The Andrew Faris Podcast

Your product didn't just appear out of thin air. It's the result of hundreds of hours of hard work, complete with crucial decisions you made so you could get it just right because you care about serving your customer well and being proud of the product you give them in exchange for their money. But your customer doesn't know any of that. At least they don't if you don't tell them. I'm back to discussing creative strategy on this episode, and the idea here is simple but constantly overlooked: learn to tell people about all the decisions that got made to make your product as good as it is. The more they understand those, the more likely they are to buy it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:01:03] Ad content: what makes great creative [00:03:45] Developing products with passion [00:06:33] What to look for in customer reviews [00:11:58] Selling products through clear communication [00:13:24] Selling products on Amazon EPISODE SPONSOR: Aronson Creative Level up your brand with creative leadership from Robbie Aronson at Aronson Creative by visiting www.aronsoncreative.com. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@andrewjfaris⁠⁠⁠ Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: ⁠⁠⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠⁠⁠ EPISODE MUSIC Music Intro: "⁠⁠⁠Tell Me Mama⁠⁠⁠" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "⁠⁠⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

Kelsey Lehrich is the co-founder and CEO of 365 Holdings, an aggregator that currently has nine brands in their portfolio. Which gives Andrew a chance to revisit one of his favorite questions: is the aggregator model broken, or was Andrew just a poor leader of it at 4x400? Kelcey’s business is very much not broken, and that means there’s lots to explore about what makes it work and what others can learn from it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [02:34] About 365 Holdings [06:25] Keeping the portfolio vs focusing on just your players [13:12] Selling entities vs individual businesses  [22:51] What percentage of your revenue is in Opex? [26:46] What makes a good e-commerce business?  [29:30] The types of businesses that have ongoing demand [34:47] How to make a good business better FOLLOW UP WITH KELCEY: Follow Kelcey on Twitter: @kelceylehrich Sell Kelcey your business: https://365-holdings.com Go to HoldCo Conf: https://holdcoconf.com FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠⁠@andrewjfaris⁠⁠ Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: ⁠⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠⁠ EPISODE MUSIC Music Intro: "⁠⁠Tell Me Mama⁠⁠" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "⁠⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠⁠" by The Devious Means

It's the most obvious thing about selling products on the Internet. It's also one of the easiest things to forget. And being conscience of it is the bedrock of great digital communication. What am I talking about? I'm talking about what I call the "digital gap" between your customers and your products. Put simply, it's the fact that your customers can't actually touch, smell, taste, or even REALLY see or hear your products. Just like a Zoom call can't fully replace an in-person conversation, an image or video can't fully replace a customer's experience of your product. In this solo episode, I explain how learning to communicate in a way that bridges the digital gap is right at the center of great, profitable online marketing. THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to ⁠www.morenow.co⁠ to get started. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠@andrewjfaris⁠ Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: ⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠ EPISODE MUSIC Music Intro: "⁠Tell Me Mama⁠" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠" by The Devious Means

SPONSORED EPISODE. Gregg Carey is the CEO of Section 119 and co-founder of More Staffing. More Staffing helps e-commerce businesses locate, hire, recruit, train, maximize the value of incredible talent in the Philippines, and they're also my current sponsor. I don't usually offer sponsored episodes to my advertising partners, but I'm so compelled by how and why Gregg is working with ecom professionals in the Philippines that I wanted him to explain to my audience how and why they can do the same. So today, we explore the benefits of hiring remote employees in the Philippines–for both your business and those employees. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [03:13] Gregg Carey's background [06:26] Section 119’s first employee (Laura).  [07:32] Experience in hiring employees in the Philippines. [08:45] Approach to hiring in the Philippines. [13:33] Challenges of hiring remote workers. [17:15] Importance of staffing in building a successful e-commerce business. [20:33] Specific areas of hiring for Section 119. [22:55] Section 119’s culture and management of a global workforce. [28:05] Section 119's vision of employment In the Philippines. [32:42] Section 119's staffing and training overview. EPISODE SPONSOR: Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing by vising www.morenow.co. FOLLOW UP WITH GREGG/MORE STAFFING Work with More Staffing at www.morenow.co. Explore Gregg's ecommerce brand, Section 119, at www.section119.com. Follow Gregg on Twitter: @greggcarey. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW Follow Andrew on Twitter: ⁠@andrewjfaris⁠. Work with Andrew: ⁠www.ajfgrowth.com⁠. Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com. MUSIC Intro Music: "⁠Holiday" by The Devious Means Outro Music: "⁠Rusty Little Scissors⁠" by The Devious Means

