a little bit different because we were building solutions. I thought for any, they were pretty different between each of them like that, a copy kind of three after that, and some mobile apps and different things. But then we had a business idea. And then we built that because we knew how to do it. And that was mainly the thing to in our case, it wasn't like the same. But yes, we have the tools to build the idea that we had in mind.
Noah Rahimzadeh 15:54
Right, right. Right. Right. That is awesome. Awesome. And that I'm curious to like, what made you what made you short, sort of get more excited about the marketing side than the than the tech side? Or the development side? Was there anything in particular that you remember sort of you realizing like, actually, I really liked this marketing thing, even more than software development?
Brian Roisentul 16:21
Yes. So the first thing was that it was more, let's say, it was easier, at least for me. Yeah. I mean, through my eyes, it was like, hey, you know, I spent a lot of time coding and coding might be something like, it's trendy right now. And it's super cool, blah, blah. But it's super tough. Because you can spend a lot of time and a lot of time, just to make that I know, a button change colors when you hover the mouse over it, or when you click on the button, whatever, right? And people don't that don't appreciate that, and why should day, you spend a lot of time still doing that. And that happens with many, many things, finding bugs all over the place. And so that was I really loved that part of my life. But then when I came to know what I could do with the marketing and helping businesses get business results, you know, for them get real results for business. Without me going through that hassle. And without, without having that pain that was bothering me back, then. I say, hey, why not? I can solve problems. And people can appreciate me working on them.
Noah Rahimzadeh 17:42
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. That makes sense. Okay, so now fast forward, you're fully in this BSR, you know, founder role helping ecommerce merchants with retention and acquisition? One question we always like to ask our agency partners and guests is like, there's new, you know, there's new agency entrants into the Shopify ecosystem, like every single day, what would you say sort of sets you and BSR digital apart when it comes to differentiation?
Brian Roisentul 18:18
That's a great question. The Olympians are is no straightforward. I have a few things to say. One, one thing is to solve, to know how to solve the problem. To know how to first identify a problem. Back in the day, one thing I learned as a, let's say, computer scientist is to actually ask questions, to identify what people need it because it was something I studied, right, I'm not perfect at it. But I studied it for many years. And I did it for many years. Because to build software, or to build anything else in life, even in building, you need to first understand what the customer wants. And you need to really know how to ask questions, because they won't tell you what you want, unless you ask them the right questions. So if I asked you, hey, know, how are you proud of you say, hey, fine. But if I truly want to know how you are doing, because let's say, I'm a close friend, and I want to really know how you're doing, I will ask you more accurate questions to really uncover those things. That same happened with customers. The same happened with our clients, we need to really understand what their problems are. And then we need to guide them through different strategies and solve their problems. Many people know the technical stuff, they know how to run ads, they know how to do SEO, they know how to do email marketing, and that's great. But if you don't know what to use those tools for, then it's worthless because running ads, it's like a commodity right now there. There aren't many levers that brands or advertisers can pull compared to some years back, right. Right, right. Now, it's more about this strategies that you use the message that you're using, and and how you combine a holistic approach with the acquisition and the retention. And not only to, you know, we are not the other guys, we are not only the email guys, we are a partner that will take a holistic approach and help you solve your problem. Your problem is not, hey, I need to grow my business, Your problem might be, I don't know, let's reduce the cost per customer acquisition, let's improve the aperture value let's let's reduce the time between purchases. We work those projects for you. We try to uncover them and to work on them for you, because fixing those things will actually make the improvements.
Noah Rahimzadeh 20:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely makes a ton of sense. Like, what I'm what I'm sort of hearing is like, instead of going to clients and saying, you know, here, here's, here's our playbook for running ads, you really try to understand the business and the unique problems that you know, that the business is facing, and solve for those problems, rather than just running like the same playbook over and over and over again, for every single time. Is I agree with that.
Brian Roisentul 21:18
Yes, and I would add that we are very, we want to help them the same thing I like doing when they started in this world. I like helping them achieve business results. So we really care about them get the business results. So we we make, we build a 90 day roadmaps as we call 90 day growth plans for them, validating with them the goals they want to achieve, and breaking down how we're going to achieve them. And then we set tasks and we evaluate every single week, whether we are on track or not. So we aim to worse achieving goals, business goals, and not improving the rowers only or creating three hours a week or optimizing ads every week only we focus on actually helping them achieve their goals. Sometimes we even tell them, you don't need to provide that to run ads anymore until we fix this or you don't need to do these other things anymore, anymore until we fix that. So we we try to recommend sometimes, you know, apps like Malomo because they they might be missing some key areas in their businesses, or they need to gather more data about their customers and they need to use some other apps to do that. Or again so we try to focus on what they need and suggest from there based on all the experience that we have
Noah Rahimzadeh 22:43
got it makes total sense. What what sort of like clients do you like to work with? Are there any unique verticals that you're you know, you feel like you're really well positioned to help with or company sizes that you sort of you sorted prefer to work with what's that look like?