Today's interview is with one of my very favorite people in ecommerce, Andrew Youderian. Andrew is the founder of E-commerce Fuel, an online community of 7-figure & higher ecommerce store owners. Ecommerce Fuel is the best-run online community I've ever personally seen, so I started by asking Andrew what makes great online community. From there, the conversation shifted to his unique perspective (as the head of a community of over 1,000 ecom store owners) on the state of the ecommerce landscape, how hard or easy things are right now relative to the past, and ecom operators' current & ever-complicated relationship with Amazon. We close by giving Andrew a taste of his own medicine: we ask him some lightning round questions, just like he does with his guest on The Ecommerce Fuel Podcast. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [03:31] What is E-commerceFuel? [05:30] Curating valuable content and fostering reciprocity in the EcommerceFuel Community  [08:10] Examining the success and DNA of the EcommerceFuel community  [10:17] The importance of time and trust in Building a successful online community [13:37] Impact from working in the community to building strong internal teams [15:51] Hiring strategies and the importance of test projects and feedback [22:53] Insights into the e-commerce landscape from a community survey [26:07] Discussing perspectives on Amazon and e-commerce with Bill D'Allesandro [28:00] E-commerce landscape and adoption of Amazon by small brands (pros and cons of selling on Amazon) [30:37] The nuances of selling on Amazon in the e-commerce landscape & navigating the challenges faced by entrepreneurs [34:23] The evolution and future of e-commerce [37:14] Lightning round with Andrew Youderian THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to www.morenow.co to get started. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW YOUDERIAN Join Ecommerce Fuel yourself. Listen to the E-commerce Fuel Podcast. Follow Youderian on Twitter: @youderian. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW FARIS Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris. Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com. Email Andrew (including about advertising on The Andrew Faris Podcast): podcast@ajfgrowth.com. MUSIC Intro Music: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Outro Music: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

You should be buying your Meta Ads with Cost Controls. I've believed that for awhile now, but in the last six months my conviction on this point has solidified to where I now believe advertisers are costing themselves huge amounts of money in both efficiency AND scale when they refuse to implement this incredible tool. In today's episode I'm explaining that belief with 6 arguments aimed at convincing you to see the light of Bid Caps, Cost Caps/Cost Per Result Goal, and Minimum ROAS bidding. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [01:19]What are cost controls? [03:58] Argument 1: Cost Controls make obvious theoretical sense [07:45] Argument 2: Humans are much worse forecasters than Machine Learning [13:16] Argument 3: Especially when human media buyers are running lots of accounts [14:37] Argument 4: Risk-free creative testing [20:12] Argument 5: Adjusting spend up and down with changes in Meta's Daily Active Users (DAU) [24:07] Argument 6: Risk-free scaling [29:15] Why people are annoyed at cost controls THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR: More Staffing Hire incredible virtual professionals from the Philippines at a fraction of the cost of domestic employees with help from More Staffing. Head to www.morenow.co to get started. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com EPISODE MUSIC Music Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

So your business is growing? That's great. But it also comes with complications. Every team member you add means another line of communication, another position description to right, another onboarding process to nail, and another person to loop into the systems & processes that make your business work. Panagiota Hatzis has seen all of this, and she's helped multiple organizations navigate growth to set themselves up for successful scale. On this episode, we talk about how good process helps you stay lean (and saves you money), how to recruit & retain top tier talent, how to think about compensation, and how to actually get everyone to use your task management software. Panagiota is a longtime human resources executive in the ecommerce space, including alongside me at Common Thread Collective, where she was the VP of Differentiation. Now she's the founder/CEO of Kati Kalo Consulting, where she's bringing deep insight into team dynamics, recruiting, onboarding, and process building to all kinds of growing organizations. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [03:48] Panagiota's educational background [06:17] What it takes for an organization to scale [09:46] Elements of a great process in scaling in an organization [20:16] Profit center vs cost center employee investment [23:55] How do organizations get better at retaining good employees? [26:13] Compensation in retention [31:58] Attracting great talent for an organization [35:29] Attract A-level employees in an organization [37:20] Founders impact on employees [41:21] About Kati Kalo Special thanks to this week's sponsor, More Staffing. Add incredible talent from the Philippines to your team with More Staffing at www.morenow.co. Work With Panagiota: Kati Kalo Consulting: www.katikalo.co LinkedIn: Kati Kalo LinkedIn: Panagiota Hatzis Follow Up With Andrew: Work with me: www.ajfgrowth.com Email me: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Follow me on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Music: Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

In this solo episode, Andrew gets incredibly practical. Want to better harness the power of Meta Ads for your business? Great. Here are 4 truths that most accounts he's audited have gotten wrong. TIMESTAMPS [0:58]: CAC is not ROAS [05:38]: Lowest Cost is not Highest Value [08:56]: AOV is not LTV [11:52]: Spend is performance Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com Music Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

Aaron Orendorff is the best B2B marketer I know, and it's not just because he's an elite writer (with a byline in the New York Times to show for it). It's also because he has a clear framework for what he's trying to accomplish in his messaging. That framework? Keeping customers from hell and taking them to heaven. He's thought about it in his posts as a marketing lead at Shopify Plus, Common Thread Collective, and now as the Head of Marketing at ReCart. In this wide-ranging conversation, Aaron and Andrew catch up about what they're seeing across the current world of ecommerce, how to approach marketing messaging, the specifics of a good SMS strategy, and a bunch more. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [06:12] Working for Recart. [09:33] Meeting Andrew. [11:53] Upside to good writing. [13:55] Writing for CTC, Havard Business Review, and other publications. [20:27] Lesson from content commerce. [24:33] Reason Born Primitive is successful. [28:04] Aaron's framework as a marketer. [33:01] Advertisers adopting Aaron's hell-to-heaven framework. [38:44] Factors that determine success with SMS marketing. [39:42] Conversational value of SMS. [42:19] The primary purpose of SMS. [43:32] Getting success in SMS. [45:08] Do most brands push hard enough on SMS? [48:04] SMS providers growth curve. [49:46] The E-commerce Playbook's spot-on prediction. [52:33] Problem in SMS. [54:24] Aaron's Recart article. Places to follow up with Aaron: Aaron’s Recart Landing Page: recart.com/shopify-sms-app Twitter: twitter.com/AaronOrendorff Places to follow up with Andrew: Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with me: www.ajfgrowth.com Music Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means

Your brand has great LTV, so everything is easy. Right? Not so fast. While growing a high-LTV brand is easier than growing a low-LTV brand, having a clear roadmap of how and when to generate growth AND profit can make all the difference between success and wasted opportunity. In this episode, Andrew talks about how to operate a high LTV brand, from planning where profit comes in your P&L to the specifics of how to run a Meta Ads account when you're forecasting high LTV. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [01:10] Observations on how to grow consumable CPG and other high LTV brands [08:50] Building your future P&L [11:57] Scaling with CAC in high LTV businesses. [15:14] Setting CAC Targets For Your Company. [16:58] Complications in setting targets with CAC. [18:51] Tracking long term customer value. [24:01] How much to spend on acquiring customers. [26:01] Importance of organic revenue in your business Mentioned in the podcast: "The 6 Biggest Factors In Retention, In Order" previous episode: Apple, Spotify. Places to follow up with Andrew: Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with me: www.ajfgrowth.com Music Intro: "Tell Me Mama" by The Devious Means Music Outro: "Rusty Little Scissors" by The Devious Means