Brian Roisentul 23:03
Size wise, we help mainly seven and eight figure ecommerce brands. In the three wise we have worked with many actually, we we find that DTC brands, mainly we have helped many b2b as well. But b2c brands in the apparel and fashion space, sometimes see the beauty space, we have held them, many of them. So we feel really comfortable working with them. Because there are many differences between the two as well. But many difference between those and some other verticals as well. So yes, that's who we hope mainly,
Noah Rahimzadeh 23:41
very cool. Any, any, like recent projects that you've been particularly excited about that you've worked on. And if you can share if there are if you can share, like a little about the project and what the problem was in the solution that you solved. Whether you want to name a client by name or not is totally up to you. But and then any results as well that you saw from it would be would be
Brian Roisentul 24:05
awesome. Yeah, so I'm happy you asked. So the latest one, I would say that it's very recent, a client of us it's doing high, some figures with highs and tears. And for some reason, they weren't doing email marketing. They weren't
Noah Rahimzadeh 24:22
not at all.
Brian Roisentul 24:23
No, no, not at all. And the the sad part is that they, we we advised them to do that. But they didn't want to go for it. They were hesitant on why. And then we started doing that a few months ago. And in the first 30 days. They were doing like almost Ondra grand from email marketing. And they were super happy because you know, email marketing is, is a little bit different or very different. I would say from you know, figured out That's for once, you don't need to put any accident, right. So it's like the money finding your pockets because setting the right systems with that only sometimes you start generating a lot of revenue. Of course, you need to have some other things in place, you need to be a brand new with traffic with an email list, etc. But that's a, that was a pretty big win for them and those for us. Then another one was that we helped a fashion brand, double their revenue in under six months. And they, you know, when they came to us, they say, Hey, I want you to help me double the revenue next month. Of course, we laughed. And if I say yes, who am I mean, right? I mean, yeah, so I said, No, let's build a plan. And we were aiming for a year, within six months, we even saw a big in sales way bigger than double of sales. He was like, way bigger than that, like Forex in sales in Black Friday, but I'm not counting that as, as double in sales. It was a big, but it was awesome for them. And now we are aiming to that level to that to the last black Friday's as an evergreen thing. Because they want to grow, grow and grow. So that was another win for us. And yes, we are constantly I mean, the the three months ago, we the last one I will mention we have a lot, luckily, but this one, we help this brand with a one off, you know, with a strategy and implementation of their email marketing, right. And it was a little bit different of a case study for us. I don't know if a case study but a different one for us. Because we appreciate when the client benefits from our services, not only by selling more, but also by uncovering some hidden, you know, golden nuggets or like learnings from our work. So basically, through the work that we did for them the research and the campaign's, we implemented, they mentioned a few things that I cannot remember the exact thing right now that they learned. And they were like writing email, emails back to us saying how grateful they were only only because the things they learned by working Oh, I remember now by working on the ICPs, you know, the ideal customer profiles. Even before we started working on the on the strategy, he, we do a deep dive on, on working on the ideal customer profiles. And we really spend time there. And some clients do like a push back. So now, I really know who my customers are, well, many times they don't. They assume a lot of stuff. And we do a lot of research on the internet. And besides asking questions, or asking questions through emails, we do a lot of research online. And that's where they uncovered many, many useful thanks for them. Do you see every piece of marketing for them on the website on emails? And that was really, really valuable for them? And they appreciate that even before we started working on the implementation of the strategy,
Noah Rahimzadeh 28:15
right? Yeah. Okay. Those are all three amazing examples. I got to we got to dive a little bit deeper, at least into the first two for the first one. No email was that. Was that part of some sort of strategy that they like, that they thought was a best practice? Did they not know what email was? Like? I'm just like, flabbergasted by this no email, high seven figure brand?
Brian Roisentul 28:43
That's a great question. In this case, there, there's no CMO at the company, right? It's the founder. And some some people, especially when they are the founders, and not the the experts, let's say they fear what they don't know, all of us do. Right? So they didn't want to you know, it was like they were dealing with too many stuff at the same time. Things that we don't say, is not only marketing related stuff. These were some special years for many brands. Right? So they were a lot they have a lot of other things on their plate. Right. So for some reason with that, I don't know right now. They didn't. So we kept pushing until they were ready.
Noah Rahimzadeh 29:28
Yeah, yeah. Do you? I'm curious when you turned email on. Did you see Did you see any regression in revenue from the other channels? Or was all the email revenue just additive to what they were already doing?
Brian Roisentul 29:48
So it was the growing it was adding adding revenue. So of course we know when you add new channels such as email, there will be an overlap with sales coming in other channels. So what I'm saying is that we saw the same percentage in are not exactly the same, but almost the same percentage in growth of the overall revenue. That was the important thing, like the revenue grew. And it wasn't a normal growth for that month because we compare always for the same period of last year or the last three years or so. And it was a new thing. And actually, to this day, it's a channel that generates around 20 something percent, sometimes 30 out there. Yes. And added revenue. That's the most important thing. Because yes, as you said, it might not be ad revenue, but it might be the overlap. No, it hasn't revenue. Yes. Unreal,
Noah Rahimzadeh 30:42
they just weren't doing it. They gotta be close to eight figures. Now then, if you're adding 20 person,
Brian Roisentul 30:48
yes, I mean, what they that that's the funny stuff. Many people focus many brands focus on the overall goal, which is I want to grow. But if the only focused on working on these projects, like, what am I missing, right and asking the questions, we're having the experts, helping them ask the right questions and answer them. What am I amazing? Am I do I have a customer acquisition problem? Or can it be improved? Significantly significantly? Or do I have a customer retention problem? Because if you focus on acquiring customers that then go as fast as they came, then probably you don't have a business, right? Where you need to improve a lot on the retention side of the business, which was the case for many brands after the Phanatic. There were many new brands created during the pandemic that didn't value retention. They didn't even know what retention meant, right? They were focusing on new customers, new customers, new customers, and he didn't know that acquiring new customers seats. I don't know how many times more expensive than getting more revenue from the current ones, right.
Noah Rahimzadeh 31:56
Absolutely. Yes. You're, you're preaching to the choir here. Between Ryan.
Mariah Parsons 32:03
I love hearing all of it. Yeah. So impressive.
Noah Rahimzadeh 32:08
And then, one more question on the on the second brand that you mentioned, you said that you helped them double in revenue in six months, not one month, but six months, still amazing results. I'm curious what you think the biggest growth levers were there? What were you able to help them with that you think really drove that double double revenue in six months?
Brian Roisentul 32:29
So that's, that's great questions, I think that the common pattern for all the growth stories, is trying to have the right elements in place and pushing the right buttons. So in this case, for the one that for the email marketing case study was doing email marketing, and of course, the right things, email marketing, in this case, these company weren't doing, they were doing meta ads. But they weren't doing them, right. They didn't know how to scale, they were reaching a plateau every time and they didn't know how to do it. And back then we help them, you know, scale a lot through that platform, and then Google, and after we help them grow, and double the, let's say the revenue, something else that helped them was getting their own app. Again, this is not forever business. This is not forever business, nothing is forever business. But they had they had the right elements, they were in that condition, to say I need to have my app, and through their app, push notifications, etc. That was like 50% of the revenue are the more growth after the that stage? Right. So I guess the main thing is that you need to know at every phase of your business, what's the next right move? And of course, it's impossible to anticipate that it can throw some ideas and hypotheses. But answer your question, again, probably about what sets an agency apart from the other or it's knowing what tools you have, and which tools will be the right ones for this business word for these other business for their stage for the stage they are at. Right. And in this case, that's what they needed. Right? In the same with Malomo. You know, we spoke that and correct me if I'm wrong, but many, many companies neglect the fact that they lose, probably you correct me again, both of you if I'm wrong, but 10 to 20 or 15% of their traffic, if they don't have an app like Malomo because the traffic or the order tracking ghost to the to the FedEx or UPS etc. And where you could actually be owning that traffic and I'm having opportunities for upsells cross sells, they are not knowing right. So that's something that if you're working with a business and you know that you can do something about it, that's your job as an agency as well not micromanaging the ads anymore. Right?
Noah Rahimzadeh 35:18
100% And you, I'm super impressed. Because you hit that stats. That stat perfectly. I remember 20% of web traffic go into go into UPS or FedEx, which is just so frustrating. Why do you not recapture that web traffic? But you get it
Brian Roisentul 35:39
rats are so busy and disabled? You know, thanks. They want to chase the sun.
Noah Rahimzadeh 35:45
Exactly. Yeah, sometimes little things, right? There's little, there's little dials, you can turn that make a really, really big difference. Yes,
Brian Roisentul 35:54
I don't know if you guys read the book. I think it was struck traction. I had by Gina Whitman. Well, traction is like one of the best books for entrepreneurs, because it gives them the lead to as they call the Eos, the entrepreneurial operative system. And it helps you to find the core values and having the right people in the right seats, blah, blah. But it has one thing that we should all know, at least, which is the difference between lag measures and lead measures. For example, if you are on a diet, and you get on the scale, it's a lag of measure. You know, the result, you know, it is what it is, I'm sorry, I'm happy for you, whichever it is for you, right. But it's the result of the measures that you took through the ordinate decisions, they had to say if you leave, if you are conscious about the lead measures, those that will move the needle in the right direction, eating the right amount of food and healthy food, exercising one hour a week and this type of exercise, blah, blah, you won't be as surprised when you get on the scale again, to see that you're improving. Because you know, this the same thing, many brands don't stop and think about the leader measures in this 90 day plan I told you before, which lead measures they need to actually implement because all of us as humans, we like that in many aspects of our life. You know, either all of us do, right? But businesses, when they do, they struggle. And when they kind of fall, when they kind of find that North, they get on the scale, it could be the quarter results, it could be the monthly results. It could be whatever and say it's not working. Let's find another agency, let's find another talent, let's find another channel, let's find a. It's not that. So I always tell my team let's not, let's not solve problems that don't exist. Let's focus on finding where the problems are. And then try to fix them. And it might sound easy, but it's not many times we focus on things that won't move the needle. And that's a problem for many businesses.
Noah Rahimzadeh 38:08
Yeah, 100% Mariah and I had our go to market l 10. meeting this morning, part of our EOS you know system that we run here at Malomo. This is the first company I've ran ELS at I like it, it's keeps, keeps the meeting structure very smooth, and like definitely recommend it. I also think the lag measure lead measure thing I first came across when I read four disciplines of execution, which is like the initial book, I think that talked about that. And, you know, to me, it's like, it's so obvious now, but I remember when I read it, I was like, wow, that's like, kind of it's kind of revolutionary thinking in a way, you know, like, a lot of business leaders weren't weren't thinking that way at the time. And now it's now I think it's, you know, much more standard practice, but super, super important, not just for not just for ecommerce merchants, but for anybody trying to accomplish anything you gave the weight loss example.
Brian Roisentul 39:12
Read that book too. Maybe I got the concept from that one. Yeah.
Noah Rahimzadeh 39:19
Yeah. Regardless, really good. Really good advice there. Speaking of lag measures, lead measures Black Friday, Cyber Monday is just around the corner. What would you say one, you know, one or two tips or tricks that brands should be thinking about now. So they don't look at their lag measure after after Black Friday, Cyber Monday with disappointment.
Brian Roisentul 39:48
A lot of teams that are beginning but only a few of them, of course plan to have the strategy. It's it's around the corner of a few weeks left you until that commercial date starts. So, yes, I guess you might have a spreadsheet in place, right now if you're listening or watching. But if you don't, you should have a strategy in place, something that you tested last year or the year before, if it worked. Keep that in mind, try to reengage with previous customers to make them, you know, come back during the time of the year build hype. And something that is not mentioned pretty often because it's not as sexy advice. Let's say it's something that I, I heard from an eight figure business owner in one of the podcast interviews, I did, and it was like, make sure you have the right stock the right inventory. Because for them in 2022, they didn't. And they learned the lesson the hard way. And they are an eight figure brand. And they run out of stock. And they only sell, they only sell one product. They sell belts, right super cool belts, but they only sell that. And they run out of stock. And it was crazy problematic for them. Because you can imagine running out of stock. So try to forecast the stock wisely. The inventory wisely. AB test offers AB test landing pages, thing wise, the way you would interact campaigns with your email campaigns. There are many, many DT ELLs that could be mentioned. But of course, those depend on the reality of each brand. Right. Right. But the main thing is having a proper strategy. Yes. Yeah.
Noah Rahimzadeh 41:42
So when you think, well, first of all, I guess the the thing that stuck out to me most is that you said, make sure that you bring your existing customers back for your promotions around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, which I think is a great point. Because I think that most brands still think of Black Friday Cyber Monday as like the biggest acquisition opportunity of the year, and it probably is for most brands. But in focusing so much on the acquisition side, there's probably a lot of neglect that takes place with the existing customer base. So how do you think about that? What are some what are some ways that brands can make sure that they keep their loyal customers top of mind during this like heavy acquisition period?
Brian Roisentul 42:30
Yes, as we said earlier, in the interview, the your existing customers could be new customers, too, right? I mean, they, they know your brand, you don't need to sell them on your who you are, or tell them more about your brand, why they should buy from you they know. So if they are happy with the products, they can of course buy, and they could be the first ones to tell their friends and everyone they know about you. Right. And that's pretty important. That word of mouth. So being I mean, the thing, the fact that they have your brand, top of mind that time of the year is very important. So they can refer your business as well. So doing things for them, not only for them to buy, but for them to refer you new clients. It's another great thing to do as well. Of course, everyone wants to get new customers and brands should do that. Also in that period. But it's I mean, why why an existing customer wouldn't buy from you. Why would an existing customer buy from you? On Black Friday or Cyber Monday? We find a large, large percentage of the sales coming from existing customers typically. So yes, why Nick Lepine? Right,
Noah Rahimzadeh 43:44
right. Yeah, absolutely. And that makes me think of driving acquisition through a new kind of said this, like driving acquisition through those most loyal customers through some sort of loyalty program. I think having that loyalty program really shored up making sure that you're hitting them with loyalty program incentives and opportunities at every touch point for your returning customers, where they can clearly see the value of mentioning your brand to a friend around the time of the holidays, more than most, that will greatly reduce, you know, all of the money you're spending on ads and fighting for those keywords with everybody else. Well, so creates a really sort of flywheel between retention and acquisition, which is
Brian Roisentul 44:30
ideal. One good exercise that I advise marketers for brands to do is to take a look at their cohorts analysis, right. So if you either have a Shopify store or any other store with that feature, looking at the cohorts mainly will allow you to do the following. In the I mean, specific for this analysis for Black Friday one to see how many or what percentage of those be People who bought for the first time in the last Black Friday, or Saturday morning or Cyber Monday returned and Buy and bought again, right? In the coming month. So first thing customers in the last Black Friday, Cyber Monday they come back or not, and what percentage and then it could be, how many of your existing customers prior to that commercial they bought on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And that will give you the starting point on I mean, at least do for a cost, the metrics they want to grow. For example, let's say 20% of your existing customer base bought in the last Black Friday or Cyber Monday. So this year, you might want to aim higher. Right? So you know what growth means? Or looks like in that case? And then same with the other one? Hey, how much should we spend on acquire new customers? In Black Friday? Well, I don't know if we'll pay off or not? How can we know that? One of the many ways, of course, is to take a look at it again. Last year, how many new customers? Do we have X? How much the list found x? Was the cost per acquisition for those packs made a comeback? I mean, was it worth it? Or do we acquire customers that never came back? If now, even if, let's say if they never came back? Or we think there could there could be improvements? What can we do to improve that? How can we how can we make them buy again, after Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So those are two examples of being intentional, even before the commercial day, to get ahead of the game and try to say, Okay, this happened last year, this might happen. This is what I'm going to do to improve the results of last year. Right? Yeah,
Noah Rahimzadeh 46:56
I think that provides a lot of clarity around probably what you meant by like, strategy, right? We'll look back historically, see what worked, what didn't. And then based on what your goals are for that year, figure out what the gaps are, so that you can fill them with with different tactics in the computer.
Brian Roisentul 47:15
If you pay attention. I didn't mention anything about Facebook ads, or optimizing ad sets afterwards or whatever. I'm talking about business strategy, right. And that's what makes the difference. Of course, then we have all the nitty gritty or the details. But if those details don't serve the greater good, let's say then they are useless.
Noah Rahimzadeh 47:38
Right? Absolutely. Very tactical stuff, man, really appreciate you sharing that. I think it'll provide a lot of value, especially this time of year to our listeners. Last question for you. And then we'll, we'll let you go. You've obviously had a really interesting and awesome career so far, worked with a lot of brands as well. So what's one tip or trick that sort of helped you guide you throughout your career that you still think about
Brian Roisentul 48:06
today? Do to keep going to learn that? There's no such thing as that you path failure and success. That was like a wallpaper I had back in the day in 2011. I think in my office in the startup. You know, there was a lot of pivoting from here to there. And I think the same happens with a lot of businesses, especially the DTC brands right now. So you need to keep pushing into keep going. And you need to keep learning, right? That's important thing. Try to keep learning. Open your ears, open your eyes, listen to what your customers have to say and give it to them. It sounds simple. It's not. But many brands are not doing that.
Noah Rahimzadeh 48:51
Absolutely. Awesome, awesome advice from the beginning to the end. Awesome story. Thanks for sharing it with us, Brian. And looking forward to getting this one out to the audience. I think it'll be really, really useful. Like I said, Mariah, thank you as always, and we'll see you all soon.
Brian Roisentul 49:09
was a pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Mariah Parsons 49:12
Thank you. That was awesome, Brian. Thanks.